RTHK: Grief, solidarity as US marks anniversary of 9/11

The United States on Sunday observed the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, with President Joe Biden recalling Americans' sacrifice and New Yorkers honouring the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes destroyed the Twin Towers.

Relatives of victims, police officers, firefighters and city leaders gathered at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, where the names of those who died were read aloud in an hours-long ritual that has occurred annually since the deadliest single attack on US soil.

They rang bells and held moments of silence six times, including at 8:46 am and 9:03 am (1246 and 1303 GMT), the precise minutes the passenger jets struck the World Trade Centre's North and South Towers.

Biden commemorated the anniversary at the Pentagon, where Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed a plane into the massive building that serves as Defence Department headquarters.

In a steady rain, the president approached a wreath of flowers and placed his hand over his heart.

"I know for all those of you who lost someone, 21 years is both a lifetime and no time at all," Biden said in a sombre speech outside the Pentagon.

"The American story itself changed that day," he said. "What we cannot change, never will, is the character of this nation" the attackers sought to wound.

"The character of sacrifice and love, of generosity and grace, of strength and resilience," he said.

Biden also recalled how in the hours after the attacks, Queen Elizabeth  who died on Thursday at age 96  sent a touching message to the American people.

"She pointedly reminded us: 'Grief is the price we pay for love,'" Biden said.

Al-Qaeda hijacked a total of four planes. The third hit the Pentagon and the fourth, Flight 93, crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers launched a revolt onboard.

First Lady Jill Biden attended a ceremony there on Sunday.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Mayor Eric Adams were among dignitaries attending the New York event, where relatives hugged and wept, placed flowers at the memorial and held placards with images of their lost loved ones.

"While the grief recedes a bit with time, the permanent absence of my father is just as palpable as it ever was," the son of Jon Leslie Albert said after reading several victims' names, including his father's.

September 11 marked a foreign attack on American soil, but Biden has warned the country faces anti-democratic turmoil from within, notably from his predecessor Donald Trump's supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

On Sunday he subtly touched on the issue, urging Americans to "secure our democracy together."

"It's not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then," he said. "It's something we have to do every single day."

Condolence messages arrived from foreign dignitaries including Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who called September 11 "one of the most tragic days" for the US and the world.

"Facing missile attacks daily, Ukraine knows well what terrorism is and sincerely sympathises with the American people," Zelenskyy tweeted.

New York was illuminated late on Saturday by a "Tribute in Light" that showed two blue beams, symbolising the Twin Towers, projecting into the night sky.

In addition to those killed on September 11, thousands of first responders, construction workers and residents have since fallen ill, many of them terminally, as a result of inhaling the toxic fumes. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-09-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Cuba celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival with Chinese cultural activities

Xinhua) 13:13, September 11, 2022

HAVANA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cubans and Chinese residents of the island celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival in Havana's Chinatown on Saturday.

In San Fan Con square, participants enjoyed Chinese table games, traditional painting and calligraphy exhibitions, martial arts demonstrations, musical performances, and massage sessions.

Marking the autumn harvest, the Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on Saturday this year.

A competition focused on making traditional Chinese mooncakes, which symbolize family reunion, was also held at the popular plaza, which is decorated with red lanterns.

Chinese language student Camila Feliz, 23, told Xinhua that this was a good opportunity to learn more about Chinese culture and traditions.

"It is a good moment to express solidarity, support, and a sense of togetherness," she said. "This festival sends a strong message of peace."

"Since ancient times, the Chinese people have had a special relationship with the moon. We are having a lot of fun eating mooncakes," said Yorbelis Rosell, Cuban director of Confucius Institute in Havana.

Teresa Maria Li, director of the House of Chinese Arts and Traditions, said this celebration enhances the cultural and historical bonds between China and Cuba. "We are tasting a bit of China. This is one of the most important Chinese festivals and we are proud of being part of it," she said.

This was the first time that the festival was celebrated offline in Cuba since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
People line the street as the hearse carrying the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth passes through the village of Ballater, near Balmoral, Scotland, Britain, Sept. 11. Reuters-Yonhap





Queen Elizabeth II's flag-draped coffin left her beloved Scottish estate Balmoral Castle on Sunday as the monarch who died after 70 years on the throne begins her last journey back to London for a state funeral.







The hearse drove past piles of flowers and other tributes as it led a seven-car cortege from Balmoral, the summer retreat where the queen died Thursday, for a six-hour journey through Scottish towns to Holyroodhouse palace in Edinburgh. The late queen's coffin was draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland and topped with a wreath made up of flowers from the estate, including sweet peas, one of the queen's favorites.







''A sad and poignant moment as Her Majesty, The Queen leaves her beloved Balmoral for the final time,'' the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon tweeted. ''Today, as she makes her journey to Edinburgh, Scotland will pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.''







Crowds lined parts of the route as the nation mourns its longest-reigning monarch, the only one most Britons have ever known. In the Scottish village of Ballater, where residents regard the royal family as neighbors, hundreds of people watched in silence and some threw flowers in front of the hearse as it passed.







Before reaching the Scottish capital, the cortege is traveling down what is effectively a royal memory lane  passing through locations laden with House of Windsor history including Dyce, where in 1975 the queen formally opened the U.K.'s first North Sea oil pipeline, and Fife near St. Andrews University, where her grandson William, now the Prince of Wales, studied and met his future wife, Catherine.







The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II covered with the Royal Standard of Scotland and flowers is driven away from Balmoral Castle in Ballater, Sept. 11. AFP-Yonhap





Sunday's solemn drive through Scotland comes a day after the queen's eldest son was formally proclaimed the new monarch  King Charles III  at a pomp-filled accession ceremony steeped in ancient tradition and political symbolism.







''I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of sovereignty, which have now passed to me,'' Charles said as he took on the duties of monarch.







He will be proclaimed king in other nations of the United Kingdom  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  and in towns across the country Sunday. Earlier, proclamations were held in other parts of the Commonwealth  the group of former British Empire colonies  including Australia and New Zealand.







In the New Zealand capital, Wellington, the British monarch's representative, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, said: ''On behalf of all New Zealanders, I extend to King Charles our loyalty and support and wishes for a long and happy reign.''







Even as he mourned his late mother, Charles was getting down to work. He was meeting at Buckingham Palace with the secretary-general of the Commonwealth, a group of nations that grapples with affection for the queen and lingering bitterness over their own colonial legacies. That ranges from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions.







Members of the public gather by a makeshift memorial to pay respects as they wait for the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II to pass through Ballater, Sept. 11. AFP-Yonhap





Amid the grief enveloping the House of Windsor, there were hints of a possible family reconciliation. Prince William and his brother Harry, together with their respective wives, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, delighted mourners near Windsor Castle with a surprise joint appearance Saturday.







The queen's coffin will take a circuitous journey back to the capital. On Monday, it will be taken from Holyroodhouse to nearby St. Giles' Cathedral, where it will remain until Tuesday, when it will be flown to London. The coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state until the funeral at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 19.







In Ballater, near Balmoral, the Rev. David Barr said locals consider the royals as ''neighbors'' and try to treat them as locals when they spend summers in the Scottish Highlands.







''When she comes up here, and she goes through those gates, I believe the royal part of her stays mostly outside,'' he said. ''And as she goes in, she was able to be a wife, a loving wife, a loving mum, a loving gran and then later on a loving great-gran  and aunty  and be normal.'' (AP)


Plan: Prime Minister Liz Truss has told MPs the fracking moratorium will be removed

Shale gas extraction  better known as fracking  could eclipse North Sea production within 15 years after Liz Truss lifted a controversial ban.

The new Prime Minister has told MPs the fracking moratorium will be removed in areas where local communities support industry plans, paving the way for a boom.

Figures from the National Grid show fracking's contribution to Britain's energy needs could match the North Sea by 2037, and surpass it the following year.

The analysis suggests shale production would start slowly in 2026, before becoming one of the UK's main energy supplies.

Truss claimed, however, that extraction from shale could be flowing within six months, which means it could reach its peak far sooner.

Fracking has proved controversial. Residents who live near sites have complained about the use of chemicals, groundwater contamination, noise, air pollution and even earth tremors.

Ministers halted fracking in England at the end of November 2019 after a string of confrontations between shale gas companies and local communities. The industry strongly denied many of the accusations and said the process has improved over the years.

The National Grid forecast indicates fracking could help the UK significantly reduce its reliance on costly or unreliable imports.

Fears over Britain's energy security have been driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine which has triggered a gas crisis across Europe and sent household bills spiralling.

This prompted the Government to announce an 'energy price guarantee' last week which will see average annual household bills capped to 2,500 a year over the next two years. Andrew Bridgen, Tory MP for North West Leicestershire and a vocal supporter, of fracking, hailed Truss's announcement on Thursday. 'I am delighted the moratorium has been lifted,' he said.

'We should have started fracking two years ago. And the next best time to start is immediately. We need that gas.'

A group of backbenchers sent a letter to Downing Street earlier this year, claiming that shale could unlock '50 years of cheap gas'. Charles McAllister, director of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, welcomed the Prime Minister's decision.

He said: 'The development of UK shale gas offers community benefits, tax revenue, tens of thousands of well-paid and skilled jobs, a real chance to level up the UK and energy security. Imports offer none of these benefits.

'UK shale gas production can also be instrumental in delivering the goals of net zero and the Energy Security Strategy.'

Fracking releases a natural gas found in shale rock. It works by injecting water, sand and chemicals into the rock at high pressures to create cracks or fractures so gas can be extracted.

In its latest forecast in July, the National Grid listed four 'future energy scenarios' around the UK's consumption and supplies for the next three decades.

Shale exploration is only listed in a single scenario  one which means the UK will not meet its net zero emissions target by 2050. The National Grid said it recognised 'high levels of public scrutiny' exist around shale.

But it said fracking could reduce our future reliance on imports  and by 2040, it could supply 12billion cubic metres of gas, or 15 per cent of current demand.

This will coincide with supplies from the North Sea declining to almost nothing by 2050.

The UK currently has two shale gas wells ready to operate through fracking firm Cuadrilla.

And British energy explorer IGas said in March it could heat homes with shale gas by the end of the year if the fracking ban was lifted. It said it could prepare a planning application within weeks to extract shale gas in Nottinghamshire, which could be used to heat up to 125,000 homes.

IGas had been developing a shale site in the village of Misson before the 2019 moratorium.

But critics have argued Ministers should be prioritising cheaper and more easily accessible renewable energy over shale.

Even Kwasi Kwarteng, now Chancellor, has expressed scepticism around fracking.

In March, the then Business Secretary wrote in The Mail on Sunday: 'Even if we lifted the fracking moratorium tomorrow, it would take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes, and it would come at a high cost for communities and our precious countryside.'

One industry expert, who asked not to be named, said: 'We know from the experience of North America that shale wells vary hugely.

'There will be good wells and bad wells. You can't just go by the first one and think it's a gusher. That could be the exception rather than the rule.'
Support: Duncan Bannatyne said he closed four of his gyms permanently because of the disruption of the past two years

Former Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne has called on the Government to ramp up its support for struggling firms.

He wants the Prime Minister to turbocharge financial aid as part of her forthcoming emergency budget. Liz Truss announced a 150 billion energy support package last week.

This includes just six months' cover for business compared with a two-year freeze for household consumers.

The entrepreneur wants an energy cap for business, significant cuts to VAT and a reduction in employers' National Insurance (NI). He told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The leisure sector is once again being ignored.

'We are just recovering from the Covid pandemic and now the energy price rise is another huge obstacle to the return to profitability. The difference with Covid is that the Government can actually do something about this.'

His remarks follow last week's warning from Iceland frozen foods boss Richard Walker, who told the MoS that he has shelved new store openings due to rocketing energy bills.

Bannatyne, 73, said he closed four of his gyms permanently because of the disruption of the past two years.

The leisure tycoon told this newspaper last year that the pandemic cost him 50million.

Last night he said: 'A realistic energy price cap, a 5 per cent cut in VAT and reduced employers' NI will go a long way to saving businesses and jobs.'
Budget airline Wizz Air is heading for a second shareholder revolt over plans to hand its boss a bonus of up to 100million.

Last year, more than a third of investors voted against the airline's award for chief executive Jozsef Varadi, to be paid if he meets his targets. Shareholder advisers said Wizz Air ignored the protest and awarded Varadi the lucrative package anyway.

Now that the bonus policy has been incorporated, investors have been urged to vote against the 'excessive' pay scheme at its annual meeting on Tuesday, which will be held in Geneva.

Revolt: Last year, more than a third of investors voted against the airline's award for chief executive Jozsef Varadi

Institutional Shareholder Services said 'a lack of sufficient action to address the dissent the [package] received' last year meant support for the remuneration report 'was not warranted'.

And investor consultancy PIRC said Varadi's variable pay was 'excessive' as it attacked the 'fallacy' that such pay plans were aligned with shareholders' needs.

Varadi could receive the full 100 million if he manages to lift the company's share price to 120 over a five-year period. Wizz Air is one of a number of firms accused of turning a blind eye to shareholder concerns over fat cat pay. Those that have suffered major revolts in 2022 include WH Smith, housebuilder Berkeley Group and Marks & Spencer.

Varadi, 56, co-founded Wizz Air in 2003. The airline has since grown rapidly, spreading from its core eastern European markets of Poland, Hungary and Romania into the UK, Italy and other parts of Western Europe. It was one of the only airlines to add routes during the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Wizz Air repaid 300million of emergency coronavirus loans to the Bank of England, having laid off 1,000 staff and accessed the taxpayer-funded furlough scheme.

Shares in the FTSE250 member have fallen by around 50 per cent so far this year to 20.71 as net losses widened to 559million.

A Wizz Air spokesman said: 'We have continued to consult with investors on the plan and continue to believe that it is appropriate that exceptional performance should be strongly rewarded.'
Ministers are wooing oil and gas giants in an effort to accelerate major projects in the North Sea. A new Government taskforce is understood to be in talks with Norway's Equinor about its potential 4.5billion investment in the Rosebank field  one of the region's largest untapped reserves.

The charm offensive is being extended to firms with interests in the huge Cambo field, to the north of Scotland.

These are seen as flagship developments in the next phase of drilling in the North Sea, where oil was first extracted in the 1970s, but where production has been in decline for the past two decades.

In talks: The charm offensive is being extended to firms with interests in the huge Cambo field, to the north of Scotland

The push follows a radical energy strategy unveiled by Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday that included capping average household bills at 2,500, lifting the moratorium on fracking and forging ahead with building more nuclear plants.

It follows intense pressure for Britain to wean itself off foreign imports in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a surge in gas prices.

Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said the energy crisis had 'exposed the need to strengthen Britain's energy security for the good of the nation'.

Truss also signalled that there would be a major push to hand out oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea  possibly more than 100  to boost domestic production.

The Mail on Sunday understands the Energy Supply Taskforce  led by Madelaine McTernan, former head of the UK Vaccine Taskforce  will encourage companies to speed up existing projects in development.

It is not clear what the Government will be able to offer to sway firms that are undecided. A spokesman at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said it would not comment on 'commercially sensitive negotiations'.

Equinor is due to make a final decision on whether it will invest in Rosebank in early 2023. The taskforce wants to convince Equinor to commit to Rosebank sooner.

The sprawling oil and gas field  named after a Scotch malt whisky  is about 80 miles north-west of the Shetland Islands. Drilling has been taking place in the area since 2004.

It could still hold more than 300million barrels of recoverable oil, according to its former operator Chevron, as well as enough gas to power a city the size of Coventry. An industry source said: 'The taskforce  which is like an accelerator group  is making sure that companies that want to develop a project know that support is there from the Government.

'But I'm not sure [to what degree] they can hurry Equinor along to make the decision  this is a massive and really important project.'

Crisis: Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg wants oil closer to home

Norwegian government-backed Equinor  which took over Rosebank in 2019  may not be swayed by the UK Government's efforts.

A spokesman for the oil firm said: 'We appreciate the encouragement, but we can't indicate any change to the plan we have communicated.

'We are working with our partners to mature the project and we keep a close dialogue with UK authorities on the steps ahead.'

Another target is understood to be the Cambo field, a major reserve 20 miles south-west of the Rosebank field, which is also awaiting a final green light for investment next year.

Following its 1.1billion takeover of Siccar Point Energy earlier this year, Ithaca Energy has a 70 per cent stake in Cambo, which could pump out 178million barrels of oil.

Shell recently put its 30 per cent holding in Cambo up for sale. However, no potential buyer has emerged publicly.

It pulled out before the new energy strategy was unveiled and when public opinion was still frosty towards exploiting the UK's own oil and gas supplies.

Although Shell is stepping away from Cambo, it has committed to a separate major project called Jackdaw, 150 miles east of Aberdeen.

Almost 214,000 jobs across the UK were supported by the oil and gas industry in 2021, according to a report by sector body Offshore Energies UK.
Equipment hire group Ashtead has suffered another embarrassing shareholder backlash over boardroom pay.

Nearly a third of investors voted against US chief executive Brendan Horgan's 6.6million (5.7million) package at the annual meeting on Tuesday.

Backlash: The vote keeps Ashtead on the Investment Association's blacklist of firms hit by a revolt of more than 20 per cent

The Mail on Sunday warned that shareholders were likely to rebel over the award, after more than a third voted against the pay report and remuneration policy in September last year.

The new revolt extended to the chair of Ashtead's executive pay committee, Lucinda Riches. More than a quarter of investors opposed her re-election.

In a highly unusual move, she had written to shareholders to head off another rebellion, saying Ashtead was 'extremely disappointed' by voting advice from Institutional Shareholder Services.

Investors had been 'consulted extensively' on the pay proposals, she added.

The vote keeps Ashtead on the Investment Association's blacklist of firms hit by a revolt of more than 20 per cent.
A venture capital fund owned by defence giant Cobham has embarked on a flurry of investments, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

C16 Ventures is understood to have been quietly set up last year to buy stakes in fast-growing aerospace and defence companies.

Cobham is controlled by controversial US private equity firm Advent International. It has so far snapped up stakes in four businesses through C16 Ventures. These include weather satellite group ICEYE and Albedo, which develops 'low flying satellites that will deliver ultra-high resolution images'.

Stake: Cobham is controlled by controversial US private equity firm Advent International

Several of the investments have a presence in the UK.

Advent bought Cobham in a 4billion takeover in 2020. It has since sold off much of the 88-year-old British company.

The investments are likely to raise concerns that Advent is seeking stakes in more strategic British firms after snapping up another UK defence firm, Ultra Electronics, this year.

The 2.6billion swoop led to an outcry from MPs and military figures because Ultra produces pioneering technology that detects enemy submarines.

New laws came into force in January that demand Ministers investigate major investments in 17 important industries.

A spokesman for Cobham said it has a 'track record of helping businesses at the forefront of innovation' and a 'rich network' of experts to support companies it backs.
The controversial practice of 'quiet quitting' will never be the best solution for burnt-out workers but it's up to bosses to stop it from happening, a workplace expert says.

Gen-Z and millennial workers have been driving the so-called 'quiet quitting' trend, where they stay in their job but refuse to do more work than they're contractually-obliged to, including working only their exact hours.

But workplace culture expert Claire Hopkins says quiet quitting is really a warning sign workers had been pushed too far.

Unless this is brought out into the open by honest conversations between workers and bosses the problem will only persist to the detriment of all.

'There are misunderstandings around the concept of "quiet quitting",' Ms Hopkins said.

'Some believe the expression means doing the bare minimum or even pretending to work.

'In reality, the popularity of this discussion reflects how many workers are feeling burned out and exhausted after almost three years of a challenging work environment.'

RMIT Online CEO Claire Hopkins argues that 'quiet quitting' is really a sign that workers have been pushed too far

Ms Hopkins, who is the CEO at RMIT Online, said post-Covid workplaces, where more people are working from home, along with instant and constant communication blurred 'the lines between work and a personal life'.

'Workers are finding it increasingly difficult to disconnect from their workplace,' she said.

Another factor is bosses who are 'prioritising time spent at work or responsiveness after-hours as a way to measure individual performance and success'.

With Australia experiencing severe staff shortages and low unemployment drying up the supply of workers, the pressure has been ratcheted up in many professional situations.

Adding to this has been workers needing to isolate for Covid exposure or staying at home with sniffles that they previously would have ignored.

Small businesses especially have been feeling the pinch.

Workplace burnout has become a serious issue with many companies struggling to find enough employees or losing staff to Covid absences

An American Express survey found 47 per cent of small business owners said their mental health and wellbeing suffered because they weren't able to take time off during the pandemic.

Nine economics writer Jessica Irvine argued that in this environment 'quiet quitting' needed to be done noisily.

'What I object to is the quiet nature of the movement, when what we need right now is an assertive and noisy discussion of the appropriate boundaries between our home and working lives,' she wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.

'Clearly, the Covid-19 pandemic threw our working and home lives into disarray. Almost overnight, our homes became offices, school yards, shopping centres and cinemas. Lines blurred and our mental health suffered.

'I think quiet quitting strikes such a chord because as individuals we are starting to realise weve safeguarded too few hours of the day for non-work time, in which we can optimise our overall health and wellbeing.'

Irvine said there needs to be more 'open and honest conversation with managers about the limited number of hours in the day'.

This would especially benefit female workers 'who still bear the disproportionate share of caring duties'.

Ms Hopkins agreed and made some suggestions for employers to avoid having workers 'check out' while still occupying their desks or logging in at home.

'Companies should turn their focus to measurable goals which align to key business outcomes,' she said.

Other terms used that mean roughly the same thing as 'quiet quitting are 'boundary settings', 'meeting expectations', 'work-to-rule' and 'lying flat' (stock image)

'Encouraging performance over "hours clocked" and open communication from employers to promote honesty and transparency between staff, is critical to positively impact business engagement scores and result in happier employees.'

Melbourne career expert Sue Ellson previously told Daily Mail Australia 'quiet quitting' could backfire if the change in behaviour is noticed by others, particularly managers.

'You may need to explain why your behaviour has changed and be ready to do so,' she said.

'Reacting in frustration and saying that you are tired of "doing more work than everyone else" in the heat of the moment is not the answer.'

Ms Ellson also encouraged workers to be honest with their bosses.

'At the end of the day, the relationship between employee and employer needs to be one of mutual respect, empathy and commitment,' she said.

WHAT IS 'QUIET QUITTING'? 'Quiet quitting' rejects the idea that work has to take over your life and that employees should go above and beyond what their job descriptions entail Will still doing their jobs and all the tasks it entails, 'quiet quitters' are refusing to do extra hours, or extra work, without any extra pay It can also include turning down projects they're not interested in and refusing to answer work messages outside of working hours Source: LinkedIn Advertisement

A viral TikTok video where user @zkchillin explained why he was cutting back on work efforts has been viewed over 2.7 million times and there are plenty of other similar testimonies.

'I recently learnt about this term called "quiet quitting" where you're not outright quitting your job but you're quitting the idea of going above and beyond at work,' he said.

'The implied "rule" of quiet quitting is that you still get the job done. Don't ever lose sight of the value exchange.'

In his viral video @zkchillin said that it was important to put work into perspective.

'You're still performing your duties but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture and mentality that work has to be your life,' he said

'The reality is it's not and your worth as a person is not defined by your productive output.'

Other terms that roughly mean the same thing as 'quiet quitting' are 'boundary settings', 'meeting expectations', 'work-to-rule' and 'lying flat'.
Hanna May Rhoden, 19, was the ex-girlfriend of Edward 'Jake' Wagner. They shared custody of their daughter at the time of the massacre

Eight members of the same family killed in the Pike County Massacre were shot dead in an 'execution-style' operation during a bitter custody battle.

Edward 'Jake' Wagner, 29, previously pleaded guilty to the murder of Hannah Rodden, with whom he had a daughter with, and seven of her family members.

Hannah, 19, was shot multiple times on 22 April 2016 as she slept next to her newborn baby, after Wagner tried to convince her to agree to share custody of their child.

Her father Christopher Rhoden Sr, 40, mother Dana Rhoden, 37, and brothers Clarence, 20, and Christopher Jr, 16, were also killed.

Clarence Rhoden's fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20, Christopher Sr.'s brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and cousin Gary Rhoden, 38, were also shot dead across four different homes across rural Ohio.

Four people in Wagner's family have been accused of taking part in the brutal murders.

Wagner's mother, Angela, 51, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after agreeing to a plea deal where she admitted conspiracy to murder the family of eight. Edward 'Jake' Wagner was sentenced to eight life terms in prison after pleading guilty under a plea deal.

His father George 'Billy' Wagner III, 50, and George Wager IV, 28, have both pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

After a series of delays, George IV is set to be the first to go on trial on Monday. It was scheduled to start next week, but was postponed after the special prosecutor fell ill.

Defense attorneys for George IV insist that he had nothing to do with the murders, saying he did not shoot or kill anyone on that night in 2016.

Edward 'Jake' Wagner, 29, (right) previously pleaded guilty to the murder of Hannah Rodden, with whom he had a daughter with, and seven of her family members. He has been sentenced to eight life terms. His brother, George Wagner IV, is set to go on trial on Monday. He has pleaded not guilty

The Wagner family fled to Alaska after the murders. From left to right: Edward Wagner, Angela Wagner and George Wagner IV are pictured outside a supermarket in 2017

Clarence 'Frankie' Rhoden, 20, and his fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20, were shot dead while sleeping with their child

The Wagner family lived near the scenes of the killings at the time but moved 4000 miles away to a home (pictured above) in Kenai, Alaska, in June last year

Wagner himself was handed eight full life sentenced without the option of parole in 2021 after agreeing to a plea deal with no possibility of the death penalty for himself and his family members.

He pleaded guilty to 23 felony charges, including eight of murder, while his mother pleaded guilty to several counts of aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence and other charges.

Both Wagner and his mother agreed to testify against the other defendants and are expected to be involved in the upcoming trial.

It took two years and millions of dollars to bring the family to justice, with Billy Wagner set to go on trial later this year.

Angela Wagner's mother, Rita Newcomb, was charged with obstructing the course of justice and perjury while Fredericka Wagner, Billy Wagner's mother, had charges against her dropped.

Prosecutors say that the family of four planned the murders for months to allow Wagner sole custody of his daughter Sophia, now 9.

Months before the killings Hanna posted a message on Facebook saying 'they will have to kill me first' when talking about signing custody papers for her daughter.

Hannah Rhoden, the 19-year-old mother of Jake Wagner's toddler daughter, was shot multiple times while sleeping with her newborn baby. Her 16-year-old brother Christopher Jr, right, was also killed in the slayings

Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40, and his ex-wife Dana Rhoden, 37, were among those killed in April 2016 in Piketon in southern Ohio

Clarence 'Frankie' Rhoden, 20, and his fiancee, Hannah Gilley, 20, were shot dead while sleeping with their child

Christopher Rhoden Sr.'s brother Kenneth Rhoden, 44, (left) and a cousin, Gary Rhoden, 38, were also shot dead.

All of the victims were shot in the head multiple times while they slept with Jake Wagner saying he was 'personally responsible' for five of the deaths.

Three children that were at the scene of the slaying were spared, Clarence's sons Brentley, 4, and Ruger Lee, 6 months as well as Hanna's daughter Kyle who was five days old at the time.

It took investigators six years to get to the bottom of the cold-blooded plot, which was organised to execute anyone who might stand in the way of Wagner getting custody of his daughter.

He dated Hannah when she was 13, and got her pregnant at 15, but the relationship ended, and she had a second child with another man.

Wagner then began to pressure her about the custody of their daughter, and he had been taking care of Sophia at the time of the murders.

Investigators claim the family bought ammunition, a magazine clip, brass catchers and a bug detector to prepare for the crimes.

It is claimed that they constructed a homemade silencer that was used in the shootings and used 'countersurveillance devices' on the properties as well as tampering with phones, cameras and parts of a home security system.

Forged documents were found on the computer purporting that Hanna Rhoden had agreed to shared custody.

The Wagners took phones from six of the victims, as well as a recording device and trail cameras.

Dana Rhoden (back row, left) was murdered but the killer spared grandchildren (left to right) Brentley Rhoden, Ruger Lee and Sophia Wagner. The Wagners insist they are innocent and claim they are being turned into 'scapegoats' by police

On the fifth anniversary of the slayings, Edward 'Jake' Wagner pleaded guilty to 23 counts in southern Ohio's Pike County in a deal with prosecutors that spares him from being sentenced to death

The hearses carrying five members of the Rohden family are pictured above ahead of their funerals in April 2016

Angela reportedly confessed that the family took a vote on whether they would commit the murders and both her sons and husband said yes.

Prosecutors claim that Billy lured Christopher Sr to his death by setting up a fake 'lucrative' drug deal at the Union Hill Road Property before he was shot dead.

George and Jake were hidden in the car and are accuse of ambushing Hanna's father before going on to three other homes along the road.

Members of one family conspired, planned, carried out and then allegedly covered up their violent act to wipe out members of another family. - Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader

Christopher Sr is the only victim who was believed to have been awake when they were shot, suffering nine gunshot wounds in his forearm, torso and cheek.

HIs brother Gary was shot twice in the head and a third time in the face, with an autopsy report saying a 'muzzle stain' was left on his head, suggesting at one point a shot was fired while the gun was pressed against him.

Dana Rhoden was carefully shot four times around her head and a fifth time from under her chin.

She was sharing a trailer with Christopher Jr. and Hanna who were both shot in the head multiple times.

Frankie Rhoden and Hannah Gilley were also shot in the head, but their six-month-old child, who was sleeping between the couple, was spared.

Hannah was shot five times in total, with one shot hitting her left eye and Kenneth Rhoden was shot only once, with the bullet entering his right eye.

Leonard Manley, father of Dana Rhoden Manley, wears a 'Justice for Gilley and the Rhodens' t-shirt during the arraignment of Edward 'Jake' Wagner at the Pike County Courthouse on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018 in Waverly, Ohio

A private property sign guards the boarded up garage near the trailer where the bodies of Dana Rhoden and her children, Chris Rhoden Jr, and Hanna Rhoden, were found on

In a 911 call following the shootings, a woman sounded out of breath as she frantically told a dispatcher: 'I think my brother-in-law's dead ... There's blood all over the house.'

'There's blood all over the house. My brother-in-law is in the bedroom and it looks like someone has beat the hell out of him.'

Crime scene investigators were first called to Union Hill Road at 8.21am, when seven of the victims were found shot to death in the head 'execution style'.

The first three homes where bodies were found are located within a couple miles of one another on a sparsely populated stretch of road, while the eighth body - a man - was found in a house within 30 miles just before 2pm.

The Wagner family moved to Kenai, Alaska, after the killings, with Jake Wagner taking his daughter with them, but returned to Ohio in 2018 when they ran out of money. They were arrested in November of that year.

At the time, the family said they were moving to escape what they claimed was unfair speculation that were responsible for the murders.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost released a statement following the plea agreement for Angela, saying she had 'failed in her responsibilities' as a mother.

Yost said: 'Our society reveres mothers for taking care of their children and teaching them to do the right thing, even when it's hard.

'But by actively plotting the murder of an entire family and encouraging her own kids to carry out the violence, Angela Wagner abjectly failed in her responsibilities'.
Advertisement

Marine Staff Sergeant Bill Bee followed his dream of fighting for his country by going straight into service after graduating high school. A year later he watched the Twin Towers fall from his barracks at Camp Lejeune at the end of his training.

At just 19 years old he was thrust into combat as one of the first Americans on the ground in Helmand Province to take on the Taliban as the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden and the terrorists responsible for 9/11 began.

It was his first of four deployments in Afghanistan. He had his first firefight and wrote his first goodbye letters to his family, all while he wasn't old enough to buy a beer.

In his new book The Shot he details how the response to the attack unfolded at the base in North Carolina and how he was thrust into combat far earlier than expected.

The Pentagon had flown in a shipment from Ground Zero, part of a girder from one of the towers and a Star-Spangled Banner that had been hanging inside the towers when they came down.

It was put on the deck of Bee's boat as they sailed down through the Suez Canal, towards the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan.

He was now ready to avenge the New Yorkers picking up the pieces of their beloved city, and the more than three thousand people killed by Al Qaeda that day. One of his first operations would be hunting Bin Laden's children.

Below is an account of how that day 21 years ago changed his life forever.

As his ship headed up the Suez Canal towards the Persian Gulf, they got a call that one of Bin Laden's children's was hiding in a Chinese vessel. For Bee, the War on Terror came to him very quickly.

The morning of September 11, I woke up at 5:00 a.m., and I could already feel the North Carolina heat and humidity through the windows as I got down from my bunk, slipped into my clothes, and headed for the gym like clockwork.

I hit the weights with some of my buddies, cracked jokes, and talked about how we imagined the Mediterranean would be full of women in bikinis and yachts. We had only seen the turquoise waters, white beaches, and port towns full of bars and fancy restaurants in movies with our high school girlfriends of which I had only had one.

I headed to the shower to wash off the sweat and then walked back to my room, where everything seemed normal.

Then my roommate Brooks poked his head in the door to see me getting dressed, and said, 'Dude, something's happened.' He didn't look scared or concernedjust confused.

I followed him into the next room where the radio was tuned to The John Boy and Billy Big Show. They were shock jocks who normally played classic rock, made fun of the news, and had everyone in the barracks in hysterics. But this morning, they struck a serious tone. They were reading a developing story coming out of New York, but they weren't really sure what was going on.

Marine Staff Sergeant William 'Bill' Bee follow his dream of fighting for his country by going straight into service after graduating high school. A year later he watched the Twin Towers fall from his barracks at Camp Lejeune at the end of his basic training

'We are hearing that a plane has flown into the World Trade Center,' one of the hosts said. I can't remember which one. Brooks and I looked at each other in shock. It sounded like an accident, and one of us cracked a joke about low-flying aircraft.

Everyone thought a small prop plane had flown into the tower. Could the pilot have had a heart attack?

We sat and listened, waiting for more information to clear up the situation.

Then we heard there was live feed of the Twin Towers on every TV news channel, so we turned on The Today Show, to watch what the rest of America and the world was seeing while eating their breakfasts, getting ready for work, and sending their kids off to school.

Ten seconds later, the second plane flew straight into the South Tower, live on the TV in front of us. That moment will forever be seared into my memory because in seconds, my career in the Marines changed.

The plane wasn't small. It had the wingspan of a Boeing passenger jet, and it smashed into the building with such ferocity that I thought I could feel the impact. This was no accident. We were under attack.

It was real.

'Holy s***, something's going down. We're getting hit,' my buddy said. Our instincts to respond and fight back made us jump up.

Sergeant Muniz came sprinting down from the company office yelling, '2nd Platoon, form up!' We hauled our asses downstairs ready to receive orders.

He told us that the Pentagon and the Marine Corp didn't really know what was going on. They didn't know who had hit us or why.

Around that time, one of George W. Bush's aides was whispering in his ear, while he was reading to elementary school children in Florida. Muniz said the base was going to be put on lockdown in fifteen minutes. No one would be allowed in or out, because we could be deployed at any moment to respond to whichever b****** had done this to us.

'If you have family in town, this could be one of the last times you will see them,' Muniz said. 'If you don't, then this could be one of the last chances of freedom before they send us out to wherever we need to go.'

He didn't tell us what to do, but we knew he was saying that we had a small window to try to leave before the s*** really hit the fan. I assumed the training operation with the Egyptians would be cancelled, and the cruise across the Mediterranean would be replaced with a battlefield face-off against whoever was responsible.

My fellow Marine Pete Schuster had a car, so we hopped in with another friend and sped towards the gates of Lejeune and tried to head off base. The speed limit was twenty miles per hour, and the military police on base will pull over anyone.

In his new memoir The Shot , that will be released on Tuesday, Bee goes into detail about his journey from an Ohio trailer park to one of the first Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11

But they ignored our speeding and let us pass. They knew what was happening, and let us leave as quickly as possible.

By that point, the Pentagon had also been hit by another plane.

The U.S. had just been victim to the worst attack on its homeland in history, and we were going to be the first ones out there fighting back.

We didn't do anything when we got off base. We just stayed in the house of a Marine who had family nearby, and waited for news. We didn't get drunk, we didn't meet up with girls, we didn't go to a bar. There were no cliches and no thoughts of 'This is our last night on Earth, so what shall we do?'

We just sat by our phones, standing by for our orders.

Our eyes were glued to the TV, watching the endless coverage of smoke plumes filling the skies above Manhattan, with New Yorkers running for their lives covered in dust and debris. Every single one had pure terror on their face.

They were in suits and ties and pencil skirts, screaming for their loved ones, as they ran past lines of fire trucks and cop cars with their sirens on, for all the news channel sound crews to hear. I tried to imagine the pure fear and terror they were feeling, while the world was watching through its fingers and through tears in its eyes.

What floor were they on when a plane hit their tower? Who were they thinking of? I had never been to New York, but

I had always dreamed of what it would be like. What was unfolding in front of me was Armageddonan event of such magnitude it was impossible to fathom. It was a darkness that I had never seen and didn't think was ever possible.

The attack on 9/11 was when I realized how much hatred is in the world. Watching coverage of first responders picking through the rubble of Ground Zero, trying desperately, and with a sliver of hope, to find anyone alive, and seeing the celebrations going on throughout the Middle East filled me with a fury beyond words.

I watched President Bush tell America that terrorism against our nation would not stand, and when he vowed to hit back with full force, I silently did the same. It may sound cold and callous, but at that moment, I thought about executing every person celebrating the 9/11 attacks, and I would have done it with a smile on my face.

To this day, the images from 9/11 are among the few things on this Earth that can bring a tear to my eye. Marines were late coming home from leave, because they were helping pull people out of the rubble, with hundreds of New York cops and firefighters.

Bee knew he wanted to fight in the Marines when he was a child. He was surrounded by military men in his family growing up in an Ohio trailer park. His first trip to Afghanistan was his first of four deployments in Afghanistan. He had his first firefight and wrote his first goodbye letters to his family, all while he wasn't old enough to buy a beer

They stayed in apartments overlooking Ground Zero for weeks, and spent every day sifting through the snapped steel beams, the molten office furniture, and the disintegrated concrete, for signs of life. For months after 9/11, there were still fires at the crash site and fears that more buildings could collapse.

I had friends that lost family in the towers. We stayed by our phones as more details surfaced about who was responsible.

I watched President Bush tell America that terrorism against our nation would not stand, and when he vowed to hit back with full force, I silently did the same. It may sound cold and callous, but at that moment, I thought about executing every person celebrating the 9/11 attacks, and I would have done it with a smile on my face.

All signs coming from the White House pointed to a small group of terrorists in Afghanistan, who hated America and wanted to wage jihad on the U.S. We still didn't know where we were going, but we were mentally preparing for the Middle East.

Our panicked families kept calling us, trying to figure out the next move and the fate that awaited us. Kristan was in a seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and was trying to get in touch with me.

She knew, as soon as she saw the second plane hit, that I was going to end up somewhere she didn't want to imagine.

As kids we had faced the world on our own, and she knew that my passion was being in the Marines, but for the first time in our lives, we faced the prospect of being on different sides of the world and in a far different reality than the fields in Rust Belt Ohio.

On September 12, after less than twenty-four hours away, we got the call to come back to Camp Lejeune.

Our September 18 deployment would proceed on schedule, and we were still going to travel to the Mediterranean for our operation with the Egyptians, but we all knew that it probably wouldn't be our final destination.

We loaded up on the ship, and headed across the Atlantic for a few days of freedom in Italy and Spain, where we enjoyed a drink and kept waiting for developments.

We were near the end of our training in Egypt, when we were suddenly told the ship would be leaving earlieron October 7.

It would be the same day President Bush told the nation, from the Oval Office, that the U.S. military was going into Afghanistan. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were the targets, and Osama Bin Laden was now the most wanted man in the world.

We were going to be one of the first Marine units on the ground. B-52s had been bombing Taliban frontlines in southern Afghanistan for months and had been helping the rebels in the north fight back and gain ground. I was trained to be a scout swimmer. I'd spent most of the last two years in the water storming and securing beaches, and my first deployment would be to a landlocked, mountainous country.

Bee writes: 'The attack on 9/11 was when I realized how much hatred is in the world. Watching coverage of first responders picking through the rubble of Ground Zero, trying desperately, and with a sliver of hope, to find anyone alive, and seeing the celebrations going on throughout the Middle East filled me with a fury beyond words '

We sailed up the Suez Canal, and trained by running sixteen one mile laps of the ship's flight deck.

As the departure moved closer, we suddenly received orders we were changing to a smaller boat.

The Pentagon had passed on intelligence that there was a Chinese merchant vessel nearby, and one of Osama Bin Laden's children was on board. It was what we had been waiting for: we had reached the war.

There weren't many details. We only knew that there was a possibility that a kid of the man who orchestrated the attack on America was hiding somewhere on the ship, and we had to prepare. I was excited that I was finally able to channel some of the fury I had been holding in from that day, and do what I felt I was born to do.

Senior officers sat our platoon down, and told us we would be performing a search and seizure with the Navy and the SEALs. Another Marine unit would have usually been tasked to do the raid, but they had been held up near the horn of Africa, so it was up to our team to get it done. I had never been trained to attack a boat, and it was the first time I was given combat orders. It was my first mission, and I wasn't going to f*** it up. I was also told that this was the first time

I could end up pulling the trigger in anger at an enemy combatant.

It was time to get my affairs in order. At just nineteen years old, I prepared my will and wrote my first death letter.

Having to write down everything you want to say to your family and friends is disquieting. What are you supposed to say? 'Sorry, Mom.' 'I love you, Dad.' 'I'll always remember our church group trips and hunting snakes in Ohio, Kristan.'

I can no longer recall what I wrote, but I remember none of the Marines penning these letters had dry eyes by the end of it.

It was the first time I imagined what would happen if I never saw my family again, and their final memory of me would be a scribbled handwritten letter, handed over by a Marine knocking at the door. I knew I would have to write that letter at some point in my career, but I never imagined it would be this quicklyjust over a year after graduating high school, and three months after I had left the United States for the first time.

I addressed the goodbye letters to my parents, my sister, and my best friends from the high school band, and then signed my will as the countdown to the operation continued.

I went through all the outcomes of the mission in my head, and tried to calibrate all of my training for an operation I may never have been involved in, had the circumstances been different.

I was about to be one of the first American troops to get a chance to get back at Bin Laden.

Capturing one of his children would be a major victory and a dent in morale for the head of Al Qaeda, who had a huge familyat least twenty children by four different wives.

Just a few days earlier, President Bush had confirmed that he had given the military orders to strike Al Qaeda military installations and disrupt communications, after the Taliban refused to meet demands to close down terrorist training camps and return any Americans they had unjustly detained.

Bin Laden released a speech on the same day, calling the United States hypocrites, and saying Muslims were using violence to respond to eighty years of humiliation.

Our families back home now knew where we were going, but mine didn't know that I was in the middle of the Arabian Sea, in the dead of night, ready to enter the war far earlier than I could have imagined. I was ready, but holy s***, was it real.

We gathered our gear, armed up, and stayed awake through the night, waiting for the call to go. Just after 1 a.m., we were given the all-clear, and the adrenaline started flowing.

I looked out over the pitch-black waters from the deck of the ship, and could barely make out the lights on the target vessel. The air was still, and there was an unnerving silence until the Seahawk helicopter rotor blades spun to life.

They were so quiet that the enemy wouldn't know that a forty-seven-million-dollar, twin-engine attack helicopter was hovering above them, until it was too late.

I was part of the second wave of the attack, so I watched as the first set of helicopters sped off into the night, and headed for the boat on the horizon. As my second wave left, I held on as the pilot launched us off the deck.

The Marines around me were quiet as mice and laser-focused on getting the job done. Just two minutes later, the pilot stopped, suspended above the ship that from so high up looked like a matchbox. I hooked myself into a rappel line, leaned backwards out of the door with my back hanging over the landing skids, and got ready to drop.

I steadied myself, closed my eyes for a brief second, and then inhaled some of the ocean air around me. Before that moment, I had only ever rappelled at boot campwhen I was twenty feet up, the conditions were controlled, and I knew what awaited me when I landed.

I pushed off the helicopter into the black abyss, and plummeted towards the vessel. The rope slipped through my hands without any resistance.

I peered over my left shoulder and watched as the deck got closer to me by the second.

I could see Marines breaking through the door of the bridge, but one had stayed back and was on his knee looking like he had been hit. Then it hit meI was dropping into combat.

I braced for the impact of the landing, and kept looking around to try and figure out what was going on. Where was this kid hiding? Was he even on board? Were we in a gunfight? How many of them were there? What firepower did they have?

Were they trained? I tried to remember all the training scenarios from Camp Lejeune, Pendleton, and Cocoa Beach so I could adapt without hesitation.

Bee (pictured second from right) was shot at multiple times and survived multiple close calls with the Taliban during his military career. Just hours after the infamous shot, he held the hand of a young Marine sniper who had been shot in the head as he died on a small platform in a mud hud

When my feet hit the deck, it was like I had landed on black ice, with the wash from the rotor blades. A corpsman was standing at the bottom to make sure we didn't slip. My feet were sliding everywhere, and he shouted at me 'go that way' while pointing at the bridge as I tried to regain my bearings. I ran to the bridge on orders to hold it down with my platoon commander, while other teams searched every inch of the ship.

We stayed there all day, waiting for confirmation that one of the children of the world's most wanted terrorist was stowed away, trying desperately to evade capture, but the operation turned up nothing. I later learned the Marine I saw clutching his knees hadn't been shot.

He had felt a flash of heat when one of the Chinese crew members jumped out of a hatch and threw coffee on him, making him believe he had been hit.

All they found on the ship were mountains of rice. There was nothing suspicious, and no members of the Bin Laden family were on board, as far as we knew. While the result was disappointinggiven I'd been ready to open fire at any enemyat least I had my first mission under my belt.

We were called onto the deck, to see a shipment the Pentagon had flown in from Ground Zero. There was part of a girder from one of the towers and a Star-Spangled Banner that had been hanging inside when they came down. What I saw on the deck was proof that my trip to Afghanistan was my destiny. Every reason I had to fight was right in front of me

The Marines around me also felt more comfortable, now that we knew what was expected of us. It showed that we were going to knock down any door, board any ship, or hit absolutely anywhere, if there was even the slightest chance we could catch someone close to him. It was my first involvement in what would become America's longest war, and we hadn't even reached Afghanistan.

We kept running laps as we waited for our next orders and headed further into the Arabian Sea, when one day we were told to gather on the deck. I had no idea what was going on.

We'd had no heads-up about any operation, and I knew we would get advanced notice if we were going to fly into southern Afghanistan where the Taliban had concentrated most of their fighters, and where the airstrikes were focusing their firepower.

We learned from our families that the news was wall-to- wall coverage of explosions in the mountains, and bomb craters surrounded by mud huts.

We were called onto the deck, to see a shipment the Pentagon had flown in from Ground Zero. There was part of a girder from one of the towers and a Star-Spangled Banner that had been hanging inside when they came down.

What I saw on the deck was proof that my trip to Afghanistan was my destiny. Every reason I had to fight was right in front of me. I was awestruck by how the enormous steel beam had bent and broken under the weight of all the floors that collapsed above it.

The flag was burned around the edges and had small tears, but was still mostly intact. I signed the girder with the rest of my platoon, and took photos in front of the flag.

We were all grinning like idiots as we posed for the cameras, but the moment was so powerful.

It connected us with all the rescuers still searching through the rubble for survivors, working day and night to make sure anyone holding onto life was found.

I had spent my life preparing to become a Marine, and I knew that my mission was to avenge the New Yorkers picking up the pieces of their beloved city, and the more than three thousand people killed by Al Qaeda that day.

We were about to wreak havoc on Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The Shot: The Harrowing Journey of a Marine in the War on Terror will be available in most book stores on September 13. Pre-order it here.

His world plunged into darkness on his third tour of Afghanistan when a Taliban sniper round landed inches from his head. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard in his life. 'I could feel the impact reverberating, and it seemed like my brain was bouncing off the insides of my skull. I couldn't hear and I couldn't see.'
Ernst and Young workers are fuming at the company after the suicide death of a talented young staffer - and they've taken the extraordinary step of leaking the CEO's speech as he attempted to justify his response to the tragedy.

Aishwarya Venkatachalam, 27, an Indian national, died when she plunged from a terrace on the roof of EY's 11th floor in Sydney at about 12.20am on August 27, after returning to the office following a work function at the nearby Ivy nightclub.

Allegations of bullying and racism have since plagued the company.

In a town hall meeting to 9,000 staff on Tuesday, EY boss David Larocca spent just four minutes of the hour-long address on the death of Ms Venkatachalam, who was a senior auditor.

In his address, in which he didn't use her name, he said the company was considering taking 'regulatory' action against the media for reporting on the lead up and aftermath of Ms Venkatachalam's death.

Staff at the firm described the meeting - held on level 35 of the EY building and streamed online - as 'entitled', 'indulgent' and displaying a 'tin ear' to the trauma suffered by staff. One staffer was shocked he refused to use her name.

Daily Mail Australia has exclusively revealed how Aishwarya Venkatachalam (pictured here with her husband Nakul) complained to her best friend about 'racism' and 'mean' colleagues at the financial services company before her tragic death

Ms Venkatachalam's death has rocked the finance world, with staff at the company slamming the business's leadership for their 'insensitive' approach to her death.

Her decision to take her own life has also shone the spotlight on work life inside EY, which some ex-employees describing the culture as a 'meat grinder' of long hours and high pressure.

In the recording of the meeting obtained by Daily Mail Australia, CEO Mr Larocca told staff he was 'deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic death of one our Sydney assurance team members last week'.

EY has promised a 'comprehensive and wide-ranging internal review that will include health and safety, security and social events' led by their chief mental health advisor in the wake of the tragedy (pictured, an EY careers event in Australia)

'We had a really difficult week, made even more distressing for many by the reporting in the press,' he said.

'Our entire focus has been on supporting everyone impacted by this starting with her family, everyone at EY that's been directly impacted, and our broader EY community.'

The chief executive went on to say that 'unlike the media', the company would take an 'ethical approach' to the reporting of public deaths.

'And we are I can let you know, we are considering avenues around this through regulatory bodies, around the media,' Mr Larocca said.

Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday revealed that Ms Venkatachalam had complained of racism and 'mean colleagues' to a close friend, Neeti Bisht, in April.

Bosses at Ernst and Young have launched a major investigation into claims Aishwarya Venkatachalum (pictured on her wedding day with husband, Nakul) died after she was bullied at work and was a victim of racism

Mr Larocca addressed those claims in his speech, insisting the firm had 'a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and racism'.

Daily Mail Australia understands the 120 staff present on level 35 and the thousands watching the web cast were urged to reach out to EY's Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or their Executive Leadership Team if they were struggling to process the tragedy.

'More broadly, every day, I've seen and been part of conversations where people have really cared for each other, looked out for each other,' Mr Larocca said.

'I ask you to continue to do that, I know you all, in your own way have done your little bit. So please continue to do that.'

Neeti Bisht (left) is pictured with her close friend Ms Venkatachalam during her trip to Sydney in April this year - the last time they saw each other in person

After spending just a few minutes acknowledging Ms Venkatachalam's tragic death, the CEO flagged that for R U Ok Day, a national initiative spearheaded by a suicide prevention charity, EY's theme would be 'connection'.

Jono Nicholas, the firm's chief mental health advisor, encouraged employees to think of a mental health ritual they could use in the coming weeks.

'Sometimes it's just sitting down watching telly and just having a break from it all and that's okay, as well,' he said.

'We are all part of the EY community, for those that are able to feel comfortable to come into an EY office, be with your colleagues to connect throughout the day, whether it be online, or pick up the phone,' he said.

However, the company's attempts to address the tragedy seem to have backfired with many employees having contacted Daily Mail Australia following the address.

Staff said they were 'creeped out' by EY's decision to keep open the balcony where their colleague fell to her death just weeks earlier.

One senior employee, who declined to be named for fear of punishment by the company, said the level of insensitivity shown by the leadership team 'beggars belief'.

Audio has emerged of the CEO of Ernst & Young attacking the media for accurately reporting the death of an employee who fell from a balcony at its Sydney headquarters (pictured)

Pictured: Aishwarya Ventkat and husband Nakul Ganesan on their second day of wedding celebrations during a Vratham function in January, 2021

'They are hiding behind some idea that they are respecting the family by proceeding with business as usual, but that rings hollow,' the employee said.

'An epic failure of leadership has left many staff utterly dejected, and just confirms that if any of us happen to die, absolutely nothing changes, not a beat is skipped.'

'In a publicly listed company it would be hard to imagine such a lack of accountability for how this has been handled,' they said.

The EY employee slammed the firm's deputy CEO Jenelle McMaster as 'entitled' and 'indulgent' for partaking in a mock interview during the hour-long town hall meeting.

'To really underscore just how swept up in their own world they are, they put on a town hall where we had to listen to the Deputy CEO indulge herself in a mock interview talking about herself,' the staffer said.

'Can you even believe it ... The indulgence and entitlement and tin ear is just mind blowing.'

AISHWARYA'S TRAGIC TIMELINE OF EVENTS 2015: Graduates from Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune, India 2019: Joins Grant Thornton LLP in Bengaluru, India, as an Audit Senior January 2021: Marries husband Nakul in Chennai, India November 2021: Joins EY in Sydney as a Senior Auditor August 26, 2022: Confusion remains over Aishwarya's final movements. Conflicting reports say she left her office at either midday, 5.30pm or 7.30pm to join the EY social club drinks function at The Ivy nightclub. CCTV is said to show her returning to the office at about 7.30pm. She is said to have been seen moving between offices in the EY building. At 8pm she spoke on the phone to her husband in Singapore before he got on a flight back to Sydney. Several hours later, she is found allegedly drunk and distraught in a city centre car park just before midnight. She claims to have been kicked out of a work function and is unable to access her office to get her house key. Bystanders help back to her EY office building. August 27, 2022: At about 12.20am she falls to her death from the terrace on the roof of the 10th floor. Later that day, her husband returns to Sydney from a trip to Singapore to be told of the tragedy. Advertisement

Mr Larocca said EY's independent review into Ms Venkatachalam's death would reveal what the company 'could learn' from the tragedy.

'We're still refining the scope, but it will look at security and safety of our premises, how we work, including how we connect at social functions, and the mental health and wellbeing supports that we have at EY,' he said.

It comes after close friend Neeti Bisht revealed Ms Venkatachalam, a bridesmaid at her wedding, had struggled to fit in since moving to Australia 11 months ago as a senior EY auditor in real estate assurance.

'She was a happy soul and was finding her feet in Australia ... She mentioned how mean some of her colleagues were,' Ms Bisht told Daily Mail Australia.

Pictured: Chief Executive of Ernst & Young Oceania David Larocca

Ms Bisht said Ms Venkatachalam told her she was dealing with bullying and racism at work, but she was otherwise thriving in Australia.

'I think things had just started to brew then... Her colleagues and the racist angle was at play,' she said.

A spokeswoman has previously told Daily Mail Australia the company 'has a zero tolerance response to bullying, harassment and racism, and we take any allegations that relate to these issues very seriously.

'The review we launched last week following this tragedy is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further until it is complete,' she said.

'We are continuing to offer all our people counselling and support.'

There is no suggestion EY, or the woman's co-workers or superiors, were in any way responsible for her death.

For confidential 24-hour support in Australia call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Victims of heavy flooding from monsoon rains receive relief aid provided by the Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek political party, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sept. 11.AP-Yonhap



U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday visited several areas of Pakistan ravaged by floods, calling for increased global financial support at the end of a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster.



Record monsoon rains and glacier melt in northern mountains have triggered floods that have killed more than 1,391 people, sweeping away houses, roads, railway tracks, bridges, livestock and crops.



Pakistan estimates the damage at $30 billion, and both the government and Guterres have blamed the flooding on climate change.



"Today it's Pakistan, tomorrow it could be your country wherever you live. This is a global crisis ... it requires a global response," Guterres told a news conference at the end of his visit.



Huge areas of the country are still under water and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes. The government says the lives of nearly 33 million people have been disrupted.



Residents and health workers are becoming concerned about rising numbers of children suffering from gastroenteritis and other illnesses, with many forced to drink contaminated flood water.



After flying over vast swathes of inundated land, Guterres met people displaced by flooding in southern Pakistan.



"Unimaginable," he said as he surveyed the devastation from the air, seated next to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in footage shared by the country's information minister.



Speaking to reporters later in the southern city of Karachi, Guterres said the international community needed to do more to help countries hit hardest by the effects of climate change, starting with Pakistan.



"I have seen many disasters around the world but I have never seen climate carnage of this scale," he said.





U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari walk after the arrival of the U.N. Secretary-General, following rains and floods during the monsoon season in Sukkur, Pakistan Sept
Democratic House Rep. Tim Ryan suggested to reporters that President Joe Biden should step aside in 2024 in favor of a new generation of leaders - just before the commander-in-chief was due for a high-stakes visit to Ryan's home state of Ohio.

With less than two months until the November midterm elections, Biden made a visit to an overwhelmingly Republican part of Ohio on Friday for the groundbreaking of a semiconductor plant that he promoted as evidence that his economic policies are working.

But his trip was punctuated by Ryan's doubts.

The moderate Democrat is running for the U.S. Senate against Donald Trump-backed Republican author J.D. Vance. They're vying to replace outgoing GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

On Thursday, Ryan publicly questioned whether the party needed someone other than Biden after he was asked if the 79-year-old president should run for re-election in 2024.

Asked if the president should seek a second term, Ryan told Youngstown, Ohio, network WFMJ, 'My hunch is that we need new leadership across the board.'

'Democrats, Republicans, I think it's time for a generational move,' he added.

'The environment politically across the country is poisonous, and people I think want some change.'

Ryan, who has broken with the president on some issues, has not asked Biden to campaign with him in the state, but was present at the Intel groundbreaking for the president's remarks.

President Joe Biden made a visit to a solidly Republican part of Ohio on Friday - one day after fellow Democrat, Rep. Tim Ryan, poured cold water on his 2024 aspirations.

Pressed later by reporters if Biden should run again, Ryan said that was up to the president.

'The president said from the very beginning he was going to be a bridge to the next generation, which is basically what I was saying,' he said.

Just last month Ryan became one of the first Democrats in power to publicly break from Biden over his controversial plan to ease federal student loan debt.

Ryan said it sent the 'wrong message' and called for broader tax cuts instead to help more of the working and middle classes.

Vance seized on Ryan's appearance with the president Friday.

'It takes a real two-faced fraud for someone to tell Ohioans he doesn't support Biden running for reelection, the literal day before he appears at an event with him,' he said.

The venture capitalist and 'Hillbilly Elegy' writer is appearing with Trump in Youngstown, Ohio on Saturday for one of the ex-president's signature 'Make America Great Again' rallies.

Ryan is running for Senate to replace retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman. He's up against Trump-backed author JD Vance

Biden traveled to Licking County near Columbus to speak at the site of Intel Corp's new $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility and hailed it as a sign of things to come.

'The future of the chip industry is going to be made in America,' he said. 'The industrial Midwest is back.'

The trip is part of a White House pre-midterms push to tout new funding for manufacturing and infrastructure that Democrats pushed through Congress.

In the meantime, Biden has also made waves by hurling fiery insults at his predecessor's supporters - who the president has dubbed at times 'MAGA Republicans,' 'extremists' and 'Trumpies.'

Previous trips to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have landed the president in areas where Democrats already have strong support, but Licking County voted Republican 63 percent to 35 percent in the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats have lost Ohio in the past two presidential contests, but Portman's retirement may give Democrats a chance to pick up a Senate seat.

Some recent forecasts show Democrats favored to maintain control of the Senate, after a series of wins in Congress. But not all candidates welcome Biden's campaigning support.

Wisconsin Democratic Senate hopeful Mandela Barnes, the state's current lieutenant governor, opted not to appear alongside Biden during a Labor Day speech last week.

His campaign told DailyMail.com at the time that Barnes was engaged in other activities celebrating American workers throughout the state.

In Pennsylvania, progressive Senate candidate and lieutenant governor John Fetterman spoke with Biden on Labor Day but did not join him at an earlier Key Stone State event.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running for governor, appeared with Biden in Wilkes-Barre but did not on Labor Day.
Advertisement

New York City's rampant crime and drug abuse has continued to spiral with drug addicts shooting up in broad daylight and homeless perverts hassling subway commuters, leaving residents and tourists horrified.

In Manhattan's busy Union Square, two women were spotted shooting up drugs on the stairs near the subway station, while a homeless man was seen touching himself while sitting on the steps of the Prince St subway station in trendy Soho at 10am in the morning.

Photos and videos show the scantily-clad pair in Union Square - one with electric blue hair - casually injecting themselves with an unknown substance next to a Citi bike. Despite sitting behind a structure, the vagrant duo could be seen by horrified tourists and passersby as they injected themselves with drugs.

The were shooting up with the syringe for nearly 30 minutes, and no one questioned or attempted to tell law enforcement, according to witnesses.

In Soho, a homeless man in a black jacket, shot eerie looks at people walking up the steps of the subway as he touched himself inappropriately. He refused to move from the spot despite innocent bystanders realizing what he was doing.

The horrific scenes come despite NYC Mayor Eric Adam's vow to crackdown on homelessness and crime in the city, which is up nearly 40 percent from last year.

New Yorkers have been growing weary over the latest spike in violence and crimes on the city streets and subways - as well as the widespread looting and physical altercations in many neighborhoods.

Vagrancy has also been on the rise in the city, with Adams ordering wave after wave of officers to take down homeless encampments throughout the city since March.

Photos and videos show the scantly-clad pair in Union Square - one with electric blue hair - casually injecting themselves with an unknown substance next to a Citi bike

The pervert was sitting on the steps of the subway touching himself inappropriately while people exited the station

The vagrants were seen doing drugs in broad daylight for nearly 30 minutes - without law enforcement getting involved

The babbling man, wearing a black jacket, shot eerie looks at people walking up the steps of the subway as he touched himself inappropriately

Parts of the city are said to have become '24-hour drug and sex dens' as delinquents take to the streets to deal and do drugs.

In Manhattan's trendy Chelsea neighborhood, children have allegedly become exposed to nudity, sex acts and drug use while business owners deal with constant break-ins.

Some said they are begging city officials and the police department to do something.

In May, photos and video of the men lying on Park Avenue between East 115th Street and East 116 Street outside a popular marketplace showed men casually using needles to inject drugs into their arms.

The men were seen sitting underneath the railway surrounded by bags of their belongings and an overturned Citi bike, and photos of the block the following day show even more men shooting up drugs at the site.

Police did nothing about the odd man sitting on the subway steps, despite being in New York's busy SoHo area

The pair, who were injecting themselves with a syringe in broad daylight in Manhattan's busy Union Square

Union Square is one of New York's busy subway stations - surrounded by shops and grocery stores. The duo, not pictured, were caught using drugs in broad daylight

The latest incidents come days after a thug slashed a stranger in the stomach in an unprovoked attack in Midtown Manhattan.

The assailant, who has not been identified, was walking on 135 West 36 St in New York when he attacked the 34-year-old victim from behind - leaving them with a deep abdominal wound.

Recently, a woman leaving her job at IHOP in the city's Gramercy area was murdered in an execution-style killing by the father of one of her children.

Imani Armstrong was shot in the heat on a street corner near Union Square.

Clarkson Wilson, 44, was arrested for the heinous crime. He faces murder charges as well as two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.

One man who entered the store with the cart left the Lululemon store filling the basket with clothing

Seven men were pictured at the same spot taking drugs together in East Harlem in May

One of the men removed his shoe so he could inject his foot in order to get high at the small but popular marketplace

Two men were pictured on May 28 taking drugs out in the open in East Harlem's La Marqueta marketplace

In August, New York City's most prolific criminal, with 167 arrests on his record, appeared in court after being caught stealing 48 items worth $450 from an Upper East Side Rite Aid.

DailyMail.com cameras were at Manhattan Supreme Court as Jamel Pringle, 39, was notably denied bail for the first time despite New York's woke bail reform laws.

Police had previously joked that, due to the controversial laws that only offered bail for serious offenses, Pringle had amassed 'frequent flier miles.'

Pringle has one felony conviction, 88 misdemeanors and another 39 citations for failing to appear in court. The next closest offender in New York City has just 101 arrests.

In February, Pringle was arrested on an early Monday morning for taking 48 items worth over $430 from a Rite Aid on Second Avenue near East 96th Street on New York City's Upper East Side.

A string of West Village and SoHo clothing robberies were coordinated by one suspect, the NYPD reports. All of the break ins took place from July 3 until July 23, often between closing times. These stores are: Loro Piana, Christian Louboutin, A.P.C., Scotch Soda, Rag & Bone, Meermin Shoes and Bonobos

Horrifying surveillance footage shows the victim, 52, crumpling to the floor as he is attacked from behind

And posh stores in the city's West Village and SoHo have also become rampant with thieves in recent months - including when a gang of seven were recorded calmly walking out of Lululemon with $30,000 worth of gear.

They entered the store on 14th Street and 9th Avenue with empty carts and laundry bags while the guard casually glanced over as they grabbed piles of clothing on August 16.

The brazen robbers, targeting the posh West Village neighborhood, rushed out of the store with their finds - without being apprehended by the security guard.

Store surveillance footage showed the thieves walk in and out the store around noon - looting thousands of dollars worth of merchandise as the seemingly unbothered guard, dressed in a white shirt and black tie, stood by.

But violence is also on the up in NYC.

A warped 'knockout' game which sees violent criminals punch strangers for fun is feared to have made a comeback in the crime-ridden city.

Almost 20 of the violent and apparently motive-less knockout game incidents have been reported to the NYPD so far this year, including a Bronx man who almost died after being punched to the ground outside a restaurant.

An unprovoked attack caught on camera on Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan's premier shopping district

The assailant in south Brooklyn's Kings Plaza Mall plants his left foot and wallops his target squarely in the left cheek

The victim appeared to be knocked out standing and fell to the ground without bracing for impact

Other knockout game victims include a 36 year-old man filmed being knocked out cold after being whacked over the head at a Brooklyn mall, and a 74 year-old woman slapped to the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan earlier last month.

Most notably, convicted sex offender and reputed 'Born To Kill' gang member Bui Van Phu was caught on surveillance video knocking a man out cold in a senseless attack outside a Bronx restaurant.

On August 12, 2022, just before 11 p.m. black and white surveillance camera footage shows Jesus Cortes, 52, standing outside the Fuego Tipico Restaurant on East 188 Street, congregating with family.

Out of nowhere, Phu, who was convicted of a gunpoint rape of a 17-year-old girl in 1994, is seen on the video winding up behind Cortes and slugging him in the side of the head.

Cortes, who never saw the punch coming, crumples to the sidewalk, fracturing his skull. Doctors induced a coma to help with the swelling and after a dicey few weeks, he was finally taken off a respirator.
A British comedian has revealed the horror of being raped in a New Zealand sauna in a new book about how he left behind a career in medicine for comedy and writing.

Adam Kay was working as a doctor and did comedy part-time when he got the chance to perform a 20-minute set at a medical conference in New Zealand.

He thought it would be his comedy break, and also planned to cheat on his wife there, with a man, then return to her and a heterosexual life.

A sauna 'sounded like probably the most appealing/least appalling option and the best chance of getting what I wanted pronto and incognito,' he said.

What happened when when to the sauna, after giving a false name and putting on a French accent at the entrance, was harrowing, and for 10 years he told no one.

'A man in his 40s stood up, took my arm and wordlessly led me to a dimly lit cubicle, where he raped me,' and then said 'thanks' afterwards.

Comedian Adam Kay (pictured) has opened up in his new book about being raped in a New Zealand sauna

Before he left for the trip to New Zealand, Kay writes, his 'internet search history... would have made Freddie Mercury blush'.

He thought to himself that 'Cheating is bad. And premeditated cheating is probably worse than spontaneous cheating, in the way that murder is worse than manslaughter'.

But he also reasoned with himself that what he planned to do was 'totally fine'.

'I was going all the way to New Zealand to do it, so she couldn't possibly find out or get hurt; it was considerate, even. It would only be this one time,' he said.

'I wasn't lusting after anyone in particular, I didn't know who I was going to cheat with, just that it needed to happen.

'And I would be cheating on her with a man, so it basically didn't count.'

His internet searches led him him to settle on going to a sauna as something he had to do to get it out of his system.

But, having never done this before, he had no idea what to expect.

Kay likes to give people the benefit of the doubt and later tried 'to work out if there could have been some kind of misunderstanding, something I did wrong'.

He wanted to be to able to put it down to poor communication on his part.

Adam Kay is pictured at the National Book Awards on November 20, 2018 in London, England

'But I can't  the truth of it is inescapable. I was clear. I said no when it became obvious he wanted this interaction to go a lot further than I did,' he wrote.

'I said no, again, when he started. I said no when he overpowered me and pushed my head into a wipe-clean cushion that stank of antiseptic.'

Kay tried to scream, but knew he wouldn't be heard, 'not by this man who didn't want to hear and not by anyone else, thanks to the rhythmical pounding of the music'.

The rapist then said 'thanks' before leaving.

'Thanks. You don't say thanks to someone you've just raped, do you? Was coming here in the first place my consent?' Kay wrote.

Adam Kay is pictured appearing on The Jonathan Ross Show on November 30, 2019 in London

'Not pulling my hand away when he took my arm  was that a way of saying yes, in a language I'd never been taught, negating everything I would say afterwards?'

Kay said that going to the police was unthinkable.

'Saying it out loud would make it real; I would never be able to deny it or pretend it never happened, which already felt like my only way of getting through it,' he wrote.

He convinced himself his case was flimsy anyway. The police, he thought, would tell him 'you can't get raped if you go somewhere looking specifically for sex'.

For a decade he told no one about what happened to him. 'Maybe I was too ashamed,' he wrote.

'Or maybe I just knew from the moment it happened that I would never forget it: every minute, every second, etched into me in indelible ink, would be with me forever.'

Adam Kay's Undoctored: The Story of a Medic Who Ran Out of Patients, is out on September 13.
The 'grooming-like behaviour' of a school teacher towards Australian Victoria's Secret model Bridget Malcolm when she was a student of his has been uncovered in a series of inappropriate texts and emails.

Aurelio 'Bobby' Gallo, 53, was a high school music teacher at the prestigious all-girls Methodist Ladies' College in Perth.

Ms Malcolm received emails, texts and phone calls from the teacher between 2007 and 2008 and after her graduation at the end of the year.

The emails showed Gallo wanted topless photographs from Ms Malcolm after she left school, gifted her a silver charm, and signed off his messages with 'luv always'.

Gallo had his teaching licence suspended after he was found to have committed 'serious misconduct' by the Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia in August.

A teacher has been suspended for three years after sending inappropriate texts and emails to a student (pictured, Bridget Malcolm) and asking her for photographs of herself

Aurelio 'Bobby' Gallo, 53, was a high school music teacher who taught Bridget Malcolm at the prestigious all-girls Methodist Ladies' College in Perth

Read some of the creepy messages Gallo asked for photographs and complained he hadn't received any 'topless' ones in an email sent on February 2, 2009. 'Glad to hear that you are being looked after and also becoming aware of people,' he wrote. 'Unfortunately you don't always see what you need to. 'The second hand accommodation news was courtesy of [name of another teacher], who went on to tell me that she spoke to you for an hour and inform of the topless photos which you obviously didn't send me!!! Why not may I ask!' Gallo sent another email a day later referring to a special charm he had given her. 'Remember when things get hard hold on to the special charm I gave you and think of all the special things that bring you happiness - I know it will give you strength,' he wrote. Advertisement

The board first received an email about inappropriate behaviour by Gallo in March last year and the complaint was then investigated.

In a document published by the board detailing the decision to suspend Gallo's licence, it found the music teacher had engaged in 'grooming-like behaviour'.

The Board found the pair had initially emailed about school matters but the conversation changed overtime.

Gallo sent an email from his personal account asking for the student's number on July 14, 2007.

He later sent another two emails after Ms Malcolm and a group of students turned up to his property unannounced during the school holidays in the same month.

'By the way don't worry I didn't mind the stalking the other day,' he wrote.

'I will be trying to get something sorted regarding your [instrument] tomorrow, I will let you know how I go if you would like.

'Will you be dropping by this holiday!! HA HA'

Gallo ended another email with the sign-off 'love' and made reference to it again in a separate email sent on December 19, 2007.

@bridgetmalcolm Link in bio for the public notice around my case.  original sound - Bridget Malcolm

Former Victoria's Secret model Bridget Malcolm, 30, was a student at the prestigious all-girls Methodist Ladies' College in Perth, and was taught by Bobby Gallo, 53, who has now lost his teaching licence

Malcolm revealed she was the student Gallo had been found to have had 'serious misconduct' towards in an emotional video

'I hope you and your family are having a well deserved rest,' he wrote. 'I sincerely wish you a safe and holy Christmas and special new year.

'By the way thanks for the birthday wish - NOT. Love Mr Gallo - sorry I mean regards Mr Gallo.'

Gallo continued to email Ms Malcolm after she graduated, requesting to see her when she returned to Perth after she moved overseas.

Ms Malcolm went on to become a model who worked with Victoria's Secret in 2015 and 2016 and for Ralph Lauren and Stella McCartney.

Gallo asked for photographs and complained he hadn't received any 'topless' ones in an email sent on February 2, 2009.

'Glad to hear that you are being looked after and also becoming aware of people,' he wrote.

Malcolm received an outpouring of support on social media for her 'courage and bravery', with the model saying she'd speak more on the matter at a later date

Malcolm was a teenage student at Perth's Methodist Ladies' College (pictured) when Gallo fostered a friendship with her

'Unfortunately you don't always see what you need to.

'The second hand accommodation news was courtesy of [name of another teacher], who went on to tell me that she spoke to you for an hour and inform of the topless photos which you obviously didn't send me!!! Why not may I ask!'

Gallo sent another email a day later referring to a special charm he had given her.

'Remember when things get hard hold on to the special charm I gave you and think of all the special things that bring you happiness - I know it will give you strength,' he wrote.

In another email in March, which Gallo wrote in Italian, the translated message showed him telling Malcolm 'it seems very difficult at times to say what I want'.

The board found Gallo's actions 'constitutes serious misconduct rendering him unfit to be a registered teacher'.

It also found he 'breached professional boundaries in his inappropriate interactions with the student'.

Gallo admitted to the 'serious misconduct' and accepted it was 'inappropriate'.

He denies grooming Ms Malcolm, and has shown 'insight and remorse' into his behaviour, the board found.

Malcolm waked the runway for Victoria's Secret in 2015 and 2016

The model received texts and emails from her teacher during her final school years and after she graduated

'The actions of the teacher were out of character and do not reflect his performance or conduct over the course of his career,' the document read.

The school's principal, Dr Marie Perry, said the school learnt of the 'deeply upsetting' complaint in March last year.

Dr Perry said support has been provided to Ms Malcolm and that none of the inappropriate behaviour was known until the complaint was made.

'This is a deeply upsetting situation and the college sincerely regrets that one of its students was subjected to such behaviour by a then member of the college staff,' she told WA Today.

The Teacher Registration Board of Western Australia chose not to reveal the identity of the student at the centre of the scandal.

Ms Malcolm later revealed she was the student in an emotional video posted to Instagram on Saturday.

'I've gone back and forth on whether or not to waive my right to anonymity because I was a minor when it all happened,' she said.

'But you know I'm not a minor anymore. I'm still in shock, I'm still processing and I've definitely had a lot of feelings today.'

Ms Malcolm received an outpouring of support on social media for her 'courage and bravery', with the model saying she'd speak more on the matter at a later date.

The model said it had been an emotional day after learning her high school music teacher had his teaching licence suspended

The 30-year-old had been sent 'inappropriate' messages by the teacher via email and text
An Australian celebrating his 100th birthday this month was excited to find his letter from The Queen had arrived early, after hearing of her death.

Tasmanian man Lloyd Badcock, 99, and his wife of 75 years Barbara, turning 95 on September 24, were over the moon to receive a letter from The Queen congratulating Mr Badcock on his 100th birthday.

Mr Badcock's birthday is still a few weeks away and he said he was worried he had missed out on the letter from Her Majesty after she died on Thursday.

Lloyd Badcock (pictured with his wife of 75 years, Barbara) was shocked received his 100th birthday letter from Queen Elizabeth II after her death

Queen Elizabeth died surrounded by family at her Balmoral home on September 8, her funeral is set to take place on September 19

'My birthday is not till September 25 and I didn't really want a card from Charles,' he told the Mercury.

The Queen's death begins King Charles III's reign, so future centenarians will receive a letter form him instead.

'I was very sad to hear the news that the Queen had died but very happy when the card from her arrived earlier than I expected and on this significant day,' Mr Badcock said.

'I feel very privileged.'

Mourning people around the world have left flowers, photos and letter at makeshift memorials (pictured, flowers outside the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh)

The couple of 75 years still live independently at their home in Devonport, on Tasmania's north coast, after spending their working lives farming in Forth.

Her Majesty died surrounded by family at her Balmoral home in Scotland on the afternoon of September 8.

Her death prompted an outpouring of grief around the world with people leaving flowers, photos and letters at makeshift memorials.

Her funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey on September 19.
A 9/11 victim who was the only person not pictured on a tribute wall to all 3,000 victims has finally been memorialized with a photograph.

Albert Ogletree's photograph was tracked down in an old high school year book in Michigan and added to the wall of victims at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City ahead of Sunday's 21st anniversary of the terror attack.

Previously an oak leaf had occupied the spot, but a photo of Ogletree attending Romulus High School in Michigan as a freshman in 1966 has now replaced it.

Ogletree was working in the cafeteria of the financial services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, in the World Trade Center's North Tower on September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew a hijacked plane into the building. He did not survive the attack, and his wife died just three years later.

The couple did not have any children, and Ogletree was very camera shy, making it harder to track down a photo of him.

'It is a place no one wishes their loved one to be seen, given the circumstances of why they are there,' chief curator Jan Ramirez said. 'Nonetheless, it is so rewarding to retire that leaf icon tile with the replacement of this quietly compelling portrait.

Albert Ogletree's was missing which prompted a museum worker to do some sleuthing

The name of Albert Ogletree, who was killed on 9/11, was a name represented by an image of an oak leaf at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York

All of those who were killed in the terror attacks on 9/11 are on display at the museum

'It sets up immediately the diversity of the victims, the magnitude,' Ramirez said to CBS News. 'When people are in the gallery they will go to the wall and they will find faces that intrigue them.'

In their attempts to find out more about him and obtain his photo, the Museum staff had tried, unsuccessfully, to locate his employment records at Forte Foods, which serviced Cantor Fitzgerald.

Ogletree's stepdaughter had also paid tribute to him with a Facebook post, but she did not have a photograph of him.

Eventually, museum staff member Grant Llera took on the task of finding Ogletree's photo himself.

'It always bothered me that they didn't have photos  there was a hole in their stories that needed to be filled,' said Llera, 30.

'I spend most of my time doing admissions and answering questions from visitors in the galleries, but I really wanted to take this on,' he said.

He approached genealogy company Ancestry.com who managed to find an address for him in Romulus, Michigan, about 23 miles southwest of Detroit.

Albert Ogletree is pictured during his freshman year in 1966, when he was 15

'I felt that maybe if I could find where he went to high school that maybe they would have a photo of him,' Llera said.

Llera was able to pinpoint the high school he attended and contacted them for a photo but the school did not have an archive of their yearbooks from the 60s.

Romulus councilwoman and retired math teacher Kathy Abdo located Ogletree's black and white photo for the museum last year by looking through the yearbooks which had been housed at the city's Historical Society.

'The school called me and said  you know, we got this request and we don't have any photos  and I said, 'I'll look into it,' Abdo told the Free Press. 'The fact that a Romulus student died in 9/11 made me feel an obligation to find his picture.'

Grant Llera, left, was the museum worker who tracked Ogletree's picture down

Smoke and flames billow from the World Trade Center's twin towers after they were struck by commercial airliners in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 in New York City

'I had an idea of what decade he was in Romulus so I went over and went through all of the yearbooks in the 60s,' Abdo explained.

'I had to go through page by page and that's where I found Albert Ogletree. It just seemed to be the right thing to do.'

The picture of him was taken when he was about 15-years-old and is now in its rightful place on the wall at the museum.

Ogletree was born on Christmas Day in 1951 and lived in Romulus with his parents and a sister. He later moved to New York and married.

The museum said it found an obituary for Ogletree's wife, who died in 2004. The couple had no known descendants.

He did, however, have a stepdaughter, Justine Jones, who had posted a tribute online.

She recalled Ogletree as 'a loving man who played an important role in her life,' and a 'skillful electronics repairman.'

Romulus councilwoman and retired math teacher Kathy Abdo located Ogletree's black and white photo for the museum last year by looking through the yearbooks

Ogletree's image was located in his high school yearbook

Finally, Ogletree's name has a photo to accompany it ensuring he will never be forgotten

Jones confirmed that the youthful yearbook photo was indeed Ogletree, whose appearance had remained largely unchanged over the years.

'She said his face was the same as she remembered, and she was really happy to have a photo of him,' Llera said.

Jones said she did not have any photos of him because 'he did not like having his photo taken and was camera shy.'

In June, the penultimate victim whose photo had not been found was finally filled - that of Antonio Dorsey Pratt.

Pratt, 43, was a cook at an investment bank canteen on the 101st floor of the North Tower when the first plane struck.

'Tony' Pratt, 43, became the penultimate face added to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum photo wall

'Tony' left behind no digital footprint, with staff at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum cropping, enlarging and retouching a group photo of Pratt with his co-workers.

Pratt took the food service job at the Cantor Fitzgerald cafeteria just a week before 9/11 - and become one of 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed in the attacks.

Memorial CEO Alice Greenwald said: 'In order to focus on his beautiful face, a lot of work had to be done to zero in and enlarge and enlarge to the point where it could be appropriate for the scale of the installation.'

Pratt's inclusion, replacing an oak tree placeholder symbol, represented the end of 'a process that began almost 16 years ago, when we began work on just even imagining what the 9/11 Memorial and Museum would be and what it would contain,' she said.

Pratt is survived by wife, Asmareli Soga, whose teenage children he helped raise.

Tony's remains were finally found on September 11, 2004, allowing Soga and her son and daughter to have closure.

'Now maybe he can be in peace and we can have his funeral,' she said. 'Its a miracle. God is good.'

Soga added: 'But after so many years, all of a sudden, I feel more hurt. This is opening up old wounds again. The pain never goes away. It stays with you.'

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which stands between the two fallen towers, holds enlarged photos of the 2,977 people killed in the four Al Qaeda attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93.

It also memorializes the six victims of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing masterminded by Ramzi Yousef, whose uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was 'principal architect of the 9/11 attacks,' according to the 9/11 Commission report.

United 93 was brought down by its passengers in south Pennsylvania, most likely en route to the White House.

All 44 on board, including four Al Qaeda terrorists, were killed.

Standing proud: The buildings of the World Trade Center (pictured in 1976, three years after completion) were a distinctive feature of the New York City skyline - and the world's tallest

New Yorkers were forced to sprint through downtown Manhattan as the buildings fell

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum, built in 2006, sits between the gaps left by the fallen towers

Cantor Fitzgerald, which housed its corporate headquarters and New York City office between floors 101 and 105 of the North Tower, lost more employees on 9/11 than any other firm.

CEO Howard Lutnick escaped the attack because he was taking his son to his first day of kindergarten.

But Howard's brother, Gary, was among 1,402 people killed in the North Tower.

A further 614 died in the South Tower, which was hit by United Airlines Flight 175 seventeen minutes later.

Nearly 350 New York City Firefighters were slain on September 11, in addition to 23 NYPD officers and 37 Port Authority cops.

Citizens of 115 countries were among the victims.

More than 2,000 cancer deaths since 9/11 have been attributed to toxic chemical exposure in the wake of the attacks, particularly among first responders.
The number of Australians dying with Covid in nursing homes has more than tripled this year.

More than 3,000 aged care home residents died with Covid in 2022 compared to 917 during the first two years of the pandemic.

Deaths also climbed since the Albanese Government took office with an average of 102 people dying every week since the May election compared to 75 per week under the Coalition in the five months leading up to that.

Covid deaths in aged care have more than tripled this year compared to the first two years of the pandemic

One independent MP described the rise in mortality as 'terrifying' while the federal opposition blasted the government, accusing it of failing to keep old people safe.

Independent South Australian MP Rebekha Sharkie said the increase in aged care Covid deaths was 'terrifying'.

'I think if I had a parent or grandparent in aged care, I'd be very worried,' she told The Age.

She said weariness from dealing Covid led to a drop-off in the scrutiny and accountability of the management of the virus.

'I think there's probably an element of Covid fatigue in the media and perhaps in the parliament,' she said.

'It's almost like there's a political will for Coivd to go away, and it hasn't gone away. So we're just not going to really talk about it anymore.'

Aged and Community Care Providers Association interim chief executive Paul Sadler warned in July that Covid outbreaks were putting nursing homes under pressure.

SA Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie said the tripling of Covid deaths in aged care was 'terrifying'

Aged and Community Care Providers Association interim CEO Paul Sadler warned in July that Covid was putting aged care homes under pressure

He said up to two-thirds of aged care homes would suffer Covid contagions, which threatened a crisis in staffing when aged care employees were forced to isolate.

'The increased availability in surge workforce including the Australian Defence Force over the past week has been welcome, but there is still a shortfall,' he said.

'The reality is we can't leave older people without adequate levels of care for too long.'

He called for an increased surge workforce, including ADF personnel, until at least September.

Over the longer term, Mr Sadler said the federal government must plan to fix chronic workforce shortfalls, prepare for future outbreaks, and implement reforms recommended by the recent royal commission into aged care.

'The coming weeks are critical for aged care. We must do all we can to put the protection of older people first and support our aged care workers,' he said.

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells told The Age that the government put in place a 'winter plan' to deal with Covid in nursing homes that left 'no stone unturned'.

She said access to antiviral treatments and vaccination, as well as greater preparedness in the sector, caused dramatic reduction in the case fatality rate.

The government extended the military's role in aged care until the end of September and a surge workforce provided 1,704 shifts last week, she said.

Since the election of Anthony Albanese's government Covid deaths in aged care have jumped from 75 per week to 102

Aged care homes have been hit with a surge in Covid cases during the Omnicron waves this year

Opposition aged care spokesperson Anne Rushton said the government was 'tracking in the opposite direction' from everything they promised to achieve.

Deaths are climbing due to the high number of Covid cases but the disease is proving less deadly to aged care residents.

In the first year of the pandemic a third of people (33 per cent) who contracted Covid in nursing homes were died with the disease.

This has dropped to almost a tenth of that (3.5 per cent) in 2022.

Covid cases have also been falling in nursing homes over recent weeks, along with cases in the general community.
Heartwarming footage shows a three-month-old baby girl smiling after she was revived by an off-duty nurse when the infant stopped breathing on a plane.

Tamara Panzino was a passenger on Spirit Airlines Flight 1691 on Thursday night from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Orlando, Florida, when a three-month-old infant called Anjele suddenly became unresponsive about 30 minutes after takeoff, Fox35 reported.

Panzino said she quickly reacted to the medical emergency on the aircraft by massaging the baby's chest and legs. Soon after, the baby was heard breathing again, much to the relief of her terrified parents.

Fox35 meteorologist Ian Cassette was onboard the plane and recorded the crowd's reaction after the incident was over, as passengers applauded the nurse.

'On my flight back from Pittsburgh to Orlando, a baby stopped breathing three rows ahead of me,' Casette shared in a Twitter thread along with footage of cheers and praise in reaction to Panzino's efforts. 'Thankfully a nurse (Tamara Panzino) was able to get the baby to breathe again.'

Three-month-old infant called Anjele suddenly stopped breathing on a Spirit Airlines flight from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Orlando, Florida, on Thursday, 30 minutes after takeoff before being revived by a 20-year nurse

Tamara Panzino, a veteran nurse, stepped up and massaged the baby girl's legs and chest to revive her

Cassette also shared a clip of Panzino with Anjele happily smiling in her arms in front of flight attendants and voyagers.

It remains unclear what caused the newborn's respiratory issues. The baby girl's parents, who have not been named, said that they had never previously experienced anything similar to what happened on Thursday.

Panzino, a 20-year veteran nurse, added after the medical incident that it made her 'feel really good' to help and contribute to saving the child's life.

'When you have to step forward and do what's right, you do it. It was just a happy story, and it made me feel really good,' she told Fox35.

On my flight back from Pittsburgh to Orlando, a baby stopped breathing three rows ahead of me. Thankfully a nurse (Tamara Panzino) was able to get the baby to breathe again. (1) pic.twitter.com/6oDgFCG7FS  Ian Cassette FOX 35 (@iancassette_wx) September 9, 2022

Fox35 meteorologist Ian Cassette was onboard Spirit Airlines flight 1691 and provided updates from the air when the medical emergency happened two days ago

'They praised the positive energy of the plane and the heroic actions of Tamara for saving her,' Cassette wrote in a tweet, referring to the gratitude shown by Anjele's parents towards Panzino.

The flight did not have to stop for an emergency landing and even arrived in Orlando seven minutes ahead of schedule, according to FlightRadar 24.

In a statement, Spirit Airlines communicated: 'We're currently gathering information to learn more. We thank our crew and guest for the quick response.'

'Our Flight Attendants are trained to respond to medical emergencies onboard and utilize several resources, including communicating with our designated on-call medical professionals on the ground, using onboard medical kits, and receiving assistance from credentialed medical professionals traveling on the flight.'
Advertisement

King Charles III has been officially proclaimed as Australia's new sovereign following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Governor-General David Hurley made the proclamation at midday outside Parliament House at Canberra on Sunday.

'Whereas because of the death of our pleasant and glorious Queen Elizabeth II, the Crown has solely and rightfully come to Prince Charles Philip Arthur George,' he said.

Governor-General David Hurley made the proclamation at midday outside Parliament House at Canberra on Sunday

The proclamation ceremony began with a procession of the Australian Defence Force followed by a welcome to country

An Indigenous spiritual dance then followed before a 21-gun salute rang out across the capital

'Whereas because of the death of our pleasant and glorious Queen Elizabeth II, the Crown has solely and rightfully come to Prince Charles Philip Arthur George,' Mr Hurley said

'This 11th day of September, 2022, and in the first year of his Majesty's reign, signed by me as Governor-General and countersigned by my command, by the honourable Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia.

'God save the King.'

The proclamation ceremony began with a procession of the Australian Defence Force followed by a welcome to country.

Following the proclamation, God Save the King was played, with flags raised to full mast.

An Indigenous spiritual dance then followed before a 21-gun salute rang out across the capital.

MPs and senators from across the political divide were also in attendance to watch the ceremonial proceedings.

Large crowds also gathered outside Parliament House to witness the proclamation, with some attendees waiting for more than an hour.

Mr Albanese recommended Mr Hurley make the proclamation during a meeting of the Executive Council at Government House at 11am.

MPs and senators from across the political divide were also in attendance to watch the ceremonial proceedings

Large crowds also gathered outside Parliament House to witness the proclamation, with some attendees waiting for more than an hour

The Australian flag, which was lowered to half mast out of respect for the late Queen Elizabeth II, was raised back to full mast during the proclamation

The Federation Guard standing outside Parliament House while crowds formed in the distance at midday on Sunday

'Queen Elizabeth was admired for her devotion to duty, for her commitment to the people of the United Kingdom, to the people of the Commonwealth including Australia and indeed to the world,' he said.

'Today, we mark formally the new head of state in King Charles III and the proclamation, the first in my lifetime and the first in a majority of Australians' lifetime, is an historic event.'

Mr Hurley said the council would build on the work done in the 'second Elizabethan age'.

'Australia is an unfinished product, and is now entering a new era,' he said.

'Your loyalty to our King and your service to Australia through your work in the parliament will assist our country to build on the successes of the second Elizabethan age.'

State governors will make their own proclamations at ceremonies around the country.

The Sydney Opera House sails will continue to be illuminated in the Queen's honour, as are other landmarks.

A 21 gun salute was given during the proclamation of King Charles III outside Parliament House in Canberra on Sunday

The Federation Guard attending the proclamation of King Charles III outside Parliament House in Canberra on Sunday

Massive crowds watched on as the proclamation of King Charles III kicked off on Sunday

Parliament House was lined with huge crowds as the proclamation of King Charles III kicked underway on Sunday

On Saturday, Mr Albanese, Mr Hurley, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton laid wreaths to honour The Queen at Parliament House in Canberra.

'She was a constant reassuring presence,' Mr Albanese said.

The prime minister and Governor-General Hurley will travel to London on Thursday to attend the funeral at Westminster Abbey.

It will take place on September 19 at 8pm AEST.

Before then, The Queen's coffin will be driven from Balmoral Castle to Scotland's capital Edinburgh and be flown to London later in the week.

It will remain at Buckingham Palace before being taken to Westminster Hall to lie in state for four days, allowing the public to pay their respects.

Governor-General David Hurley and prime minister Anthony Albanese at the proclamation

The Federation Guard arrive at the proclamation of King Charles III outside Parliament House on Sunday

Governor-General David Hurley and Anthony Albanese flanked by foreign minister Penny Wong and defence minister Richard Marles following the meeting of the Executive Council

Governor-General David Hurley and prime minister Anthony Albanese at the meeting of the Executive Council at Government House before the proclamation was made outside Parliament House

Mr Albanese recommended Mr Hurley make the proclamation during a meeting of the Executive Council at Government House at 11am

While no formal mourning period has been declared - unlike the UK, which has set aside 10 days - Australians continued to publicly mourn on Saturday.

Sandra Alexandridis burst into tears outside Melbourne's makeshift memorial while remembering The Queen.

'She was a rock of society... it's like you've lost your grandmother,' she told AAP.

Warren Fairfax, 82, visited Government House in Sydney on Saturday, 65 years after receiving a Queen's Scout award there signed by her.

'I wanted to come back and just pay respects to her... I just wanted to do that today,' Mr Fairfax told AAP.

'Today, we mark formally the new head of state in King Charles III and the proclamation, the first in my lifetime and the first in a majority of Australians' lifetime, is an historic event,' Mr Albanese said during a meeting of the Executive Council earlier on Sunday

Governor-General David Hurley and prime minister Anthony Albanese with ministers at a special meeting of the Federal Executive Council at Government House

Prime minister Anthony Albanese arrives for the meeting of the Executive Council at 11am on Sunday
The New York Times newspaper has been condemned for publishing an article hours after the Queen died, saying the murder of her cousin Lord Mountbatten by the IRA was karmic.

It also claimed that Her Majesty helped obscure a bloody history of decolonisation during her reign.

In the favourite newspaper of Americas liberal establishment, Harvard University professor Maya Jasanoff wrote: In a karmic turn, the Irish Republican Army assassinated the queens relative Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India (and the architect of Elizabeths marriage to his nephew, Prince Philip), in 1979.

Harvard University professor Maya Jasanoff (pictured) wrote: In a karmic turn, the Irish Republican Army assassinated the queens relative Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India (and the architect of Elizabeths marriage to his nephew, Prince Philip), in 1979.

Lord Mountbatten was murdered when the IRA blew up his fishing boat as he set sail with family members off the coast of Mullaghmore, County Sligo.

Mountbatten, 79, his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, 14, and 15-year-old deckhand Paul Maxwell were killed instantly.

Lady Doreen Brabourne, 83, the mother-in-law of Mountbattens eldest daughter, died the next day.

The attack devastated the Royal family, especially the then Prince Charles who considered him a father figure. Last year, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald apologised for the murders.

Lord Tebbit  who survived the IRAs 1984 Brighton bomb attack on the Tory Party conference, which left his wife paralysed  said last night: The New York Times is now well known for being a very anti-British newspaper. This is not a surprise but feels particularly egregious in the wake of the Queens death. Its the sort of scum that rises to the top of dirty water. The article has led to a deluge of complaints, with one reader branding it disgusting and shameful, and another saying: This is uncalled for on the day of the Queens death. Really?

A source who works for the paper told The Mail on Sunday: The New York Times has always been considered Americas paper of record but it has been taken over by the woke brigade.

Lord Mountbatten was murdered when the IRA blew up his fishing boat as he set sail with family members off the coast of Mullaghmore, County Sligo.

To say Mountbattens murder was somehow deserved is appalling and shows how out of touch they now are with public opinion.

The Queens death has dominated the news in America.

CNN has seen ratings nearly double in the past few days, according to a well-placed source.

Major news networks including NBC, ABC and CBS all broke into regular programming to announce the Queens death and to carry King Charless first address.

The source said: When President Biden made his last address to the nation, the networks didnt cover it live. That goes to show how important the Queens death and Charless succession is over here.

All the networks have seen a leap in ratings because Americans love anything to do with the Royals, and the Queen in particular.

Publishers including HarperCollins are rushing to publish tribute books honouring the Queen. People magazine has two special issues coming out and is planning a King Charles Coronation special edition.

A source said: The Queen was universally loved and no more so than in America. There is a huge appetite for any tributes to her. People cannot get enough.

President Biden has announced he will attend the Queens funeral.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II has dominated the news in America and the rest of the world

US President Joe Biden has announced that he will travel to the UK to attend the Queens funeral

At Ye Old Kings Head in Santa Monica, California, a British-themed pub and gift shop, staff member Caroline Beddie said: We have been deluged by people walking in off the street wanting to feel part of it, to share condolences, and talk about our Queens wonderful life.

We have a condolence book out which will be sent to Buckingham Palace after the funeral.

Last night, Donald Trump paid tribute to the Queen on MailOnline, writing: Spending time with Her Majesty was one of the most extraordinary honours of my life.

I grew up in a household where Queen Elizabeth  her grace, her charm, her nobility  were deeply admired, especially by my mother, who came from Scotland. In the face of all adversity, she embodied the uniquely British attribute of a firm and quiet resolve. She was Great Britain at its very best.
Members of the military and first responders stand in salute as an American flag is unfurled on the side of the Pentagon to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on Sept. 11, in Arlington, Virginia. AFP-Yonhap



President Joe Biden is set to mark the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon, a year after he ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.



In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in the face of a countrywide Taliban advance that returned the fundamentalist group to power. A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul's airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.



White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden in his remarks Sunday will recognize the impact the 2001 attacks had on the U.S. and the world and honor the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaida hijackers took control of commercial planes and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.



''I think you'll hear him talk about how America will stay vigilant to the threat but also look to future threats and challenges and be able to learn to meet those threats and challenges,'' Kirby said.





President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff, participate in a wreath ceremony on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the Pentagon in Washington, Sept. 11, 2021, standing at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial site, which commemorates the lives lost at the Pentagon and onboard American Airlines Flight 77. AP-Yonhap
More than 50,000 readers have left touching tributes to the Queen in the Daily Mails online condolence book.

Chrissie from the US wrote: You were my mothers beloved Queen and mine... we loved you Elizabeth! Safe journey!

Emma and Carolyn Thorne wrote: As a prison officer I have served Her Majesty for 22 years.

More than 50,000 readers have left touching tributes to the Queen in the Daily Mails online condolence book. Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland

I met her in Stafford in 2006 and it is a memory I will always have. My wife and I offer our condolences.

Susan Gulliver said that, despite not meeting the Queen, she admired her greatly. The world feels a much less stable and constant place without her leadership by example. God bless.

Frank Musoke in Uganda posted: Her legacy will live on, in our hearts, Africa and the world forever and ever.

Around the country, wellwishers gathered and queued to leave flowers, pay their respects and sign condolence books.

The Royal Family is also encouraging anyone to leave messages of condolence on its official website.

The Church of England has set up a similar system, where some messages are displayed publicly.

One message, from Bridget Wisner, read: We met in Albert Square, Manchester in May 2012. You walked up to the crowd and recognised the pensioners I stood with. One of them, Pearl, stood next to me. You walked straight up to her and addressed her by name, asking how she was getting on since the loss of her husband. I was stunned, as was Pearl.
A man arrested over the IRA's bombing of Manchester city centre in 1996 has been released without charge.

Police held the suspect at Birmingham airport on Thursday night as he entered Britain.

He was interviewed by detectives from the North West counter-terror policing unit and released on Friday night.

It is thought to be the first time the suspect had travelled to Britain for several years.

A man arrested over the IRA's bombing of Manchester city centre in 1996 has been released without charge. Police held the suspect at Birmingham airport on Thursday night as he entered Britain

The 3,300lb bomb in a parked lorry injured 212 people but no one died as it caused 1billion of damage in June 1996.

It was the largest explosive to be detonated on mainland Britain since the Second World War.

The IRA phoned warnings 90 minutes before the blast and 75,000 people were evacuated.

In 2006 police said it was unlikely anyone would be tried for planting the bomb because of a lack of evidence.

The inquiry reopened in 2016 and last year police said a review of evidence had produced 'new, albeit limited, investigative opportunities'.

In June The Mail on Sunday revealed that a victim of the bombing, former rail worker Barry Laycock, is suing former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in the High Court over his alleged role in the blast.

Mr Laycock and two other victims are suing Mr Adams over his alleged role in directing the IRA's mainland bombing campaign from 1973 to 1996.

It includes the 3,000lb truck bomb blast in London's Docklands in 1996, which killed two.

Mr Adams says he was never a member of the IRA and vigorously denies all the claims.
The tidal power of the Thames could be used to help Parliament cope with the cost-of-living crisis under radical plans suggested by the Commons Speaker.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle has asked experts involved in the massive but long-delayed project to refurbish the Palace of Westminster to look into the feasibility of generating hydroelectricity for the Grade I-listed complex from the river that flows past it.

The idea  to consider installing hydroelectric turbines alongside the famous Commons Terrace  is understood to be just one of the options for reducing energy costs on the parliamentary estate, which is also a World Heritage site.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle has asked experts involved in the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster to look into the feasibility of generating hydroelectricity from the River Thames

The Speakers proposals emerged after Liz Truss announced she was lifting the ban on fracking as part of the Governments response to the energy crisis.

The new Prime Minister told MPs that the moratorium in place since 2019 would be lifted in areas where local communities support the technology.

Last night, sources close to Sir Lindsay dismissed warnings that the Thames was not deep enough at Westminster to install a turbine.

One said: It might be too shallow at the House of Lords end but at the Commons end its much deeper.

Allies also pointed out that the late Queen had installed hydroelectric turbines at Windsor Castle and at her beloved Balmoral.

Two years ago, she overcame objections from the local council to win permission for a turbine at Balmoral expected to generate power worth 650,000 a year  enough to supply the estate, with a potential surplus to be sold to the National Grid.

The Speakers proposals emerged after Liz Truss announced she was lifting the ban on fracking as part of the Governments response to the energy crisis

However, some experts poured cold water on Sir Lindsays plan  with one saying that a Terrace-side turbine would probably only generate enough power to boil a kettle.

Neil Kermode, of the European Marine Energy Centre, warned that the river outside the Commons was too shallow to make a turbine worthwhile.

He said: Its about two metres deep at low tide so that would limit the size of machines.

Some experts poured cold water on Sir Lindsays plan  with one saying that a Terrace-side turbine at the Parliament site would probably only generate enough power to boil a kettle

The Port of London Authority indicated that current technology is not well suited to environments like the Thames, with its large tidal range and heavy silt burden.

There have also been concerns about the effect of a turbine on river traffic.

The Speakers allies admitted it was not clear yet whether it would even be possible to install a turbine but insisted the idea should at least be examined.
Ukraine has made stunning advances in a rapid counter-offensive that has caught the Kremlin by surprise, with intelligence experts hailing a 'major turning point' in the six-month war.

It has led to the recapture of several key towns in the east as Vladimir Putin's forces fled in disarray from a collapsing frontline.

The speed of advance, with photographs shared by Kyiv officials of their troops raising the Ukrainian flag in liberated towns after advancing more than 30 miles, has sparked open talk in Moscow that their invasion will end in humiliating defeat.

Towns entered by Ukrainian troops include Kupiansk, a key rail centre whose loss would severely hinder Russian supply lines. There are also reports of Putin's troops and collaborators fleeing Izyum, another crucial logistics hub for the invasion.

The Ukrainian advance has been so swift that fleeing Russian troops have left behind a logistics bonanza of ammunition, equipment and most of all seemingly fully-functioning heavy weapons, of the sort that Kyiv has been crying out for from its Western partners for months.

The offensive south of Kharkiv, which began last Tuesday, took the thinly defended Russian lines by surprise, leading to Western intelligence agencies speaking of mass retreats, mass surrenders and mass casualties that the Russian Ministry of Defence has dressed up as a 're-grouping.'

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Saturday that troops fleeing from the Balakliya and Izyum areas would be regrouped to Ukraine's occupied Donetsk region.

Ukrainian soldiers hold a flag at a rooftop in Kupiansk as their lightning offensive causes Russian lines to collapse

Ukrainian solders pose for a photo beneath the sign of Izium, a key logistics hub and prize capture

Ukrainian service members pose for in the recently liberated settlement of Vasylenkove in the Kharkiv region

Destroyed armored vehicles litter the road in Balakliya, Kharkiv region after Ukrainian forces smashed through Russian lines

Ukrainian servicemen raises his fist aloft in victory as his unit drives near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region

The blue patch represents almost a thousand square miles of territory liberated by Ukraine, and shows the counteroffensive taking aim at Liman and Lysychansk

Zelensky hail's Russia's decision to flee Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces were making 'a good decision' in fleeing a counter-offensive by his country that has made significant gains in the east and south. Mr Zelensky's comments, in a video released by his office, came hours after Moscow said it was pulling back troops in part of the Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces have taken control of substantial territory in recent days. 'The Russian army in these days is showing the best that it can do - showing its back,' the president said. 'And, of course, it's a good decision for them to run.' Advertisement

Natalia Popova, adviser to the head of Kharkiv regional council, shared images on social media of Ukrainian troops holding their flag in front of Kupiansk city hall with a crumpled Russian flag at their feet.

The town was seized by Russia within days of their invasion in February. 'Kupiansk is Ukraine. Glory to the armed forces of Ukraine,' wrote Popova.

Russian military journalists yesterday reported that their troops fled Izyum on the only remaining road in another sign of the apparent rout, which has seen Putin's forces lose control of an estimated 3,000 square kilometres in days.

The dramatic advances follow President Volodymyr Zelensky's declaration last Friday night that 30 settlements had been liberated in Kharkiv region over the past few days as his forces sliced through a weak spot in Russian lines.

The capture of Kupiansk, if confirmed, is a huge setback for Putin that potentially leaves up to 10,000 Kremlin troops cut off from supplies. Abandoned boxes of ammunition in the town underlined the speed of their retreat.

The latest reports indicate that the town of Liman fell to Ukrainian liberators with little resistance.

It is located just 25 miles from the twin cities of Lysychnask and Severodonetsk that fell to Russian forces at the start of July after a long and grinding battle.

There are even unconfirmed reports of Ukrainian forces entering Donetsk international airport, the subject of two separate battles between Ukrainian and pro-Moscow forces in 2014 and 2015.

The airport has been in rebel-held hands for over eight years, and its return to Ukrainian control would signal Kyiv's first recovery of territory lost that pre-dates Putin's Feb 24 invasion.

This morning, Kyiv soldiers were pictured with their own nation's flag as they claim to have retaken Kupyansk - something Russia disputes

A commanding officer of an anti-air unit of Ukraine's Armed Forces loads a rocket launcher in his SUV as they prepare to support infantry in liberating Balakliya in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Sept 8

A Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces as they moved to recapture Balakliya earlier in the week

Denis Pushilin, the head of the separatist Donestk People's Republic, reported on the fighting amid rumours that he had fled Donetsk.

The situation in Liman 'remains quite difficult,' he said in a video post from a moving car. 'Just like a number of other locations in the north of the republic.'

And Serhiy Haidai, the Russia-installed governor of the Luhansk region, said that Ukrainian units had even reached the outskirts of Lysychansk itself.

'Lysychnask, a great Ukrainian city. There will be a lot of reconstruction work,' he said in a cryptic message.

In Hrakove, one of the recaptured villages, eyewitness told of seeing burned-out military vehicles bearing the hated 'Z' symbol of the Kremlin invasion.

There was also more evidence of Russian atrocities. One local man disclosed that the occupiers forced him to bury two bodies at gunpoint. He then led police to a grave that contained a pair of corpses showing signs of torture.

Maria Avdeeva, a security analyst who visited Hrakove after it was liberated three days ago, told The Mail on Sunday that the 50 remaining residents were in 'very bad condition' after spending six months 'terrified' while hiding in basements. 'They could hear the generators providing electricity for the Russians but they had no power, no phone connection, their village is almost totally destroyed and they have had no idea what has been happening.'

A destroyed car bearing the Russian Z marking is seen in the village of Hrakove, liberated by Ukrainian forces just days earlier on September 9

A local man helps authorities exhume two bodies from a grave as part of a war crimes investigation in a village liberated by Ukrainian forces just days earlier

Why has Ukraine's offensive been so successful? After seven months of repelling Russian offensives to a stalemate, what explains Ukraine's sudden, tumultuous success on the attack? It appears to be the product of a brilliant strategy concocted by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who organised the defence of Kyiv. The first phase was to lure Russian troops to the southern Kherson region by announcing a forthcoming counteroffensive to recapture the regional capital. '[It] was a big special disinformation operation,' said Taras Berezovets, press officer for the Bohun brigade of Ukraine's special forces. 'Meanwhile [our] guys in Kharkiv were given the best of western weapons, mostly American,' he said. Among these were US-supplied HARM missiles, which were designed to take out Russian air defence radars, paving the way for Ukrainian air support. Once the Russians had massed around 30,000 troops around Kherson to ward off the counterattack, precision missiles took out the fixed bridges along the Russians' rear over the Dnipro River, leaving them effectively stranded. This left Russian lines in the Kharkiv region poorly defended and without many strategic reserves to plug any holes if the Ukrainians broke through, which they did. The Ukrainians amassed tanks in the Kharkiv region, which Russian commanders took no notice of, and then launched a classic lightning attack to smash through Russian lines. But to really explain why the Russian lines collapsed so spectacularly, one has to look at the quality of the troops manning them. It is reported that the lines around Kharkiv were defended by 'slave soldiers' forcibly conscripted within the breakaway DPR with very little will to fight. These solders reportedly abandoned their posts and their equipment to flee, some apparently disguising themselves as civilians and the Ukrainian offensive becoming more of a manhunt. There are reports of hundreds killed and thousands taken prisoner by the Ukrainians. And finally, the Russian army has long been hollowed out by corruption at every level, which leaves its equipment unmaintained, its troops poorly equipped and morale at rock bottom. Advertisement

Ukraine's unexpected advance in the east came as a surprise as it is just one week since Kyiv announced the start of a long-awaited counter-attack to reclaim Russian-occupied terrain hundreds of kilometres away at the opposite end of the battlefront in Kherson in the south.

Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University, said Kyiv has exploited Russia's movement of its strongest forces to shore up defences in Kherson. 'This is big,' he said. 'Once troops start being pushed back, then it can be hard to stop. If Russia cannot mobilise more forces, they are in serious trouble.'

Even one Russia-appointed stooge official in the Kharkiv region, Vitaly Ganchev, admitted: 'The very fact of a breach of our defences is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces.'

Earlier Saturday, the British Ministry of Defence told reporters that Russian forces were likely taken by surprise by the speed, scale and ferocity of the Ukrainian assault.

'The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,' the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.

The Institute for the Study of War, an influential US-based think-tank, said it appeared that 'disorganised Russian forces [were] caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance.' They cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized in the advance around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The Institute for the Study of War said Kupiansk's recapture would 'severely degrade' Russian ground lines of communication.

Russian social-media channels published footage of traffic jams formed by cars fleeing the fighting, admitting they included panicking collaborators who feared reprisals from Ukrainian police or partisans. In another setback for Putin, pictures emerged last week of an officer on his knees after being captured.

He is thought to be Lieutenant General Andrei Sychevoi, the highest-ranking Russian officer taken prisoner since the Second World War. Oleksandr V Danylyuk, an intelligence expert and head of the Centre for Defence Reforms think-tank, said: 'We are witnessing a major turning point. You can expect some more surprises soon.'

Moscow's defence ministry published video footage that purported to show reinforcement troops rushing towards the Kharkiv region. But there is increasing dissent from prominent pro-war and nationalist figures, often with military links, who accuse defence chiefs of bungling the invasion.

These include the influential Igor Girkin, a former intelligence colonel involved in the pro-Russian separatist insurgency in Donbas eight years ago, who cited military sources in discussing the 'outstanding audacity' of Ukrainian attacks.

He has predicted the war will end with the 'complete defeat' of Russia.
Pop star vicar Richard Coles has led calls for the late Queen to be given an epithet, suggesting 'Elizabeth the Dutiful'.

The former Church of England priest praised the monarch for 'keeping her promise' to the nation to serve for her 'whole life', 'whether it be long or short'.

In an opinion piece in today's Sunday Times, Reverend Coles said his time as a vicar meant he had familiarised himself with all the Kings and Queens of England who have epithets - including Ethelred the Unready, Alfred the Great, Ferdinand the Fickle and - his favourite - Erik the Priest Hater.

But, the former vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire added, 'What of Elizabeth II?'

Coles first came to prominence as part of the 1980s band the Communards, achieving three top ten hits, including 'Don't Leave Me This Way'.

Pop star vicar Richard Coles has led calls for the late Queen to be given an epithet, suggesting 'Elizabeth the Dutiful'

The vicar, who is also a writer and radio presenter, said: 'She understood her role was to unite a nation in a time of adversity.

'The job of our leaders is to hold us together. What did they think they were doing? The Queen understood without having to be told.'

First, he said, he considered Elizabeth the Long-Lived due to her 96 years of age and longest reign in English history, overseeing 15 Prime Ministers and celebrating her Platinum Jubilee in June.

Another option was Elizabeth the Far-Travelled, as modern transport allowed the Queen to go further than any other monarch before - going around the world by car, plane and ship.

Boris Johnson referred to the Queen as Elizabeth the Great in a touching personal tribute in his first speech from the backbenches.

The former Church of England priest praised the monarch (pictured in her official portrait in June 1987) for 'keeping her promise' to the nation to serve for her 'whole life', 'whether it be long or short'

Mr Johnson had met the Queen for the last time at Balmoral on Tuesday, 48 hours before she died, to end his time as Prime Minister.

Liz Truss then met with the Queen, where she was officially appointed into the role, in Her Majesty's last face-to-face political action before her 70-year reign came to an end.

But Reverend Coles said 'the Great' could refer to the length of the reign rather than the achievements of the Queen herself.

He concluded: 'In a world that finds it impossible to commit to lunch, she kept the promise she made when she became heir to the throne, that her whole life, whether it be long or short, would be devoted to our service.

'I would choose Elizabeth the Dutiful.'
Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot sparked outrage after deciding to move 64 migrants on a bussed to the Windy City to a neighboring Republican suburb.

On Wednesday, 147 migrants were arrived in Chicago, city officials told Fox 32.

Hours later, 64 of them were taken to a Hampton Inn hotel in Burr Ridge - 20 miles southwest from downtown - where they will be housed for at least the next 30 days.

Republican Mayor of Burr Ridge, Gary Grasso, directed his anger at Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker for using the migrants as 'political pawns.'

He said: 'We are very unhappy that nobody from the city, from the state called and told me'

Most of the migrants, who are refugees, come from South American countries, including Peru and Colombia.

'As is my understanding, this hotel, about a year ago, when refugees came in from Afghanistan, apparently accepted several either through faith-based or charitable organizations, but now the state assumes they can just send migrants,' Grasso told Fox 32.

'This isn't about them, the migrants are fine, they're being used as political pawns by the governor and mayor,' he added.

The town of Burr Ridge - 20 miles southwest of Chicago, Illinois - saw the arrival of 64 migrants from the US-Mexican border this week without any formal announcements made from Illinois and Chicago officials

Republican Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso, who is the grandson of immigrants who came to the US, criticized Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for using the refugees as 'political pawns' and moving them to the GOP suburb

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced in the summer that he would be sending buses of hundreds of immigrants, mostly from South America, to northern states due to the southern border crisis

The Greater Chicago Food Depository dropped off plates of flood at the hotel on Thursday for the legal refugees. Grasso added that no unaccompanied minors were among the 64 newcomers who were checked by the Chicago Health Department.

'We're more than happy for people to find freedom, it is hypocrisy by the mayor of Chicago to complain about the governor of Texas  I do agree with what he's doing  the city of Chicago says it's going to be a sanctuary city which I oppose  but there must be vacant hotel rooms in Chicago,' the mayor of Burr Ridge stressed.

'This is hundreds of people in a city of millions. Why are they sending them out to the Republican suburbs? You have to wonder,' Grasso said in a further dig at Lightfoot.

A representative of the Burr Ridge Village Hall told NBC5 that the 64 migrants were sent to the hotel after being originally housed at the Salvation Army Shield of Hope in Chicago.

The Hampton Inn, which was previously used to host refugees from Afghanistan, 'does not give carte blanche to the governor or the mayor to send a couple of bus loads of migrants to our village without telling us,' Grasso angrily expressed.

'The border situation on the southern border is a totally different situation than Afghan refugees. It's total arrogance for the state to assume they can send migrants to the suburbs around Chicago,' the Republican also said of the humanitarian crisis on the Texas-Mexico border.

The Hampton Inn, where all 64 refugees are staying, was previously used as a shelter for asylum seekers from Afghanistan

Immigrants coming from Texas' border with Mexico are shown as they are expected to stay at least 30 days at the hotel, the Illinois Department of Human Services confirmed

Over the last week, more migrants have continued to arrive at the Salvation Army and other shelters in Chicago after being bused from Texas as part of an initiative from Gov. Greg Abbott designed to send asylum-seekers to northern, Democrat-led "sanctuary cities."

Chicago became a sanctuary city in 2012 when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance. The ordinance protects residents' rights to access city services regardless of immigration status.

It also states that Chicago police officers cannot arrest individuals on the basis of immigration status alone.

Lightfoot has slammed rival Abbott on several occasions for not having 'any morals, humanity or shame.'

'Let me say loud and clear to Greg Abbott and his enablers in Texas with these continued political stunts, Gov. Abbott has confirmed what unfortunately many of us had known already, that he is a man without any morals, humanity or shame,' the mayor of Chicago told reporters at a press conference on September 1.

The Illinois Department of Human Services released a statement in the aftermath of the migrant's arrival in Burr Ridge, in which it says that the village's new refugees are 'receiving temporary shelter in urban and suburban hotels that have provided refuge for vulnerable families from Afghanistan and other parts of the world.'

'We are grateful for the hospitality and care they have received from individuals and organizations across Illinois.'

Food deliveries were made to the Hampton Inn shortly after the refugees' arrival in Burr Ridge this week

'I'm glad that the American dream is still alive for a lot of people as it was for my grandparents when they came here and for most people that are in this country,' Grasso said in sympathy with the town's newcomers.

'So very happy for them,' he added. 'But unhappy that nobody from the city, from the state called and told me or my village administrator or any of our elected officials that this was happening.'

An estimated 300 migrants arrived Chicago last week, and city officials are now expecting more to come further into the fall from the US-Mexican border.
Former Labor leader Kim Beazley says debate on Australia becoming a republic is premature because there is another constitutional issue to deal with first.

Mr Beazley, a noted advocate for a republic despite serving four years in the vice-regal role of WA governor, said the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is the priority.

Despite some republicans seizing on The Queen's death to immediately call for a republic, Mr Beazley said the time was not ripe to seriously raise the issue.

Australia will not become a republic for some time even after Charles replaced his mother as monarch

Kim Beazley, here seen hosting Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Canberra in 2006, said settling the issue of having an Indigenous Voice to Parliament was the main focus of the federal government

'It's not a debate that's even worth getting into,' Mr Beazley told the West Australian.

'The government is not going to bring that on. They have told us quite clearly that they will deal with the First Nations issue first and then they will deal with the Republican issue.'

Mr Beazley said it made 'good sense' to wait until the Voice to Parliament, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants to enact with a change to the constitution, is settled before the republic is considered.

'That must be a year or two down the track,' he said. 'It is debate we are going to have. It will happen at some point of time, but not now. I think at some point we will become a republic.'

Mr Beazley said King Charles benefited from a long 'apprenticeship' as heir to the throne for more than 60 years under his mother.

He said the new king bolstered his image with the support he gave Her Majesty after the death of her husband Prince Phillip last year, and how he stepped in for The Queens as her health deteriorated.

He believed King Charles would smoothly combine his mother's traditions and work ethic with his own 'contemporary style'.

Mr Albanese is also a republican, who in his first ministry created the role of assistant minister for the republic, which went to Matt Thistlethwaite.

However, he has not raised the issue since The Queen's death unlike some of the very eager advocates in the ranks of Australian republicans.

Former Labor leader Kim Beazley, here seen with wife Suzie in 2009, says the debate over a republic will have to wait a year or two

It took just 24 minutes for the Australian Republic Movement to make a statement calling for a republic after the Queen's death was announced by Buckingham Palace on Friday morning.

In a statement released 19 minutes before Mr Albanese issued his response to the monarch's death, the ARM said The Queen had backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation'.

The statement quoted Her Majesty saying she 'always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide' at the time of the 1999 republic referendum.

'During her reign the Australia Act 1986 was passed eliminating many of the remaining opportunities for UK interference in Australian Government,' the statement said.

'Appeals from Australian courts to British courts were abolished.

Author and media figure Peter FitzSimons, who chairs the ARM, paid tribute to The Queen's significant contribution to Australia.

Greens leader Adam Bandt wasted little time following the announced death of the Queen to start campaigning for a republic

However, he also suggested it was 'unlikely we will ever see a Monarch as respected or admired by the Australian people again'.

Greens leader Adam Bandt waited just five hours after The Queen's death was announced to call for Australia to 'move forward' and become a republic.

Mr Bandt, who refuses to put the Australian flag with its Union Jack corner behind him at press conferences, posted a condolences to the Queen's family and 'those who loved her' before arguing for a republic.

'Now Australia must move forward. We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic.'

Earlier this year the ARM proposed a model for Australia to become a republic.

Under the proposal, every state and territory would shortlist their best and brightest citizens to be Australia's head of state, which would then go to a national ballot of 11 applicants.



Peter FitzSimons, the chair of the Australian Republican Movement, released his statement on the Queen dying before the Prime Minister did

The elected head of state would be at the helm for a five-year term.

They would be responsible for appointing a prime minister with majority support in the House of Representatives but will have no authority in day-to-day governance or passing laws.

'We've consulted, we've listened closely and Australians have told us this approach will give our nation the best chance of success at a referendum, with an overwhelming majority of Australians likely to have the change,' Fitzsimons said in January.

'This will give all Australian voters a merit-based choice about who speaks for them as head of state. The decision will be in their hands, unlike now, where it is luck of the draw who we get from the British Royal Family.'

The ARM spent two years developing the new model in consultation with more than 10,000 Australians.

Almost three quarters of Australians would vote for a republic if the model was put to a referendum while 92 per cent were open to the idea, according to their research.

The Queen's death has sparked renewed calls for Australia to become a republic, as issue that went to referendum in 1999 where Australians voted for no change

Almost 55 per cent of Australians voted to not become a republic at the 1999 referendum.

However, the new model did not even get across-the-board support from noted republicans.

Despite his long advocacy for a republic former Labor prime minister Paul Keating blasted the model saying it dabbled dangerously with having a US-style president.

'Australia is in no requirement of a US-style presidency with its grandiosity and propensity to throw up individuals of the Donald Trump variety,' Mr Keating said.

'Australia is safer and better with the diffuse and representative power structure it currently enjoys.'

'With the power of a popular mandate, a new president would render subordinate all other officers of state, including the current office of prime minister and that of the cabinet.

Read the Australian Republican Movement's full statement about the death of Queen Elizabeth II The Australian Republic Movement recognises and pays due respect to the significant contribution made by Queen Elizabeth II over more than seven decades as Head of State to Australia and 14 other nations, and expresses its condolences to the Royal Family. Many Australians have known no other Head of State  the length of her reign was unrivalled. As monarch, Queen Elizabeth was a patron of more than 600 organisations and served them admirably. She rose to become a respected representative of Britain and the Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth respected the self-determination of the Australian people. During her reign the Australia Act 1986 was passed eliminating many of the remaining opportunities for UK interference in Australian government. Appeals from Australian courts to British courts were abolished. The Queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum on an Australian republic in 1999, saying that she has 'always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means.' Chair of the Australian Republic Movement Peter FitzSimons AM expressed his sympathies and gratitude on behalf of the Movement. 'We are deeply saddened by the news of Queen Elizabeth's passing and express deep gratitude and thanks for her service to the Commonwealth. 'During her reign, Australia has grown into a mature and independent nation. It is unlikely we will ever see a Monarch as respected or admired by the Australian people again.' Advertisement

Mr Keating said a head of state being appointed by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament was still the better model, even though is was rejected by referendum voters in 1999.
More than half of the Greens federal MPs have either property portfolios or shares, despite the party's policies cracking down on such investments.

All 16 Greens MPs and senators in the federal parliament have been given gifts of membership of the exclusive Qantas chairman's lounge.

Nine of them have also declared investment property or share holdings in the compulsory register of interests for politicians.

Top of the pile is Nick McKim, a millionaire senator for Tasmania, who owns four properties, one of which he said is a 'shack'.

He is closely followed by Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and Queensland MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, who own three properties each.

Millionaire Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim (pictured) has an extensive property and shares portfolio

As well as his own home, Mr McKim owns investment properties in Nubeena and New Norfolk and another property in Nubeena that he describes as a 'shack'.

Further down in the declaration form, Mr McKim said he holds a mortgage on a holiday home. Daily Mail Australia has contacted him to ask if this is the 'shack'.

As well as his extensive property interests, Mr McKim has share in Mystate Bank Limited.

Fellow millionaire Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Greens MP for the seat of Ryan in Brisbane, owns three properties, including a holiday home on the NSW north coast.

She also has an interest in an apartment building and sold a fifth property in January last year for $925,000.

It may be that she had taken notice of the Greens policy lambasting 'investors buying their fifth home' while other families cannot get a first.

Ms Watson-Brown also has shares in Wesfarmers, Coles, and two banks - NAB and Commonwealth.

'It's vital that we get rid of tax concessions for wealthy investors so that it's no longer easier to buy your fifth home than your first, and so that everyone is able to have a secure home,' she said previously.

Ms Faruqi, a NSW senator and Greens deputy leader, co-owns investment properties with her husband in a Sydney suburb and the beachside town of Port Macquarie.

Originally from Pakistan, she also owns a 500 square metre parcel of land there in Lahore, of which she is the sole owner.

Greens MO for Ryan Elizabeth Watson-Brown is pictured making her first speech in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, July 28, 2022. Ms Watson-Brown owns three properties and has a share in an apartment building

Senator Penny Allman-Payne owns and investment property in Cleveland in her home state of Queensland, while Brisbane MP Stephen Bates entered parliament with shares Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world, before selling them in July.

The Greens website refers to Apple as a 'tax dodger'.

Mr Bates said he got his Apple shares while working for the company in a retail position, earning $55,000 a year.

'Companies like Apple provide share units in lieu of fair wage increases, on the condition that the employee remains with the company for three years,' he told the Courier-Mail.

'It's my experience as an underpaid worker that makes me so passionate about pushing for multinationals to pay their fair share of taxes.'

Deputy Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi (pictured) co-owns three properties and also owns a 500 square metres parcel of land in Pakistan

NSW senator David Shoebridge has declared a BT Panorama Investment Account valued at 'more than $7,500', the minimum level at which such investments have to be declared.

Mr Shoebridge put down 'Nil' for real estate in his declaration, but then later in the form declares three mortgages on 'investment properties held by spouse'.

Victorian senator Janet Rice declared shares in the Earthworker Co-operative and Pride of our Footscray and a holiday home at Sisters Beach, Tasmania, as well as her main residence.

WA senator Dorinda Cox owns shares in the Bank of Queensland, and her SA colleague Barbara Pocock declared she owns a 'block of land' in Chiton.

Max Chandler-Mather, the new Greens MP for Griffith in Brisbane, recently joked on social media that his 2007 Toyota Yaris, which he calls 'Bonesy', did not meet the minimum value to be a declarable asset.
A Texas woman says she's gone from being staunchly pro-life to firmly pro-abortion after being forced to travel out-of-state to terminate a longed-for pregnancy after being told the fetus would survive no more than an hour after birth.

Kailee Lingo DeSpain, 29, together with her husband David, 31, had both longed for a child ever since they got married in 2015.

The couple, who live in Marble Falls, northwest of Austin, were both strongly anti-abortion, but their position quickly changed after Kailee suffered two miscarriages and a premature birth at 16 weeks in which the baby did not survive, all within just a few years.

It was compounded after they fell pregnant in November 2021, only to find out the male fetus had a genetic condition called triploidy which meant it would never survive.

Kailee's health was also potentially at risk if she carried the baby to term, but she was refused an abortion because of Texas's so-called heartbeat law, which bans almost all terminations after six weeks.

She had to drive 10 hours to New Mexico for the termination, and pay $3,500 out-of-pocket, because Texas's law makes it far harder to claim the cost of a procedure on insurance.

Kailee's pregnancies were high risk for severe complications, including blood clots and infections.

Kailee, right, and Cade DeSpain from Texas had struggled to become parents, The couple had two miscarriages, and one daughter was born at 16 weeks and didnt survive

When Kailee became pregnant for the fourth time with a boy they named Finley, they found out he had triploidy, a condition that would be fatal

'I was just your quintessential pro-life Texan,' Kailee told CNN. 'I was raised in central Texas by extremely Republican parents and grandparents. One hundred percent pro-life.

'[Miscarrying] made me realize that pregnancy can be dangerous It made me think of my little sisters, and I wanted them to be able to have a choice if they ever had to go through something like that.'

In September of 2021, Kailee posted on Facebook for people to contact their elected representatives in the hope of protecting abortion rights.

Months later, in November, the couple learned that they had fallen pregnant once again, for a fourth time, and even went as far as to post ultrasound pictures online together with a gender reveal video that showed they were going to have a baby boy.

Sadly, by February of this year, the parents-to-be were told their baby had heart, lung, brain, kidney and genetic defects known as triploidy, would either cause him to die within the womb or within an hour of being born.

The DeSpains said they never pictured a scenario where theyd choose an abortion, but now it was basically their only safe choice. They quickly learned it would not be a simple path

The couple made the difficult choice to end the pregnancy, but because of Texas' strict abortion law, they had to travel to New Mexico for the procedure

The couple shared news of their pregnancy on social media but found out shortly afterwards the baby was suffering from a number of complications and would survive for long after birth

'Some of these things could be fixed, but all of these things together -- this cannot be fixed,' a doctor told her.

Should Kailee decide to carry the baby, named Finley, for the full nine months, she would also be at risk of a number of complications including blood clots, preeclampsia, and cancer.

Doctors recommended she terminate saying it would be 'the safest course for you [and] the most humane course of action for him.'

But acting on the advice of doctors was not as straightforward as it sounded with Kailee torn as to whether to keep her child, if only for a few minutes.

'I [wanted] to say goodbye,' she said. 'I [wanted] a chance to hold him.'

Ending the pregnancy came with a catch: surgeons would be unable to carry out the procedure within the Lone Star State.

The couple were so overjoyed to become pregnant that they shared a gender reveal moment online

Texas' restrictive six-week abortion ban law meant she was unable to terminate the pregnancy in the state she and her husband grew up in and would instead have to cross the border into New Mexico.

The law only allows doctors to perform abortions when the mothers life is at stake.

It was one of the earliest and most restrictive abortion laws. But now similar laws are in effect in around a dozen states after the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in June.

Furthermore, Kailee's insurance would not cover the out-of-state procedure leaving the DeSpain's on the hook for a $3,500 bill, not to mention travel expenses from the 500-mile drive and the loss of earnings from taking time off to undergo the abortion.

Her employer docked her pay because she did not have enough sick days to cover her time off.

'I've never felt more betrayed by a place I was once so proud to be from,' Kailee said.

'How could you be so cruel as to pass a law that you know will hurt women and that you know will cause babies to be born in pain? How is that humane? How is that saving anybody?' asks Kailee of the state of Texas' restrictive abortion law

'How could you be so cruel as to pass a law that you know will hurt women and that you know will cause babies to be born in pain? How is that humane? How is that saving anybody?'

Eventually, a relative gave the couple the money for them to carry out the abortion. Kailee was 19 weeks pregnant at the time.

'I'm still so angry and hurt about it that I can hardly see straight,' Kailee wrote on her Facebook page the day following the abortion. The post has been shared 116,000 times.

'Finley and I were simply collateral damage in a much bigger picture. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the thought process of lawmakers that would rather a full-term baby suffocate to death than allow a mother to make a decision that spares her child that pain.'

The couple is now thinking about leaving the state after her obstetrician gave her a stark warning.

'She said "this is not safe. I need you to look at me. I need you to understand that if you get pregnant in Texas and that if you have complications, that I cannot intervene until I can prove that you're going to die."'

The couple shared a photo of an urn containing their baby boy's ashes following his abortion at 19 weeks

Lawyers speculating on Kailee's case believe that since her own health would have been at risk by continuing with the pregnancy, she should in fact have been allowed to terminate in-state.

'Abortion can be performed if the mother has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.'

'They don't spell out exactly the situations when an abortion can be provided,' Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University Law Center said to CNN, noting that what circumstances might qualify pregnant women for the procedure to be carried out in Texas are exceptionally, and deliberately vague.

Physicians found to be in breach of the law can be fined, lose their medical license, or even be jailed for life.

'Facing the potential to become a felon and face life in prison for simply trying to take care of patients has been horrifying, and I'd be lying if I said that I haven't considered leaving the state,' said Dr. Leah Tatum, a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who practices in Austin, Texas.
SpaceX launched yet another rocket into space - its 14th record-tying mission for the Falcon 9 first stage - at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, just yards away from NASA's troubled Artemis 1 spacecraft, which is unlikely to launch before October.

Saturday's takeoff at around 9.20pm saw 34 Starlink internet satellites go into orbit ahead of another launch taking place on Sunday.

The 230-ft, unmanned rocket was sent to low-Earth orbit alongside communications test satellite AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3. Starlink is a satellite internet constellation, which provides satellite Internet access coverage to 40 countries.

SpaceX's liftoff in Cape Canaveral was the 60th launch for Starlink and the 40th orbital mission so far in 2022. CEO Elon Musk has said on multiple occasions that he aims for global cyberspace coverage with satellite personal communications service after 2023.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 34 Starlink satellites, launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday. Space X used the same first stage booster for a record-breaking 14th time after it was used for previous Starlink-related and other missions set by SpaceX

The Falcon 9 rocket also took flight with the AST SpaceMobile BlueWalker 3 satellite from Port Canaveral

The Falcon 9 rocket Florida was the 60th launch for Starlink and the 40th orbital mission so far in 2022

Space X shared footage on Twitter of the first stage launch's landing once it had reached orbit

In late August, the South African-born billionaire struck a deal with T-Mobile to provide direct connectivity to smartphones using Starlink Version 2 satellites.

Space X started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. Overall, it's the company's 179th launch. Saturday's Falcon 9 launch saw the rocket's first stage booster land in the Atlantic Ocean on its newest ship for rocket landings at sea, called A Shortfall to Gravitas.

The first stage booster was previously used to support the launches of eight Starlink missions. Demo-2, ANASIS-II, CRS-21 Transporter 1, and Transporter 3 were also able to take flight with the same rocket engine.

Saturday's blast-off was delayed 10 minutes due to local weather conditions in the Sunshine State deemed as a 'no-go.'

However, that hold-up doesn't compare to NASA's ongoing issues with its Artemis 1 rocket. It was revealed this week that the federal space agency is currently replacing leaky seals in its moon rocket at the pad, which might set back the spacecraft's tip- off into orbit for an additional six weeks.

When Artemis 1 is finally launched for the first time, it will be an unmanned flight, but the mission is set to pave the way for American astronauts' return to the moon.

Managers said Thursday they will conduct another test after the repairs to ensure all hydrogen fuel leaks are plugged.

If that test goes well  and if the Space Force extends a flight safety waiver  then NASA could take another stab at launching the 322-foot rocket in late September. Otherwise, the rocket will return to the hangar for additional work, delaying liftoff until at least October.

October is now believed to be the most likely option.

A series of hydrogen fuel leaks and other problems halted back-to-back launch attempts last week.

The Space Launch System rocket  the most powerful ever built by NASA  holds a crew capsule with three test dummies. The space agency wants to send the capsule into lunar orbit on a trial run, before putting astronauts on the next flight, in 2024. That around-the-moon mission would pave the way for the first human moon landing in 50 years, currently scheduled for 2025.

'We need to get the tanking test done and then we'll have to look at what is the realism and schedule' to make a launch attempt as early as September 23, Jim Free, who's in charge of NASA's exploration systems development, told The Associated Press.

When NASA decided to stand down on its latest launch attempt last Saturday and roll the rocket back to the vehicle assembly building, it was because engineers couldn't overcome a hydrogen fuel leak, which is a dangerous situation that could not be rectified by today, the final day of the current launch window

'We go when it's ready,' NASA administrator Bill Nelson said after the most recent scrubbed launch. 'We don't go until then, and especially now on a test flight, because we're going to stress this and test it, and test that heat shield, and make sure it's right before we put four humans up on the top of it'

To launch in late September, NASA needs the OK from the Space Force in Cape Canaveral, which oversees the rocket's self-destruct system. Batteries are needed to activate the system if the rocket veers off course toward populated areas. These batteries must be retested periodically, and that can only be done in the hangar. The military would have to extend the certification of those batteries by an extra two weeks or more to avoid moving the rocket back to the hangar.

But every time the rocket moves between the hangar and launch pad adds 'routine wear and tear, and I don't want to do that' unless necessary, said chief engineer John Blevins. There already have been three trips to the pad this year for practice countdowns and, most recently, the thwarted launch attempts of August 29 and Saturday.

Engineers are hopeful that replacing a pair of seals in the hydrogen fuel lines at the bottom of the rocket will take care of any lingering leaks.

As an extra precaution, the launch team plans 'a kindler and gentler approach to tanking' during the final phase of the countdown, slowing the flow of fuel at times to reduce stress on the seals, according to Mike Bolger, a program manager.

'We're optimistic that we can knock this problem flat,' he told reporters.

Running years late and billions over budget, NASA's new lunar exploration program is named Artemis after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology. Twelve astronauts walked on the moon back in the late 1960s and early 1970s during NASA's Apollo program.
President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Sept. 11, as he heads to the Pentagon to honor and remember the victims of the September 11th terror attack. AP-Yonhap



President Joe Biden marked the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, laying a wreath at the Pentagon in a somber commemoration held under a steady rain.



Sunday's ceremony occurred a little more than a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.



In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in the face of a countrywide Taliban advance that returned the fundamentalist group to power. A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul's airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.



White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden in his remarks Sunday will recognize the impact the 2001 attacks had on the U.S. and the world and honor the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaida hijackers took control of commercial planes and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.



''I think you'll hear him talk about how America will stay vigilant to the threat but also look to future threats and challenges and be able to learn to meet those threats and challenges,'' Kirby said.



Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.



Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden's handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has spiraled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. withdrawal.



''Now, one year on from last August's disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden's decision has come into sharper focus,'' McConnell said. ''Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity.''



First lady Jill Biden will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband attended a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial in New York. (AP)


A program for deep-pocketed international investors to buy their way into Australia could be axed under a review of the nation's migration system.

The significant investor visa allows skilled migrants to have their visa applications fast-tracked if they invest $5 million in Australia.

The program was introduced by the Gillard Government in 2012 but federal Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said it has become a problem for the immigration system.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil (above) wants to scrap a system that allows visa applicant to fast-track the process by investing $5million into Australia

'Most Australians would be pretty offended by the idea we've got a visa category here where effectively you can buy your way into the country,' she told Sky News in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Successful applicants, who must be invited to apply and have to meet certain criteria, generally end up being a drain on Australia's budget as most arrive to settle down and retire, Ms O'Neil said.

The scheme's numbers were roughly halved for this financial year under immigration changes stemming from this month's jobs and skills summit in Canberra.

But Ms O'Neil indicated it could be scrapped altogether following the immigration system review, which is due to report by the end of February next year.

'It's a visa program that I think isn't adding value to the country and it's something that we will be looking at,' she said.

Ms O'Neil said the majority of people who use the expensive fast-track option move to retire rather than contribute

'At the moment, I can't see a lot of reasons to maintain it as part of our program.'

At the summit, the Albanese government agreed to a one-off lift of Australia's skilled migration cap from 160,000 to 195,000 to ease the nation's worker shortage.

Australia's immigration department has been asked to prioritise processing offshore visas over those from people already in the country.

'It's not going to help our nurses in this country who are overworked at the moment to have a nurse on a temporary visa come onto a permanent one,' Ms O'Neil said.

The federal government has not considered scrapping the genuine temporary entry requirement but Ms O'Neil flagged the visa system would be simplified.

'We're going to do a very extensive review of that system and really question whether this very complex visa set of categories ... is the right way to run the immigration system,' she said.

'And I'll give you a clue, it's absolutely not.'

Ms O'Neil also vowed to clear a backlog of more than 100,000 temporary visa holders, many of whom are asylum seekers and refugees, but admits it could take years.
Donald Trump's former White House lawyer says he believes the president could face an indictment and a ban on running from office again thanks to the ongoing FBI probe.

Ty Cobb told CBS News that the chances of Trump facing a federal indictment are 'very high.'

He added that he thinks Trump is more likely to be indicted over his connection to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, than anything the DOJ is currently investigating.

Cobb says the recent raid on Mar-a-Lago over the removal of classified papers from office is likely tied to the probe into January 6, as well as Trump's attempts to block Joe Biden's 2020 election win.

The Department of Justice is currently reviewing classified records taken by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago, the former president's Florida estate.

Cobb said: 'I think the president is in serious legal water, not so much because of the search, but because of the obstructive activity he took in connection with the January 6 proceeding.'

He specifically cited the president's 'attempts to interfere in the election count in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and perhaps Michigan.' That was the first time in American history that a president unconstitutionally attempted to remain in power illegally,' Cobb said.

Ex-White House lawyer Ty Cobb says that his old boss and former President Donald Trump could be in trouble and may even be left unable to run for the Oval Office a third time

Cobb, speaking to CBS News , said that while the chance of him being indicted is 'very high', that Trump is more likely to be indicted over his connection to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 than anything the DOJ is currently investigating

However, Cobb does not believe the investigation over documents taken from Mar-a-Lago threatens Trump.

The former lawyer was willing to be critical of his former boss, saying that Trump is 'a deeply wounded narcissist' and 'doesn't believe he lost' to Joe Biden in 2020.

Cobb added: 'He is often incapable of acting other than in his perceived self-interest or for revenge. I think those are the two compelling instincts that guide his actions.'

He didn't sugarcoat what he felt Trump did, saying that the former president violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution by giving 'aid and comfort and three hours of inaction with regard to what was happening' at the Capitol.

Cobb says that a joint declaration by both houses of Congress over that alleged breach of the 14th Amendment could block Trump on those grounds from a 2024 run.

The former lawyer was willing to be critical of his former boss, saying that Trump is 'a deeply wounded narcissist' and 'doesn't believe he lost' to Joe Biden in 2020

Cobb says that a joint declaration by both houses in Congress could block Trump on those grounds from a 2024 run

A former Assistant US Attorney for the state of Maryland, Cobb was a member of the White House legal team from July 2017 to May 2018 before retiring

He also felt that what Trump did trying to stop Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election results was 'criminal.'

'Interfering with Pence, saying Mike deserves this when people are shouting 'Kill Pence,' I think that's outrageous,' Cobb added.

A former Assistant US Attorney for the state of Maryland, Cobb was a member of the White House legal team from July 2017 to May 2018 before retiring.

He has said in the past that while he served and defended Trump during the Mueller investigation, he did not think the probe was a 'witch hunt' as Trump often calls it, and said that Robert Mueller is 'an American hero.'

Trump has yet to comment through official channels or on TRUTH Social regarding Cobb's statements.

He has long denied claims he did anything wrong, and insists the ongoing probe is an attempt to derail his - as yet unannounced - bid to run for office again in 2024.

Trump remains hugely popular within the Republican party, and would likely clinch the nomination if he did stand.

He has indicated he'll make a decision after the November mid-terms. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seen as Trump's likeliest rival, with pundits saying any failure to bring firm charges against Trump would likely give him a further boost in the polls.
King Charles has taken the job he was born to even though it might mean giving up the role he most passionately cares about.

His Majesty has for many years been an outspoken environmental and climate change campaigner but indicated he wouldn't be known as an activist king.

Australian politicians have given differing views on whether Charles III should continue talking about the issue that most defines his activism, environmental catastrophe, and climate change.

Charles, seen here speaking a UN conference in Glasgow in 2021, has long been a keen supporter of environmental causes

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the new king didn't need to shut up about climate change because it was an issue above party politics.

'I think dealing with the challenge of climate change shouldn't be seen as a political issue,' he told the ABC.

'It should be seen as an issue that is about humanity and about our very quality of life and survival as a world.

'This is a big threat and King Charles has identified that for a long period of time.

'I think engagement in issues is very different from engagement in party political matters. That would be entirely inappropriate.'

King Charles, here with with Queen Camilla as he is proclaimed Britain's king, said he will not be pursuing activism while on the throne

However, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said King Charles' indication he was stepping away from activism was appropriate.

'I think the point he made in his speech yesterday was that he now, as the Queen did, doesn't express those views on a day-to-day basis,' he said.

In his first speech as King, Charles vowed to uphold the constitutional obligation of British monarchs to stay above the political fray, as The Queen did.

'It will no longer be possible to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I cared so deeply, but I know this important work will go on in the trusted hands of others,' he said.

In a 2018 documentary to mark his 70th birthday, the then-Prince Charles said he would change his behaviour when he became king.

'The idea, somehow, that I'm going to go on in exactly the same way, if I have to succeed, is complete nonsense because the two - the two situations - are completely different,' he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, here seen standing between Governor-General David Hurley on his right and wife Linda on his right, said climate change transcended party politics

When asked if his campaigning would continue he said: 'No, it won't. I'm not that stupid.'

During her long reign, King Charles's mother kept out of politics, although a palace aid was forced to quit in 1987 after telling the New York Times The Queen opposed Margaret Thatcher's refusal to impose sanctions on Apartheid-era South Africa.

However, The Queen's neutrality so impressed former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he said despite being regularly summoned to have an audience with The Queen for 10 years he had no idea what her political views were.

By contrast, Charles III has long worn his heart on his sleeve delivering apocalyptic warnings about climate change and pleading for forests or endangered species to be saved.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, seen here addressing a Minerals Council event in September, said it was right for King Charles not to speak out on politics

'Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to face man and treated as a much bigger priority in the United Kingdom,' he told the BBC in 2005.

In 2008 he told the European Parliament 'the doomsday clock of climate change is ticking ever faster towards midnight.'

'The lives of billions of people depend on your response and none of us will be forgiven by our children and grandchildren if we falter and fail,' he said.

'Determined and principled leadership has never been more needed. Surely, this is just the moment in history for which the European Union was created.'
Advertisement

CNN angered monarchists on Saturday by referring to Harry and Meghan by name - only to dismiss Prince William and Kate Middleton as 'the other two royals' moments later.

Scott McLean, CNN's international correspondent based in London, made the gaffe while reporting on the newly-promoted Prince and Princess of Wales' and Duke and Duchess of Sussex's surprise joint walkabout in Windsor Saturday, two days after Queen Elizabeth died aged 96.

McLean, who is Canadian, described the quartet getting out of a car: 'You can see Harry get out first and then you saw Meghan and then the other two royals as well'

The King ordered his warring sons to set aside their ongoing feud ahead of the Queen's funeral, leading the pair to reunite publicly for the first time in more than a year, it was last night revealed.

Viewers took umbrage with what they saw, despite McLean being from the US' neighbor to the north, as Americans and an American network being disrespectful of the royals.

King Charles III ordered his warring sons to set aside their ongoing feud ahead of the Queen's funeral, leading the pair to reunite publicly for the first time in more than a year, it was last night revealed

The new Prince and Princess of Wales look sombre as they prepare to face the public and look upon the enormous floral tribute laid out in tribute to Her Majesty the Queen

Scott McLean, CNN's international correspondent based in London, was reporting from the city in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II's death

McLean, who is Canadian, described the quartet getting out of a car: 'You can see Harry get out first and then you saw Meghan and then the other two royals as well'

CNN reporter referring to William and Kate as the other two royals. #HarryandMeghan pic.twitter.com/tGRCbNv5uX  1scrappervb (@1scrappervb) September 10, 2022

One viewer correctly pointed out: 'The other two royals, being the heir to the throne and his wife the Princess of Wales, who will be Queen' before bemoaning the 'state of CNN.'

William is now heir to the throne after his father Charles was crowned King Charles III. Harry is fifth in line to the throne.

Another called it 'disrespectful' and added that 'the comments from the Sussex fan club are ridiculous.'

A third chided CNN for what they felt was the network treating the royals like an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is seen gazing at Kate, the new Princess of Wales, as the four admire the floral tributes to the Queen

The Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales chat with well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle

One more tweeter called the coverage 'shocking' from the network, which has been trying to make serious changes in the post-Jeff Zucker era, asking for less opinion-based content.

'What happened to unbiased journalism? Shocking,' they wrote.

The reaction wasn't entirely negative, as one presumably American Twitter user made clear.

'God bless America,' they wrote, which several bald eagle and United States flag emojis to follow.

Another pointed out that McLean likely had no idea he'd intended to or even caused any offense.

'American media are so unserious,' they remarked. 'He wasn't even trying to be petty. As far as he's concerned, he's done nothing wrong.'

The user punctuated their statement with several of the 'crying laughing' emojis.

Royal sources say Prince William attempted to bury the hatchet by extending an '11th-hour olive branch' to his younger brother Prince Harry, by asking him to join him on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles.

In a scene that clearly delighted royal fans, who had come in their hundreds to the gates of the Windsor estate to mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side with wives Kate and Meghan.

The two couples went on a 40-minute walkabout inspecting the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the royal estate in honor of the much-loved monarch.

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between the newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

The Montecito, California-based Sussexes were consequently in the UK on a pseudo royal tour when the Queen's health suddenly deteriorated on Thursday.

It is believed the Sussexes had not previously made any plans to meet with the Waleses, despite staying in Frogmore Cottage, just 700 yards from William and Kate's Adelaide Cottage. However both William and Harry raced to Balmoral on Thursday after it became clear the Queen's health was faltering.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said that the Prince of Wales had invited the Sussexes to join him and the Princess of Wales during yesterday evening's walkabout.

However, according to The Times, the camps required extended negotiations beforehand which delayed their arrival by 45 minutes.

A senior Palace source said: 'The Prince of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to join him and the Princess of Wales earlier.

Royal sources say Prince William extended an '11th-hour olive branch' to his young brother Prince Harry by asking him to join him on a walkabout (pictured) outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles

In a scene which delighted royal fans, who had come to the gates of the Windsor estate mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side wives Kate and Meghan (pictured)

King Charles III greets members of the public outside Clarence House, London, after he was formally proclaimed monarch by the Privy Council, and held audiences at Buckingham Palace

'The Prince of Wales thought it was an important show of unity for the Queen at an incredibly difficult time for the family.'

The Sussexes' friend and preferred journalist Omid Scobie later claimed on Twitter that the invitation was made at the '11th hour'.

However, hinting that William is prepared to extend Harry an olive branch and work towards melting the ice between them, he declared: 'It is, without a doubt, a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the two brothers'.

Yesterday's surprise appearance is thought to be the first time that the two couples have all been in public together since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020.

And it is the first time William and Harry have been seen together in public since they joined for the opening of the memorial in honor of their mother, Princess Diana.

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the Death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

Harry and Meghan, who sensationally quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back. They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

At one moment, a small Paddington Bear toy was given to William, which he passed on to an aide. He was seen lightly touching Kate's back at one poignant moment. At one point Kate crouched down and began speaking to a child who had started to cry. The child stopped crying when Kate approached her.

One well-wisher said Kate 'welled up' as she told children that her youngest son Louis - who stole the hearts of the nation during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations - consoled her by telling her: 'At least Grannie is with great grandpa now.'

King Charles III's sons Harry and William inspecting floral tributes at Windsor Castle yesterday evening

William and Harry are seen conversing as they reunite to mourn their grandmother, the Queen

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view the tributes left at Windsor Castle after the death of Queen Elizabeth II

The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex outside the gates of Windsor Castle

William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales and Prince Harry and Meghan walk outside Windsor Castle

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex view the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the Death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

Experts predict the moment could prove a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses and the Sussexes (pictured here together in 2020), who have been at odds following a number of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan about the royals

Another royal fan who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship. A lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully, the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Another added: 'It might build some bridges. It might have been the Queen's wish.' And one girl, who hugged Meghan during the walkabout, said she was pleased to see the Waleses and the Sussexes back together again.

Just moments earlier, the Prince of Wales paid an emotional tribute to his late 'Grannie', describing the beloved monarch as an 'extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute' and admitting it would be 'some time' before her loss 'will truly feel real.'
Advertisement

California firefighters were able to beat back a massive wildfire outside Los Angeles after a tropical storm brought rains and cooler temperatures, authorities said on Saturday.

The Fairview Fire was 40 percent contained as of Saturday evening after forcing evacuation orders and leaving two people dead, fire officials said. It was just five percent contained on Thursday.

The blaze erupted on Monday at the midpoint of a ferocious heat wave in the southwestern United States, scorching 28,000 acres and destroying more than 20 buildings.

The remnants of storm Kay, which made landfall Thursday in Mexico as a hurricane before rolling north up the Pacific Coast and weakening to a tropical storm, brought rains that helped calm the fire.

Hurricane-force winds blow the branches of a tree in Julian, California as Tropical Storm Kay roared in Saturday

Visitors walk in Downtown Julian as winds and rain fall, as Southern California saw unseasonably rainy weather

Visitors walk in Downtown Julian as winds and rain fall from the tropical storm, with the weather a godsend for firefighters

A tree branch sits in a parking lot at Lake Cuyamaca. The Tropical Storm, which produced winds up to 109 mph in the eastern part of San Diego County

This satellite image made available by NOAA shows Tropical Storm Kay off the Pacific coast, pictured on Wednesday of this week. It began as a hurricane, but weakened into a tropical storm after hitting California

Rainfall is set to continue across Southern California through Sunday

Officials had warned that high winds from the remnants of Kay could fan the flames of the Fairview Fire in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, which was previously only five per cent contained.

Heavy rain from the storm, meanwhile, raised the possibility of flash flooding and mudslides.

Tropical Storm Kay delivered nearly a year's worth of rain across Southern California in just ten hours.

It broke all daily rainfall records. In San Diego, 0.61 of an inch of rain was measured on Friday, which crushed the previous record of 0.09 of an inch set in 1976.

CalFire firefighters turn away from the fire to watch for any stray embers during a firing operation to build a line to contain the Fairview Fire near Hemet, California on Thursday

A firefighter attacks on brush fire earlier this week in Hemet, California

Days later, the fire was beaten back with firefighters looking for hotspots as the Fairview Fire smolders near Hemet, on Friday

The Desert Research Institute's Western Regional Climate Center categorized the San Diego rainfall from Kay as 'extreme,' as the city typically sees most of its rain during winter months with February usually the wettest, with an average of 2.02 inches typically falling.

But the conditions also helped firefighters make significant progress overnight, according to Rob Roseer, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state's firefighting agency with the blaze now 40% contained with no reports of flash flooding or debris flows.

'Thankfully, the rain from Tropical Storm Kay came through earlier than expected and provided a lot of relief for firefighters,' he said.

'Fire activity has been greatly reduced due to the moisture from Kay,' a statement from Cal Fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said.

Authorities warned, however, that the rains brought a risk of flash flooding and mudflows in areas where burned-out soil cannot absorb the sudden downpour.

Fire captains watch as firefighters create a barrier to slow the progress of the Fairview Fire inside the San Bernardino National Forest near Hemet, California on Friday

Firefighters put out hotspots while working on a firebreak to create a barrier to slow the progress of the Fairview Fire on Friday

Firefighters walk past the scorched landscape from the Fairview Fire inside the San Bernardino National Forest near Hemet on Friday

Firefighters walk past a scorched landscape from the Fairview Fire inside the San Bernardino National Forest

A wave crashes over a beachside bluff as rain and wind batter the coast due to Tropical Storm Kay in La Jolla, California on Friday

Fishermen walk past sand berms as waves in high tide from Tropical Storm Kay hit Long Beach

Heavy equipment reinforces sand berms as waves and high tide from Tropical Storm Kay hit Long Beach on Saturday

Surfers and tourists watch as waves and high tide hit Long Beach, California

Sandbags line residential houses as waves and high tide from Tropical Storm hit Long Beach

Sandbags stand along residential houses as waves and high tide from Tropical Storm hit Long Beach near Los Angeles

Visitors overlook the Pacific Ocean as rain and wind batter the coast due to Tropical Storm Kay in La Jolla, California

Normally sunny San Diego was covered in cloud, wind and rain

Visitors overlook the Pacific Ocean as rain and wind batter the Southern California coast

'We could go from a fire suppression event into significant rain, water rescues, mudslides, debris (flows),' Jeff Veik of Cal Fire's Riverside Unit said on Friday.

Thousands of residents have been ordered to leave their homes, though some people who live west and northwest of the fire have been allowed to return since Friday, Roseer said. Two people died as a result of the fire.

The Mosquito Fire east of the state capital of Sacramento continued expanding overnight, however.

As of Saturday, the blaze had burned through more than 33,000 acres and was 0% contained, Cal Fire said.

Despite high winds and rain, people enjoy the stormy weather during the morning hours on the Imperial Beach Pier on Friday

Nasrin Hamidi gets caught in a wave crashing on the boulders at Capistrano Beach in Dana Point, California

Clouds developing from Tropical Storm Kay move over the Santa Clarita Valley, in California

Visitors overlook the Pacific Ocean as rain and wind batter the coast due to Tropical Storm Kay on Friday in La Jolla, California

With a strong currents warning flag, surfers head out to waves just north of the Imperial Beach Pier on Friday

A vehicle is seen driving along wet streets in Hollywood, California on Friday

Waves and high tide from Tropical Storm Kay hit Long Beach, California on Saturday

Joggers pass in front of a heavy equipment while it reinforces sand berms as waves and high tide from Tropical Storm hit Long Beach on Saturday

Highs in southern California were mostly expected to stay under 90 degrees Fahrenheit, according to forecasters, after days of oppressive heat across much of the state.

Temperatures hit a record 101 degrees at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, the National Weather Service said.

Officials had considered implementing rolling electricity outages earlier in the week, when power demand hit an all-time high.

The western United States is more than two decades into a historic drought that scientists say is being worsened by human-made climate change.

Much of the countryside is parched and overgrown, creating the conditions for hot, fast and destructive wildfires.

The effects of the expected storm reflects the lack of traffic on Sunrise Highway at Mt Laguna on Friday, 55 miles east of San Diego
Advertisement

Vice President Kamala Harris' model stepdaughter Ella Emhoff bared her boobs while walking the runway at a New York Fashion Week show Saturday.

Emhoff, who is the daughter of US second gentleman Doug Emhoff and first wife, Kerstin Emhoff, wore a barely-there mint blouse and a black leather lambskin miniskirt with black gloves for the outing.

The outfit appeared to be a deliberate choice, and there's no suggestion the bared boobs were a wardrobe malfunction.

Along with the 23-year-old, Gurung sent models to show off his outfits in the shadow of the United Nations wearing an explosion of sheers and colors as an ode to the misfits of the world who are 'often watched and monitored, scrutinized but unseen.'

The designer told The Associated Press he discovered an industrial space in the former home of the Japanese consulate while on a bike ride on Manhattan's East Side. He turned it into a white runway that made his revealing metallics, bondage looks, and neon brights pop.

'I wanted to create a space for this particular show where we felt what we are feeling in the culture itself: Kind of unsure politically, culturally, but we still want to be hopeful, want to be optimistic,' he said. 'I needed to be near the reminder of the UN that our job in fashion is not done until we are alert and vigilant.'

WHO LEFT THE NIP' OUT: Ella Emhoff - the stepdaughter of US Vice President Kamala Harris - suffered a nip slip while walking the runway during the S/S 2022 Prabal Gurung fashion show during New York Fashion Week on September 10, 2022 in New York

The 22-year-old wore a barely there mint blouse and a black leather lambskin with black gloves while walking down the runaway at the United Nations Plaza

Ella is the daughter of US Second Gentleman Dough Emhoff, who is married to VP Harris. Pictured from left to right: Cole Emhoff (Ella's brother), Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris and Ella Emhoff

Ella is a graduate of the Parsons School of Designs and was signed as an IMGS Models in January 2021. Pictured in May 2021 with stepmother and VP, Kamala Harris

Ella's fashion malfunction was noticeable during Gurung runaway in the shadow of the United Nations, where models wore an explosion of sheers and colors as an ode to the misfits of the world who are 'often watched and monitored, scrutinized but unseen'

US model Ella Emhoff arrives for Harpers Bazaar Global Icons Portfolio and Bloomingdales 150th Anniversary at Bloomingdale's 59th in New York City on September 9, 2022

Meanwhile, Ella, 22, skyrocketed into fashion fame when she wore a Miu Miu tartan coat with crystal-encrusted shoulders and a wide collar over a burgundy Batsheva dress during President Joe Biden's inauguration in January 2021.

She then made her runway debut at the Proenza Schouler show during New York Fashion Week in early 2021, after signing with modeling agency IMG.

At the time, IMG president Ivan Bart gushed that she represented 'authenticity,' telling the New York Times, 'Ella communicates this moment in time. There's a cheekiness and a joy she exudes.'

Some unkind commenters claimed that Ella's illustrious family background and ultra-famous stepmom helped turbocharge her modeling career.

Later that year, Ella also released her own knitwear collaboration with Batsheva, which sold out in minutes.

She also starred in her first Vogue shoot, celebrated her graduation from Parsons School of Design, and walked in Balenciaga's show in Paris throughout 2021.

Ella has gained a lot of attention online for not shaving her armpit hair, previously posing for crochet brand Memorial Day while showing off her unshaved pits.

Ella, who has already featured in a Vogue shoot in the past and featured in Balenciaga's show in Paris in 2021, is the daughter of Doug Emhoff's first marriage with Kerstin Emhoff before the couple divorced in 2008

The first gentleman's daughter grew up in Los Angeles, California, but after heading to New York for school, she fell in love with the Big Apple.

'I wasn't expecting to stay after college, but after creating a really strong community and life here, I couldn't leave,' she told Vogue Runway.

'What initially drew me to New York was the freedom that I felt people had here, especially in the way people dress and present themselves.

'I always felt a little embarrassed in LA expressing myself in the way that I wanted. Except for when I was in middle school. I really went for it then.

'There's so many amazing people doing really cool things [in the city]. It's hard to not want to surround yourself with it at all times.'
Advertisement

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hosed down talk of Australia soon becoming a republic any time soon after the death of The Queen.

Despite the prime minister being in favour of Australia replacing the monarchy with a local head of state, he said it would not happen in his first term.

Mr Albanese said out of 'deep respect and admiration' for The Queen he would not pursue 'questions about our constitution' at least until he was reelected.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hosed down talk of Australia soon becoming a republic following the death of Queen Elizabeth II

The prime minister brushed off questions about when would be the right time to start having conversations about moving away from the monarch

Hours after proclaiming Charles III King of Australia, he told Sky News in the UK the focus for the near terms should on celebrating her 'service to Australia, the Commonwealth and the world'.

The PM said she 'always reached out to give comfort to Australians at our time of need', such as cyclones, floods, and natural disasters.

Before he took this firm position, he earlier on Sunday he said it was too early to discuss the issue and would rather focus on mourning Her Majesty.

'Now is not a time to talk about our system of government, now is a time for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth,' he told the ABC's Insiders on Sunday.

'That's the system of government that we have, it's one which as Australian prime minister, I have a responsibility to respect.'

The prime minister brushed off questions about when would be the right time to start having conversations about moving away from the monarch.

'Quite clearly, this is a time of national mourning,' he said.

Governor-General David Hurley and prime minister Anthony Albanese at the proclamation outside Parliament House on Sunday

The comments come as King Charles III was proclaimed as monarch at a ceremony at Parliament House on Sunday by Governor-General David Hurley

Governor-General David Hurley proclaimed King Charles III as monarch at midday on Sunday

'Even though the Queen was 96 years of age and had lived such a long life, it still came as a shock. I think that says something about the way that the Queen was perceived as a constant in our lives.'

King Charles III was proclaimed Australia's monarch at a ceremony at Parliament House on Sunday by Governor-General David Hurley.

Mr Albanese also announced Australians would get a one-off public holiday to mourn the loss of the late Queen on the National Day of Mourning on September 22.

'It will be a one-off national public holiday to allow people to pay their respects for the passing of Queen Elizabeth,' he said.

The national public holiday will fall on the day before the Grand Final Eve public holiday in Victoria meaning residents in the state will get a four-day weekend.

Former prime minister John Howard said he had no doubt the Queen was pleased when Australia voted not to become a republic during the 1999 referendum.

Mr Howard, who was prime minister at the time of the national vote, praised the Queen's sense of duty and respect while the referendum campaign took place.

The Federal Guard march outside Parliament House during the proclamation of King Charles III on Sunday

The proclamation of King Charles III included a welcome to country, raising of the flag to full mast and Indigenous spiritual dance

'I have no doubt that she was pleased with the result, but she never sought to influence it. She continued to do her job, again and again,' said.

Mr Howard also revealed his and the Queen's private secretary shared three draft press statements on potential outcomes of the referendum.

While Australia voted not to become a republic at the time, Mr Howard said the statement in the event of a 'yes' vote would have expressed her love for Australia and desire to see the country succeed.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said any talk of Australia becoming a republic would need to be held at another time.

Mr Dutton has expressed his view that Australia should remain as a constitutional monarchy indefinitely.

'At the moment we mourn the loss of an incredible world leader, a woman who was obviously an amazing role model to many women, to many female leaders across the world,' he told the ABC.

'We need a King as much as we did a Queen, because we have a stability in our system that served us well and I don't believe in disrupting that.'

Mr Howard also revealed his and the Queen's private secretary shared three draft press statements on potential outcomes of the referendum

It took just 24 minutes for the Australian Republic Movement to make a statement calling for a republic after the Queen's death was announced by Buckingham Palace on Friday morning (pictured, Sydneysiders at NSW Proclamation Ceremony at NSW Parliament House)

It took just 24 minutes for the Australian Republic Movement to make a statement calling for a republic after the Queen's death was announced by Buckingham Palace on Friday morning.

In a statement released 19 minutes before Mr Albanese issued his response to the monarch's death, the ARM said The Queen had backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation'.

The statement quoted Her Majesty saying she 'always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide' at the time of the 1999 republic referendum.

'During her reign the Australia Act 1986 was passed eliminating many of the remaining opportunities for UK interference in Australian Government,' the statement said.

'Appeals from Australian courts to British courts were abolished.'

The National Day of Mourning will include a memorial service for that will be held at a yet-to-be-confirmed Anglican cathedral.

The proclamation ceremony began with a procession of the Australian Defence Force followed by a welcome to country

'Whereas because of the death of our pleasant and glorious Queen Elizabeth II, the Crown has solely and rightfully come to Prince Charles Philip Arthur George,' Mr Hurley said

Calls for a republic were made just moments after Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday (pictured, demonstrators in Sydney in 1994)

It will be attended by all of parliament, former ministers, former PMs, governor-generals and ambassadors.

A minute of silence will be observed and flags around the country will be lowered to half-mast.

Mr Albanese said he wrote to advise state and territory leaders of the decision to make the National Day of Mourning a public holiday.

'I spoke to all premiers and chief ministers yesterday and I'm writing to them formally this morning, they will have received their letters by now,' he said.

'They have all agreed that it's appropriate that it be a one-off national public holiday.'

The announcement came as Governor-General David Hurley proclaimed King Charles III as Australia's new sovereign outside Parliament House.

'Whereas because of the death of our pleasant and glorious Queen Elizabeth II, the Crown has solely and rightfully come to Prince Charles Philip Arthur George,' he said.

'This 11th day of September, 2022, and in the first year of his Majesty's reign, signed by me as Governor-General and countersigned by my command, by the honourable Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Queen's death has sparked renewed calls for Australia to become a republic, as issue that went to referendum in 1999 where Australians voted for no change

'God save the King.'

The proclamation ceremony began with a procession of the Australian Defence Force followed by a welcome to country.

Following the proclamation, God Save the King was played, with flags raised to full mast.

An Indigenous spiritual dance then followed before a 21-gun salute rang out across the capital.

MPs and senators from across the political divide were also in attendance to watch the ceremonial proceedings.

Large crowds also gathered outside Parliament House to witness the proclamation, with some attendees waiting for more than an hour.
A pilot has died after his light plane crashed in bushland in Queensland's north.

The aircraft was overdue to land in Ayr, south of Townsville, on Sunday morning.

After an extensive search through rugged bushland, police located the plane in Shirbourne, 38km west of Ayr.

The body of a 67-year-old pilot was found at the scene of a light plane crash in north Queensland

The pilot, a 67-year-old Townsville man who was the only occupant of the aircraft, was found dead at the scene.

Police will investigate the circumstances of the crash and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau was notified of the fatal crash but has referred the incident to Recreational Aviation Australia.

Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) will support Queensland Police with its investigation, the body's chief executive Matt Bouttell said.

'I wish to send our condolences to the family and friends of the deceased pilot,' Mr Bouttell said.

'It's early stages but... RAAus has offered our assistance in order to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragic accident.'
A two-year-old boy has died after being run over by a car reversing out of a suburban driveway - with witnesses claiming the vehicle was being driven by the boy's mother.

Police were called to a property in Point Cook, in Melbourne's southwest, about 3pm on Saturday after the toddler was hit.

'Sadly, the child died at the scene,' police said in a statement.

A toddler was run over and killed, reportedly by his mother, in the driveway of a Point Cook (above) home in Melbourne's southwest

The Altona Highway Patrol is investigating the child's death.

A witness at the scene claimed it was the toddler's mother who ran the little boy over by 'accident'.

'I watched (the mother) and that's what hit me the most, seeing her pain really got to me,' they told Daily Mail Australia.

'I can't stop thinking about it, she was hysterical.

'The police had to pull her out of the way when trying to resuscitate him.'

Police said they do not expect anyone to be charged over the accident.
Adelaide man thrown behind bars after drugs and firearm found at 'party house'

A young tradie's life quickly began to spiral out of control after he won a staggering $22million lottery draw and used the money to fund his drug-fuelled party lifestyle, with police photos of the property revealing the extend of the debauchery.

Joshua Winslet, 27, was sentenced to three years and nine months, with a non-parole period of 18-months last week, but the time behind bars was suspended on a two-year good behaviour bond, with supervision.

The Powerball winner pleaded guilty to supplying MDMA and possessing a firearm without a licence after a police raid at this New Port home in Adelaide uncovered 2.27g of cocaine, 27.3g of MDMA and handgun with ammunition in a manhole in the bathroom.

Adelaide District Court judge Heath Barklay said the former plumber had been 'hopelessly drug addicted' at the time of offending and started hanging with the 'wrong crowd'.

'You stopped working and over time, you slipped into regular drug use,' Judge Barklay said during sentencing, the Adelaide Advertiser reported

'Because of the money that you had won, there was no motivation on your part to work or do anything other than enjoy yourself.'

A court has heard how a young Powerball winner's life quickly spiralled out of control after he won a staggering $22million and 'lost motivation' in life (pictured, a room in the 'party house')

Confronting photos from inside the New Port residence, a suburb in Adelaide's northwest, show a bowl of white powder inside a mostly empty fridge

Hung on one of the walls is Winslet's winning lottery ticket (pictured) while in other rooms empty bottles, cans and dirty plates cover almost every available surface

Pictured: The Mauser handgun found hidden in a manhole at Winslet's New Port home

He said Winslet's newfound millions had been used to feed the drug habits of those who frequented his house parties - with one of his 'so-called friends' brining an illegal firearm and ammunition to store in his roof.

Confronting photos from inside the property show a bowl of white powder inside a mostly empty fridge.

Hung on one of the walls is Winslet's winning lottery ticket while in other rooms empty bottles, cans and dirty plates cover almost every available surface.

Winslet's lawyer David Edwardson QC said the 'appalling' state of the home was because its occupants at the time had been treating it as a 'party house'.

In sentencing submissions in July, Mr Edwardson explained his client's millions were being managed by his parents in a trust account but that Winslet had used a portion to buy property in South Australia and New Zealand.

Winslet's lawyer David Edwardson QC said the 'appalling' state of the home was because its occupants at the time had been treating it as a 'party house'

The Adelaide District Court heard police attended the home (pictured) after receiving information that drugs were being manufactured there

Officers found 2.27g of cocaine on Winslet, 23.9 grams of MDMA in a safe in one of the bedrooms and 4.4g of MDMA in the wardrobe (pictured, a room in the home)

Mr Edwardson said his client had experienced a 'wake up call' after learning he could do time for his actions.

Judge Barklay said the 27-year-old's newfound wealth saw him become content with 'living a hedonistic lifestyle punctuated by drug use'.

He admonished Winslet for possessing the firearm as it had increased the likelihood of people using it for an 'unlawful purpose'.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping toast during a visit to the Far East Street exhibition on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia Sept. 11, 2018. Reuters-Yonhap



Xi Jinping will leave China this week for the first time in more than two years for a trip to Central Asia where he will meet Vladimir Putin just a month before Xi is poised to cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.



The trip, his first abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows just how confident Xi is about his grip on power in China and just how perilous the global situation has become: Russia's confrontation with the West over Ukraine, the crisis over Taiwan and a stuttering global economy.



Xi is due on a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday and will then meet Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, according to Kazakhstan and the Kremlin.



Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters last week that Putin was expected to meet Xi at the summit. The Kremlin declined to give details on the substance of the talks. China has yet to confirm Xi's travel plans.



The meeting will give President Xi an opportunity to underscore his clout while Putin can demonstrate Russia's tilt towards Asia; both leaders can show their opposition to the United States just as the West seeks to punish Russia for the Ukraine war.



"It is all about Xi in my view: he wants to show just how confident he is domestically and to be seen as the international leader of nations opposed to Western hegemony," said George Magnus, author of "Red Flags", a book about Xi's challenges.



"Privately I imagine Xi will be most anxious about how Putin's war is going and indeed if Putin or Russia are in play at some point in the near future because China still needs an anti-western leadership in Moscow."



Russia suffered its worst defeat of the war last week, abandoning its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine.



The deepening "no limits" partnership between the rising superpower of China and the natural resources titan of Russia is one of the most intriguing geopolitical developments of recent years - and one the West is watching with anxiety.



Once the senior partner in the global Communist hierarchy, Russia after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union is now considered a junior partner of a resurgent Communist China which is forecast to overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy in the next decade.



Though historical contradictions abound in the partnership, there is no sign that Xi is ready to drop his support for Putin in Russia's most serious confrontation with the West since the height of the Cold War.



Instead, the two 69-year-old leaders are deepening ties. Trade soared by nearly a third between Russia and China in the first 7 months of 2022.



Xi supreme



Xi is widely expected to break with precedent at a Communist Party congress that starts on Oct. 16 and secure a third five-year leadership term.



While Xi has met Putin in person 38 times since becoming China's president in 2013, he has yet to meet Joe Biden in person since the latter became U.S. President in 2021.



Xi last met Putin in February just weeks before the Russian president ordered the invasion of Ukraine which has left tens of thousands of people dead and sown chaos through the global economy.



At that meeting at the opening of the Winter Olympics, Xi and Putin declared a "no limits" partnership, backing each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the West.



China has refrained from condemning Russia's operation against Ukraine or calling it an "invasion" in line with the Kremlin which casts the war as "a special military operation".



"The bigger message really isn't that Xi is supporting Putin, because it's been pretty clear that Xi supports Putin," said Professor Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.



"The bigger signal is that he, Xi Jinping, is going out of China for the first time since the pandemic in the run-up to the party congress. If there were going to be plottings against him this is when the plottings would happen. And he's clearly confident that the plottings are not going to take place because he is out of the country."



Xi, the son of a communist revolutionary, is poised to secure a historical third leadership term at the 20th Communist Party Congress beginning on Oct. 16. He last left China in January 2020, before the world went into COVID lockdown.





A giant screen shows news footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, at a shopping centre, in Beijing, China, July 15. Reuters-Yonhap
Advertisement

More than one million mourning Britons will say their final goodbyes to Queen Elizabeth II as her coffin lies in state in Scotland and London this week.

Her Majesty's coffin will lie in rest at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh for 24 hours, beginning Monday at 5pm. Those wishing to pay their respects can turn up at the church.

Officials say a queuing system and security checks will be in place. Mourners should expect to stand in the queue for a number of hours. Mobile phone use will be restricted and photography and recording will be strictly prohibited.

Members of the Royal Family, including King Charles III, will guard the coffin as it lies in state from 7.20pm on Monday in a tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes.

Brits can also pay their respects to the Queen at Westminster Hall in London beginning on Wednesday where her coffin will arrive at 3pm. Her Majesty will lie in state for 'four clear days' in Westminster Hall until the morning of her funeral on Monday, September 19.

Her coffin will be under continuous vigil and mourners can attend any time during daylight hours.

Police and Whitehall sources say specific details on how to attend will be released in the coming days, but it is expected to be on a first come, first served basis.

Queen Elizabeth, aged 96, died peacefully at Balmoral Castle on Thursday surrounded by her family. Her death sparked an immediate and huge outpouring of emotion, with thousands of mourners gathering outside the gates of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle to leave flowers and displays of well-wishes for the Royal Family.

More than one million mourning Britons will say their final goodbyes to Queen Elizabeth II (pictured in June 2022) as her coffin lays on display in Scotland and London this week

Queen Elizabeth II's casket will lie in state for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Officials are pictured outside the church on Saturday as they prepared for the procession transporting her body

Soldiers will guard the coffin around the clock during visitation. Members of the Royal Family are also expected to take turns standing guard, a tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes. Princes Edward and Charles (pictured) both guarded the Queen Mother's coffin in 2002

Brits can also visit the Queen at Westminster Hall (pictured) in London beginning on Wednesday. Her Majesty will lie in state for 'four clear days' in Westminster Hall until the morning of her funeral on Monday, September 19

The Queen 's oak coffin was today seen leaving Balmoral Castle on its way to Edinburgh in a black Mercedes Benz

The coffin is draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland, which has been used by generations of Scottish monarchs

The Queen's coffin  which is lying in the ballroom at Balmoral Castle  will be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh this morning, on a six-hour journey by hearse, covering 175 miles.

Where can I pay my respects to the Queen? Here is a day-by-day guide to the Queen's lying in state in Edinburgh and London Monday - September 12 Her Majesty's coffin will lie in state at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh for 24 hours, beginning on Monday at 5pm. Those wishing to pay their respects can simply attend the church. Tuesday - September 13 Her Majesty's coffin will then be flown from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt on Tuesday, accompanied by her daughter Princess Anne which is expected to arrive shortly before 7pm. From there it will travel to Buckingham Palace. The coffin's arrival at the palace will be witnessed by the King and Camilla, the Queen Consort, before it goes to rest in the Bow Room. Wednesday - September 14 The Queen's body will travel in a procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall at around 2pm. Crowds will be able to watch as it makes the journey along Queen's Gardens, The Mall, Horse Guards and Horse Guards Arch, Whitehall, Parliament Street, Parliament Square and New Palace Yard. The journey is expected to last around 40 minutes. Her oak coffin will be under continuous vigil and mourners can attend any time during daylight hours. Thursday - September 15 The first of four full days that the Queen's body will lie in state in Westminster Hall, where she will remain until the morning of the state funeral. Friday - September 16 The Queen's coffin will lie in state for the second full day in Westminster Hall, where people will be able to pay their respects. Saturday - September 17 The Queen's coffin will lie in state for the third full day in Westminster Hall. Sunday - September 18 The Queen's coffin will lie in state for the fourth full day in Westminster Hall. Monday - September 19 During the morning the Queen's lying in state will end, and the coffin will be taken in procession to Westminster Abbey for the state funeral. How else to pay respect Leave flowers at royal residences throughout the UK Buckingham Palace: Mourners can leave flowers and other tributes to Her Majesty at designated sites in Green Park and Hyde Park. Windsor Castle: Memorials can be left at Cambridge Gate along the Long Walk. They can also be left at the Norwich Gates at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Balmoral Castle: Mourners can leave flowers at the Main Gate of Balmoral Castle, where the Queen passed away. Authorities have requested mourners not to drive to the castle. Road access is currently closed. They are advised to use park and ride services in Braemar and Ballater. Hillsborough Castle: Mourners can leave flowers on the Castle Forecourt in front of the main gates. Sign a book of condolence Mourners can leave heartfelt messages in books of condolence that have been set up in libraries, town halls and other civic buildings across the UK. Click here to find your local authority. Visit your authority's website to find a book of condolence on display near you. Mourners can also sign an online book of condolence on the Royal Family website. Advertisement

The procession will travel from Balmoral to Aberdeen on the A93 and reached Ballater for a tribute in Aberdeenshire around 10.12am today.

The tribute was attended by the Lord Lieutenants of Aberdeenshire, as well as senior officers and councillors.

The cortege left Aberdeen at around 11am. Another tribute - led by the Lord Provost of Aberdeen and other civic dignitaries - took place at Great Southern Road by Duthie Park, The Telegraph reported.

The public was invited to pay their respects at the ceremony or on a footpath along the procession route.

The cortege will then follow the A90 to Dundee, arriving around 2pm for another tribute. Civic dignitaries from Tayside and Fife will stand on a dais as the cortege leaves the city.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the 'poignant' journey would give the public a chance to come together to 'mark our country's shared loss'.

Well-wishers are expected to gather along the route and Ms Sturgeon and other party leaders in Scotland are expected to watch the coffin as it goes past the Scottish Parliament.

The coffin will be taken to St Giles' Cathedral where it will be guarded by Vigils from The Royal Company of Archers, to allow the people of Scotland to pay their respects and will lie in rest until Tuesday.

The Crown of Scotland will be placed on top of the Queen's coffin while it rests at the cathedral.

Mourners will be able to begin viewing the coffin around 5pm Monday, the City of Edinburgh Council confirmed to Edinburgh Evening News.

Visitors will go through an official queuing system that will feature security checks.

King Charles will stand beside the coffin from 7.20pm as part of the Vigil of the Princes - a longstanding tradition where male members of the Royal Family stand guard as their relatives lie in state.

Prince Edward and Charles both guarded the Queen Mother's coffin in 2002.

After lying in state for 24 hours, Her Majesty's coffin will then be flown from Edinburgh to RAF Northolt on Tuesday, accompanied by her daughter Princess Anne which is expected to arrive shortly before 7pm.

The casket will then be driven from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday ahead of a processional through the streets on London to Westminster Hall.

The procession will see her coffin carried on a gun carriage of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, and will be accompanied by a military parade as well as members of the Royal Family.

King Charles will lead the procession behind the carriage, which will be draped in the Royal Standard.

Crowds will be able to watch as it makes the journey along Queen's Gardens, The Mall, Horse Guards and Horse Guards Arch, Whitehall, Parliament Street, Parliament Square and New Palace Yard.

The journey is expected to last around 40 minutes.

There will also be large television screens set up for the occasion in the capital's Royal Parks.

The Queen's coffin is expected to arrive at Westminster Hall at 3pm and will lie in state until the morning of the funeral.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will conduct a short service attended by King Charles and other members of the Royal Family, before the Hall is opened to the public.

A million mourners - included several foreign dignitaries - are expected to visit the coffin while it is lying-in-state and officials estimate two million people will gather in the streets every day until Her Majesty is laid to rest.

'We will open the queue and control it through the normal way,' a senior Whitehall source told The Sunday Times. 'It is like trying to organise something on a similar scale to the London Olympics in a matter of days.'

A police source echoed: 'It will be like the Notting Hill carnival every day.'

Nadhim Zahawi, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, is reportedly chairing daily meetings to oversee the viewings as officials try to ensure 'as many people as possible' can see the Queen.

Soldiers will guard the coffin around the clock during visitation. Members of the Royal Family are also expected to take turns standing guard.

The body of King George VI is pictured lying in state in Westminster Hall, London, in February 1952 before being taken to St George's Chapel, Windsor, for burial

King George VI's coffin lies in state in Westminster Hall in 1952

People wait for the hearse carrying the body of Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II on its way to Edinburgh, in Balmoral, Scotland

Police stand next to flowers left in tribute to Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II outside Balmoral Castle, Scotland

A visitor leaves a floral tribute at the Palace of Holyroodhouse for the late Queen Elizabeth II on September 11, 2022 in Edinburgh, Scotland

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passes through Ballater

Princess Anne (pictured), her husband Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the minister of Crathie Kirk and a representative of the Lord chamberlain's Office are in the convoy following the Queen's coffin

The Queen's coffin  which is lying in the Ballroom at Balmoral Castle  will be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on Sunday September 11, on a six-hour journey by hearse

King Charles will be at the front of the royal party heading from the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and up the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral

After the ceremonies in Edinburgh, the coffin will be flown to RAF Northolt and from there will be taken by road to Buckingham Palace

When her coffin arrives in Edinburgh it will be taken to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of Her Majesty The Queen in Scotland, before a service is held at St Giles' Cathedral on Tuesday

King Charles will lead the nation in mourning on Monday as he walks at the head of a procession of the Queen's coffin through the streets of Edinburgh.

He will be at the front of the royal party heading from the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and up the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral, it has been announced.

The King and Queen Consort will fly to Edinburgh with Prince William and other members of the Royal Family to lead the procession. Some members of the family will follow in cars, with others walking.

The Queen's children and Vice-Admiral Sir Tim Laurence will join King Charles in the the procession in Scotland.

A spokesperson confirmed that Charles is still in 'discussions' about arrangements for his mother's state funeral.

'I think what the family are genuinely focusing on is the death of Her Majesty the Queen and are united on that,' the spokesman told the Times. 'They are trying to get through this period by honouring the Queen as best as possible.'

Prime Minister Liz Truss will also accompany the King on a tour around Britain this week.

Members of the public line the streets in Ballater, Scotland, as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes through

The Royal Marines march down the Royal Mile during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh

Well-wishers who had waited patiently for the opportunity to pay their respects bowed their heads while others saluted as the hearse drove slowly by

People line the street waiting for the funeral cortege carrying Britain's Queen Elizabeth in the village of Ballater, near Balmoral, Scotland, on Sunday

Police close a road in Edinburgh as they prepare for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth's coffin from Balmoral Castle

Police prepare the streets on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on Sunday, ahead of the arrival of the coffin of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla arrive at Bucking Palace on Friday after mourners laid flowers outside the royal estate

Prince Harry,the Duchess of Sussex, Prince William and Princess Kate look at floral tributes laid by members of the public on the Long walk at Windsor Castle on Saturday

A view of floral tributes left outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday

Officers from the Household Cavalry stand in vigil at the coffin of Britain's Queen Mother as it lies in state April 5, 2002 in Westminster Hall

Lying in state is a formality in which the closed coffin is placed on view, allowing the public to pay their respects before the funeral ceremony.

The two operations for the Queen's lying in state Operation Marquee covers the four days of the Queen's lying in state, focusing on the arrangements inside Westminster Hall, including ceremonial aspects, services and vigils. Operation Feather deals with logistics outside Westminster Hall, including arrangements for the public. Thousands of people will queue in the streets as they wait to see the monarch's coffin on its catafalque. Advertisement

It is traditionally reserved for the Sovereign, current or past Queen Consorts, and occasionally other distinguished figures, such as former prime ministers.

During this time, the coffin rests on a raised platform - known as a catafalque - in the middle of Westminster Hall, where it is guarded 24 hours a day.

For a royal lying in state, the coffin is draped in a royal flag - usually a personal standard. A crown and other regalia are traditionally placed on top.

The tradition stretches back to the 17th century, when Stuart sovereigns lay in state for a number of days.

The last person to lie in state in the UK was the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother when 200,000 people filed past her coffin.

The man in charge of the huge funeral operation, the Earl Marshall the Duke of Norfolk, said the King's main focus will be leading the royal family and nation in mourning over the coming days.

'Whilst, in the next few days, the King will carry out all the necessary state duties, his main focus will be leading the Royal Family, the nation, the Realms and the Commonwealth in mourning Her Majesty The Queen. This will include meeting members of the public, to share in their grief,' he told Mail Online on Saturday.

The Duke of Norfolk said he and other staff were carrying out their task 'with a heavy heart'.

He said: 'As the person with overall responsibility for delivering the funeral, let me end by saying that, together with so many colleagues from within The Royal Household, the Armed Forces, the Police, and other institutions of Church and State, we will carry out our duty over the coming days with the heaviest of hearts.

'But also, with the firmest of resolve to ensure a fitting farewell to one of the defining figures of our times; a monarch whom we were truly privileged to have had as the Head of State of our country and the Realms, and Head of the wider Commonwealth.

'While His Majesty The King was speaking about his family, I think it applies to us all when he said in his broadcast yesterday that: 'We owe her the most heartfelt debt.' I think we can, in some way, repay that debt by carrying out her last wishes in delivering Her Majesty The Queen's Funeral.'
Vaping in the school toilets is a stepping stone towards a life of crime in violent drug gangs, a student from Australia's second largest Islamic school has warned.

The unnamed schoolboy made the claim in a recent speech to other Malek Fahd students - a co-educational school of more than 2,000 at Greenacre in Sydney's southwest - during a religious service.

'We hear Muslims killing Muslims,' the student said, in reference to the wave of Middle Eastern gangland shootings that have rocked Sydney since 2020.

'There are three actions which the current generation did in their youth which have caused their future destruction and the first one is acting like a gang member and normalising drugs,' the student continued, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The student warned his peers vaping in toilets was the a step towards gang crime (pictured: Malek Fahd Islamic College in Sydney's southwest)

He said those involved in drug pushing syndicates had all begun with something small 'like a vape' and warned that 'brothers who hide in the bathroom' attempting to increase their popularity by smoking were on a dangerous path.

Even though considered minor, the student said the behaviour was normalising drugs and rule breaking and that it would have significant consequences down the track.

Similarly, the young Muslim warned his peers that those who watched violent videos online such as of beheadings or torture were also at risk of descending into crime and gang culture because it would desenstise them.

'I have seen some boys watching some of these videos and finding it funny. They actually find it entertaining, it makes you question their psychological state,' he said.

While nicotine vapes are illegal in Australia without a prescription, authorities have warned they are easy to find, with manufacturers issuing 'import at your own risk' warnings to Australian buyers.

'We know that amongst many young people, e-cigarettes or vapes have been considered safe and certainly safer than cigarettes,' NSW Deputy Chief Health Officer Marianne Gale said earlier this year.

The combination of having a sweet or fruity flavour, being in colourful packaging and their 'vapour' often perceived as water, people often consider vapes harmless.

'It's very important that young people and families understand e-cigarettes are not safe,' Dr Gale said.

Vaping is surging in popularity particularly among 16 to 24-year-olds but the chemicals are largely unregulated and unstudied (stock image)

The effects of the chemicals in vapes are not fully regulated or studied and their is evidence they can cause throat and lung irritation, heartrate issues, mood swings, and affect memory among others.

Vapes also contained addictive nicotine and vapers have an increased likelihood of taking up cigarette smoking.

The habit has surged in popularity since 2018 especially with school students.

NSW Health estimates one in 10 young people aged from 16 to 24 are vapers, while the NSW education department has seen a 771 per cent increase in reports of vaping to its incident support line.
Advertisement

The historic joint walkabout between William and Kate and Meghan and Harry only took place after an extended negotiation which delayed the Sussexes arrival by at least 45 minutes, a source suggested today.

Royal sources say Prince William attempted to bury the hatchet by extending an '11th-hour olive branch' to his younger brother Prince Harry, by asking him to join him on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles III.

In a scene that clearly delighted royal fans, who had come in their hundreds to the gates of the Windsor estate to mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side with wives Kate and Meghan.

The two couples went on an 40-minute walkabout inspecting the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the royal estate in honour of the much-loved monarch.

Last night, a Kensington Palace spokesman said that the Prince of Wales had invited the Sussexes to join him and the Princess of Wales during yesterday evening's walkabout.

However, according to The Times, the camps required extended negotiations beforehand which delayed their arrival by 45 minutes.

A senior Palace source said: 'The Prince of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to join him and the Princess of Wales earlier. The Prince of Wales thought it was an important show of unity for the Queen at an incredibly difficult time for the family.'

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

The Montecito-based Sussexes were consequently in the UK on a pseudo royal tour when the Queen's health suddenly deteriorated on Thursday.

It is believed the Sussexes had not previously made any plans to meet with the Waleses, despite staying in Frogmore Cottage, just 700 yards from William and Kate's Adelaide Cottage. However both William and Harry raced to Balmoral on Thursday after it became clear the Queen's health was faltering.

The Sussexes' friend and preferred journalist Omid Scobie later claimed on Twitter that the invitation was made at the '11th hour'.

However, hinting that William is prepared to extend Harry an olive branch and work towards melting the ice between them, he declared: 'It is, without a doubt, a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the two brothers'.

Yesterday's surprise appearance is thought to be the first time that the two couples have all been in public together since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020.

And it is the first time William and Harry have been seen together in public since they joined for the opening of the memorial in honour of their mother, Princess Diana.

Harry and Meghan, who sensationally quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back. They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

At one moment, a small Paddington Bear toy was given to William, which he passed on to an aide. He was seen lightly touching Kate's back at one poignant moment. At one point Kate crouched down and began speaking to a child who had started to cry. The child stopped crying when Kate approached her.

One well-wisher said Kate 'welled up' as she told children that her youngest son Louis - who stole the hearts of the nation during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations - consoled her by telling her: 'At least Grannie is with great grandpa now.'

In footage from their walkabout, Prince Harry spoke about the feeling in Windsor Castle since his grandmother's death.

It is 'a lonely place up there now without her,' he told well-wishers, adding: 'every room she was in, we felt her presence throughout'.

Another royal fan who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship. Lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Another added: 'It might build some bridges. It might have been the Queen's wish.' And one girl, who hugged Meghan during the walkabout, said she was pleased to see the Waleses and the Sussexes back together again.

Just moments earlier, the Prince of Wales paid an emotional tribute to his late 'Grannie', describing the beloved monarch as an 'extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute' and admitting it would be 'some time' before her loss 'will truly feel real'.

Last night he posted another moving tribute to the Queen on Instagram, writing that she was 'by my side at my happiest moments' and 'during the saddest days of my life' - a reference to the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

On another historic day:

Her Majesty's oak coffin, which is lying in the Ballroom at Balmoral Castle, will be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, on a six-hour journey by hearse;

The Queen will then lie in state for 'four clear days' in Westminster Hall from Wednesday September 14 before the state funeral;

Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on the long Walk at Windsor Castle to greet well-wishers

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the Death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

The joint royal walkout - which took many by complete surprise - was agreed after a 45-minute negotiation, according to a source

The couple were seen chatting with each other, although the atmosphere between them showed signs of awkwardness

Meghan is seen gazing at Kate as the four admire the floral tributes left to the Queen. Afterwards, the four met well-wishers

The two couples - previously known as the 'fab four', walked side by side before breaking off to look at floral tributes

Royal sources say Prince William extended an '11th-hour olive branch' to his young brother Prince Harry by asking him to join him on a walkabout (pictured) outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles

Last night, Prince William posted a moving tribute to the Queen, saying she was 'by my side at my happiest moments' and 'during the saddest days of my life' - a reference to the death of his mother, Princess Diana

The new Prince and Princess of Wales look sombre as they prepare to face the public and look upon the enormous floral tribute laid out in tribute to Her Majesty the Queen

King Charles III's sons Harry and William inspecting floral tributes at Windsor Castle yesterday evening

William and Harry are seen conversing as they reunite to mourn their grandmother, the Queen

The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex outside the gates of Windsor Castle

William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales and Prince Harry and Meghan walk outside Windsor Castle

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the Death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

The two royal couples inspect the floral tributes left outside the gates of Windsor Castle yesterday evening

The Prince of Wales yesterday paid tribute to his late 'Grannie' Queen Elizabeth II, describing the beloved monarch as an 'extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute'. In a heartbreaking statement, Prince William revealed how Her Majesty - who died at Balmoral Castle on Thursday aged 96 - had provided him and his wife Kate Middleton 'wisdom and reassurance' and their children 'memories that will last them a lifetime'

Girl, 14, who hugged Meghan said she felt 'it was the right thing to do' A teenager who hugged Meghan Markle as she, Prince Harry, Prince William and wife Kate greeted royal fans outside Windsor Castle yesterday said: 'I felt it was the right thing to do'. The 14-year-old girl spoke to American news channel CNN after she was filmed hugging the Duchess of Sussex. She said: 'We were waiting for them to come and she came in and asked my name and how long I was waiting and I asked if she can have a hug, and she hugged me back. It was an amazing moment, I'm still shaking now. Asked why she felt like she wanted to hug her, she said: 'Everyone was kind of cheering me on and I guess I felt like I needed to in the way, because I look up to her in someway and it felt like the right thing to do. Asked if she felt sorry for her, she replied: 'Because of the Queen died, but also because of everything (with the Royal Family) but I thought it was quite nice to see William and Kate and Meghan and Harry together. I just wanted to show that she was welcome here (in the UK).' Advertisement

At Windsor, a member of the crowd was seen telling the Prince of Wales that they 'loved him' during the visit. One person was seen saying to William: 'I love you William' while others called out his name. 'Hi, hi, hello, everyone', he replied to those saying hello, and said: 'Thank you, thank you so much' to others while shaking their hands.

Another member of the crowd was seen giving William a bottle with flowers inside, which the Prince of Wales remarked was 'well adapted'.

William appeared to be in good spirits while he met well-wishers, at some points laughing and joking with members of the crowd. In other moments he was seen being more sombre while having candid conversations with the public.

Meanwhile, the Duchess of Sussex was seen being given a close hug by a young girl in the crowd at Windsor Castle.

Meghan walked over to a section of the crowd and approached a teenager, who was seen putting her hand over her mouth in shock. The pair spoke briefly for a few moments and Meghan could be seen assuring her by putting her hand on her shoulder.

The girl then said: 'Can I have a hug?' and Meghan was seen nodding, before leaning in and giving her a big hug. The touching moment was filmed by other members in the crowd.

The 14-year-old later spoke to American news channel, CNN. She said: 'We were waiting for them to come and she came in and asked my name and how long I was waiting and I asked if she can have a hug, and she hugged me back. It was an amazing moment, I'm still shaking now.

Asked why she felt like she wanted to hug her, she said: 'Everyone was kind of cheering me on and I guess I felt like I needed to in the way, because I look up to her in someway and it felt like the right thing to do.

Asked if she felt sorry for her, she replied: 'Because of the Queen died, but also because of everything (with the Royal Family) but I thought it was quite nice to see William and Kate and Meghan and Harry together. I just wanted to show that she was welcome here (in the UK).'

One mourner said: 'We couldn't believe it when the gates opened, and we saw William and Harry walk down with Meghan and Kate.

Princess of Wales reveals son Prince Louiss sweet tribute A 'tearful' Princess of Wales has revealed Prince Louiss sweet tribute to his great-grandmother the Queen. Prince William and Harry, along with their wives Kate and Meghan Markle, went on a 40-minute walkabout at Windsor Castle inspecting the sea of floral tributes this evening. Among the crowd on the Long Walk, Banita Ranow, 28, said she heard Kate tell children next to her about what her youngest son Louis had said about the Queen's death. She said Kate told the children: 'Louis said at least Grannie is with great grandpa now.' Ms Ranow said Kate was 'welling up' as she spoke to the children. Advertisement

'I'll be honest there was a little bit of a groan when Harry and Meghan came down our side, but I passed him a bunch of flowers and he was happy to take them.

'I'm pleased that they came out together and as a family I'm delighted that they all took the time to come and say hello to the crowds.

'Sad things like funerals bring families together so I hope that when they get back to California they think long and hard about everything that's happened.'

Scott and Penny Dunn, who live locally with their daughters Olivia and Ruby, 13 and 10, were also among the many well-wishers.

Mrs Dunn, 42, told The Telegraph: 'They asked our daughters what flowers they bought, we brought roses because the Queen was very special.

'I said it was lovely to see both of the boys together. She said "at times like this you've got to come together", which I thought was really nice. It's nice to see them together.'

Mr Dunn, 46, added: 'It was a real privilege. She asked the girls how old they were and where they've come from. It was amazing.'

Winnie Davidge, 13, from Godalming, Surrey asked Harry: 'Are you missing the Queen?' He replied: 'The castle feels so quiet. You can feel her presence in every room.'

Jacqui Carbery, 48, of Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, who spoke to William, said: 'I told him I was so sorry for his familys loss.

'I told him his grandmother was such a remarkable woman. He said to me, "Its difficult to put into words how much she meant to me and to everyone",' according to The Sun.

While the Prince of Wales was greeting the public, sensei Amie Benton also offered Prince William karate lessons. She told him he could call her if he needed her help and was 'only round the corner'. William added he needed to get fitter.

William, Prince of Wales, greeting people outside Windsor Castle, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II

An animated Prince Harry greets people and interacts with the public as he walks outside Windsor Castle

Catherine, Princess of Wales, warmly greets people and shakes hands and exchanges words with well-wishers outside Windsor Castle

Meghan stopped to chat to the mourners gathered

The couple landed back in the UK last weekend intending to attend charity events when the Queen died at Balmoral

A mindful security guard stands watch as the Sussexes shake hands and exchange pleasantries with members of the public

The Sussexes stopped to shake hands and speak with the large crowd of mourners gathered

One excited little girl gets special attention from the Duchess of Sussex she kneels down to clasp hands and share a kind smile

The Princess of Wales, the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex meeting members of the public at Windsor Castle in Berkshire following the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Harry paid special attention to possibly the youngest among the crowd as he greeted well-wishers outside the gates of Windsor Castle yesterday evening

William greets a child in the crowd outside the gates of Windsor Castle during the walkabout

William and Kate greet well-wishers gathered outside Windsor Castle yesterday evening, with William diligently looking over a card drawn up by a young royal fan

One Meghan super-fan managed to get a hug from the Duchess of Sussex during last night's walkabout

Harry takes the hand of a well-wisher and gets in close to have a personal moment

William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, look at floral tributes as they walk outside Windsor Castle

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left at Windsor Castle after the death of Queen Elizabeth II

The Princess of Wales meeting members of the public at Windsor Castle in Berkshire

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, meets members of the public on the long Walk at Windsor Castle after viewing flowers and tributes to HM Queen Elizabeth

The Duchess of Sussex shakes the hand of a little girl perched on top of her father's shoulders at Windsor Castle

The Princess of Wales hugs a man over the barriers at Windsor Castle in Berkshire following the death of Queen Elizabeth II

How royal fans who met the Waleses and Sussexes reacted as they visited Windsor together Colin Newton, from Liverpool, was among those that met William and Kate, and shared with them he was celebrating his 85th birthday. He said: 'I told them it was my birthday and how old I was and he said 'Happy Birthday' which was great and I won't forget it in a hurry. William said thank you for coming and I said I was sorry for his loss and Kate was also grateful we had come. 'It was all very warm and people were clapping them. There was no hostility or animosity and I just hope the brothers get back together and patch their differences up.' Harry and Meghan worked one side of the crowd while his brother and Kate greeted well wishers on the opposite side before they switched over. Chauffeur Jason Kilmartin, 42, told MailOnline: 'I was really lucky and I got to meet all four of them and I'm so excited. I've met Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz but meeting William, Kate, Harry and Meghan all in one go tops all that. I spoke to William more than the others and he said that reading all the messages from children on the flowers had really got to him. 'He said it had really impacted him and Kate because their children had just started school as well and he seemed quite emotional about it. 'Kate was also saying it was good their children were at school and she thanked us for coming and then they moved off and Harry and Meghan came over. 'We shook hands and I said I was sorry for their loss and they thanked us for coming before they moved on.' Jason's father in law, Micheal Wood, 72, who was with him, said: 'Harry and Meghan said thanks for coming, the family appreciate it and it was good to see both brothers together. 'The crowd were cheering them and clapping them and there were no boos. I think there was genuine appreciation from people that both brothers and their wives had come out.' Kevin Hart, 56, and his wife Maxine, 58, had travelled from nearby Reading to pay their respects and were delighted to see William, Harry and both their wives. Kevin said: 'With all that's gone on between then it was quite soothing to see them all together and there was real genuine warmth in the crowd for Meghan although to be fair I think most people wanted to meet Kate. 'There was no animosity from people towards Harry and Meghan and he and William seemed to be getting on OK but who really knows what's going on behind closed doors.' Maxine said: 'It was great to both William and Harry together because it was a sense of unity and that's what's important. 'I think fact Charles said the other night he wished them both well has helped maybe smooth things over with the public's feelings towards Harry and Meghan. 'Harry didn't seem on edge at all like he usually does and I think he was genuinely appreciative of people coming out here to offer their condolences.' Advertisement

And a family of Manchester United fans bonded with the Duke of Sussex outside Windsor Castle.

Angela Fleming, 35, Jenson Fleming, six, Jacob Fleming, nine, Jamie Thomas, nine, Mason Thomas, 16, Jo Brown, 38, and Debbie Brown, 60, from Windsor and Bracknell, Berkshire, had been waiting for over an hour when the duke and duchess approached them.

Harry clearly noticed Jacob, Jamie and Jenson's Manchester United shirts as he said: 'You all support Manchester United?'

When they confirmed that they did, the duke shook Jacob, Jamie and Jenson's hands and said: 'How very convenient. I'm just glad you're supporting the same team, how long have you been here for?'

Ms Brown said: 'About an hour and a half but it was worth it.' Harry replied: 'Thank you for that. At least it's not raining.'

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex plunged the monarchy into crisis during the twilight years of the Queen's reign after sensationally quitting frontline royal duties and moving to California two years ago - a saga which precipitated the rift between Harry and his brother William, allegations of racism against the royals and claims the Firm failed to help a suicidal Meghan.

After their bombshell interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harry appeared to suggest, in a mental health podcast, that his father and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had all failed as parents - while the family was still mourning Prince Philip's death last year.

The Duke of Sussex had grief etched on his face as he was swept into the grounds of Windsor Castle yesterday afternoon after losing a race against time to get to his grandmother's bedside before she died on Thursday.

King Charles III went to Buckingham Palace to meet fellow mourners this afternoon where he shook hands and accepted their condolences to cries of 'God save the King' and impromptu renditions of the national anthem. One woman kissed him on the cheek. He also inspected flowers and tributes left for his late mother at the gates before entering the palace.

Harry landed at Heathrow this lunchtime after jumping on an early morning BA flight where he comforted an airport worker with a reassuring hand on her shoulder after she gave him her condolences.

He left Balmoral after 12 hours mourning his grandmother with his father and brother - but despite the brevity of the visit, the Sussexes are not expected to return to California until after the state funeral, currently expected to be ten days from now on Monday, September 19.

The Duke of Sussex was the last royal to arrive at the Aberdeenshire castle and the first to leave.

Harry and Meghan's titles have not changed, and, although the duke has moved up from sixth to fifth in line to the throne, he is still too far down the line of succession to ever be expected to be king.

The Sussexes' children, Archie and Lili, are now, as the grandchildren of a monarch, a prince and a princess. But it is not known whether they will use the titles, which they were not entitled to when they were born.

Following the death of the Queen, Harry and Meghan are left with Charles as King and head of The Firm, and William elevated to the key role of heir apparent.

While Harry and Meghan appeared to have invested their time developing their bond with the Queen, their relationship with Charles and William has been greatly troubled.

In April 2022, Harry, after meeting the Queen face to face for the first time in two years, told US network NBC he was making sure she was 'protected' and had the 'right people around her'. He sidestepped a question about whether he missed Charles and William, having met his father for just 15 minutes while briefly back in the UK.

In the Oprah interview in 2021, Harry said he felt let down by Charles and that 'there's a lot of hurt that's happened', and said his father stopped taking his calls in the build-up to their Megxit announcement.

In a move likely to have enraged William, Meghan accused the Duchess of Cambridge of making her cry in the run-up to her wedding, and the palace of failing to correct reports that it had been the other way round.

In 2019 Harry laid bare his rift with William, telling an ITV documentary crew that he and William were on 'different paths' and had good and bad days. He went on to tell Oprah that he loved his brother but their relationship was 'space at the moment', adding 'time heals all things, hopefully'.

The royals are also bracing themselves for Harry's memoirs, due out later in 2022, amid fears they could reopen old wounds and spark a new crisis.

William waving at the crowd of well-wishers while Kate and Harry smile and Meghan looks on

Harry and Meghan and Kate and will greet well-wishers at Windsor Castle as they pay tribute to the late Queen

Prince Harry playfully interacts with well-wishers outside Windsor Castle yesterday evening

A police officer lays flowers, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, in Windsor

Well-wishers laid floral tributes outside the gates of Windsor Castle ahead of the royal walkabout

Members of the public queue to pay their respects at Windsor Castle in Berkshire

Down to work! King Charles III meets Liz Truss, her Cabinet and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his first day in office after officially taking the throne King Charles III has had a busy first working day following his official accession to the throne. The newly-proclaimed King has met with government and church leaders in his first official engagements as monarch, less than 48 hours after the Queen's death was announced. The new King held a meeting with Prime Minister Liz Truss and members of the Cabinet in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace. He also held audiences with opposition leaders and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England. The King's meetings with the Prime Minister and senior politicians are famously discreet, with former PMs recalling only the scantest, mainly amusing details in their tributes to the Queen in parliament yesterday. The King's schedule yesterday shows he had meetings with the Archbishop of Canterbury at 2pm, with Prime Minister Liz Truss and members of her new cabinet at 2.30pm, and with opposition leaders including Labour's Sir Keir Starmer at 3pm. The meetings came at half an hour intervals, with the King's last audience in the released schedule at 4pm with the Dean of Westminster. Advertisement

Harry travelled to Balmoral to join his father, brother and family at the Queen's bedside, but Meghan remained down south.

Harry headed back to Meghan at 8.28am, where he was sat alone in the rear of a Range Rover as he was driven out of the Royal Family's Scottish home, where he had arrived at 7.52pm last night. He was swept into Aberdeen airport at 9.20am, led by five police outriders, and boarded a flight to London leaving at 10am.

Harry wore a black suit and carried a shoulder bag as he walked towards the steps of the plane. An airport worker offered her sympathies as the Prince was about to walk up the steps of a British Airways aircraft.

The woman, who was dressed in a high- visibility yellow jacket, addressed Prince Harry. The royal smiled and patted her gently in the shoulder before boarding the aircraft for London's Heathrow Airport.

Grief was written on the duke's face after he landed in Scotland yesterday - 15 minutes after Her Majesty's death was announced to the world. He had his head bowed and partially covered his face as he was driven out of Aberdeen airport, arriving at Balmoral after dark. He left 12 hours later.

Prince William had flown up on a RAF jet with Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie. But it is understood that they did not reach the estate before she passed. Initial reports had said his younger brother would also be on board.

But instead Harry was in mid air when Buckingham Palace announced the death of his beloved grandmother.

He flew by private jet from Luton Airport, arriving at Balmoral an hour and a half after the historic statement.

Courtiers issued the declaration at 6.30pm - just over an hour after Prince William and other senior royals had arrived to join Prince Charles at the Queen's residence. Liz Truss was told at around 4.30pm, Downing Street said.

But when the world was being told the saddest of news, Harry's Cessna was still in the air, making its approach to Aberdeen Airport.

The Duke of Sussex's flight had been due to land at 6.29pm, a minute before the statement. But it was 20 minutes late taking off from London's Luton Airport - with flight data showing it departed at 5.35pm. It took one hour and 11 minutes to reach Aberdeen.

By the time he landed, at 6.46pm, it was 16 minutes after the palace had made the announcement.

Harry then faced a lonely drive to the castle, finally arriving at 7.52pm where he joined other members of the Royal Family in mourning the Queen's death.

Left to right: Princess Eugenie, Peter Phillips, Lady Louise Windsor, Zara Tindall, Sophie Countess of Wessex, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Princess Anne and Timothy Laurence wave to the members of the public after looking at the floral tributes for Queen Elizabeth II, as others look on, outside the gates of Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire

Senior royals including Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex were seen embracing each other as they attend a private church service at the Balmoral estate for Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday aged 96

Princess Eugenie wept as senior royals attended a private church service for the Queen at Balmoral

Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, looks on outside Balmoral Castle, following the passing of her mother Queen Elizabeth II

King Charles III greets members of the public outside Clarence House, London

King Charles III meeting well-wishers as he returns to Clarence House from Buckingham Palace

He looked ashen-faced on the back seat of the Range Rover as it swept into the Balmoral estate.

As well as losing a beloved grandmother, he may have been reflecting on his future without her as monarch.

She remained fond of him, in spite of recent challenges, and he was said to have retained an ability to make her laugh.

Royal expert says grief of Queens death could bring William and Harry together again Ingrid Seward told The Sun: 'It was the most incredible reunion I have ever seen. The warring brothers appeared united in grief. 'It is quite possible that emotions will be running so high the brothers could become friends again. 'One can imagine hugs all round, and lots of tears, as they decide to bury their differences for their grandmother. 'It may not be a fantasy, as grief does bring families together. 'William has offered an olive branch. His father has offered an olive branch. It is now Harrys turn.' Advertisement

By the time he arrived, his and Meghan's Archewell website homepage had been replaced with a respectful blackedout page with the words: 'In loving memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022.'

Earlier in the day there had been confusion over whether Meghan was also on her way to Scotland.

The duke, grieving for his grandmother, will be expected to attend the Queen's funeral, with Meghan also likely to join him. She missed Philip's funeral in 2021 while heavily pregnant with daughter Lili.

An absentee duchess would be seen as a snub and disrespectful, but a public appearance with Harry alongside the rest of the royal family could prove immensely difficult.

When King George VI died, his brother, the former Edward VIII, returned for the funeral, but his American wife, the Duchess of Windsor, formerly Wallis Simpson, for whom he gave up the throne, was absent.

She remained in the United States, where they were living at the time.

Former Suits actress Meghan was the first American divorcee to marry a senior royal since Mrs Simpson, and both she and Harry moved across the Atlantic to California after quitting as senior working royals in March 2020.

William revealed how Her Majesty - who sadly passed away at Balmoral Castle on Thursday afternoon aged 96 - had provided him and his wife Kate 'wisdom and reassurance' and their children 'memories that will last their whole lives'.

The Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge, as William will now known after his father King Charles III acceded to the throne, said: 'On Thursday, the world lost an extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute. So much will be said in the days ahead about the meaning of her historic reign.

'I, however, have lost a grandmother. And while I will grieve her loss, I also feel incredibly grateful. I have had the benefit of The Queen's wisdom and reassurance into my fifth decade. My wife has had 20 years of her guidance and support. My three children have got to spend holidays with her and create memories that will last their whole lives.

Zara Tindall weeps as she and the Princess Royal, Andrew and Edward attended a private church service in Balmoral yesterday

Princess Beatrice, Peter Phillips, Lady Louise Windsor, Zara Tindall, Sophie Countess of Wessex and Prince Andrew gesture to the members of the public after looking at the floral tributes for Queen Elizabeth II

Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice are consoled by their father Prince Andrew as they look at the floral tributes for Queen Elizabeth II outside the gates of Balmoral Castle

Prince Andrew, Princess Anne and Prince Edward view floral tributes outside Balmoral Castle

Prince Andrew looking sombre as he leaves Balmoral Castle in Scotland yesterday for a private church service

Prince Andrew and Prince Edward inspect the floral tributes at Balmoral laid for their mother the Queen

Senior members of the royal family including The Princess Royal and the Wessexes wave to well-wishers at Balmoral

Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice attending a private church service in Balmoral yesterday afternoon

'She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life. I knew this day would come, but it will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real.

'I thank her for the kindness she showed my family and me. And I thank her on behalf of my generation for providing an example of service and dignity in public life that was from a different age, but always relevant to us all.

'My grandmother famously said that grief was the price we pay for love. All of the sadness we will feel in the coming weeks will be testament to the love we felt for our extraordinary Queen. I will honour her memory by supporting my father, The King, in every way I can.'

In Balmoral, dressed smartly in a suit, white shirt and black tie, the Duke of York - who was exiled from public life after his car-crash Newsnight interview about his friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein - said: 'We've been allowed one day, now we start the process of handing her on.'

Cameras also captured the moment that the Duke of York wrapped his arms around his family including his brother and sister-in-law Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex shortly after getting out of a cavalcade of Range Rovers - before waving to a crowd of mourners at the Aberdeenshire estate who applauded the senior royals.

Three of the Queen's four children - the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and Earl of Wessex - joined the Countess of Wessex, Anne's husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, and the Queen's grandchildren Peter Phillips, Zara Tindall, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and Lady Louise Windsor for a walkabout after attending a prayer service at Crathie Kirk.

The family spent just under 10 minutes intently reading the tributes and admiring the flowers before they returned inside Balmoral Castle.

Edward, accompanied by his wife who was holding hands with their daughter Lady Louise, thanked well-wishers lining the route back to Balmoral Castle. Hearing one group had come from Glasgow to show their support, he said: 'Thank you very much for coming all that way, we appreciate it.'

People are still leaving flowers and other tributes at both Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, and at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh - where one visitor left a copy of Michael Bond's book Paddington At The Rainbow's End. A note written on it said simply: 'One last story Ma'am. X' - a reference to Her Majesty's skit with the beloved children's character for the Platinum Jubilee.

From right to left: Prince Andrew, Duke of York stands with his daughters Princess Eugenie of York and Princess Beatrice of York, along with Princess Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence and Peter Phillips, as they look at the flowers placed outside Balmoral Castle

The Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, Lady Louise Windsor and the Countess of Wessex on a walkabout to thank members of the public Balmoral in Scotland

The Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence walk to meet and thank members of the public at Balmoral in Scotland

With many heading for Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, where the Queen died on Thursday, the authorities there urged people not to drive to the castle.

Aberdeenshire Council issued a reminder that there is 'no vehicle access to Balmoral for leaving floral tributes', saying people should instead use park and ride services from the nearby villages of Ballater and Braemar.

'Please note services are expected to be very busy, so please allow plenty of time for your journey,' the statement added.

Meanwhile in Edinburgh, outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse, a table was set up where two security guards were cutting the plastic off bunches of flowers so that people can lay them on the ground. Stewards and police officers told the PA news agency the plastic is being removed for environmental reasons and to make it easier to replant the flowers later on.

Families with young children waited patiently to pay their respects to the beloved monarch. Among them was Euan Masson, his wife Emma and their children Ethan, 10 and Ellie, nine.

Mr Masson, 38, from nearby Inverurie, said: 'We've come to pay our respects to a wonderful woman and thank her for her 76 years of service.'

Nicola Williams, 41, drove north from Fife with her husband Jeff, 43, and their daughters Emily, six, and Holly, four.

She said: 'The Queen has been a constant in all our lives for such a long time. So we've come here to pay our respects to someone who was always there for us. She was a great example to all women. And so I want my daughters to be able to remember her by coming here today.'

The Duke of York, Eugenie and Beatrice view the messages and floral tributes left by members of the public Balmoral

The Duke of York meets well-wishers outside Balmoral in Scotland following the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Prince Edward, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, Peter Phillips, Zara Tindall, Princess Eugenie, Lady Louise and Sophie, Countess of Wessex looking at flowers at Balmoral

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, views tributes outside Balmoral Castle

Princess Beatrice, Peter Phillips, Lady Louise Windsor, Sophie Countess of Wessex, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Princess Anne and Timothy Laurence wave to the members of the public at Balmoral

Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, and Princess Anne, Princess Royal talk as they gather with Peter Phillips, Zara Phillips and Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence looking at the flowers placed outside Balmoral Castle

Lady Louise Windsor (left) and Princess Eugenie (right) attending a service at Crathie Kirk

Andrew, Edward, Eugenie, Lady Louise Windsor, Sophie and Eugenie at Balmoral

Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Princess Anne, Prince Edward and Prince Andrew view tributes outside Balmoral Castle

Lady Louise Windsor attends a service at Crathie Kirk, Balmoral

William Bottomley, his wife Karen and his mother Philippa brought his three young children to Balmoral. Grandmother Philippa said: 'We have come to pay our respects to a wonderful woman. It is something we had to do.'

Jackie McIntosh, 69, travelled from Aberdeen with partner John Coutts, 49, and sister Aileen Mitchell, 66, to pay their respects to the Queen at Balmoral. As the senior royals walked along greeting the crowds, Andrew asked her: 'Where have you come from? How long have you been waiting?'

Airport worker Jackie said: 'It is very sad to see them, they are a family at the end of the day. Prince Andrew asked how long we had waited, it was great to see them all together.'

Partner John added: 'It's only been a couple of days since they lost their mother, like the rest of us they are human, no one expected this. It was decent of them to speak with us.'

It comes as King Charles III smiled through his tears and waved at the crowd of well-wishers gathered outside the gates of Buckingham Palace after his proclamation - as mourners continue to leave floral tributes in memory of his beloved 'mama' Queen Elizabeth II after her death.

Well-wishers waited hours for a glimpse of the monarch, who automatically became King on the death of his mother the Queen on Thursday but was formally proclaimed by the Accession Council at St James's Palace yesterday, as he was driven to Buckingham Palace in his state Rolls-Royce.

His wife Camilla, Queen Consort arrived at the palace after her husband around 90 minutes later, smiling and waving at the crowd.

It was initially believed that the King and Queen Consort would go on a walkabout to inspect the tributes and greet mourners at 12.15pm. However, Charles III had not left the Palace by 1pm, and this afternoon he will hold a series of audiences with Prime Minister Liz Truss, her senior Cabinet ministers, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of Westminster.

At 10am yesterday morning, the Accession Council - an ancient body of advisers that dates back as far as the time of the Norman Conquest - formally announced his role as Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including Supreme Head of the Church of England and Commander-in-Chief of Britain's Armed Forces, as well as Head of State of Commonwealth countries and British territories around the world.

Broadcast cameras were allowed into the historic event giving the world a first glimpse of a ceremony dating back centuries - and one of the first changes to convention instigated by the new King.

King Charles III is driven to Buckingham Palace in his state Rolls-Royce after his proclamation at St James's Palace

The tearful King was driven to Buckingham Palace after his proclamation at St James's Palace

The King appeared to be touched by the public outpouring of support from well-wishers outside the Palace

King Charles III waving as his convoy enters Buckingham Palace in London

Camilla, Queen Consort smiles and waves at the crowd of well-wishers gathered outside Buckingham Palace

People gather near floral tributes placed outside Buckingham Palace in London

A girl with flowers and a Union Jack looks on outside Buckingham Palace

Members of the public gather outside Buckingham palace to lay flowers following the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Members of the public gather outside Buckingham palace to lay flowers following the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II

The Prince of Wales, the Queen, King Charles III and Lord President of the Council Penny Mordaunt during the Accession Council at St James's Palace

King Charles III during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London

King Charles III signs an oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London

The Accession Council in the throne room at St James's Palace in London as King Charles III is formally proclaimed

King Charles III's declaration in full My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen. It is my most sorrowful duty to announce to you the death of my beloved Mother, The Queen. I know how deeply you, the entire Nation - and I think I may say the whole world - sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered. It is the greatest consolation to me to know of the sympathy expressed by so many to my Sister and Brothers and that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our whole family in our loss. To all of us as a family, as to this kingdom and the wider family of nations of which it is a part, my Mother gave an example of lifelong love and of selfless service. My Mother's reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life. I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me. In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these Islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world. In this purpose, I know that I shall be upheld by the affection and loyalty of the peoples whose Sovereign I have been called upon to be, and that in the discharge of these duties I will be guided by the counsel of their elected parliaments. In all this, I am profoundly encouraged by the constant support of my beloved wife. I take this opportunity to confirm my willingness and intention to continue the tradition of surrendering the hereditary revenues, including the Crown Estate, to My Government for the benefit of all, in return for the Sovereign Grant, which supports My official duties as Head of State and Head of Nation. And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God. Advertisement

At 11am, trumpets then sounded from the balcony of St James's Palace as the Principal Proclamation announcing the King was read out. Crowds gathered outside the palace as the King was officially proclaimed. Gun salutes at Hyde Park, the Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle, Hillsborough Castle and Cardiff Castle were then fired before the National Anthem was performed by The Band of the Coldstream Guards alongside eight State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry. They were accompanied by the St James's Palace Detachment of The King's Guard made up of Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards.

The crowd of well-wishers joined the King's Guard gathered outside the palace in three cries of 'hip hip hooray' for the King.

At St James's shortly after 10.20am, Charles III made a personal declaration on the death of his beloved mother Queen Elizabeth II and vowed to uphold 'constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these islands, and of the Commonwealth realms and territories throughout the world'.

Paying tribute to the Queen at the throne room of St James's before the assembled Accession Council shortly after 10.20am, the King also approved an order that the day of the Queen's funeral will be a bank holiday.

Making his declaration, Charles III said: 'My lords, ladies and gentlemen, it is my most sorrowful duty to announce to you the death of my beloved mother the Queen. I know how deeply you, the entire nation, and I think I may say the whole world, sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we've all suffered.

'It is the greatest consolation to me to know the sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers. And that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our whole family in our loss.'

Continuing the declaration, the King said: 'In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these islands, and of the Commonwealth realms and territories throughout the world.

'In this purpose, I know that I shall be upheld by the affection and loyalty of the peoples whose Sovereign I have been called upon to be, and that in the discharge of these duties I will be guided by the counsel of their elected parliaments.

'In all this, I am profoundly encouraged by the constant support of my beloved wife. I take this opportunity to confirm my willingness and intention to continue the tradition of surrendering the hereditary revenues, including the Crown Estate, to my Government for the benefit of all, in return for the Sovereign Grant, which supports my official duties as Head of State and Head of Nation.

'And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God.'

After his personal declaration about the death of his mother the King took the oath to preserve the Church of Scotland - because in Scotland there is a division of powers between the church and state.

This oath is taken at the point of accession to the Crown, with Charles saying he was 'ready to do so at this first opportunity'.

Buckingham Palace confirmed he had declared: 'I, Charles III, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of my other realms and territories, King, Defender of the Faith, do faithfully promise and swear that I shall inviolably maintain and preserve the settlement of the true protestant religion as established by the laws made in Scotland in prosecution of the Claim of Right, and particularly by an Act intituled 'An Act for securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government' and by the Acts passed in the Parliament of both Kingdoms for Union of the two Kingdoms, together with the Government, Worship, Discipline, Rights and Privileges of the Church of Scotland.'

Prime Minister Liz Truss joined Camilla, Queen Consort, William, Prince of Wales and 250 other dignitaries including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, the Prime Minister, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Earl Marshal and the Lord President to sign the proclamation at 10am.

Former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major, Labour former Cabinet minister Harriet Harman, the Mother of the House, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and the high commissioners of the 14 Commonwealth countries where Charles III is Head of State, are also on the body of the Accession Council.

The gun salute to mark the formal declaration of King Charles III as Britain's new monarch, at the Tower of London in London

A gun salute is fired for King Charles III in Cardiff, Wales

The National Anthem was performed by The Band of the Coldstream Guards alongside eight State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry. They were accompanied by the St James's Palace Detachment of The King's Guard made up of Number 7 Company Coldstream Guards. The crowd of well-wishers joined the King's Guard gathered outside the palace in three cries of 'hip hip hooray' for the King

David Vines White, Garter King of Arms (third left) reads the Principal Proclamation, from the balcony overlooking Friary Court after the accession council as King Charles III is proclaimed King, at St James's Palace

King Charles III signing the Proclamation at St James's Palace in London yesterday morning during the historic ceremony

The Prince of Wales, the Queen, and King Charles III during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London

The Queen signs and oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London, where King Charles III is formally proclaimed monarch

King Charles III walking into the throne room in St James's Palace yesterday morning. On the podium stand William, Prince of Wales - the heir apparent - and Charles' wife Camilla, Queen Consort

The day of the Queen's funeral will be a bank holiday, King Charles declares The day of the Queen's funeral has been confirmed as a bank holiday after approval by the King. The date of the state funeral has not yet been announced but it is expected to take place on Monday September 19. The bank holiday confirmation came when the King approved an order during a meeting of the Accession Council where he was formally declared head of state. Lord President of the Council, Penny Mordaunt, said: 'Drafts of two proclamations. One - appointing the day of Her late Majesty's state funeral as a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 'Two - appointing the day of Her late Majesty's state funeral as a bank holiday in Scotland. 'And of two orders in council, directing the Lord Chancellor to affix the great seal to the proclamations.' Charles answered: 'Approved.' The funeral is expected to take place at Westminster Abbey in central London. The original plans are for the Queen's coffin to process on a gun carriage to the abbey, pulled by naval ratings - sailors - using ropes rather than horses. Senior members of the family are expected to follow behind - just like they did for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The military will line the streets and also join the procession. Heads of state, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key figures from public life will be invited to gather in the abbey, which can hold a congregation of 2,000. The service will be televised, and a national two minutes' silence is expected to be held. The same day as the funeral, the Queen's coffin will be taken to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for a televised committal service. Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family. The Queen's final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel - where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret. Philip's coffin will move from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen's. Advertisement

During the event the Lord President - Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt - announced the death of the sovereign and called upon the Clerk of the Council to read aloud the text of the Accession Proclamation before the body signed the document. It includes Charles's chosen title as King, already known to be King Charles III.

Union flags were flown at full-mast from the time of the Principal Proclamation at St James's Palace until one hour after the Proclamations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, after which flags returned to half-mast in mourning for the death of the late Queen.

The ceremony is being staged a day later for King Charles III then normal practice because the announcement of the Queen's death did not come until early evening on Thursday, meaning there was not enough time to set the plans in motion for Friday morning.

Opening proceedings at the Accession Council, the Lord President said: 'My lords, it is my sad duty to inform you that Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, has passed away on Thursday the 8th of September 2022, at Balmoral Castle. I propose that, when certain necessary business has been transacted, a deputation consisting of Her Majesty, His Royal Highness, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of York, the Prime Minister, the clerk of the Council, and myself, shall wait on the King and inform him the Council is assembled.'

Reading the text of the proclamation, the clerk of the council said: 'Whereas it has pleased almighty God to call to his mercy our late Sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth II of blessed and glorious memory, by whose decease the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is solely and rightfully come to the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George.

'We, therefore, the lords spiritual and temporal of this realm, and members of the House of Commons, together with other members of Her late Majesty's Privy Council, and representatives of the realms and territories, aldermen, and citizens of London and others, do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege lord, Charles III, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and of his other realms and territories, King, head of the Commonwealth, defender of the faith, to whom we do acknowledge all faith and obedience with humble affection, beseeching God, by whom kings and queens do reign, to bless His Majesty with long and happy years to reign over us.'

He declared to the room 'God Save the King' and the packed room repeated the famous phrase.

The historic event comes after Charles gave a landmark address to the nation on Friday and paid a poignant and moving tribute to his 'darling Mama' the Queen.

The King pledged his whole life as service as the new sovereign just as the Queen did, saying: 'That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today'.

And he used his speech to announce that he had created his son William the Prince of Wales, with Kate the Princess of Wales, and expressed his 'love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas', a symbol of his bid for reconciliation amid past troubles with the Sussexes.

He also paid tribute to his 'darling wife' Camilla, calling her 'my Queen Consort', saying he can 'count on her loving help' and praising her by saying: 'I know she will bring to the demands of her new role the steadfast devotion to duty on which I have come to rely so much.'

The King also set out his changing role, as he steps away from his considerable charity work which shaped his life as the heir to the throne.

The Palace said: 'His Majesty The King will be proclaimed at the Accession Council at 10.00hrs (on Saturday) in the State Apartments of St James's Palace, London. The Accession Council, attended by Privy Councillors, is divided into two parts. In Part I, the Privy Council, without The King present, will proclaim the Sovereign, and formally approve various consequential Orders, including the arrangements for the Proclamation.

'Part II, is the holding by The King of His Majesty's first Privy Council. The King will make his Declaration and read and sign an oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland and approve Orders in Council which facilitate continuity of government.'

Mid-afternoon, members of Ms Truss' Cabinet will have their first meeting with the King just days after the Prime Minister formed her new Government.

Senior ministers attending the Accession Council at St James's will travel to Buckingham Palace for an audience with the monarch.

Ms Truss, who was invited to form a Government by the late Queen on Tuesday, had her initial audience with the King on Friday.

Crowds gather outside St James's Palace in London, during the Accession Council ceremony at St James's Palace, London

The King's Guard gathered outside St James's Palace in London shortly before the Principal Proclamation

The Accession Council in the throne room in St James's Palace where they await King Charles III

Camilla, Queen Consort and William, Prince of Wales arrive at St James's Palace for the proclamation of the King

Prime Minister Liz Truss signs the Accession Proclamation formally announcing King Charles III

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, former prime ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Theresa May and John Major ahead of the Accession Council ceremony at St James's Palace

Conservative Prime Minister Penny Mordaunt, the Lord President, with William, Prince of Wales

Left to right: Labour leader Keir Starmer, Gordon Brown, Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May at St James's Palace, just before the meeting of the Accession Council to formally proclaim King Charles III yesterday morning

Left to right: William, Prince of Wales, Camilla, Queen Consort and Prime Minister Liz Truss

A gun salute is fired for King Charles, following the passing of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, in Cardiff

The Royal Salute is fired at Edinburgh Castle by 105th Regiment Royal Artillery

The Company of Pikemen and Musketeers and the Band of the Honourable Artillery Company arrive at the Royal Exchange

A military band plays outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London, before the reading of the Proclamation of Accession of King Charles III

Members of the Coldstream Guards raise their Bearskin hats as they salute the new King

Prime Minister Liz Truss leaves Number 10 Downing Street this early morning via the side door

Police officers on guard at St James's Palace in London yesterday morning ahead of the proclamation

From left front row, Former British Prime Ministers Theresa May and John Major; Baroness Scotland, second row, Former British Prime Ministers Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, third row, Former British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson, arriving for the Accession Council ceremony at St James's Palace

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown ahead of the Accession Council ceremony at St James's Palace

Guards of the Buckingham Palace leaving the palace in London

King Charles III's proclamation: How yesterday unfolded and what happens next D+1 - Saturday September 10 10am: Accession Council formally proclaims King Charles III King Charles III will be proclaimed at the Accession Council in the state apartments at St James's Palace in London. The event, attended by privy counsellors, is divided into two parts. In the first part, the Privy Council will proclaim the King and formally approve various consequential orders, including the arrangements for the Proclamation, without the King present. The second part is held by the King of His Majesty's first Privy Council. The King will make his declaration and read and sign an oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland and approve orders in the council which facilitate continuity of the Government. The King will be accompanied by the Queen Consort and the Prince of Wales as they are both privy counsellors. 11am: Principal Proclamation is read from the balcony of St James's Palace The Principal Proclamation then follows. It will be read from the balcony overlooking Friary Court at St James's Palace. The proclamation will be read by the Garter King of Arms, accompanied by the Earl Marshal, other Officers of Arms and the Serjeants at Arms. This will be the first public reading of the proclamation. Flags will also be flown at full-mast from 11am for about 24 hours, which will be until one hour after the proclamations are made in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. They will then return to half-mast in mourning for the Queen. Gun salutes will also take place at Hyde Park and the Tower of London. 12pm: Proclamations are read at the Royal Exchange in London A second proclamation will be read at the Royal Exchange in London. Further proclamations will be read in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales at 12pm the following day (Sunday). In mid-afternoon, the King will hold audiences with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Court mourning A period of royal mourning for members of the royal family and royal households will be observed until seven days after the Queen's funeral, the date of which is to be confirmed by Buckingham Palace. National mourning The Government is expected to confirm the length of national mourning, which is likely to be around 12 days, up to the day after the Queen's funeral. They are also expected to announce that the funeral day will be a public holiday in the form of a Day of National Mourning. D+2 - Sunday September 11 The Queen's coffin is expected to be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. D+3 - Monday September 12 Procession expected along the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral. Service and the Vigil of the Princes by members of the royal family. The public may get the chance to file past the Queen's coffin at a mini lying in state in St Giles'. The House of Commons and the House of Lords are expected to come together in Westminster for a Motion of Condolence, which the King could attend. After leaving England and visiting Scotland, Charles will at some stage travel to the other countries of the UK - Wales and Northern Ireland - known as Operation Spring Tide. D+4 - Tuesday September 13 Coffin expected to be flown to London. Expected to be at rest at Buckingham Palace. A rehearsal for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster takes place. D+5 - Wednesday September 14 The Queen's lying in state is expected to begin in Westminster Hall - Operation Marquee - following a ceremonial procession through London. It will last four full days. The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct a short service following the coffin's arrival. Hundreds of thousands of people will file past the coffin on its catafalque and pay their respects, just as they did for the Queen Mother's lying in state in 2002. The management of the queues outside is Operation Feather. During the Covid-19 crisis, plans included the possibility of the introduction of timed ticketing for those wanting to attend. Senior royals are also expected to pay their own moving tribute, standing guard at some stage around the coffin - the tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes. D+6 - Thursday September 15 Lying in state continues and a rehearsal is likely to take place for the state funeral procession. D+7 - Friday September 16 - Sunday September 18 Lying in state continues, ending on D+9. Heads of state begin to arrive for the funeral. D+10 - Monday September 19 The Queen's state funeral is expected to take place at Westminster Abbey in central London. The original plans are for the Queen's coffin to process on a gun carriage to the abbey, pulled by naval ratings - sailors - using ropes rather than horses. Senior members of the family are expected to follow behind - just like they did for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The military will line the streets and also join the procession. Heads of state, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key figures from public life will be invited to gather in the abbey, which can hold a congregation of 2,000. The service will be televised, and a national two minutes' silence is expected to be held. The same day as the funeral, the Queen's coffin will be taken to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for a televised committal service. Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family. The Queen's final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel - where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret. Philip's coffin will move from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen's. Advertisement

The Prime Minister curtsied as she was ushered in by a Palace aide for the first of what will be their regular weekly encounters. As she offered her condolences, the King shook her hand and thanked her, saying: 'You are very kind for coming - I know how busy you are.'

He added: 'But it's been so touching this afternoon when we arrived here, all those people come to give their condolences.'

Ms Truss again repeated: 'Your Majesty, my very greatest sympathies.' He replied: 'You are very kind. It was the moment I have been dreading, as I know a lot of people have. We'll try to keep everything going. Come, come have a seat.'

Earlier, the Prime Minister had led tributes in the House of Commons to the Queen as she urged the country to support their new monarch.

Those tributes will continue during rare Saturday sittings of both the Commons and the House of Lords.

Proceedings in the lower chamber will begin at 1pm with a small number of senior MPs taking an oath of allegiance to the King, and are expect to continue to around 10pm.

By 8am on Saturday, thousands had gathered outside Buckingham Palace to pay their respects to the Queen.

Gun salutes rang out from stations including the Tower of London and Hyde Park both home and abroad on Saturday to mark the accession of the King. Sixty-two rounds were fired near Tower Bridge beside the River Thames by the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC), and 41 rounds beside Park Lane by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery (RHA).

The HAC, in ceremonial dress, were seen driving in liveried Pinzgauer vehicles through the City of London past a thousands-strong crowd of watchers. They travelled with police escort to the Thames riverbank, where guns were positioned facing HMS Belfast.

At the Tower of London, a royal salute comprises the traditional 21 rounds, another 21 rounds signifies the loyalty of the City of London to the Crown, and a final 20 rounds were fired as the tower is a royal palace and fortress.

Shouts of 'Long live the King' were heard as spectators lined up across Tower Bridge and along the Causeway inside the tower to watch the display.

Salutes were also fired from Cardiff Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Gibraltar, Colchester, York, Larkhill near Stonehenge, naval bases in Devonport and Portsmouth and a number of stations at sea.

Reservists from 206 Battery 105 Regiment Royal Artillery fired the salute at Hillsborough Castle in Co Down watched by Steve Baker, minister of state for Northern Ireland.

The salutes were timed to coincide with the Principal Proclamation of the King, which was read by Garter King of Arms at 11am from the balcony above Friary Court, St James' Palace.

Coldstream Guards and the King's Guard will be present alongside eight state trumpeters of the Household Cavalry.

The RHA is a British Army mounted ceremonial unit that fires royal salutes on royal anniversaries and state occasions, such as state visits and royal birthdays. The HAC dates its origins back to 1537, making it the oldest regiment in the British Army. It took over the role of firing gun salutes from the Tower of London in 1924.

Gun salutes are customarily fired, both on land and at sea, as a sign of respect or welcome. They are now used to mark special occasions on certain days of the year, many of them with royal associations.

Gun salutes occur on royal anniversaries including Accession Day, the monarch's birthday, Coronation Day, the monarch's official birthday, the State Opening of Parliament, royal births and when a visiting head of state meets the monarch in London, Windsor or Edinburgh.

The Ministry of Defence said there are historical records of salutes taking place as early as the 14th century when guns and ammunition began to be adopted widely. Similar gun salutes were fired to mark the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and Winston Churchill in 1965.

Thousands of people have visited Windsor Castle on Saturday morning to pay their respects to the Queen.

Flowers continued to pile up outside the gates of the royal residence, with notes and letters attached thanking the late monarch for her service.

People of all ages were paying tribute and the local Rotary Club was giving children free flowers to lay down.

Louise, 63, and Andrew Falconer, 62, travelled from Watford to pay their respects.

Mrs Falconer said: 'You realise it has actually happened when you see all this.'

Mr Falconer added: 'Initially I was shocked with how sudden it was. She was on her feet and two days later, she's gone.'

They both believe that Charles will be a different monarch from his mother.

Mr Falconer said: 'He'll have different attitudes, different ideas.'

His wife added: 'I think he'll be a bit more modern. He might have to watch what he says sometimes. It'll be interesting. We're a modern society.'

Nicholas Ewings, 54, from Farnborough, Hampshire, visited Windsor with his family.

He said: 'We just wanted to come down, pay our respects and be part of the moment. We care and miss her forever.'

His son Ethan, 19, said: 'I've only ever had one queen and now it's changing to a king. I was at work when I heard the news and I was upset.'

Mr Ewings was optimistic about Charles III's reign: 'I think we'll hear from him more, which I think is a great thing. He's a top chap. He's our King and I stand behind him.'

Jenny Woolford, 60, from Wokingham, was impressed by the King's first televised address on Friday night.

She said: 'It was absolutely brilliant, very moving. I think he'll carry on in his mum's path as he's been trained to, but I also think he'll find his own way.

'You can't help but be impressed by him. He'll be a good king.'

Mike Thompson, 69, from Staines, was born in Kenya just months before the Queen's coronation and saw the monarch in person when she visited his school.

Mr Thompson said: 'She visited Runnymede to plant a tree and we marched out from our school just to line up in the reception area.

'A child in my class was waiting with some daffodils and the Queen stopped in front of the girl and took some flowers from her. It was quite a special moment for me.'

Andy Bow, 57, from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, went to Buckingham Palace on Saturday.

The armed forces veteran said: 'I'm just completely bereft really. I served the Queen while I was in the Army for 14 years. She just means so much to me, she's everything.

'She's the mother of our nation I think. I, along with the vast majority of everybody here, are a little bit lost and not sure what's going to happen so I just felt I had to come down and pay my respects for the last time.'

Mina Parmar-shah, 34, from Harrow, north west London, brought flowers to lay outside the palace gates.

Police officers march past Friary Court at St James's Palace in London

Guards are seen at Buckingham Palace, following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II

Members off the public lay floral tributes for Queen Elizabeth II, as others look on, outside the gates of Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire

Floral tributes are laid outside the gates of Windsor Castle, where the Queen spent much of the last years of her life

Well-wishers mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II as they lay floral tributes outside Windsor Castle

Mourners including children leave tributes including illustrates cards and Union flags and hats outside Buckingham Palace

King Charles III shakes hands with Prime Minister Liz Truss during their first audience at Buckingham Palace

She said: 'I've followed the royal family my whole life so when the Queen died it was quite upsetting really, so I needed to come down and pay my respects.

'As a woman, she ruled for 70 years and that's a huge thing to have, especially because when she became Queen it was more of a man's world so that's a huge part of what she represents to me.

'I have always respected the Queen and had a love for the royal family.'
An amusing video shows the moment Prince William was offered karate lessons by a personal trainer yesterday as he spoke to the crowds outside Windsor Castle.

During a 40-minute walkabout alongside Prince Harry and wives Catherine and Meghan, the new Prince of Wales spent time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands to pay their respects to the Queen, who died at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.

And perhaps in an attempt to put a smile on the face of the grieving prince, Sensei Amie Benton told him to call her 'anytime' to arrange some karate lessons, saying her club was 'only round the corner'.

William, who has recently moved to nearby Adelaide Cottage with his wife and three children, responded: 'I need to get fitter so some karate lessons might help me out.'

Both flexed their muscles and laughed, with Prince William testing out his skills with some karate chop gestures.

In the background Catherine, now Princess of Wales, can be seen leaning in to talk to people in the crowd and accepting a large bouquet of white flowers.

The Prince of Wales tested out his skills with some karate chop gestures, while Sensei Amie Benton told him to call her 'anytime' to arrange some lessons

One well-wisher said Kate 'welled up' as she told children that her youngest son Louis - who stole the hearts of the nation during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations - consoled her by telling her: 'At least Grannie is with great grandpa now.'

The four-year-old has just started in reception at Lambrook School, near Ascot in Berkshire, which he will attend with his elder sister Charlotte, seven, and Prince George, nine.

The crowds gathered outside Windsor Castle were surprised to see Harry and Meghan, who were asked to join the Waleses on the walkabout after Prince William extended an '11th hour olive branch' to his younger brother.

Harry and Meghan, who sensationally quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back. They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

One royal fan who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship.

'A lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Prince William jokingly responded to Sensei Benton's offer of lessons, saying he does need to get fitter

During a 40-minute walkabout alongside Prince Harry and wives Catherine and Meghan, the new Prince of Wales spent time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands

Another added: 'It might build some bridges. It might have been the Queen's wish.' And one girl, who hugged Meghan during the walkabout, said she was pleased to see the Waleses and the Sussexes back together again.

Yesterday's surprise appearance is thought to be the first time that the two couples have all been in public together since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020.

And it is the first time William and Harry have been seen together in public since they joined for the opening of the memorial in honour of their mother, Princess Diana.

Prince William, now first in line to the throne, had paid tribute to his late 'Grannie' earlier in the day, describing the beloved monarch as an 'extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute' and admitting it would be 'some time' before her loss 'will truly feel real'.

Last night he posted another moving tribute to the Queen on Instagram, writing that she was 'by my side at my happiest moments' and 'during the saddest days of my life' - a reference to the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

Prince William will continue to pay tribute to his late grandmother on Monday, when he will join other members of the Royal family on a procession of the Queen's coffin through the streets of Edinburgh.

King Charles will be at the front of the royal party heading from the Palace of Holyroodhouse and up the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral.

'I might give it to George, thank you very much': Touching moment Prince William accepts a Paddington Bear toy from little girl among Windsor crowds and reveals he may give it to eldest son

BY ARTHUR PARASHAR FOR MAILONLINE

A young royal fan stood tall on her father's shoulders as she gifted the newly appointed Prince of Wales a Paddington Bear toy as crowds gathered to mourn the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Prince William was joined with his wife, the Princess of Wales, along with Harry and Meghan Markle - in a reunion that that has delighted royal fans as they attempt to bury the hatchet.

The two couples went on an 40-minute walkabout inspecting the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the royal estate in honour of the much-loved monarch.

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

As well-wishers lined up to pay tribute to the Queen, a touching moment showed the young girl handing Prince William a Paddington toy. The bear from Peru has become widely associated with the Queen following their hilarious sketch together for the Platinum Jubilee just a few months ago.

Since the Queen's death, Britons have taken time to reflect on the highlights of Her Majesty's life - and the short sketch has been hailed as one of the many moments she showed her lighter side.

As the girl passes the Prince of Wales the bear, he can be heard saying, 'That is so sweet. Thank you very much.'

This was the touching moment that a young girl handed Prince William a Paddington Bear toy. The bear has become widely associated with the Queen after their hilarious sketch together for the Platinum Jubilee just a few months ago

Prince William can be heard asking whether to put it with the other tributes or keep it himself. He decides that he will give it to his eldest son, Prince George

Prince William then points towards the other tributes that have been laid down and asks the family where he should put his new gift. 'Is that going over there or do you want me to keep it?' he can be heard asking.

The young royal fan decides that the gift is William's to keep as her father tells him 'Either, maybe give it to your children.'

And that is exactly what the Prince of Wales decided to do. In a sweet moment he tells the young girl that he wants to give it to his eldest son.

'I might give it to George, thank you very much,' Prince William can be heard saying.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on the long Walk at Windsor Castle to greet well-wishers

Experts predict the moment could prove a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses and the Sussexes (pictured here together in 2020), who have been at odds following a number of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan about the royals

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

Prince George, who was the first-born of Kate and William, is now second in line to the throne. Their two other children, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, are third and fourth in line now.

The three children started at their new 50,000 per year school, Lambrook, the day before the Queen's death.

The Waleses moved to the four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage in Windsor last Saturday to be closer to the new school near Ascot.

They are beginning a new life in the country away from the goldfish bowl of their official London residence Kensington Palace which is being seen as a bid to put their children first and give them more freedom.

Kate had stayed at Windsor Castle with the children as other family members rushed to the Queen's bedside at Balmoral, where she peacefully died aged 96.

But alongside her husband, Harry and Meghan, the four put aside their differences to join King Charles III on a walkabout around the castle - after Prince William extended an '11th-hour' olive branch to the Sussexes, following a phone call with the new monarch.

It comes after the new King expressed his 'love' for Harry and Meghan in his first speech to the nation.

Prince William paid tribute to his late grandmother yesterday, the first time he had publicly spoken since her death. 'She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life,' he said.
Prince William and other senior royals faced a mysterious hour-long delay as they rushed to see the Queen before she died on Thursday.

The RAF jet - which also had Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie on board - had taken off for Balmoral at 2.39pm despite being scheduled to leave at 1.30pm, The Sun reports.

At 3.50pm the plane, a Dassault Falcon, landed at Aberdeen airport. The reason for the last-minute hold-up at RAF Northolt in South Ruislip is not yet known.

Prince Harry was not on the plane and had to make his own journey to Scotland because a crash would have sparked a constitutional crisis, experts have suggested.

It is believed that the Duke of Sussex was furious that he did not make it to Balmoral in time, arriving two hours after his beloved grandmother's death.

Today, the Queen's coffin left her beloved Balmoral Castle to begin its 500-mile journey to Buckingham Palace, with thousands lining the route to pay their respects to the late monarch.

The RAF jet - which had Prince William, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie on board had taken off for Balmoral at 2.39pm despite being scheduled to leave at 1.30pm, reports say

Just after 5pm, a fleet of cars, including a Range Rover driven by William, with Andrew in the passenger seat and Edward and Sophie in the back, arrived at Balmoral

Royal author Brian Hoey said: 'There is a strong constitutional reason that William and Harry do not fly together  and that is to do with the line of succession.

'Royal aides have to consider everything, and this is very likely to have been a factor.

'While events happened very quickly, they have had years to plan for all eventualities.'

Mr Hoey, a constitutional expert, also said that the 'speed of events' had caught everyone off-guard and it could have affected travel plans.

Prince William's wife Kate had stayed at Adelaide Cottage to collect their children George, Charlotte and Louis from their first day at school while her husband flew to be with his grandmother.

The Sussexes had announced at 1.50pm that both Harry and his wife Meghan would be travelling to Scotland, but at 4.40pm clarified that Meghan would be staying behind.

They had been staying at Frogmore Cottage after flying over from the US for a series of charity events in London, Manchester and Germany.

At 12.32pm, Buckingham Palace issue a statement saying doctors were concerned for the Queen's health.

Left to right: William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave at well-wishers on the Long walk at Windsor Castle on September 10

At 6.31pm, Buckingham Palace say in a statement: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon'

They said the head of state was comfortable and royal physicians recommended she stays under medical supervision as the future king, the Prince of Wales, and second in line to the throne, the Duke of Cambridge, cleared their diaries to dash to the Queen's Aberdeenshire home.

At 12.45pm, Clarence House said Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall had travelled to Balmoral. A minute later Kensington Palace confirmed William would also be travelling north.

At 2.39pm, Royal Air Force flight KRF23R took off from RAF Northolt in South Ruislip, west London, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.com.

The plane was carrying William, the Duke of York, and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

At 3.50pm the plane, a Dassault Falcon, landed at Aberdeen airport.

Just after 5pm, a fleet of cars, including a Range Rover driven by William, with Andrew in the passenger seat and Edward and Sophie in the back, arrived at Balmoral.

At 6.31pm, Buckingham Palace say in a statement: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.'

Just after 7pm, Charles, who became King on the death of his mother, said: 'The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family.

'We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.

'During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held.'

At 7.08pm, Prime Minister Liz Truss said it was 'the passing of the second Elizabethan age' and concluded an address by saying 'God save the King'.

She refers to Charles, the new King, as King Charles III, saying: 'Today the Crown passes, as it has done for more than a thousand years, to our new monarch, our new head of state, His Majesty King Charles III.'

At 7.25pm, Clarence House confirmed that Charles would be known as King Charles III.

At 7.41pm, Kensington Palace confirms that Kate and William will be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge.
Soldiers with British accents have been filmed fighting in Ukrainian colours as the country makes stunning advances against Russian forces.

Footage taken on GoPro cameras reportedly shows foreign legionaries fighting during Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast counter-offensive.

The country's advances have caught the Kremlin by surprise, with intelligence experts hailing a 'major turning point' in the six-month war.

It has led to the recapture of several key towns in the east as Vladimir Putin's forces fled in disarray from a collapsing frontline.

In a compilation of footage uploaded to social media, soldiers with British accents can be heard speaking to one another while wearing blue armbands to identify themselves as Ukrainian forces.

One clip appears to show soldiers moving 'POWs' through a compound, while others show soldiers hurling grenades, running to take cover, and climbing through windows.

Ukraine said today that its forces had recaptured more than 1,158 square miles (3,000 square kilometres) this month from Russian troops in a counter-offensive centred on the country's northeast.

Ukrainian general Valeriy Zaluzhny said in a statement on social media: 'Since the beginning of September, more than 3,000 square kilometres have been returned to Ukrainian control.

'Around Kharkiv, we have begun to advance not only in the south and east, but also to the north. We are 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the border,'

One clip appears to show soldiers moving 'POWs' through a compound, while others show soldiers hurling grenades, running to take cover, and climbing through windows

Footage taken on GoPro cameras reportedly shows foreign legionaries fighting during Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast counter-offensive

In a compilation of footage uploaded to social media, soldiers with British accents can be heard speaking to one another while wearing blue armbands to identify themselves as Ukrainian forces

Ukrainian general Valeriy Zaluzhny said in a statement on social media: 'Since the beginning of September, more than 3,000 square kilometres have been returned to Ukrainian control'

Why has Ukraine's offensive been so successful? After seven months of repelling Russian offensives to a stalemate, what explains Ukraine's sudden, tumultuous success on the attack? It appears to be the product of a brilliant strategy concocted by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who organised the defence of Kyiv. The first phase was to lure Russian troops to the southern Kherson region by announcing a forthcoming counteroffensive to recapture the regional capital. '[It] was a big special disinformation operation,' said Taras Berezovets, press officer for the Bohun brigade of Ukraine's special forces. 'Meanwhile [our] guys in Kharkiv were given the best of western weapons, mostly American,' he said. Among these were US-supplied HARM missiles, which were designed to take out Russian air defence radars, paving the way for Ukrainian air support. Once the Russians had massed around 30,000 troops around Kherson to ward off the counterattack, precision missiles took out the fixed bridges along the Russians' rear over the Dnipro River, leaving them effectively stranded. This left Russian lines in the Kharkiv region poorly defended and without many strategic reserves to plug any holes if the Ukrainians broke through, which they did. The Ukrainians amassed tanks in the Kharkiv region, which Russian commanders took no notice of, and then launched a classic lightning attack to smash through Russian lines. But to really explain why the Russian lines collapsed so spectacularly, one has to look at the quality of the troops manning them. It is reported that the lines around Kharkiv were defended by 'slave soldiers' forcibly conscripted within the breakaway DPR with very little will to fight. These solders reportedly abandoned their posts and their equipment to flee, some apparently disguising themselves as civilians and the Ukrainian offensive becoming more of a manhunt. There are reports of hundreds killed and thousands taken prisoner by the Ukrainians. And finally, the Russian army has long been hollowed out by corruption at every level, which leaves its equipment unmaintained, its troops poorly equipped and morale at rock bottom. Advertisement

The speed of Ukraine's advance, with photographs shared by Kyiv officials of their troops raising the Ukrainian flag in liberated towns after advancing more than 30 miles, has sparked open talk in Moscow that their invasion will end in humiliating defeat.

Towns entered by Ukrainian troops include Kupiansk, a key rail centre whose loss would severely hinder Russian supply lines. There are also reports of Putin's troops and collaborators fleeing Izyum, another crucial logistics hub for the invasion.

The Ukrainian advance has been so swift that fleeing Russian troops have left behind a logistics bonanza of ammunition, equipment and most of all seemingly fully-functioning heavy weapons, of the sort that Kyiv has been crying out for from its Western partners for months.

The offensive south of Kharkiv, which began last Tuesday, took the thinly defended Russian lines by surprise, leading to Western intelligence agencies speaking of mass retreats, mass surrenders and mass casualties that the Russian Ministry of Defence has dressed up as a 're-grouping.'

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Saturday that troops fleeing from the Balakliya and Izyum areas would be regrouped to Ukraine's occupied Donetsk region.

Natalia Popova, adviser to the head of Kharkiv regional council, shared images on social media of Ukrainian troops holding their flag in front of Kupiansk city hall with a crumpled Russian flag at their feet.

The town was seized by Russia within days of their invasion in February. 'Kupiansk is Ukraine. Glory to the armed forces of Ukraine,' wrote Popova.

Russian military journalists yesterday reported that their troops fled Izyum on the only remaining road in another sign of the apparent rout, which has seen Putin's forces lose control of an estimated 3,000 square kilometres in days.

The dramatic advances follow President Volodymyr Zelensky's declaration last Friday night that 30 settlements had been liberated in Kharkiv region over the past few days as his forces sliced through a weak spot in Russian lines.

The capture of Kupiansk, if confirmed, is a huge setback for Putin that potentially leaves up to 10,000 Kremlin troops cut off from supplies. Abandoned boxes of ammunition in the town underlined the speed of their retreat.

The latest reports indicate that the town of Liman fell to Ukrainian liberators with little resistance.

It is located just 25 miles from the twin cities of Lysychnask and Severodonetsk that fell to Russian forces at the start of July after a long and grinding battle.

There are even unconfirmed reports of Ukrainian forces entering Donetsk international airport, the subject of two separate battles between Ukrainian and pro-Moscow forces in 2014 and 2015.

The airport has been in rebel-held hands for over eight years, and its return to Ukrainian control would signal Kyiv's first recovery of territory lost that pre-dates Putin's Feb 24 invasion.

Ukrainian soldiers hold a flag at a rooftop in Kupiansk as their lightning offensive causes Russian lines to collapse

Ukrainian solders pose for a photo beneath the sign of Izium, a key logistics hub and prize capture

Ukrainian service members pose for in the recently liberated settlement of Vasylenkove in the Kharkiv region

Destroyed armored vehicles litter the road in Balakliya, Kharkiv region after Ukrainian forces smashed through Russian lines

Ukrainian servicemen raises his fist aloft in victory as his unit drives near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region

The blue patch represents almost a thousand square miles of territory liberated by Ukraine, and shows the counteroffensive taking aim at Liman and Lysychansk

Denis Pushilin, the head of the separatist Donestk People's Republic, reported on the fighting amid rumours that he had fled Donetsk.

The situation in Liman 'remains quite difficult,' he said in a video post from a moving car. 'Just like a number of other locations in the north of the republic.'

And Serhiy Haidai, the Russia-installed governor of the Luhansk region, said that Ukrainian units had even reached the outskirts of Lysychansk itself.

'Lysychnask, a great Ukrainian city. There will be a lot of reconstruction work,' he said in a cryptic message.

In Hrakove, one of the recaptured villages, eyewitness told of seeing burned-out military vehicles bearing the hated 'Z' symbol of the Kremlin invasion.

There was also more evidence of Russian atrocities. One local man disclosed that the occupiers forced him to bury two bodies at gunpoint. He then led police to a grave that contained a pair of corpses showing signs of torture.

Maria Avdeeva, a security analyst who visited Hrakove after it was liberated three days ago, told The Mail on Sunday that the 50 remaining residents were in 'very bad condition' after spending six months 'terrified' while hiding in basements. 'They could hear the generators providing electricity for the Russians but they had no power, no phone connection, their village is almost totally destroyed and they have had no idea what has been happening.'

Ukraine's unexpected advance in the east came as a surprise as it is just one week since Kyiv announced the start of a long-awaited counter-attack to reclaim Russian-occupied terrain hundreds of kilometres away at the opposite end of the battlefront in Kherson in the south.

This morning, Kyiv soldiers were pictured with their own nation's flag as they claim to have retaken Kupyansk - something Russia disputes

A commanding officer of an anti-air unit of Ukraine's Armed Forces loads a rocket launcher in his SUV as they prepare to support infantry in liberating Balakliya in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Sept 8

A Russian tank destroyed by Ukrainian forces as they moved to recapture Balakliya earlier in the week

Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University, said Kyiv has exploited Russia's movement of its strongest forces to shore up defences in Kherson. 'This is big,' he said. 'Once troops start being pushed back, then it can be hard to stop. If Russia cannot mobilise more forces, they are in serious trouble.'

Even one Russia-appointed stooge official in the Kharkiv region, Vitaly Ganchev, admitted: 'The very fact of a breach of our defences is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces.'

Earlier Saturday, the British Ministry of Defence told reporters that Russian forces were likely taken by surprise by the speed, scale and ferocity of the Ukrainian assault.

'The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,' the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.

The Institute for the Study of War, an influential US-based think-tank, said it appeared that 'disorganised Russian forces [were] caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance.' They cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized in the advance around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The Institute for the Study of War said Kupiansk's recapture would 'severely degrade' Russian ground lines of communication.

Russian social-media channels published footage of traffic jams formed by cars fleeing the fighting, admitting they included panicking collaborators who feared reprisals from Ukrainian police or partisans. In another setback for Putin, pictures emerged last week of an officer on his knees after being captured.

He is thought to be Lieutenant General Andrei Sychevoi, the highest-ranking Russian officer taken prisoner since the Second World War. Oleksandr V Danylyuk, an intelligence expert and head of the Centre for Defence Reforms think-tank, said: 'We are witnessing a major turning point. You can expect some more surprises soon.'

Moscow's defence ministry published video footage that purported to show reinforcement troops rushing towards the Kharkiv region. But there is increasing dissent from prominent pro-war and nationalist figures, often with military links, who accuse defence chiefs of bungling the invasion.

These include the influential Igor Girkin, a former intelligence colonel involved in the pro-Russian separatist insurgency in Donbas eight years ago, who cited military sources in discussing the 'outstanding audacity' of Ukrainian attacks.

He has predicted the war will end with the 'complete defeat' of Russia.
A young royal fan stood tall on her father's shoulders as she gifted the newly appointed Prince of Wales a Paddington Bear toy as crowds gathered to mourn the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Prince William was joined with his wife, the Princess of Wales, along with Harry and Meghan Markle - in a reunion that that has delighted royal fans as they attempt to bury the hatchet.

The two couples went on an 40-minute walkabout inspecting the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the royal estate in honour of the much-loved monarch.

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

As well-wishers lined up to pay tribute to the Queen, a touching moment showed the young girl handing Prince William a Paddington toy. The bear from Peru has become widely associated with the Queen following their hilarious sketch together for the Platinum Jubilee just a few months ago.

Since the Queen's death, Britons have taken time to reflect on the highlights of Her Majesty's life - and the short sketch has been hailed as one of the many moments she showed her lighter side.

As the girl passes the Prince of Wales the bear, he can be heard saying, 'That is so sweet. Thank you very much.'

This was the touching moment that a young girl handed Prince William a Paddington Bear toy. The bear has become widely associated with the Queen after their hilarious sketch together for the Platinum Jubilee just a few months ago

Prince William can be heard asking whether to put it with the other tributes or keep it himself. He decides that he will give it to his eldest son, Prince George

Prince George, who will be getting the Paddington Bear toy, is now second in line to the thrown following the death of his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Pictured: The Queen and Prince George smiling on the Buckingham Palace balcony during the Platinum Jubilee in June

Prince William then points towards the other tributes that have been laid down and asks the family where he should put his new gift. 'Is that going over there or do you want me to keep it?' he can be heard asking.

The young royal fan decides that the gift is William's to keep as her father tells him 'Either, maybe give it to your children.'

And that is exactly what the Prince of Wales decided to do. In a sweet moment he tells the young girl that he wants to give it to his eldest son.

'I might give it to George, thank you very much,' Prince William can be heard saying.

After yesterday's tributes at Windsor Castle, well-wishers in Scotland are paying a fond farewell to the Queen today as her coffin left Balmoral to begin a six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where it will rest overnight at the Palace of Holyroodhouse before lying in state at St Giles' Cathedral.

It will then begin its final leg to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she will be buried alongside her beloved husband, Prince Philip, alongside her father, George VI, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on the long Walk at Windsor Castle to greet well-wishers

Experts predict the moment could prove a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses and the Sussexes (pictured here together in 2020), who have been at odds following a number of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan about the royals

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

Prince George, who might now become the recipient of the Paddington Bear toy, is the first-born of Kate and William, and is now second in line to the throne. Their two other children, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, are third and fourth in line now.

The three children started at their new 50,000 per year school, Lambrook, the day before the Queen's death.

The Waleses moved to the four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage in Windsor last Saturday to be closer to the new school near Ascot.

They are beginning a new life in the country away from the goldfish bowl of their official London residence Kensington Palace which is being seen as a bid to put their children first and give them more freedom.

Kate had stayed at Windsor Castle with the children as other family members rushed to the Queen's bedside at Balmoral, where she peacefully died aged 96.

But alongside her husband, Harry and Meghan, the four put aside their differences to join King Charles III on a walkabout around the castle - after Prince William extended an '11th-hour' olive branch to the Sussexes, following a phone call with the new monarch.

It comes after the new King expressed his 'love' for Harry and Meghan in his first speech to the nation.

Prince William paid tribute to his late grandmother yesterday, the first time he had publicly spoken since her death. 'She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life,' he said.

I need to get fitter so some karate lessons might help me out': Moment Prince William jokes with mourner who offers him martial arts training while he meets well-wishers in Windsor

By Rachel Muir For MailOnline

An amusing video shows the moment Prince William was offered karate lessons by a personal trainer yesterday as he spoke to the crowds outside Windsor Castle.

During a 40-minute walkabout alongside Prince Harry and wives Catherine and Meghan, the new Prince of Wales spent time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands.

And perhaps in an attempt to put a smile on the face of the grieving prince, Sensei Amie Benton told him to call her 'anytime' to arrange some karate lessons, saying her club was 'only round the corner'.

William, who has recently moved to nearby Adelaide Cottage with his wife and three children, responded: 'I need to get fitter so some karate lessons might help me out.'

Both flexed their muscles and laughed, with Prince William testing out his skills with some karate chop gestures.

In the background Catherine, now Princess of Wales, can be seen leaning in to talk to people in the crowd and accepting a large bouquet of white flowers.

The Prince of Wales tested out his skills with some karate chop gestures, while Sensei Amie Benton told him to call her 'anytime' to arrange some lessons

One well-wisher said Kate 'welled up' as she told children that her youngest son Louis - who stole the hearts of the nation during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations - consoled her by telling her: 'At least Grannie is with great grandpa now.'

Another royal fan who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship.

'A lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Prince William jokingly responded to Sensei Benton's offer of lessons, saying he does need to get fitter

During a 40-minute walkabout alongside Prince Harry and wives Catherine and Meghan, the new Prince of Wales spent time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands

Another added: 'It might build some bridges. It might have been the Queen's wish.' And one girl, who hugged Meghan during the walkabout, said she was pleased to see the Waleses and the Sussexes back together again.

Yesterday's surprise appearance is thought to be the first time that the two couples have all been in public together since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020.

And it is the first time William and Harry have been seen together in public since they joined for the opening of the memorial in honour of their mother, Princess Diana.
The Queen made a subtle dig at Vladimir Putin on his only state visit to Britain after he kept her waiting, a former minister has revealed.

Lord Blunkett recounted the late monarch's aside in 2003 after the Russian autocrat was 14 minutes late at Buckingham Palace.

Putin is notorious for keeping his enemies and rivals waiting ahead of his arrival as an attempted powerplay.

But it seems to have left the Queen nonplussed at the time.

Blunkett, who was Home secretary at the time of the visit, is blind, and he told the BBC how his guide dog Sadie became agitated as the Russian entourage arrived.

'The only time I met Vladimir Putin was back in 2003 on an official visit and my then dog barked very loudly,' he said.

'I did apologise to the Queen who was obviously hosting. I don't think I am giving anything away when I said, ''Sorry your Majesty about the dog barking.''

'She said: ''Dogs have interesting instincts, don't they?'''

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has extended his condolences on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Pictured: A carriage carrying Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Russian President Vladimir Putin is escorted by royal guards to Buckingham Palace in central London, Britain, June 24, 2003

Lord Blunkett recounted the late monarch's aside in 2003 after the Russian autocrat was 14 minutes late at Buckingham Palace.

The Queen and Putin were to meet again in June 2014 during a D-Day commemoration event in France.

The event had come just months after Charles was alleged to have presciently compared Putin's regime to that of Nazi Germany, which seemed to have soured relations considerably.

After a group photo with world leaders, the Queen was helped down a set of steps by then US President Barack Obama and New Zealand's Governor-General Jerry Mateparae.

Putin was the first world leader to congratulate King Charles III after his Accession Ceremony on Saturday.

The Russian President and the new King have had a particularly frosty relationship over the years, beginning in 2014 when Charles likened Putin to Adolf Hitler.

The Queen and Putin were to meet again in June 2014 during a D-Day commemoration event in France.

The then-prince made the withering assessment to Jewish museum volunteer Marienne Ferguson after she told him how her family had fled from Hitler.

Tensions flared again in early 2022 when the King became the first member of the Royal family to publicly condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

He described the war as an 'an attack on democracy' and expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian public.

The Russian leader will not be attending the late Queen's funeral on September 19. A Kremlin spokesman said a decision will be made on who will represent Russia at Westminster Abbey.

His forces are currently retreating from a massive Ukrainian counter-offensive as Kyiv seeks to rid the country of invading forces.
A fish and chip shop owner who celebrated the Queen's death with a bottle of champagne, shouting 'Lizard Liz is dead' has had her restaurant windows smashed in.

A photo of the vandalism was shared to Twitter on Saturday night showing the front of the shop with a shattered window and a hole in the middle.

Angry locals also vandalised the property on Thursday evening when they pelted the store front with eggs and ketchup.

Jaki Pickett, who runs Jaki's Fish and Chip Shop in Muir of Ord, Highlands in Scotland held up a chalkboard that read 'London Bridge has fallen' with a smiley face.

She posted the now-deleted clip of her happily celebrating the Queen's death on Facebook, but it caused huge outrage with locals who blasted Ms Pickett for disrespecting the late monarch.

A photo of the vandalism was shared to Twitter on Saturday night showing the front of the shop with a shattered window and a hole in the middle

The news of the latest vandalism was shared on Twitter, with a photo of the damage captioned: 'Jaki's chip shop smashed up again'.

Twitter users reacted, largely condemning the destruction, saying: 'What she did was despicable but it doesn't condone violence and death threats'.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: 'Officers received a report of damage to a property in the Seaforth Road area of Muir of Ord, which is thought to have happened between 7.30pm on Friday, 9 September, and 10.30am on Saturday, 10 September, 2022.

'Enquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances.'

Police Scotland were also called to the shop on Thursday evening after it was targeted by angry residents in Muir of Ord who egged the windows.

Pictures showed broken eggshells on the ground and egg mess over the shop windows, while ketchup was splattered on a bench.

Jaki Fish and Chip Shop, in Muir of Ord, was targeted after owner Jacki Pickett (pictured) shared a clip of her popping and spraying champagne shortly after Her Majesty's passing

Police surrounded the fish and chip shop Muir of Ord, Highlands in Scotland, after she held up a chalkboard that read 'London Bridge has fallen' with a smiley face, causing uproar with residents in the local area

Videos circulating on social media show residents surrounding the restaurant on Thursday evening, where owner Ms Pickett was seen driving away from the area with a police escort while locals booed her for her shameless Facebook post.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: 'Shortly after 8.30pm on Thursday, 8 September officers attended at a business in the Seaforth Road area of Muir of Ord following a report of a large crowd gathered in the area.

'Officers remained at the scene to ensure the safety of all present and the group subsequently dispersed peacefully.

'No further police action has been required.'

David Mackay, 27, from Muir of Ord said he was angered by the post. He said: 'The comments on her Facebook page were disgusted and against her, quite rightly so.

'I heard that large crowds headed down to the chip shop and were protesting outside.

Videos circulating on social media show residents surrounding the restaurant on Thursday evening, where owner Ms Pickett was seen driving away from the area with a police escort while locals booed her for her shameless Facebook post (police pictured at the scene)

'Some threw eggs at her window, some squirted tomato ketchup over the windows.

'I drove down myself to go and see what had happened and the streets were packed and the police were there.

'Then, Jaki, the owner of the chip shop and the lady in the video, was driving away with a police escort and her car was pelted with rocks and other objects.

'The police stayed for a while longer incase there was any further vandalism to the shop, but there wasn't.

'It made me feel angry. It's given Muir of Ord a bad reputation.

'Some English people might think that we are all laughing and celebrating about the queen dying but that is not the case at all.

'At the end of the day, I'm not a die hard royalist myself but the Queen is an inspiration for many people.

'So many people take warmth and comfort from her Christmas speeches, myself included. You don't have to be a royalist to realise and understand that it's still the death of a 96 year old woman, who has done so much for the country.'

Ms Pickett's membership to the National Federation of Fish Friers has also been revoked.

Eggshells could be seen on the ground and egg mess over Jaki's Fish and Chip Shop windows this morning

Ketchup was splattered on a bench outside Jaki's Fish and Chip shop this morning after her Facebook video celebrating the Queen's death angered locals

Police attended the scene at 8.30pm last night after the shop was pelted with eggs and residents gathered around to shame the anti-monarchist fish and chip shop owner

In a statement, the NFFF said: 'The NFFF has been made aware of social media posts made by one of our members that are in extremely bad taste and completely against all of the values our organisation and industry hold dear.

'We have discussed this as a board and have taken the decision to revoke the membership of this business owner and we will be writing to them and asking them to remove all association of the NFFF from her business, social media and websites.'

Seven officers were called to the shop on Thursday evening, a police spokesperson confirmed to The Press and Journal.

Although video emerged of Ms Pickett allegedly driving away from the shop after having consumed Champagne hours prior, police say there is 'no suggestion that a crime was committed.'

However, she has been slammed in the court of public opinion as social media users have issued aired their disgust towards her actions.

'You do not belong to us, we want you to leave,' one person wrote.

'I hope you're out of business and run out of the Muir in the month,' echoed another.

'Highlanders, by which I mean proper true Highlanders, not just by birth, but the people who chose to live here are decent gentle folk, respectful of others.'

She also held up a chalkboard sign reading: 'Lizard Liz Dead and London Bridge has fallen'

Enraged Brits pelted eggs at the shop following her posting of the video. A large group also gathered outside the business in protest as they booed and berrated Ms Pickett

Ms Pickett appears to have deleted the video from Facebook, but that has not stopped angry residents from issuing poor reviews of the restaurant online.

'Dreadful ignorant tube of an owner sincerely hope it fails,' wrote Peter Mcmurray.

'Utterly vile behaviour. Shameful and disrespectful!' added Iain McNab.

Alan Hassan echoed: 'Not one ounce of respect for anyone or anything except herself. I will never step foot back in your shop again.'

Mail Online has contacted Ms Pickett for comment.

Seven police officers were called to disperse the crowd and were forced to close the shop amid concerns for the owner's safety
The first edition of the Forum of Regions of Africa (FORAF), has been launched, this 8th September 2022, in Saidia, the Oriental Region of Morocco.

This gathering is organised by United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa) (www.UCLGA.org), in collaboration with the Association of Moroccan Regions (ARM), the Council of the Oriental Region (CRO) and the Directorate General of Territorial Collectivities (DGCT) of the Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Representing the Minister of Interior of Morocco, the Wali, Secretary General of Ministry of Interior, Mr. Mohamed Faouzi, the President of UCLG Africa, Madam Fatimetou Abdel Malick, the President of ARM, Madam Mbarka Bouaida and Mr. Abdennabi Bioui, President of the Regional Council of the Oriental Region took part to the official ceremony in presence of more than 400 delegates, thrilled to attend this historical moment held for the first time.

The proceedings are centered around The contribution of Regional Governments to the sustainable development and to the dynamics of integration of Africa.

At the opening ceremony on 8 September 2022, Madam Fatimetou Abdel Malick said in her statement Decentralisation is now an irreversible movement in Africa. An increasing number of African countries have established a second level of governance between the national and local levels.

More than 60 Presidents or Governors of regions from 21 African countries are attending this Forum, including Nigeria, Congo, Madagascar, Cote dIvoire, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, Mauritania, Kenya, South Africa etc. The presence at this first edition of our Forum of representatives of so many African countries, is the recent expression of our common belonging to the great African family. It reflects our commitment to our natural, geographical and political roots, said Madam Mbarka Bouaida to the attendees and to the press.

Mr. Mohamed Faouzi completed this statement, saying that: The objective of this Forum is to achieve a vision that can define a framework for African citizens; a framework that meets the needs of the people, without compromising the needs of the future generations; a framework to enable regional officials to build Africa by, and for Africans.

Mr. Abdennabi Bioui, President of Oriental Region, recalled that the idea of creation the Forum of African Regions was born here, in our region, our land. This land connects the present to the past and anticipates the future with a spirit that understands that the goals of liberation from colonialism are the same as the goals of sustainable development, considering that at the end, in both cases, the objective is to achieve African development.

Mr. Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, UCLG Africa Secretary General, underlined that he hoped that through the discussions and deliberations that will be held during these two days we will be able to realise how much we can and should do to change the face of our continent, by commencing to plant the seeds leading to the emergence of the Africa of the Peoples beyond the Africa of the National States that is the Africa We Want.

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn

Articles similaires
Advertisement

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey at 11am on Monday, September 19.

It will be the first funeral service at the Abbey - which was the background to much of the Queen's astonishing life, from her marriage to her beloved Duke of Edinburgh to the Coronation - for a British monarch since that of King George II in 1760.

The funerals of kings and queens have been at St George's Chapel in Windsor since the reign of George III.

However, in a break with convention, Her Majesty - who died at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96 following many months of concern over her health - decided her funeral should be in the much bigger setting of Westminster Abbey.

Scotland Yard has now been tasked with organising the most significant security arrangement in British history for the funeral.

After a night at the Palace of Holyroodhouse tonight, the Queen will lie in state for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Her coffin will be flown to London on Tuesday, acccompanied by the Princess Royal, before being driven to Buckingham Palace. The Queen's lying in state is expected to begin in Westminster Hall in London on Wednesday afternoon.

Then on Monday, the coffin will be moved from the Houses of Parliament that morning on the state gun carriage and transported to the neighbouring Abbey. King Charles III and other senior members of the Royal Family, as well as the military, will follow the coffin while hundreds of thousands of mourners line the streets to pay their final respects to the late monarch.

Around 2,000 guests including Prime Minister Liz Truss and US President Joe Biden will then attend the hour-long televised service in the Abbey, which is expected to be one of the most watched live events in history - before the coffin is solemnly carried to Wellington Arch at 1pm via Whitehall, The Mall and past Buckingham Palace.

The coffin will then be carried to Windsor, before the Queen is buried at St George's Chapel next to her husband Prince Philip.

Her Majesty stands on the Buckingham Palace balcony on the final day of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in early June

6am-8.30am: Last vigil at Queen's coffin in Westminster Hall

At dawn on the last day of national mourning, the King's bodyguards will begin their final vigil at the Queen's oak coffin in the Houses of Parliament. It will then close at 8.30am in preparation for the procession.

9am: Big Ben will strike

Big Ben will strike clearly, before the bell's hammer is covered with a thick leather pad to muffle its strikes for the rest of the day, out of respect and deference to the late monarch.

10.30am: Queen's coffin is carried from House of Parliament to Westminster Abbey

The Queen's coffin will be moved onto the state gun carriage which will be outside the north door of Westminster Hall.

From there, it will be pulled by naval ratings using ropes instead of horses from the Hall to Westminster Abbey.

Enormous crowds of mourners are expected to line the streets in Westminster as King Charles and senior members of the Royal Family follow the coffin as they did at the funeral for Princess Diana and for Prince Philip. The military will also join the procession.

11am: The Queen's coffin is carried to the High Altar

Around 2,000 guests including members of the Royal Family, Prime Minister Liz Truss, former British premiers, foreign dignitaries including US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and possibly Japanese Emperor Naruhito, and other VIPs, will fill the Abbey and watch as the Queen's coffin is moved down the nave to the High Altar, before the nation falls silent.

The state funeral at Westminster Abbey (pictured) be led by the Dean of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury

11am-12pm: The state funeral at the Abbey

The state funeral will be led by the Dean of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is being televised and is expected to be beamed to millions around the world - and could well be one of the most watched live events in human history.

Royal experts believe that the choice of the Abbey could be both because it is so big - it has a capacity of 2,000 though can hold as many as 8,000 - and more live TV broadcasts have already been held there.

It is also believed that it could be a better place for large crowds to gather to pay their respects, since it is in Central London.

And the Abbey was the setting for many of the most important events of the Queen's life - from her Coronation to her wedding to Prince Philip. The Princess Royal and the Duke of York, and the Queen's sister Princess Margaret, were also married there.

Other royal funerals have been held at the Abbey, including Princess Diana's in 1997 and the Queen Mother's in 2002. The funeral of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Philip's uncle, was also held there in 1979.

Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey

The Queen is photographed on June 2, 1953 smiling after her Coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London

12pm: The Last Post

At the end of the service, the Last Post and Reveille will be played.

12pm-1pm: Queen's coffin is carried to Wellington Arch via The Mall

The Queen's coffin will then be placed back on the state gun carriage, before the royal funeral procession will solemnly move through Parliament Square, Whitehall, Constitution Hill and The Mall, past Buckingham Palace, to arrive at Wellington Arch at 1pm.

1pm-4pm: The coffin is transported to Windsor

Then the coffin will be transported to Windsor, where the Queen spent much of the last years of her life, to her final resting place at St George's Chapel via the Long Walk.

The Queen's coffin will be lowered into the Royal Vault at St George's Chapel in Windsor (pictured), where she will be buried alongside her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, her beloved parents, and her sister Princess Margaret

Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in an official wedding photograph taken on their wedding day in 1947

4pm: Queen will be buried at St George's Chapel by her husband Prince Philip

The committal service conducted by the Dean of Windsor will then begin, and will also be televised around the world.

Before the last hymn, the Imperial State Crown, sceptre and orb will be removed from the Queen's coffin by the crown jeweller.

Then at the end of the service, a lament will be played by a lone piper as the coffin is lowered into the Royal Vault, where she will be buried alongside her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, her beloved parents, and her sister Margaret.

7pm: King Charles will attend private family burial service at chapel

King Charles and his closest family will return to the chapel for a private family burial service, where - as the late Queen did for her father - the monarch will scatter earth upon the coffin.
Former MI6 spy Christopher Steele has stated Vladimir Putin 'can't survive' defeat in Ukraine as the Russian president faces mounting tensions at home over his army's failures.

Yesterday, it was reported that Ukraine had made remarkable advances in a counter-offensive that caught the Russian Army by surprise.

A lightning attack by Ukrainian forces smashed Russian lines last week and punched deep into occupied territory, liberating more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region, President Zelensky announced on Friday.

Today, Ukrainian forces are still pushing north in the Kharkiv region, while videos and pictures emerged yesterday showing troops standing victoriously on top of Russian flags in the liberated city of Balakliaa.

In a tweet, former MI6 officer Christopher Steele wrote: 'The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv and Kherson has so far exceeded all expectations.

'If the ragbag Russian army of undisciplined drunks and thieves is routed, as now seems possible, it will be the end for Putin. Despite his propaganda machine, he can't survive defeat in war.'

Ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele has stated Vladimir Putin 'can't survive' defeat in Ukraine as the Russian president faces mounting tensions at home over his army's failures

More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) launched an invasion of Ukraine, his army is being repelled in the country's eastern provinces where they had made advances

A Ukrainian soldier takes a selfie as an artillery system fires in the front line in Donetsk region

Ukraine's chief commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said more than 3,000 square km (1,158 square miles) of territory has been regained since the beginning of this month

Ukrainian forces are advancing to the south and east of the country after the swift fall of Russia's main bastion in the northeast, Ukraine's army chief said today.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed Russia's retreat from the city of Izium in the Kharkiv province as a breakthrough in the six-month-old war, saying this winter could bring more rapid gains of territory if Kyiv can get more powerful weapons.

'In the Kharkiv direction, we began to advance not only to the south and east, but also to the north. There are 50 km to go to the state border (with Russia),' Ukraine's chief commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on Telegram.

He said the country's armed forces have regained control of more than 3,000 square km (1,158 square miles) since the beginning of this month.

The fall of Izium marked Russian forces' worst defeat since they were were pushed back from the capital Kyiv in March, as thousands of Russian soldiers left behind ammunition and equipment as they fled.

'I believe that this winter is a turning point, and it can lead to the rapid de-occupation of Ukraine,' Zelenskiy said in comments to a political forum published on his website late on Saturday. 'We see how they are fleeing in some directions. If we were a little stronger with weapons, we would de-occupy faster.'

Ukrainian officials stopped short of confirming they had recaptured Izium, but Zelenskiy's chief of staff Andriy Yermak posted a photo of troops on its outskirts and tweeted an emoji of grapes. The city's name means 'raisin.'

Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the gains could pave the way for a further push into Luhansk region, whose capture Russia claimed at the beginning of June.

'If you look at the map, it is logical to assume that the offensive will develop in the direction of Svatovo - Starobelsk, and Sieverodonetsk - Lysychansk. These are two promising directions,' he said.

A lightning attack by Ukrainian forces smashed Russian lines and punched deep into occupied territory, liberating more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region, President Zelensky announced on Friday

Last week's initiative caught the Russian lines by surprise at a vulnerable section of their front in an attack that threatens an important supply hub used by occupying Russian forces in the east.

'Our army, intelligence units and the security services are carrying out active engagements in several operational areas. They are doing so successfully,' the Ukrainian president said in a video address to the nation.

'We are gradually taking control over new settlements. We are returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our citizens everywhere.' He added that Ukrainians should report any crimes committed by the occupying forces.

Vitaly Ganchev, head of the Russian-backed administration in the Kharkiv region, virtually admitted that large tracts of its frontline had crumbled southeast of Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv.

In light of the huge advances made by Ukrainian forces, CIA Director William Burns condemned Putin's invasion as 'already a failure'.

He said the Russian dictator had erred initially in underestimating Ukrainian will and ability to resist his invasion, and he continues to fatally underestimate the resolve of the West to support Kyiv and wage economic war on Russia.

A lightning attack by Ukrainian forces has smashed Russian lines and punched deep into occupied territory, liberating more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region

A commanding officer of an anti-air unit of Ukraine's Armed Forces loads a rocket launcher in his SUV as they prepare to support infantry in liberating Balakliya in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Sept 8

The assault caught the Russian lines by surprise at a vulnerable section of their front in an attack that threatens an important supply hub used by Russian forces in the east

Ukrainian servicemen drive near Bakhmut, as Russia's attack in Ukraine continues, in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, September 7

The Ukrainian high command has issued a media blackout and forbidden reporters from visiting the front line during its counteroffensive, leaving it to pro-Russian sources to admit their losses.

'The enemy is being delayed as much as possible, but several settlements have already come under the control of Ukrainian armed formations,' Ganchev said on state television.

He had previously said his administration was trying to evacuate civilians from cities including Izium, Russia's main stronghold and logistics base in the province and one of the grand prizes of the Ukrainian offensive.

Russian military bloggers and other sources have also confirmed that Ukrainian spearhead units have reached as far as the banks of the Oskil river at Senkove, barely five miles from the Luhansk oblast which fell to Russia in July.

There have been unconfirmed reports of fierce fighting around the north of Izium as Ukrainian mechanised troops enter the city.

The surprise assault began with a heavy artillery barrage against Russian lines on Tuesday September 6 in the region of the strategic town of Balakliya. Ukraine said it had mandated to capture the town on Thursday.

'We do not control Balakliya. Attempts are being made to dislodge the Ukrainian forces, but there are fierce battles, and our troops are being held back on the approaches,' Ganchev said.

'Now Russian reserves have been brought there, our troops are fighting back,' he added.

Footage shows Ukrainian soldiers discovering the burnt out wreckages of enemy tanks.

In one moving video, weeping women - speaking Russian - are seen in footage running to hug Ukrainian troops as they advance through a town. 'How much we waited for you,' said one. A soldier answers back: 'It's all right.'

A woman says to the Ukrainian liberator: 'We've been so much praying for your return. Thank you for coming back.'

Left: Ukrainian soldiers - reportedly from the Kraken Special Branch - pose in with their weapons in front of a Ukrainian flag, standing or crouching on top of a Russian flag that has been pulled down. Right: A soldier poses on the steps of what appears to be a government building. Holding his weapon on the air, he is beaming from ear-to-ear. At his feet, a Russian tri-colour and red Soviet Union flag both lie in tatters while above him, the yellow and blue of a Ukrainian flag can be seen on the building

The offensive took the defenders - reported to be mostly fighters from DNR puppet state - by surprise, with Ukrainian troops overrunning abandoned Russian camps in which there was still food cooking on the stove.

Ukrainian armoured tank battalions succeeded in punching through the Russian lines and broke out towards the Russian-held town of Kupyansk, a vital transport hub for Russian forces in the Donbas.

Were Izium and Kupyansk to fall to Ukrainian liberators, it would have strategic implications for Russian forces along the entire eastern front.
Revelations come as heartbroken families of alleged victims plan their funerals

They alleged four of the passengers were 'ejected from the rear of the vehicle'

The driver in a horror crash that killed five teenagers survived because he was the only one wearing a seatbelt, court documents reveal.

Tyrell Edwards, 18, who was charged with five counts of dangerous driving occasioning death was the only person wearing a seatbelt when the Nissan Navara ute slammed into a tree on East Parade in the small town of Buxton last Tuesday night.

The P-plate driver had been travelling at 'high speed'' when he crashed into 'two large trees' in the town 100km southwest of Sydney splitting the vehicle in two, police have alleged.

Picton High School students Lily van de Putte, 15, Antonio Desisto, 15, Summer Williams, 14, Tyrese Bechard, 16, and Gabby McLennan, 14, were all killed in their school uniforms.

'Four passengers were ejected from the rear of the vehicle and were located a short distance away, trapped by confinement,' police court documents state.

The development in the tragic case comes as grief-stricken parents of the alleged victims begin the harrowing process of laying their loved ones to rest.

Tyrell Edwards, 18, (left) was the only person in the Nissan Navara ute wearing a seatbelt when the car slammed into a tree on East Parade in Buxton last Tuesday night

The heartbroken families of the five alleged victims commence plans to farewell their loved ones for the last time (pictured, family members visit the crash site)

John Van De Putte, the heartbroken father of his Lily, said he wanted to send of his 'baby girl' as soon as possible.

'We just want to get it over with it will be a celebration of her life, but we just want it done,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

The sad admission comes just days after Mr Van De Putte demanded dramatic changes to P-plate laws which would see ban drivers from having passengers.

The Buxton father has also asked that motorists be at least 20-years-old before they are allowed to get behind the wheel.

Maria Ma, the aunt of Tyrese Bechard, said her mother had raised the teenager since he was a baby after she lost her own daughter to a drug overdose.

The tragic crash has now exacerbated her emotional and financial struggles.

'Shes strapped for cash, shes doing it really tough,' Ms Ma said, adding the teenagers had been heading to McDonald's when they crashed.

Lily Van De Putte, 15, was one of five teens killed after the car they were in smashed into a tree on Tuesday night. Her father John has said he wants her funeral over as soon as possible

Summer William (left) and Tyrese Bechard (right) were two of five passengers who died in the horror crash as police allege four of the passengers 'were ejected from the rear of the vehicle'

It is understood the group had been driving around together for several hours.

Edwards remains in custody after being refused bail when he appeared via video link at Picton Local Court on Thursday.

He was transferred in handcuffs in a prison van to Silverwater's Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre.

He allegedly used his phone to film Snapchat video of himself aggressively turning the wheel and swerving at 90km/hour before the crash, police allege.

Antonio Desisto was among the five teenagers who tragically died in the crash

Exaven Desisto, the father of victim Antonio, broke down in tears outside court on Thursday

Driver Tyrell Edwards, 18, was the sole survivor of the crash and has been charged with five counts of dangerous driving occasioning death

Police will also allege that Edwards was heard by a witness after the horror smash saying: 'I f***ed up, I'm going to jail'.

During his bail application on Thursday, the court heard that Edwards had prior speeding offences which led to his licence being suspended on two separate occasions.

Exaven Desisto, the father of 16-year-old Antonio, sobbed inside the courtroom when Edwards' case was mentioned.

Outside, the shattered father hugged police officers, and described his son as his 'best friend' to Daily Mail Australia and other media.

'He literally never left my side. I didn't have many friends, I have a couple of best mates but my son was my best friend,' he said, clearly overwhelmed with emotion.

'We did everything together, I brought him up, he was just the most happy and humble kid. He used to pray before every meal he put in his mouth.'

'I have to visit my son in a f**king morgue,' he said.

Five teenagers were killed in the horror crash around 100km southwest of Sydney on Tuesday night

Outside court the shattered father hugged police officers, as he described his son as his 'best friend'

Mr Desisto said those involved needed to be held accountable for their actions.

According to court documents, police will allege footage of the teens from inside the car shows the moments before the crash.

Footage from around an hour before the crash allegedly shows Edwards holding his phone while aggressively turning the steering wheel.

Loud music can also apparently be heard, court documents said, with the passengers laughing as the vehicle swerved at 90km/h.

One male allegedly said: 'We're going to spin out cuz.'

Witnesses alleged the car travelled at 'high speeds' and was on the wrong side of the road before coming back to the right side before the crash.

Back in Buxton, heartbroken friends, family and school mates continue to mourn the loss of the five teenagers in the horror smash

A large crowd of supporters attended Tyrell Edwards' first court appearance in Picton, in Sydney's south-west, on Thursday

Edwards was allegedly unable to free himself from the wreck, while another victim was trapped in a passenger seat.

In an interview with officers, Edwards allegedly told police his steering wheel began 'shaking' and that he lost control of the vehicle.

He said he couldn't control the vehicle and tried to brake but it didn't significantly slow. Police allege roadway evidence from the scene does not support his account.

The driver also allegedly claimed he only knew about four passengers and didn't know when the fifth one entered the car.

Edwards appeared expressionless in court via video link, and sat with his hands clasped together while wearing a black hoodie.

The court heard he obtained his provisional licence in February last year but has had his licence suspended twice since for speeding offences, the court heard.

Friends of the five students killed on Tuesday visited the site of the crash Wednesday morning

Magistrate Mark Douglass said the decision to deny bail was 'not made easily' but he had taken into account Edwards' driving history.

'Given the egregious breach of trust, given the blatant breach of road rules that police allege occurred, this court has no confidence that this particular person would comply, given the history I've explained, with any bail conditions the court set at this particular point in time,' Mr Douglass said.

Edwards, who works as a labourer, has a history of anxiety and was left 'traumatised' by the incident, the court heard.
Charles held secret audiences with David Cameron while he was prime minister to help him prepare for becoming King, the politician revealed today.

The then Prince of Wales wanted to learn how to conduct himself during the reigning monarch's weekly meetings with the political leader of the day, Mr Cameron told the BBC.

He said that the now King was a 'brilliant listener' who would provide good advice to Liz Truss and her successors.

In a recorded interview on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Cameron said: 'I had audiences with Prince Charles when Queen Elizabeth II was still on the throne because he wanted to start thinking about how to conduct those audiences.

'And from what I saw he will be brilliant at that job. Brilliant at listening, brilliant at asking questions, giving wise advice and sage counsel.

'This has probably been the longest apprenticeship in history and he knows so much about so many subjects. And like his mother he is a superb diplomat.'

The former Tory leader, who was prime minister from 2010 to 2016, also revealed how his wife Samantha was taken with the 'extremely intelligent and charming' prince and hoped to sit next to him at state events.

The then Prince of Wales wanted to learn how to conduct himself during the reigning monarch's weekly meetings with the political leader of the day, Mr Cameron told the BBC.

In a recorded interview on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Cameron said: 'I had audiences with Prince Charles when Queen Elizabeth II was still on the throne because he wanted to start thinking about how to conduct those audiences.'

The former Tory leader, who was prime minister from 2010 to 2016, also revealed how his wife Samantha was taken with the 'extremely intelligent and charming' prince and hoped to sit next to him at state events.

'My wife always said, when we had to go to one of those banquets or dinners or big meetings, she said ''I hope I'm sitting next to Prince Charles, he's the best person to sit next to, he's the most charming company. There is no one who is better at putting you at your ease and a more charming companion to talk to.'' Those are her words.'

Mr Cameron was among a gathering of all of Britain's past and present political leaders yesterday as Charles III was officially proclaimed King.

The country's six former Prime Ministers and leaders of the opposition attended the Accession Council at St James's Palace following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

He and former Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Theresa May and Boris Johnson stood in the front row of the ceremony.

They were joined by former leader of the opposition Ed Miliband who led the Labour Party from 2010 to 2015 and Neil Kinnock, who did the same between 1983 and 1992. Former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg also joined the Council.

Members of The Royal Family and new Prime Minister Liz Truss were also in attendance, as was current Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

They joined in chorus of 'God Save The King' to show their support for the new monarch.

The monarchy will be smaller and more informal under King Charles, Gordon Brown said.

The former prime minister told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: 'I think that what Prince Charles has already indicated is that the monarchy will be smaller.

'It's going to be more like a Scandinavian monarchy in the future - but not in a bad way - more informal.

'He stopped as he entered Buckingham Palace and talked to people in the crowd, and that was a signal that he was sending that he wanted people to feel that he was approachable.'
This is the bizarre moment a Swedish tourist leaves a Star Wars Lego toy at Buckingham Palace in a rambling tribute to the Queen in the early hours of the morning.

The woman, being interviewed on BBC News on Friday morning at 3.18am, decides that the most appropriate tribute for the Queen is a Princess Leia Lego figure.

The Star Wars character was put down by the woman to symbolise the Queen's strength and how she was a 'strong woman in a world of men'.

BBC News presenter Kasia Madera, who was gathering tributes from late-night visitors to the palace, asked her: 'From Sweden, as well - the British Royal Family, are they popular?'

In a confusing, yet touching response, the Swedish woman - without hesitation - replies: 'I am putting Princess Leia down for her because she was a very strong woman in a world of men and she did not complain but she took her space.

'And she made her path and I really admire her for that, and I think there's something to aspire to.

BBC presenter Kasia Madera was interviewing this Swedish tourist outside Buckingham Palace at 3.18am when she decided to lay down a Princess Leia Lego toy as a tribute to the Queen

The woman said that she put Princess Leia as a tribute to symbolise the Queen's strength

'I think she's a role model for all of us so I'm going to put Princess Leia down to symbolise her strength and her and I just admire her for how she changed because the times that she ruled in 70 years, so much happened, especially for woman.'

She is filmed alongside a man wearing a yellow hat, who is not interviewed but is on hand to agree with his friend by occasionally saying 'yeah' and nodding during the rambling tribute.

It is not yet known where the pair had been at such early hours on Friday morning but people on social media speculated that she was likely to have been out and about in the capital.

One social media user said: 'People need to go home after a night on the lash rather than pranking BBC presenters'.

Another joked: 'Haha, what were they expecting at that time on a Friday night, really'.

A third added: 'Spoken with such grace and sincerity too. Very funny.'

And a fourth said: 'This would have been me in my 20s. Drunkenly paying tribute to somebody with a figurine of a fictional somebody ELSE.'

It's not the first time Ms Madera has had a strange interview during this period of mourning. Just an hour earlier she had spoken to a passerby 'on a work night out' who decided to head to the Palace at 2am.

Viewers were left convinced one man she came across didn't actually know the Queen had died despite being outside the royal residence, offering up a peculiar answer when asked what he was there for at such a late hour.

Viewers were left convinced one man she came across didn't actually know the Queen had died despite being outside the royal residence, offering up a peculiar answer when asked what he was there for at such a late hour

'Just explain why you're here, it's the middle of the night in London yet we're still gathering here,' Ms Madera asked the man.

He responded: 'I actually came home after a work event and I turned on the TV and saw you [Ms Madera] - and I thought hold on a minute, something's happening here. So I came down to see this, be a part of it.'

The presenter then says, 'I'm sure I'm not the reason why you came here,' and he quickly says, 'Not literally you, I mean this event... and realising that people were here...'

The BBC presenter then asks, 'So you wanted to be here as well,' he says 'Yeah I did. Five minute walk, and here we are...' and an awkward silence ensues.

He adds, while gesturing towards people behind him: 'All the diversity going on which is good and interesting, and, like, beautiful really. Isn't it?'

She quickly ends the interview by thanking him and continuing with her segment elsewhere.

Tens of thousands of flowers, written tributes, balloons, cuddly toys, candles and cards have been left for Her Majesty in the days since her passing, with many people seen in tears at the sight of what's before them

Mourners have once again gathered outside Buckingham Palace from the break of day this morning to lay flowers and pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

After her doctor's health concerns were shared to the public on 8 September, members of the public have headed towards the royal palace to send their well-wishes - and the numbers have only skyrocketed since the Queen's death was announced at 6.30pm on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of flowers, written tributes, balloons, cuddly toys, candles and cards have been left for Her Majesty in the days since her passing, with many people seen in tears at the sight of what's before them.

Today, well-wishers in Scotland are paying a fond farewell to the Queen today as her coffin left Balmoral to begin a six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where it will rest overnight at the Palace of Holyroodhouse before lying in state at St Giles' Cathedral.

It will then begin its final leg to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she will be buried alongside her beloved husband, Prince Philip, alongside her father, George VI, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.
Lisa Wilkinson claims Queen Consort Camilla looked 'nervous' at the proclamation ceremony of her husband King Charles III.

Camilla stood beside Prince William with her hands tensely crossed for much of ceremony held at St James's Palace, with both signing the proclamation as witnesses following the death of the Queen at Balmoral Castle aged 96.

Charles vowed to dedicate himself to his duties as King saying: 'In carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me on to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God'.

Wilkinson was speaking to The Project's UK correspondent Lucy McDonald outside Windsor Castle, after flying to London for the program.

'Camilla looked a little bit nervous during that proclamation ceremony yesterday. Did you notice that or was that just me?' Wilkinson asked.

'She kind of looked like she wanted to go home and have a cup of tea... or a glass of sherry,' Ms McDonald joked.

'Well that would be absolutely understandable,' The Project host agreed.

The Project's Lisa Wilkinson said outside Windsor Castle (pictured) that Camilla looked 'nervous' at the proclamation ceremony

Queen Consort Camilla and King Charles III at the ceremony in St James's Palace (pictured)

King Charles signs the proclamation with William and Camilla watching on (pictured)

Camilla, wearing a black dress, remained silent throughout the somber ceremony alongside Prince William.

'In all this, I am profoundly encouraged by the constant support of my beloved wife,' King Charles III said.

They then signed the proclamation as witnesses along with each of the 200 members of the privy council before they gave three cheers.

Ms McDonald said she was impressed by how Charles had presented himself to the public in recent days.

Charles and the Queen together at her platinum jubilee in June (pictured)

Charles, Camilla and the Queen as they depart Westminster Abbey after attending the annual Commonwealth Service in London on March 9, 2020 (pictured)

'He does seem like a more loving and emotionally attuned pair of hands than many of us thought,' she said.

'There is a lot of political and economic upheaval here in Britain and we are looking for some stability and we hope he can provide that.'

'I was actually quite nervous for him, it's a lot. He's the longest heir in waiting he's had a lot of time to think about what he would do when he became King and I thought it went brilliantly.'

She said his first public address as King 'was about love, loyalty and respect' and the tone of unity against a backdrop tension was pitch perfect.

Wilkinson and McDonald also discussed the surprise appearance of Harry and Meghan alongside William and Kate as they took a 40 minute tour of the floral tributes outside Windsor Castle.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on the long Walk at Windsor Castle to greet well-wishers

The Prince and Princess of Wales view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle

William and Harry appear to have fallen out in recent years, while Harry has relocated to Los Angeles with Meghan.

'I think that was an edict from the King actually. He wants to give the message that he wants his family close. He doesn't want the story to be around division,' Ms McDonald said.

'So I think it was a great move. This could be a new future for the brothers reunited and we'd all love to see that. And Charles not so far away from his son.'

Ms McDonald added that the wider scene in Britain felt 'very surreal' seeing the crowds on the street and the outpouring of emotion for the beloved Queen Elizabeth.

'You can just see from the number of floral tributes and letters people have left, not outside the palace anymore cause there's not space, but in Green Park. Just the huge depth of affection people had for the Queen.'

Wilkinson said many of handwritten notes were so personal it was 'as if everyone knew this woman'.

Ms McDonald replied that Queen Elizabeth had been monarch of Britain for as long as most people could remember.

'I've had her all my life. She ruled for seven decades I think everyone had a very personal relationship to her.'

This was the touching moment that a young girl handed Prince William a Paddington Bear toy. The bear has become widely associated with the Queen after their hilarious sketch together for the Platinum Jubilee just a few months ago

Australians will get a public holiday on September 22, three days after the funeral of the Queen in London, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Sunday.

Governor-General David Hurley proclaimed Charles III as Australia's monarch at a ceremony at Parliament House on Sunday.

Australia's Executive Council, which formally advises the governor-general, earlier met in Canberra to recommend the proclamation.

The governor-general said the council had a weighty responsibility.

'Australia is an unfinished product. It is now entering a new era,' Mr Hurley said ahead of the meeting.

'Most Australians have not known a world without Queen Elizabeth II, her passing is the end of an era.'

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hosed down talk of Australia soon becoming a republic following the death of Queen Elizabeth II

The ceremony began with a procession of the Australian Defence Force followed by a welcome to country.

Following the proclamation, God Save the King was played, with flags raised to full mast.

They will be returned to half mast at dusk until the day after the funeral for the late monarch, which is scheduled for September 19.

An Indigenous spiritual dance preceded a 21-gun salute, which rang out across the capital.

MPs and senators from across the political divide watched the proceedings, while large crowds also gathered outside Parliament House to witness the proclamation, with some attendees waiting for more than an hour.

Gundagai's Colin Lyon travelled more than two hours to Canberra for the event, telling AAP it was important to be there for the historic occasion.

Governor-General David Hurley proclaimed King Charles III as monarch at midday on Sunday

'No doubt the (republic) debate will be revived at some point in the foreseeable future, but you know, now's not the time,' he said.

State proclamation ceremonies also took place across the country following the proclamation in Canberra.

A national memorial service for the Queen will be held at Parliament House on September 22 and it will be attended by the governor general, prime minister, premiers and other dignitaries.

'I encourage all Australians, wherever you may be, to take time to pause and reflect on Her Majesty's extraordinary life of service,' Mr Albanese said.
Three people have been killed and five injured after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a Taliban training exercise in Afghanistan.

The chopper crashed in Kabul due to a 'technical problem,' the group's defence ministry said on Saturday.

Video of the crash shows the helicopter seemingly nose-dive before it hit the ground.

Other footage shared on Twitter showed a cloud of smoke billowing around the alleged crash site.

The crash comes as three civilians were injured when a bicycle bomb exploded in the capital city. The incidents are not believed to be connected.

Three people have been killed and five injured during a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Afghanistan

Video shared on Twitter showed a cloud of smoke billowing around the crash site

Enayatullah Khwarizmi, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence, confirmed the crash, saying: 'An American Black Hawk helicopter, which was flown ... for training, crashed due to a technical problem inside the campus of the National Defence University.'

The Taliban took control of some American-made aircraft after they seized the country in mid-August last year. It remains unclear how many are operational.

US forces deliberately damaged some military hardware as they left and Afghan forces had flown some helicopters to central Asian nations, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Afghan air force pilots and their US counterparts played a key role in the 20-year war against Taliban insurgents.

The pilots led airstrikes that inflicted heavy causalities among Taliban troops and drove them from positions that the group had seized in various parts of the country.

Dozens of pilots fled the country as the US-backed Afghan government collapsed just over a year ago.

The chopper crashed during a Taliban training exercise in Kabul due to a 'technical problem,' the group's defence ministry said on Saturday

Video of the crash shows the helicopter seemingly nose-dive before it hit the ground, spewing debris

Separately, Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran told The Associated Press on Saturday that three people were injured when a bicycle bomb exploded in the Shai neighbourhood.

No one immediately took responsibility for the blast. However the Islamic State (IS) has recently claimed similar attack in Afghanistan.

The extremist group has reportedly waged a 'bloody campaign of attacks' on Taliban targets and minority groups.

IS has been particularly targeting the Shiites whom they consider to be heretics.
Advertisement

King Charles III is today being proclaimed as head of state at a swathe of ceremonies across Britain and the Commonwealth - from Edinburgh, Cardiff and Hillsborough castles, and the devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to the far-flung capitals of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The late Queen's eldest son, who automatically became King upon his mother's death at Balmoral Castle at the age of 96 on Thursday afternoon, was yesterday formally proclaimed at a historic ceremony in St James's Palace in London, following a meeting of the ancient Norman-era Accession Council.

Proclamations are taking place in other parts of the UK, including the devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, at 12pm today.

In Edinburgh, huge crowds gathered down the Royal Mile as the King's Body Guard for Scotland, known as the Royal Company of Archers, and the guard of honour marched from the Castle Esplanade to Mercat Cross. They were joined by soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, where a drill is taking place in front of the cross in Edinburgh.

An anti-monarchy protester holding a sign which said 'f**k imperialism, abolish the monarchy' appeared at the Mercat Cross moments before the proclamation. However, well-wishers turned on the republican and shouted 'have some respect'. Police Scotland later said officers had arrested a 22-year-old woman in connection with a breach of the peace.

Rain beat down on officials at the proclamation event in Hillsborough, as a 40-second fanfare was sounded by a bugler after the last round of the 21-gun salute was fired before the band of the Royal Irish Regiment then played one verse of God Save the King. Guests at the event - including Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland Office minister Steve Baker, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie and Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister - joined together and said three cheers for Charles III.

And at Cardiff Castle, more than 2,000 people witnessed Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary, Tom Lloyd, and the Lord-Lieutenant of South Glamorgan, Morfudd Meredith, read the proclamation of the new King in English and Welsh. Prior to the Proclamation, 26 men of the 3rd Battalion the Royal Welsh - supported by the Band of the Royal Welsh - were marching from City Hall at 11.25am along the Boulevard de Nantes, North Road and Duke Street to the castle. They were accompanied by the regimental mascot, a Welsh billy goat called Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, and Goat Major Sergeant Mark Jackson.

Charles has also been proclaimed King in cities across the Commonwealth. Speaking from parliament's steps in Wellington, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a crowd that in the wake of the Queen's death, New Zealand had entered a time of change.

In Canberra, Governor General David Hurley, the monarch's representative in Australia, proclaimed Charles with a 21-gun salute at Parliament House.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a national day of mourning for the Queen would take place on September 22, with the day to be a public holiday. He also announced that he would attend Her Majesty's state funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19.

As a mark of respect, national flags in Australia are at half-mast, parliament has been suspended and a giant portrait of the Queen has been displayed on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

And in Ottawa, a 28-member band of the Canadian Armed Forces played God Save the King during a 21-run gun salute at a proclamation ceremony attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Though Canadians are somewhat indifferent to the monarchy, many had great affection for the Queen, whose silhouette marks their coins. She was the head of state for 45% of Canada's existence and visited the country 22 times as monarch.

CARDIFF: A gun salute is fired during the proclamation ceremony for King Charles in Cardiff, Wales

EDINBURGH: Gun salutes ring out from Edinburgh Castle after King Charles III's proclamation today

NORTHERN IRELAND: The Band of the Royal Irish Regiment perform at Hillsborough Castle

CARDIFF: Members of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh regiment fire a 21-gun salute at Cardiff Castle

CARDIFF: Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary, Thomas Lloyd, reads the proclamation in English at the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle, Wales, publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch

EDINBURGH: An Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, publicly proclaiming King Charles as the new monarch

EDINBURGH: Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party at Meerkat Cross

CARDIFF: The 3rd battalion of the Royal Welsh and The Band of the Royal Welsh arrive at Cardiff Castle accompanied by the regimental mascot during of the Welsh Proclamation of King Charles III

EDINBURGH: The Royal Marines march down the Royal Mile during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross

AUSTRALIA: Members of the Australian Defence Force conduct a 21 gun salute at Parliament House in Canberra

NEW ZEALAND: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during a Proclamation of Accession ceremony in Wellington

CANADA: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his son Hadrien at a proclamation ceremony in Ottawa

King Charles III waving at well-wishers as he arrives at Buckingham Palace in London

ABERDEENSHIRE: People in Ballater gather in tribute as the cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen passes today

King Charles III's declaration in full My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen. It is my most sorrowful duty to announce to you the death of my beloved Mother, The Queen. I know how deeply you, the entire Nation - and I think I may say the whole world - sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered. It is the greatest consolation to me to know of the sympathy expressed by so many to my Sister and Brothers and that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our whole family in our loss. To all of us as a family, as to this kingdom and the wider family of nations of which it is a part, my Mother gave an example of lifelong love and of selfless service. My Mother's reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life. I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me. In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these Islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world. In this purpose, I know that I shall be upheld by the affection and loyalty of the peoples whose Sovereign I have been called upon to be, and that in the discharge of these duties I will be guided by the counsel of their elected parliaments. In all this, I am profoundly encouraged by the constant support of my beloved wife. I take this opportunity to confirm my willingness and intention to continue the tradition of surrendering the hereditary revenues, including the Crown Estate, to My Government for the benefit of all, in return for the Sovereign Grant, which supports My official duties as Head of State and Head of Nation. And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God. Advertisement

One visitor who watched the proclamation of King Charles III in Edinburgh said it was 'pretty incredible' to witness the event.

Helen Smith, from Livingston, stood at the front of the barriers right next to the Mercat Cross.

She said: 'I got here about 8am to get my spot. I came because it's an event in history. I've only ever known one monarch, so I wanted to be here for it. Being quite close was pretty incredible, I could hear everything that went on. It was quite a spectacular sight to see.

'The whole atmosphere was a little bit surreal. With a large group of people, you expect a lot of noise but everything was really quiet as we just observed. My favourite bit was the first time we sang God Save The King, because we've only ever known singing God Save The Queen, so it's a mind shift.'

Flags on the castle and council buildings in Wales, which had been flying at half-mast, were returned to full-mast on Saturday, to coincide with the Reading of the Principal Proclamation of the new monarch in London. Flags will return to half-mast at 1pm on Sunday after the Proclamation is read in Cardiff.

The Senedd will also be recalled at 3pm to allow members to pay tribute to the Queen. All other business has been suspended until after the state funeral on Monday September 19.

The King and Queen are to visit Wales on Friday, having already attended ceremonies in Belfast and Edinburgh - as part of their trip around the UK, codenamed Operation Spring Tide.

While in the Welsh capital for the accession visit, the royal couple will take part in a service at Llandaff Cathedral alongside senior faith leaders from communities across the city. They will then head to the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, to receive a Motion of Condolence.

This will be followed by a reception at Cardiff Castle where First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, and the Speaker of the Senedd, Elin Jones, will get a private audience with the King.

The King and Queen will then meet members of the public who have gathered inside the castle grounds.

Yesterday King Charles paid tribute to the reign of the late Queen, 'unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion', as he was formally declared the nation's new monarch.

During a poignant and sombre meeting of the Accession Council, the King spoke movingly about his mother and the grief his family is experiencing, but said the 'sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers' had been the 'greatest consolation'.

Watched by the Queen, the new Prince of Wales and more than 200 privy counsellors - including six former prime ministers - the King pledged himself to the task now before him and the 'heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty'.

His mother would be his guide for the years ahead as he strived to 'follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government', he added.

The day included a moment of pomp and pageantry with David White, Garter King of Arm, in his colourful regalia and flanked by other Officers of Arms and Sergeants at Arms, reading the proclamation of the new King from a balcony at St James's Palace.

Meanwhile, in Scotland the late Queen's other children, the Princess Royal, Duke of York and Earl of Wessex, and their families attended a service at Balmoral's Crathie Kirk where their mother regularly worshipped.

Afterwards, Anne, her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence and her children Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips joined Andrew and his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and Edward and the Countess of Wessex with their daughter Lady Louise, at the gates of Balmoral Castle to look at floral tributes left for the late monarch.

Eugenie wiped away tears at one point and was hugged by her father Andrew, and returned the comforting gesture.

Charles began his momentous day by discharging the 'sorrowful duty' of announcing the death of his 'beloved mother', and told the council: 'I know how deeply you, the entire nation - and I think I may say the whole world - sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered.

TOWER OF LONDON: Tower Governor Andrew Jackson addresses the public on Tower Green

EDINBURGH: Members of the public during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch

CARDIFF: Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, the regimental mascot goat, accompanies the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh regiment at the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle

WALES: Crowds gather at Cardiff Castle ahead of the Welsh Proclamation of King Charles III

EDINBURGH: An Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross publicly proclaiming King Charles as the new monarch

EDINBURGH: People gather outside of the St Giles' Cathedral ahead of the ceremony of the proclamation

WALES: People queue to get into a proclamation ceremony for King Charles at Cardiff Castle

WALES: Elliot Gray, two, waves the Welsh national flag ahead of the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle

AUSTRALIA: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends a proclamation ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra

AUSTRALIA: Governor-General David Hurley, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Linda Hurley attend the Proclamation of King Charles III, on the forecourt of Parliament House in Canberra

AUSTRALIA: The Federation Guard arrives for a Proclamation of Accession ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra

NEW ZEALAND: A policewoman leaves flowers from children during a Proclamation of Accession ceremony in Wellington

NEW ZEALAND: Members of the New Zealand Defence Force perform during the proclamation ceremony in Wellington

Liz Truss will join the King on tour of the UK as they lead the nation in mourning Liz Truss will accompany the King as he visits the four corners of the United Kingdom to lead the nation in mourning. The Prime Minister will be by His Majesty's side as he attends services in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next week ahead of his mother's funeral. While she is not required to be present, she believes it is important to be present. Her official spokesman told reporters: 'In terms of the Prime Minister's involvement, she will join the King as he leads the national mourning across the United Kingdom, attending services of reflection in Scotland on Monday afternoon, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday.' He said it would not be a formal or constitutional role but had been agreed by Downing Street and the Palace. 'It's not a requirement but the Prime Minister believes it's important to be present for what is a significant moment of national mourning around the United Kingdom.' The spokesman also said that the scale of planning the Queen's funeral was 'equivalent to the Olympics'  but would need to be done in just ten days. Advertisement

'It is the greatest consolation to me to know of the sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers and that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our whole family in our loss.'

Charles spoke of the late Queen's 'selfless service', adding: 'My mother's reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life.'

He went on to say: 'I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me. In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional Government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world.'

The King ended by saying: 'And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God.'

The historic event was broadcast for the first time, giving the world a first glimpse of an ancient ceremony dating back centuries and one of the first changes to convention instigated by the new King.

Following convention, Charles did not attend the first part of the ceremony when the clerk of the council Richard Tilbrook read the proclamation to the packed meeting that confirmed the new monarch.

He said: '...Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege lord, Charles III...'

The meeting was staged in the state rooms of St James's Palace, and the clerk declared to the room: 'God Save the King,' with the privy counsellors repeating the famous phrase.

The new monarch became King the moment his mother died, but an Accession Council must be convened following the death of a Sovereign - usually within 24 hours.

More than 200 privy councillors - a group of mostly senior politicians past and present, some members of the monarchy and other national figures - were present to hear the Clerk of the Council read the Accession Proclamation.

Among them were ex-prime ministers Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson - Cabinet members, former Archbishops of Canterbury and York with everyone standing, a convention believed to have been established by Queen Victoria to keep such meetings short.

LONDON: Members of Band of the Coldstream guards ahead of the reading of the Principal Proclamation in Friary Court before the accession council

King Charles III during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London

What happens next: Day two of mourning D+2 - Sunday September 11 The Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland, will be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh from 10am. It will travel east from Balmoral to the coast, before travelling south to Holyroodhouse, in a journey lasting six hours. Huge crowds are expected to line the route of the 170-mile journey, as mourners pay their respects. The Queen will rest overnight in the oak-panelled Throne Room. Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. And King Charles will meet Commonwealth Secretary General, Realm High Commissioners, and the Dean of Windsor at Buckingham Palace today. D+3 - Monday September 12 At 2.35pm, the procession will be held along the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral. The King and other senior members of the Royal Family will walk the 1,200 yard route on foot. At 7.20pm, the King and other family members will mount a vigil by the coffin. The Queen will then lie at rest for 24 hours, with thousands expected to file past. The House of Commons and the House of Lords are expected to come together in Westminster for a Motion of Condolence, which the King could attend. After leaving England and visiting Scotland, Charles will at some stage travel to the other countries of the UK - Wales and Northern Ireland - known as Operation Spring Tide. D+4 - Tuesday September 13 At 5pm on Tuesday, the Queen's coffin will be taken by hearse to Edinburgh airport, where it will be met by a Guard of Honour from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The Royal Air Force bearer party will then carry it on to a waiting aircraft, where it will be flown to London at 6pm. She will be accompanied by Princess Anne and arrive at RAF Northolt in West London shortly before 7pm. The coffin will then be driven to Buckingham Palace where it will be met by a Guard of Honour. There it will rest in the Bow Room, under the watch of a rota of chaplains. A rehearsal for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster is also expected to take place. D+5 - Wednesday September 14 The Queen's lying in state is expected to begin in Westminster Hall - Operation Marquee - following a ceremonial procession through London that will begin at 2.22pm. The King will walk behind his mother's coffin for the second time in three days. On arrival, the coffin will be placed on a raised bier where the Queen will lie in state for four full days. The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct a short service following the coffin's arrival. Hundreds of thousands of people will file past the coffin on its catafalque and pay their respects, just as they did for the Queen Mother's lying in state in 2002. The management of the queues outside is Operation Feather. During the Covid-19 crisis, plans included the possibility of the introduction of timed ticketing for those wanting to attend. Senior royals are also expected to pay their own moving tribute, standing guard at some stage around the coffin - the tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes. D+6 - Thursday September 15 Lying in state continues and a rehearsal is likely to take place for the state funeral procession. D+7 - Friday September 16 Lying in state continues, ending on D+9. On Friday, King Charles will continue his tour of the UK, travelling to Wales to receive a motion of condolence at the Welsh Parliament, and attend a service at Llandaff Cathedral, in Cardiff. D+9 - Sunday September 18 Heads of state begin to arrive for the funeral. An evening reception will be held for funeral guests, including prime ministers, heads of state and other dignitaries from across the world. The King will hold an audience with the Prime Minister. D+10 - Monday September 19 The Queen's state funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey in central London at 11am. The original plans are for the Queen's coffin to process on a gun carriage to the abbey, pulled by naval ratings - sailors - using ropes rather than horses. Senior members of the family will follow behind - just like they did for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The military will line the streets and also join the procession. Heads of state, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key figures from public life will be invited to gather in the abbey, which can hold a congregation of 2,000. The service will be televised, and a national two minutes' silence is expected to be held at midday. The same day as the funeral, the Queen's coffin will be taken to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for a televised committal service. Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family. The Queen's final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel - where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret. Philip's coffin will move from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen's. Advertisement

The current premier Liz Truss was part of the proceedings and stood at the head of the council with Camilla, William, Archbishop of York Justin Welby and other figures as the clerk read the proclamation.

Charles's address was made in the second part of the ceremony - when proceedings moved to the palace's throne room - and was effectively the King hosting his first Privy Council meeting.

After his personal declaration about the death of his mother the King took the oath to preserve the Church of Scotland - because in Scotland there is a division of powers between the church and state.

A number of procedural matters were completed including the King approving the day of the late Queen's funeral, which has yet to be confirmed, to be a bank holiday.

The new monarch became King the moment his mother died, but an Accession Council must be convened following the death of a Sovereign - usually within 24 hours.

At 11am the crowds stood in a road overlooking the St James's Palace's Friary Court saw the spectacle of the Garter King of Arms reading the proclamation from a balcony.

In the court below was the palace's detachment of the King's Guard made up of Number 7 Company, Coldstream Guards.

The national anthem was performed by the Band of the Coldstream Guards alongside eight State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry who were stood on the balcony.

Amid a burst of pageantry with a trumpet fanfare, it was a masterclass in royal choreography - the like of which not has not been witnessed for 70 years - as the change in reign was officially announced.

Behind the old stone castellations of the balcony above Friary Court in St James's Palace, the Garter Principal King of Arms David White, resplendent in a sumptuous red and gold velvet tabard, stepped into the warm September air under grey skies to shout out the proclamation.

It signified the formal notice to the people of the accession of a new sovereign, at the conclusion of the historic Accession Council.

In a poignant move, the Queen's grieving first cousins had made their way into Friary Court to watch from beneath the arches of St James's Palace.

Led by the late Queen's Master of the Household Vice Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, the Duke of Kent, aged 86 and 10 years the Queen's junior, looked ailing and frail as he walked slowly but without any aid to sit on a red leather and wooden seat specially set out for him under the arches of the courtyard.

There too were his brother Prince Michael of Kent, and the Duke of Gloucester and his wife the Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent's daughter Lady Helen Taylor.

The Duchess of Gloucester, sat next to the Duke of Kent, listened as he pointed towards the balcony discussing the scene before them.

The Queen's cousins have served Elizabeth II throughout their lives and shared precious times with her in childhood.

At one point the Gloucesters stood with their arms interlinked.

In the quadrangle, the King's principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, clutching a series of white documents, and the late Queen's private secretary Sir Edward Young were engrossed in conversation shortly before the public proclamation. Both have key roles in the busy days ahead as London Bridge gets fully under way - although Charles has yet to set out the details of royal court as monarch.

The Garter King of Arms confessed beforehand to being nervous at his 'emotional' role.

'It's a great honour and something that we have been preparing for, for years. It's a rather emotional occasion,' he said.

Asked if he had any nerves, he replied: 'I do.'

His intricately decorated tabard, embroidered gold thread, was thankfully not heavy or hot, he disclosed, due to it being made of velvet.

Given the ancient nature of the ceremony, it was also remarkably new, having been made just 10 years ago when the previous one which dated from 1838 became too frail to be used.

'Every garment has its working life,' he added.

There had been much to do in preparation. One of the 20 foot high huge sash windows at the back of the balcony was removed entirely on Friday to allow the Garter King of Arms and the Officers and Serjeants of Arms ease of access - with a scramble through a window unthinkable amid the carefully staged pomp.

It was replaced with a temporary window in case of poor weather and for protection, which was removed on Saturday as the scene was readied.

Special wooden steps - crafted by a carpenter - were created to allow the ceremonial officers, all decked out in tabards like a row of court playing cards - to process with regal effect onto the balcony, which overlooked the expanse of the red coloured court.

Ahead of the ceremony, the newly named King's Guard - made up of Number 7 Company Coldstream Guard - in familiar red tunics and black bearskin hats took their positions with shouts of 'Be still' from their Captain.

Timing was of the utmost importance and the Earl Marshal - the Duke of Norfolk - in charge of the accession proceedings and the funeral - checked his watch twice as he and the others waited for the precise start time of 11am.

The Garter King of Arms read his 197 word proclamation - to 'publish and proclaim that the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege lord, Charles III'.

He delivered his words loudly and without falter, the carrying of his voice assisted by two fluffy boom microphones hid out of sight behind the low dark red brick balcony wall, above the quadrangle.

The Captain of the King's Guard ordered his troops to 'Present arms' as the colour was lowered with the stomp of their feet.

The Garter King of Arms' shout of 'God Save the King' was echoed triumphantly by the gathered royals, including the Duke of Kent who rallied to stand, along with the household staff and public, as the state trumpeters sounded the royal salute.

Members of the household staff appeared moved as cheers from the crowds on The Mall and shouts of 'God Save the King' flooded into the courtyard, as the National Anthem was played, and those watching joined in.

In a poignant tribute, the King's Guard lifted their head-dresses raising them aloft three times as the Garter King of Arms declared 'Three Cheers for His Majesty The King. Hip-Hip' with the troops responding 'Hooray' to each.

The Duke of Kent raised his hand in the air for the two final cheers.

Friary Court plays a role in the Changing the Guard ceremonies, being where the Old Guard forms and is inspected by the Captain of the Guard before marching to Buckingham Palace - and on Saturday, it was a Changing the Guard of the monarchy, from a now departed monarch to her son.
Charles was formally proclaimed King at the ceremony at St James's Palace

People joked that he was looking for friends or for weapons of mass destruction

Has become a meme after a video showed him desperately looking around room

Tony Blair has been mocked online after a video from yesterday's Accession Council ceremony showed him looking round the room with a bemused look on his face.

The former Prime Minister and Labour Party leader, who is one of 718 Privy Councillors, was in attendance at the ceremony in St James' Palace yesterday where Charles was formally proclaimed King.

And his strange facial expressions at the ceremony have generated lots of memes, with some people suggesting he is desperately looking around for friends and others joking that he is searching the room for weapons of mass destruction.

One person Tweeted: 'Gets a lot of stick but he's still out there every day looking for those WMDs.'

Mr Blair famously sent British troops to Iraq in 2003 based on a conviction that the country's president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that intelligence reports had not established 'beyond doubt' that they existed.

Tony Blair has been mocked online for his facial expressions at yesterday's Accession Council ceremony

People joked online that Mr Blair was scouring the room in search of weapons of mass destruction

Another social media user commented 'Where's them weapons...' to which people responded 'Got to be here somewhere' and 'I think he's still looking for them by the looks of him'.

Others joked that he was desperately scouring the room for a friend to talk to, with one commenter sympathising saying: 'Me at every social event ever.'

Twitter user Lloyd Vaughan suggested he was inspecting the room inside the most senior royal palace in the United Kingdom, drawing comparisons to renovation show Homes Under The Hammer.

Others made fun of Mr Blair's apparent awkwardness, suggesting he was desperately searching the room for people to talk to

Social media users flooded Twitter and TikToks with jokes about the former Prime Minister

But Mr Blair was not the only former Prime Minister who was made into a meme after yesterday's event, which was televised for the first time in history.

Jokes were also made about former Conservative leader David Cameron's animated gesticulations to colleague Theresa May.

Former Prime Ministers John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson all stood in the front row of the ceremony.

Mr Blair was not the only former Prime Minister who was made into a meme after yesterday's event, which was televised for the first time in history

They were joined by former leader of the opposition Ed Miliband, who led the Labour Party from 2010 to 2015, and Neil Kinnock, who did the same between 1983 and 1992. Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg also joined the Council.

Members of The Royal Family and new Prime Minister Liz Truss were also in attendance, as was current Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

The country's political leaders, old and new, joined in chorus of 'God Save The King' to show their support for the new monarch.

Britain's political leaders past and present: 1. Neil Kinnock (Labour Party leader and leader of the opposition 1983-1992) 2. Ed Miliband (Labour Party leader and leader of the opposition 2010-2015) 3. Keir Starmer (Current Labour Party leader and leader of the opposition) 4. Tony Blair (Labour Prime Minister 1997-2007) 5. Gordon Brown (Labour Prime Minister 2007-2010) 6. Boris Johnson (Conservative Prime Minister 2019-2022) 7. David Cameron (Conservative Prime Minister 2010-2016) 8. Theresa May (Conservative Prime Minister 2016-2019) 9. John Major (Conservative Prime Minister 1990-1997)

Charles automatically become Britain's new monarch on the death of his mother on Thursday but the Accession Council formally proclaimed him King yesterday

Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson, who resigned as Prime Minister earlier this week, were seen chatting enthusiastically in the front row as they waited for the ceremony to begin.

Mr Blair could also be seen speaking to Keir Starmer ahead of the proclamation, while Theresa May could be seen speaking to her predecessor David Cameron.

One notable absence was Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn. The Mail on Sunday reported that the former party leader was invited to attend the ceremony but as a life-long republican decided not to turn up.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister has said he will call for a referendum on the country becoming a republic within three years following the Queen's death.

Prime minister Gaston Browne signed a document yesterday confirming Charles' status as the new King.

But minutes later, he said he would push for a republic referendum after indicating such a move earlier this year during a visit by the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

It comes as tributes to the Queen have poured in from people and leaders across the Caribbean, including from the President of Barbados, which cut ties with the monarchy last year when it became a republic.

The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda has said following the Queens death he will call for a referendum on the country becoming a republic within three years

Prince Charles, as he was then, speaking with Gaston Browne at a meeting on climate action in 2015

Prime Minister Browne told ITV: 'This is not an act of hostility or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy, but it is the final step to complete that circle of independence, to ensure that we are truly a sovereign nation.

'I'd say probably within the next three years,' he added, when asked for a timeframe on the referendum.

Mr Browne added that his country would remain a committed member of the Commonwealth, even if it removes the monarchy via referendum.

Antiguan resident Anna Crick paid tribute to the late Queen, saying: 'It's all about the love that we have for her and the passion we have. Although we are independent  we honour our own  we still look up to her.'

In his first interview since the Queens death, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, tells ITV News reporter @IanWoodsMedia he will hold a referendum on becoming a republic within three years



Read the story: https://t.co/4wEOUHF90w pic.twitter.com/cxsyfwNNUM  ITV News (@itvnews) September 10, 2022

The Caribbean country is one of 14 nations - excluding the UK - to retain the British monarch as their head of state after Barbados became independent last year.

The president of Barbados, which became a republic less than a year ago, paid tribute to the Queen, saying she was a 'treasured' public figure 'who will always hold a place in our hearts'.

In a televised address, Dame Sandra Mason said that while the country had chosen to break 'constitutional ties with the British monarchy', their decision 'did not in the least diminish the friendship between our two nations and indeed Buckingham Palace.'

Camilla, the then Duchess of Cornwall, and the then Prince Charles with Dame Sandra Mason on a 2019 Caribbean tour

Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, being greeted by Dame Sandra Mason as he arrived in Barbados last November

Dame Sandra Mason, left, was inaugurated as the first president of Barbados in a ceremony addressed by Prince Charles in November last year

At the independence ceremony in November last year, the now-King Charles acknowledged the 'appalling atrocity of slavery' as a 'stain' on British history.

During their visit to Antigua in April, the PM called on the Wessexes to use their 'diplomatic influence' to achieve 'reparatory justice' for slavery, and outlined his country's wish to 'one day become a republic'.

The earl was criticised as 'arrogant' for joking that he had not been taking notes during Mr Browne's comments.

Prince William, then Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, who is now Princess of Wales following the Queen's death, during a tour of Jamaica in March. The couple were accused of harking back to colonial times as they rode in the back of a Land Rover, just as the Queen had done 60 years prior

Gaston Browne asked for help securing 'reparatory justice' for slavery and said it was his country's wish to become a republic during a meeting with the Earl and Countess of Wessex earlier this year

In March this year, William and Kate were accused of harking back to colonial times in Jamaica after the pair shook hands with crowds behind a wire mesh fence and rode in the back of a Land Rover, just as the Queen had done 60 years prior.

Demonstrators in the country accused them of benefiting from the 'blood, tears and sweat' of slaves, while in the Bahamas they were urged to acknowledge the British economy was 'built on the backs' of past Bahamians and to pay reparations.

In March this year, William and Kate were accused of harking back to colonial times in Jamaica after the pair shook hands with crowds behind a wire mesh fence

Catherine, who was then Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William attending a parade for service personnel in Jamaica earlier this year

Jamaica's prime minister Andrew Holness suggested to William and Kate that his country may be the next to become a republic, while a minister from Belize said afterwards that perhaps it was time to 'take the next step in truly owning our independence'.

William acknowledged after the trip that the monarchy's days in the Caribbean may be numbered as he stated the future 'is for the people to decide upon'.
Schoolmate has recalled vicious moment the Prince was attacked in rugby game

He said being in Australia 'knocked the Pommy bits off me' in speech years later

King spent two semesters at the prestigious Geelong Grammar School in 1966

Charles said time in Victoria as a schoolboy started his love affair with Australia

Royal insiders have revealed how two terms at a prestigious Australian school shaped King Charles III into the colourful man he is today.

The then Prince spent two semesters at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria's High Country back in 1966 when he was just 17-years-old.

In a speech years later, he fondly recalled the experience as the start of a long love affair with Australia and said it had transformed him from a boy into a man.

'Part of my own education took place here in Australia,' Charles told the crowd on a visit Down Under.

'Quite frankly, it was by far the best part. While I was here I had the Pommy bits bashed off me. Like chips off an old block.'

In a speech years later, Prince Charles fondly recalled his days as a schoolboy in Victoria as the beginning of a long love affair with Australia

Charles was a Prefect at the no-nonsense boarding school with the other students asked to refer to the star student as Prince Charles.

The 73-year-old has visited Australia on 16 occasions, some with his first wife Diana and his young son William and more recently with his second wife Camilla, now the Queen Consort in the wake of Queen Elizabeth's death on Friday, aged 96.

Before his two semesters at Geelong, Charles attended the same boarding school as his father Prince Phillip - the renowned Gordonstoun School in Elgin, Scotland.

However the school didn't prove as great a match for the heir who likened it to a German concentration camp' and dubbed the institution 'Colditz in kilts'.

A student who attended Gordonstoun for four years alongside the Prince told 60 Minutes Australia that the school hadn't been an 'ideal' choice.

Johnny Stonborough remembered the Prince being 'homesick' and often 'walking alone'.

The then Prince of Wales spent two semesters at the prestigious Geelong Grammar School in Victoria's High Country back in 1966 when he was just 17-years-old

Charles (pictured at Geelong Grammar) was a Prefect at the no-nonsense boarding school with the other students asked to refer to the star student as Prince Charles

Other boys avoided the Prince so they wouldn't become the targets of school bullies who relished having a young Royal to tease.

Mr Stonborough said he once watched Charles be viciously attacked in a scrum playing rugby.

'Scrums are rough places anyway,' he told host Tara Brown.

'I could see that they were pulling his ears and he got punched, but the interesting thing is, and it left an impression on me even at the time, is that he was very stoic.

'He never complained, he didn't whinge, he didn't cry, he didn't do anything that other people might have done in the same circumstances.

'He just got on with it.'

The then Prince of Wales made a much-anticipated trip to Australia with his wife Diana and a 10-month-old Prince William in 1983 (pictured)

Brown asked if the Prince had fought back against the schoolyard bullies.

'Absolutely not, no. He was not that sort of person,' Mr Stonborough replied.

'He was quite a gentle soul and once you got to know him a little bit better, actually a remarkably nice person.'

Brown wondered if he saw this as a sign of strength or weakness.

'That's a very interesting question. I think I saw it as a sign of strength, but it also made him vulnerable, and sometimes one wished he retaliated a little more,' Mr Stonborough said.

During his schooling in Australia however, he became much happier and more confident in himself.

During his visits, the Royal has represented the Queen at state funerals, stole a kiss from an Australian model in Perth and even enjoyed a dip at Bondi Beach (pictured)

The then Prince of Wales made a much-anticipated trip to Australia with his wife Diana and a 10-month-old Prince William in 1983.

During his visits, the Royal has represented the Queen at state funerals, stole a kiss from an Australian model in Perth and even enjoyed a dip at Bondi Beach.

In 1994, a 23-year-old man was arrested after firing a starter pistol at Charles as he prepared to hand out Australia Day awards in Sydney.

David Kang stormed a stage and fired two blank shots at Charles during the royal tour - with the incident proving to be something of a turning point for Charles in Australia, as his visits tailed off afterwards.

After his first visit to go to school in 1966, he also came to Oz in 1967, 1970, 1974, 1977, 1978 and 1979. He carried on visiting in the 1980s, coming Down Under in 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1988.

The Kang incident in 1994 was his only trip in the 90s and he only came four times after that, in 2005, 2012, 2015 and 2018.

He has visited Australia on 16 occasions, more recently with his second wife Camilla, now the Queen consort (pictured, the pair hold koalas in Adelaide in 2012)

Royal experts believe King Charles III will soon make a trip to Australia and New Zealand in order to 'seal the bonds' amid growing calls for a Republic.

In a statement released just 24 minutes after news broke of the death of the Queen the Australia Republic Movement said Her Majesty had backed the right of Australians to become 'a fully independent nation' during a referendum in 1998.

The Australian Monarchist League also released a statement, throwing their full support behind Charles as takes on his new role as King.

They said he has 'trained his whole life' to take the reigns of the royal family and that he has always served Australia 'selflessly'.

Philip Benwell, national chair of the Australian Monarchist League, said: 'Australia, the Commonwealth of Nations and indeed the whole world will now deeply mourn the longest-serving, oldest and most revered monarch of modern times.'
Scottish farmers have paid their respects to the Queen by lining her procession route with dozens of tractors.

The guard of honour lined both sides of the road as the cortege passed through the Aberdeenshire countryside on its way to Edinburgh.

The Queen's coffin left Balmoral this morning in a black Mercedes Benz to begin the six-hour journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the monarch's official Scottish residence.

With a single motorbike outrider leading the way, the procession of six vehicles drove at a stately pace past the row of colourful farming vehicles on the first leg of the journey from Balmoral to Aberdeen.

Some had their front loaders raised in salute as the Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland and with a wreath of white flowers on top, passed by.

Some had their front loaders raised in salute as the Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland and with a wreath of white flowers on top, passed by

Tractors lined both sides of the road as the Queen's cortege passed through the Aberdeenshire countryside on its way to Edinburgh

People commented on what a 'lovely gesture' it was, with one social media user saying it was a 'very fitting tribute for a well beloved Queen'.

Another added: 'Simple messages from ordinary people, so heartfelt and patriotic.'

Further along in Peterculter people lined up on horseback to pay their respects, an appropriate gesture for Queen Elizabeth who was an avid rider.

This morning the Queen's oak coffin was carried to a hearse by six of the Balmoral estate's gamekeepers after they were allowed time to say their last goodbye.

The coffin then began its 170-mile journey to Edinburgh, with Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence following directly behind in a state Bentley.

Hundreds lined the main street as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through Ballater, the village closest to the Balmoral estate, where many locals considered her a neighbour.

The Queen and her family were often seen in the village on her beloved Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the royal family are allowed space to be themselves.

Many shops in the picturesque Victorian village displayed photographs of the Queen in their windows in tribute.

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church where the Rev Davi Barr had rung the church bells 70 times after her death was announced.

There was impeccable silence as the funeral procession passed through the village.

In Peterculter people lined up on horseback to pay their respects, an appropriate gesture for Queen Elizabeth who was an avid rider

A sombre Princess Royal in a Bentley limousine behind the Queen's hearse as it travelled through Aberdeenshire and down to Edinburgh

Hundreds lined the main street as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through Ballater, the village closest to the Balmoral estate

Well-wishers who had waited patiently for the opportunity to pay their respects bowed their heads while others saluted as the hearse drove slowly by.

Afterwards, Margaret MacKenzie, from Inverness, said: 'It was very dignified. It was nice to see that a lot of people came out to support and pay their respects.'

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes as she considered what she had just seen.

She said: 'It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the Queen.

'She certainly gave service to this country, even up until a few days before her death.'

Guest house manager Victoria Pacheco said: 'She meant such a lot to people in this area. People were crying, it was amazing to see.'

She said guests were overcome when news broke of the Queen's death last week.

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church where the Rev Davi Barr had rung the church bells 70 times after her death was announced

Large crowds lined the A90 through Angus to watch the convoy of cars pass by on its way to Edinburgh

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes as she considered what she had just seen.

She said: 'It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the Queen.

'She certainly gave service to this country even up until a few days before her death.'

Families with young began gathering in the town from 7am.

Care assistant Elaine Reid stood wrapped in a tartan blanket with her sons Innis, 11, and Darragh, 16, in the street by Glenmuick Church.

She explained that she was happy to get up early and drive the one-hour- journey from their home in Buckie so her children could remember the Queen.

Elaine, 40, told MailOnline: 'We came here today to pay our respects because the Queen has spent her whole life in service to our country. So this is the least we could do.

'And I wanted the kids to be here so that they can remember this day and be able to tell their children that they were here to say goodbye to the Queen.'

Many also travelled through the night to secure a spot close to the historic Palace of Holyroodhouse where the Queen's coffin is due to arrive at around 4pm after travelling down through Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth and Fife.

A massive security operation began in the Scottish capital as officials prepared for an unprecedented influx of visitors.

Queen Elizabeth II's casket will lie in state for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Officials are pictured outside the church on Saturday as they prepared for the procession transporting her body

Soldiers will guard the coffin around the clock during visitation. Members of the Royal Family are also expected to take turns standing guard, a tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes. Princes Edward and Charles (pictured) both guarded the Queen Mother's coffin in 2002

Early today officers drafted in from across Scotland began taking up position along the city's famous Royal Mile which runs between the palace and Edinburgh Castle.

Residents have been warned to expect 'significant disruption' as a series of major roads were closed in the city to allow access for the courage and as part of security members.

On Monday a procession will march up the Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral, where Her Majesty's coffin will remain for 24 hours and well-wishers will be able to come and pay their respects.

Officials say a queuing system and security checks will be in place. Mourners should expect to stand in the queue for a number of hours. Mobile phone use will be restricted and photography and recording will be strictly prohibited.

Members of the Royal Family, including King Charles III, will guard the coffin as it lies in state from 7.20pm on Monday in a tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes.

Brits can also pay their respects to the Queen at Westminster Hall in London beginning on Wednesday. Her Majesty will lie in state for 'four clear days' in Westminster Hall until the morning of her funeral on Monday, September 19.
The families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks once again gathered in lower Manhattan on Sunday to remember the lives lost on that fateful day 21 years ago.

Mourners were seen Sunday morning placing flags with red and blue stripes in the engraved names of the heroes who died that day 21 years ago at the memorial that now stands at the site of the former World Trade Center.

Some also carried pictures of their loved ones, with flowers in hand as they kept their remaining relatives close.

The annual ceremony was scheduled to begin at 8.30am on Sunday, with family members and friends reading off the names of the victims of the terrorist attack, which will conclude at around 12.30pm.

Six moments of silence will be observed throughout the program, commemorating when each of the World Trade Center towers was struck and collapsed, as well as the times corresponding to the subsequent attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.

Then on Sunday night, the annual Tribute in Light will shine over Lower Manhattan, casting an aura where the Twin Towers once stood.

A woman was seen at the 9/11 Memorial in Downtown Manhattan on Sunday placing flags with red stripes in the names of the fallen firefighters

A woman cried during the ceremony as names of the victims were read aloud

Relatives of the victims looked at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City on the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks

A woman is seen holding a photo of a loved one killed in the terrorist attack with some flowers in her other hand

People held memorial signs as they attended the annual memorial ceremony on Sunday

Firefighters and police officers opened the ceremony on Sunday morning

Other ceremonies are also planned throughout the country with candlelight vigils, interfaith services and other commemorations.

Some Americans are joining in volunteer projects on a day that is federally recognized as both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, plans to speak and lay a wreath at the Pentagon, while First Lady Jill Biden is scheduled to speak in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes went down after passengers and crew members tried to storm the cockpit as the hijackers headed for Washington.

Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff are also due at the National September 11 Memorial in New York, but, by tradition, no political figures speak at the Ground Zero ceremony, which centers on the victim's families.

Among those in attendance at the September 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan on Sunday were Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and New York Gov Kathy Hochul

Mayor of New York City Eric Adams, left, and Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy, right, shake hands during the ceremony

The annual Tribute in Light shined over Lower Manhattan on Saturday night

People sit looking over the East River to see the Tribute in Light installation marking the location of the former World Trade Center

Remembering the victims in Manhattan The annual 9/11 memorial program begins at 8.30am At 8.46am there will be a moment of silence in observance of the time American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower Another moment of silence will be held at 9.03am to observe the time United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower The third moment of silence will be held at 9.37am to observe the time American Airline Flight 77 struck the Pentagon At 9.59am there will be a fourth moment of silence in observance of the time the South Tower fell At 10.03am there will be a moment of silence in observance of the time United Airline Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania 10:28 a.m. - Moment of silence in observance of the time the North Tower fell 12:30pm - Program concludes Advertisement

Among those expected to be in attendance at this year's Ground Zero ceremony is Ken Haskell, a firefighter from Long Island who was off-duty that Tuesday morning, but rushed to the scene as soon as a Boeing 747 struck the North Tower.

'As soon as the plane hit, I knew it was a terrorist attack,' he told FOX News.

At the same time, his brothers, Timmy and Tommy, were also rushing tot he Twin Towers from different part of the city.

The trio had wanted to follow in their father's footsteps, as a Marine and a New York City firefighter, Haskell said.

'We all just had an inclination to help other people,' he explained. 'I think that's really what drove us to that job.'

Haskell was still driving by the time a second plane struck the South Tower at around 9am, causing the massive structure to collapse just one hour later.

By the time the North Tower fell just before 10.30am, Haskell was driving over the Manhattan Bridge and told one of his colleagues: 'We all know someone who just died.'

But at that point, he did not know about the fate of his brothers  both of whom died as heroes trying to save lives before the towers collapsed.

Timmy's body was discovered four days later, FOX News reports, but Tommy's remains were never identified.

Haskell said he now takes solace in the fact that they died doing what they loved.

'If those planes hit again tomorrow, they would be the first guys running back in there,' he claimed. 'There's no doubt in my mind.'

Ken Haskell, left, was off-duty on September 11 but rushed onto the scene as soon as the first plane hit the North Tower, as did his brother Tommy. They are pictured with their mother

Their other brother, Timmy (pictured) also died in the attacks as he tried to rescue those stuck inside the Twin Towers

Haskell found out later that Timmy was also off-duty on Tuesday, but rushed from his downtown Manhattan home.

He and a fellow Squad 18 firefighter immediately sped up a stairway in the North Tower to help those trapped inside.

'They were able to get to the 30th floor and came across somebody in medical distress,' Haskell recounted. 'They stopped and provided first aid.'

The pair then determined they need to help the man down the stairs, so Timmy's colleague went to check for a safe way out  but when he returned Timmy was gone.

At that point, a Port Authority police officer who arrived while he was gone informed the firefighter that Timmy went farther up the tower to help someone else.

'He made a decision and nothing surprised me about the decision he made,' Haskell said. 'Someone needed help, and he was gonna do it.'

Timmy's colleague and the officer then helped the man out of the building, which collapsed as soon as they entered the lobby  creating a force that propelled them out of the tower.

At the same time, Timmy made it up pretty high in the building.

'That left him pretty high in the rubble pile,' Haskell said. 'We found him four days later.'

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

Both the North and South tower collapsed that day, killing everyone stuck inside

Firefighter Gerard McGibbon is seen here crying after the towers fell that day

Haskell was actually at the scene of Ground Zero when Timmy's body was recovered, he said.

'I saw one of the guys from the company there, and he just had this look on his face,' Haskell recounted. 'I knew. I just said "Which one?"

After finding out that it was Timmy, he drove to his family's Long Island home, where he had to deliver the bad news.

'That was a difficult moment, having to tell [my mother],' he told FOX, adding that she then asked for news about Tommy.

'I said "Well, we're still looking for him."

He later found out that Tommy's company Ladder 132, never made it out of the South Tower.

They were right behind members of Ladder 113, who were able to get out, but were not as fortunate.

'All the guys from 113 survived, and all the guys from 132, few more seconds, they possibly could have survived, but they were all lost,' Haskell said.

A US flag hangs from a Conroe Fire Department ladder truck during a September 11th Observance ceremony

Firefighters walk the streets in Bellows Falls Vermont to honor the 343 firefighters who died in the September 11 attacks

Attendees salute the flag during a September 11 ceremony in Texas on Sunday

First responders observed the playing of the United States national anthem as an American flag was unfurled around dawn in Arlington, Virginia on September 11, 2022

The first responders stood in the heavy rain for the annual memorial on Sunday

He noted that as a captain, Tommy always made it a priority to be 'mindful of everyone else's well-being around him.

'I knew that day he would be the last guy out, regardless of whatever the circumstance was.

In the aftermath, Tommy's three children filled his casket with mementos  because his remains were never identified.

'I'm grateful to know what they did, and I'm proud of what they did,' Haskell said of his brothers. 'People made decisions, put themselves at risk and that's something o be heralded.'

He added that he still misses his brothers 'terribly,' noting: 'We did everything together. We did the same careers together. I cherish those memories.

'I want to live the best life I can through their example,' he said, adding: 'I know I'm going to see them again. That's what gets me through.'

Patrick Dillon, a September 11 first responder, protested outside the memorial on Sunday

He sat on top of a poster outlining the effects the wars have had on American soldiers and civilians, including '20 suicides every day'

New York City police officers kept watch over Dillon as he engaged in his one-man protest

Dillon's face and white clothes were covered in fake blood in an apparent protest of the United States' continued involvement in the Middle East

Meanwhile, outside the ceremony on Sunday, a man was seen covered in fake blood as part of a one-man protest.

Patrick Dillon, a September 11 first responder, seemed to be protesting the United States' continued involvement in the Middle East, sitting on top of a poster outlining the effects the wars have had on American soldiers, including '20 suicides every day.'

It also listed the number of civilian casualties in the area, and listed opium as a consequence on both sides as well as 'oil, oil, oil.'

It remains unclear exactly what message Dillon was trying to send, but the protest drew the attention of several passersby at the September 11 Museum and Memorial on Sunday, as police monitored the scene.

An Honor Guard was made up of Conroe police and fire personnel present the colors during a September 11th Observance ceremony

Stephen Kloesel plays "Taps" during a September 11th Observance ceremony on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, right, his wife Lauren, center, and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, second from left, stand for the national anthem before the reading of names of Massachusetts victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks

A candlelight vigil in Manhattan on Friday highlighted the Ukrainians' support and friendship to the United States on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks

Participants at the candlelight vigil held Ukrainian and American flags

This year's anniversary comes as the families of the 9/11 victims are suing the Saudi government in an effort to expose how the 19 al Qaeda hijackers  15 of whom were Saudi nationals  received financial help before they crashed the four jets that day.

The families say they are suing the country in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to force some type of admission that the government was involved with the al Qaeda hijackers, with Brett Eagleson pointing to newly-declassified FBI documents.

Those documents state that 'Omar Albayoumi was paid a monthly stipend as a cooptee of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency,' according to the Boston Herald.

It then goes on to state that the financial support came 'via then-Ambassador Prince Bandarbin Sultan Alsuad,' who was the ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005.

Eagleson, whose father died in the September 11 attacks when he was just 15, said that is proof that Albayoumi was a California-based Saudi spy.

He is alleged to have helped known hijackers Nawat al Hazmi and Khalid al Mindhar, who were the first to arrive in the United States when they landed in Los Angeles in January 2000. The southern California terror cell was exposed years later in an FBI report.

From there, Hazmi and Mindhar would move to San Diego, where they enrolled in a course to become pilots.

They then ultimately boarded Flight 77 on September 11, 2001, slamming it into the Pentagon, killing 64 people on the plane and 125 people in the building.

'Our government made a deal with the devil, and there's something there we don't know,' Eagleson, a Connecticut dad, told the Herald. 'But it ain't over yet.'

Saudi officials are now seeking to dismiss the case, but if they are unsuccessful, the Herald reports, oral arguments could be set for as early as the spring.

But experts say the lawsuit is not likely to have much of an effect on the Saudi government, as the US has to retain its relationship with the country in its efforts to fight Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

'It's a harsh recognition that you occasionally have to deal with an unsavory government,' Kirk Lippold, an adjunct professor at the Naval Academy, said.

Biden leaves his weekend in Wilmington early to head to the Pentagon and Kamala joins other politicians at ground zero in New York City as both participate in September 11 commemorations

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris split up on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The president ended his weekend at his home in Delaware earlier than usual to come back to a rainy Washington, D.C. and lay a wreath at the Pentagon 9/11 memorial and deliver remarks on the 21st anniversary of the attack.

Biden arrived to downpour in the nation's capital, holding a large black umbrella as he disembarked Air Force 1 and donning a raincoat before entering the presidential vehicle The Beast and motorcading to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

The president quoted the late Queen Elizabeth II during his speech just days after her death, saying in his remarks in the rain outside the Pentagon on Sunday: 'Grief is a price we pay for love.'

First lady Jill Biden spoke on Sunday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a hijacked plane crashed in a field after the passengers stopped terrorists from reaching their target. All 40 passengers and crew died, as well as the four hijackers.

Meanwhile, the vice president and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrived in New York City Sunday morning to participate in a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial Museum located at ground zero.

Biden lays a wreath at the Pentagon to commemorate 9/11 terrorist attacks

The president put his hand over his heart during a moment of silence to remember the victims of the attack. A total of 184 people died at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, including all 64 people on the plane and another 125 people in the Pentagon that day

The president arrived to a downpour as he departed his weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware earlier than usual to participate in a wreath laying and deliver remarks at the Pentagon on the 21st anniversary of the attacks

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff participate in a commemoration ceremony at ground zero in New York City on Sunday

Also spotted at the somber event are Biden's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others.

Before departing Delaware for D.C. on Sunday, Biden told the press traveling with him that 'there is a plan' for there to be justice brought to victims' families as those responsible for the attacks still sit in Guantanamo Bay prisons two decades later.

A total of 184 people died at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, including all 64 people on the plane and another 125 people in the Pentagon that day.

The grounds have an outdoor memorial, which includes a bench for each of the victims, as well as an indoor chapel to honor the lives lost.

Before departing Delaware for D.C. on Sunday, Biden told the press traveling with him that 'there is a plan' for there to be justice brought to victims' families as those responsible for the attacks still sit in Guantanamo Bay prisons two decades later

Joining Biden at the Pentagon on Sunday were members of his Defense Department team, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The two delivered remarks in the rain before the president took stage.

Milley said the attacks on 9/11 were an attack on U.S. democracy and Austin thanked those who signed up for the military then and now to continue defending America.

'Surrounding us today are 184 steel benches, each bearing the name of a person murdered in the attack on the Pentagon,' Austin said. 'And every night, 184 lights come on, lighting up their bench.'
Advertisement

Police snipers are lining the rooftops in Edinburgh as officers prepare for the biggest security operation in British history ahead of the Queen's funeral.

Thousands of well-wishers are awaiting the arrival of the late monarch's oak coffin - which left her beloved Balmoral Castle today, beginning a six-hour journey through Scottish towns to the Scottish capital.

The queen's coffin will take a circuitous journey back to Edinburgh. On Monday, it will be taken from Holyroodhouse to nearby St. Giles' Cathedral, where it will remain until Tuesday, when it will be flown to London.

The coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state until a state funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19.

Today, heavily armed police and security services formed rings of steel outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse and St Giles' Cathedral - as up to 10,000 officers prepare to be involved in the biggest single security operation the country has ever seen.

Specialist police teams and intelligence officers are understood to have cancelled holiday leave as part of a massive, cross-agency security task for the Queen's funeral.

Hundreds of foreign dignitaries from across the globe and hundreds of thousands of mourners anticipated in the capital are set to create an unprecedented 'security headache'.

The operation will ramp up throughout the week as the Queen's body is flown back to London before she is set to lie in state at the Palace of Westminster.

It is the first time special forces teams including SAS units are expected to be pre-deployed to bases in London on a heightened state of alert in case of any potential attacks.

Snipers are pictured on the roof of a building by the Palace of Holyroodhouse, in Edinburgh on September 11

A police sniper is pictured prior to the arrival of the hearse carrying the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at St Giles Cathedral, on the Royal Mile, in Edinburgh today

Police snipers are lining the rooftops in Edinburgh today as officers prepare for the biggest security operation in British history ahead of the Queen's funeral

The Lord Lyon King of Arms reads a public Proclamation to the people of Scotland to announce the Accession of King Charles III, outside St Giles' Cathedral

Pictured: Outside St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh today. Thousands of well-wishers are awaiting the arrival of the late monarch's oak coffin - which left her beloved Balmoral Castle today beginning a six-hour journey through Scottish towns to the Scottish capital

Police officers with sniper rifles stand on the roof of the St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh on September 11

Police Firearms officers keep watch while they await the coffin carrying Queen Elizabeth II from Balmoral to Edinburgh on September 11

Road closures and exclusion zones will be increased across the capital with blocks already in place around Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral.

Police have also been granted a no-fly zone order over London on the planned day of the funeral on Monday September 19, which will follow 10 days of mourning.

As well as thousands of uniformed Metropolitan Police bobbies drafted into action, plain-clothes officers will also mingle among crowds to monitor any threats.

It is expected that other forces will be asked to provide officers under 'mutual aid'.

On Friday police snipers were spotted on the roof of Buckingham Palace with guns trained on the crowds as King Charles greeted people outside after returning from Balmoral.

Sir Mark Rowley, who is due to officially start in his role as Scotland Yard commissioner on Monday, has been across the strategic plans in the days since the Queen's death.

As the lead agency the Met will be in 'gold command' control for the funeral, which is run from its Lambeth police HQ hub.

Police teams will also be tasked with monitoring any fixated individuals who travel to London during the period of mourning with officers assigned to follow them.

At the same time intelligence services, including signals monitoring agency GCHQ, domestic security service MI5 and the foreign service MI6, will heighten monitoring of potential threats including terror networks, 'lone wolf' suspects and activist groups.

Police officers stand guard at Balmoral Castle after funeral cortege carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II leaves before arriving at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on September 11

Police and security personnel prepare for the arrival of the hearse carrying the body of Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II from Balmoral

Special police patrol prior to the arrival of the hearse carrying the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at St Giles Cathedral

A procession leaves after a public Proclamation to the people of Scotland to announce the Accession of King Charles III, outside St Giles Cathedral

Guards take position during the Proclamation Ceremony of Britain's King Charles outside St Giles Cathedral

Philip Ingram, a former military intelligence officer, said: 'It's one of the biggest security headaches for the UK because of the nature of the event, widely publicised days in advance and just about every world leader possible coming into London.

'GCHQ with allied spy agencies will be making sure they are tuned into any particular threat, MI5 and MI6 will be looking to international organisations that they cooperate with.

'It will attract everyone from across the globe and those that will potentially want to disrupt it - terrorists, hostile intelligence agencies.

'Even Vladimir Putin would love this to go wrong with the UK's support for Ukraine, or whether it's animal rights protesters - it will attract every level of threat but the security services will be working very hard to mitigate any of these threats.'

In June vegan activists from Animal Rebellion attempted to disrupt the Trooping of the Colour ceremony by lying down in front of the procession.

Foreign dignitaries at a heightened security risk will also be assigned police or intelligence service liaisons to ensure their safety when travelling to London.

It is understood Foreign Office officials are expecting an 'unprecedented' number of dignitaries, other countries' royals and heads of state to travel to Britain for the funeral.

President Joe Biden has indicated he is planning to attend the funeral but invitations are yet to be formally sent for the service at Westminster Abbey, which holds a congregation of 2,000.

Sir Paul Stephenson, former Met Police commissioner, said: 'Yes it's a big challenge but I've not the slightest doubt that Mark [Rowley], like the rest of the Met, will be up for it.

'It's not only a once in a lifetime event such as the Queen's funeral but you've got many dignitaries from around the world and the security challenges that brings.

'The Met is well practised in doing huge events for a long time and I'm quite sure they will be up to it.

'It will take huge resources to ensure the event is carried out with a sense of enormous dignity and without any interference whatsoever.'
Advertisement

Joe Biden paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II during a speech commemorating the September 11th terrorist attacks  and told Americans that they 'owe it' to victims and survivors to stand up for democracy.

The president also attempted to earn redemption points during the most unifying annual event in the U.S. after insulting all Trump supporters earlier this month by insinuating in a speech they are a threat to American democracy.

During remarks at the Pentagon on Sunday, just three days after Queen Elizabeth's death, Biden quoted the monarch by saying: 'Grief is a price we pay for love.'

The president ended his weekend at his home in Delaware earlier than usual to come back to a rainy Washington, D.C. and lay a wreath at the Pentagon 9/11 memorial and deliver commemorative remarks on the 21st anniversary of the attacks.

Biden arrived to downpour in the nation's capital, holding a large black umbrella as he disembarked Air Force 1 and donning a raincoat before entering the presidential vehicle The Beast and motorcading to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

'It's not enough to gather and remember each September 11th those we lost more than two decades ago,' Biden said in his remarks. 'Because on this day, it is not about the past, it's about the future.'

'We have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to defend, preserve and protect our democracy,' he continued. 'The very democracy that defends the right to freedom that those terrorists on 9/11 sought to bury in the burning fire and smoke and ash. And that takes a commitment on the part of all of us.'

The comments come just 10 days after Biden delivered a speech from Philadelphia where he called former President Donald Trump and his supporters a threat to democracy. Since then, the president has tried to walk back those comments, claiming he does not feel that supporters of Trump are threats to the fabric of the nation.

Biden lays a wreath at the Pentagon to commemorate 9/11 terrorist attacks

During his remarks in the pouring rain on Sunday, Biden said that Americans 'owe it' to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to protect democracy

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley (left) and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (right) spoke at the Pentagon on Sunday before Biden's remarks

The president arrived to a downpour as he departed his weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware earlier than usual to participate in a wreath laying and deliver remarks at the Pentagon on the 21st anniversary of the attacks

His remarks on Sunday were a redemption speech, insisting on American unity to reinforce the values of democracy.

'American democracy depends on the habits of the heart of we the people,' Biden said to an audience holding up black umbrellas to shield from the persisting rain. 'It's not enough to stand up for democracy once a year, or every now and then  something we have to do every single day.'

'This is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American. And our devotion to this country  to the principles and the bodies  to our democracy  that is who we owe those remembered today,' he continued.

'That is what we owe one another. And that is what we owe future generations of Americans to come.'

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff participate in a commemoration ceremony at ground zero in New York City on Sunday

New York Representative Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez also attended the New York City ceremony

Spotted in New York: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (left) and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (right)

'I have no doubt we will do this,' the president wrapped up. 'We will meet this significant responsibility. We'll secure our democracy together  as one American, the United States of America.'

'American democracy depends on the habits of the heart of we the people,' Biden said to an audience holding up black umbrellas to shield from the downpour.

'It's not enough to stand up for democracy once a year, or every now and then  something we have to do every single day,' the president added.

First lady Jill Biden spoke on Sunday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a hijacked plane crashed in a field after the passengers stopped terrorists from reaching their target. All 40 passengers and crew died, as well as the four hijackers.

Meanwhile, the vice president and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrived in New York City Sunday morning to participate in a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial Museum located at ground zero.

Also spotted at the somber event were Biden's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others.

Before departing Delaware for D.C. on Sunday, Biden told the press traveling with him that 'there is a plan' for there to be justice brought to victims' families as those responsible for the attacks still sit in Guantanamo Bay prisons two decades later.

The president put his hand over his heart during a moment of silence to remember the victims of the attack. A total of 184 people died at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, including all 64 people on the plane and another 125 people in the Pentagon that day

Before departing Delaware for D.C. on Sunday, Biden told the press traveling with him that 'there is a plan' for there to be justice brought to victims' families as those responsible for the attacks still sit in Guantanamo Bay prisons two decades later

A total of 184 people died at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, including all 64 people on the plane and another 125 people in the Pentagon that day.

The grounds have an outdoor memorial, which includes a bench for each of the victims, as well as an indoor chapel to honor the lives lost.

Joining Biden at the Pentagon on Sunday were members of his Defense Department team, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The two delivered remarks in the rain before the president took stage.

Milley said the attacks on 9/11 were an attack on U.S. democracy and Austin thanked those who signed up for the military then and now to continue defending America.

Former President Barack Obama shared an image on Twitter on Sunday for the 9/11 commemoration in 2021. From L-R: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe and Jill Biden mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in a masked event on Sep 11, 2021

'Surrounding us today are 184 steel benches, each bearing the name of a person murdered in the attack on the Pentagon,' Austin said. 'And every night, 184 lights come on, lighting up their bench.'

Biden, while calling for unity during his speech Sunday, also made reference to the fact that Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans were singled out as potential threats for years following the attacks.

'To me, that's the greatest lesson of September 11th  not that we will never again face a setback, but that in a moment of great unity, we also had to face down the worst impulses,' Biden said.

He claimed those 'worst impulses' were 'fear, violence, recrimination directed against Muslim Americas, as well as Americans of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage.'
Cruel cyberbullies are taking to social media to target their classmates with vile rumours about their sex lives as they urge others to cast votes on the 'cringiest' kids in school.

Teenagers from several schools across Victoria are participating in 'rumour pages' that ask members to share private information about their fellow students.

Posts on the TikTok and Instagram pages include baseless rumours about alleged OnlyFan accounts, pregnancies, cheating scandals and even teachers.

Younger students are also taking part, with pupils from Geelong East Primary School asked to vote on who they thought were the 'cringiest' kids in their year.

Cruel cyberbullies are taking to social media to target their classmates with vile rumours about their sex lives and vote on the 'cringiest' kids in school (stock image)

Younger students are also taking part, with pupils from Geelong East Primary School (pictured) asked to cast their vote on who they thought were the 'cringiest' in their year

Gossip pages started by Rosehill Secondary College students have taken it even further by revealing who has 'a fat ass' and who is 'really hot'.

Students from Orbost Secondary College, a co-ed school in East Gippsland, are using social media sites to swap 'secrets' on students sexual activities.

A mother with two children at one of the colleges involved said enough is enough.

What is cyberbullying? Cyberbullying is bullying and harassment using digital technologies like phones, email and social media. This includes trolling, stalking, grooming or any form of abuse online. Cyberbullying is on the increase with more cases being reported by children and by extremely worried parents. Advertisement

'The bullying has gone on for far too long and the school needs to be on top of this issue more,' she told the Herald Sun.

'There are so many students that are already targeted for no reason at school, but then to come home and have to deal with it on social media is just dreadful.'

A TikTok spokeswoman in a statement said the platform's top priority is to 'maintain a safe and positive environment for our community'.

'There is no place on our platform for hate, bullying or harassment, or any hateful behaviour that targets individuals,' the statement said.

'Our Community Guidelines clearly state that we do not tolerate this type of behaviour and will proactively remove content that violates any community guidelines.'

A Department of Education spokesman said schools take strong action against bullying with perpetrators to be punished and students impacted supported.

'Social media providers have a critical role to play in preventing the publication of content that promotes bullying  and we are continuing to raise this issue with the platforms directly,' the spokesman said.

Victorian state schools are encouraged to follow direction from the department's initiative 'Bully Stoppers' which defines cyberbullying as 'bullying using digital technologies including mobile phones, email and social media tools'.

Students are told cyberbullying includes the creation of 'hate pages' or 'social exclusion campaigns' on social networking sites.

Students from Greater Shepperton Secondary College (pictured) have spread rumours on social media sites about their classmates's alleged OnlyFans accounts and other 'secrets'

A TikTok spokeswoman said: TikTok's top priority is to maintain a safe and positive environment for our community'

Victims of cyberbullying are advised to keep a record of abusive messages and accept their online attackers are 'cowards' hiding behind a screen.

'Some cyberbullies 'troll' or play 'the baiting game',' the advice says.

'A provocative comment is made and those who respond in irritation are encouraged to engage in conflict with those who respond assertively.'

It comes as a global study revealed cyberbullying has a worse impact on its young teenage victims than 'traditional' bullying in person.

Researchers from the US and Israel analysed data collected on over 10,000 US children between the ages of 10 and 13 between July 2018 and January 2021 for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (ABCD Study).

Victims of cyberbullying are advised to keep a record of abusive messages and accept their online attackers are 'cowards' hiding behind a screen (stock image)

They found victims of online bullying in early adolescence are more likely to report suicidal thoughts and attempts than those who have experienced bullying offline

The suicide rate in children has been steadily increasing, and in 2018 it became the second leading cause of death of people aged between 10 and 24 in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While the factors contributing to the worrying trend are not fully understood, the increase in cyberbullying is thought to be a factor.

Of the children who took part in the study, 7.6 per cent said they had experienced suicidal thoughts or acts, 8.9 per cent reported being targets of cyberbullying, and 0.9 per cent said they had bullied others.

If you or anyone you know is in need of confidential 24-hour support in Australia call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.
Kamala Harris participated in the commemoration at the National September 11 Memorial Museum located at ground zero on Sunday to mark the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Her visit to the Big Apple came as a pre-recorded interview with NBC's Meet the Press host Chuck Todd showed the vice president claiming domestic threats to democracy should be treated in the same manner as foreign terrorists.

She suggested that 'attacks from within' were 'very harmful' to America's status as a 'role model' of democracy.'

Joining Harris in New York City on Sunday was second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Also spotted at the somber event are Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others.

Before the ceremony, Harris and Emhoff were seen smiling as people took pictures of the couple.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was arriving in Washington, D.C.  ending his weekend at his home in Wilmington early to participate in a wreath laying and deliver remarks at the Pentagon.

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff participate in a commemoration ceremony marking the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks at ground zero in New York City on Sunday

New York Representative Alexandria Ocsio-Cortez also attended the ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan on Sunday

Former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was in office during the terrorist attack, attended the ceremony in Manhattan on Sunday despite his fall from fame working with the former president and pushing claims the 2020 election was stolen

Harris' appearance Sunday came as NBC News aired a pre-recorded interview in which the vice president suggested attacks on democracy inside the US should be treated the same as outside attacks

WATCH: @VP Harris tells #MTP shes very concerned about the message the U.S. is sending on democracy.



There are 11 people right now running for secretary of state, the keepers of the integrity of the voting system of their state, who are election deniers. pic.twitter.com/lJ3EtOMicf  Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 11, 2022

Despite the uniting day 9/11 tends to be, Harris reiterated other Democrats' sentiments in her NBC interview by claiming Donald Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 are threats to democracy.

'When I was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that was actually my favorite committee when I was in the Senate,' Harris told Todd.

'The reason is, when we'd walk through the doors  each of us, Republicans, Democrats, Independents  when we walked through the door of the SCIF, that secure room, press could not come in,' she explained. 'No cameras, no public, just us. People would take off their jackets, they'd roll up their sleeves, and they were Americans first, focused on the threats to our national security  in common, on common grounds, with a common purpose, which is to defend our nation against attack.'

'When I think about what we have been seeing in terms of the attacks from within,' Harris added, 'I wish that we would approach it the same way  as Americans, instead of through some partisan lens.'

Host Chuck Todd nudged Harris forward, 'It sounds like you think this threat is as great.'

Spotted at the commemoration was Biden's DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio attended the ceremony on Sunday to mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack

Kamala and Emhoff smiled for pictures before the somber ceremony on Sunday

'I think it is a threat. And I think it is very dangerous and I think it is very harmful. And it makes us weaker,' the vice president replied.

She suggested that the US had a duty to root out domestic threats to electoral freedom 'as a defender and an example of a great democracy.'

'And one of the things though that comes with that privilege is that we hold ourselves out to be a role model, which means the rest of the world, like any role model, watches what we do to see if it matches up with what we say,' Harris explained.

The vice president took an outwardly political turn when she called out the Republican candidates 'who are election deniers' running for state secretary roles.

'I'm very concerned about it,' she said of the message that US election denialism sends to the world.

'Because there are so many issues going on in the world that I think require, at least how we as Americans have traditionally thought about what is right, what is good, what should be fought for, what should be human ideals, and certainly the ideals of democracies.

'And I think that through the process of what we've been through, we're starting to allow people to call into question our commitment to those principles. And that's a shame.'

Harris had been criticized earlier this year for comparing the January 6 Capitol riot to September 11th and to the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

'Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them where they were, and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault,' Harris said in the Capitol's Statuary Hall on the insurrection's one year anniversary.

'Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory: December 7, 1941, September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021.'
Speculation is rife over who will be the new host of A Current Affair following the shock resignation of Tracy Grimshaw, with Channel Nine insiders revealing a surprising hitlist of presenters being targeted.

Nine bosses are looking to bring in someone who can deftly handle the program's mix of general interest and consumer justice segments but also hold their own when locking horns with a prime minister.

Grimshaw's interview with former PM Scott Morrison during this year's election campaign made headlines itself after she grilled the stunned politician on his government's failures.

One of the surprising names reportedly being thrown up for the coveted role Grimshaw is leaving behind after 17 years is Network Ten's Carrie Bickmore, with The Project host off-contract at the end of the year.

Frontrunners at Nine include Grimshaw's ACA stand-in replacement Sylvia Jeffreys and weekend host Deborah Knight, along with Today co-hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon who are both seen as capable to make the jump from mornings to the primetime slot, The Australian's Media Diary reported.

Tracy Grimshaw is set to step down in November after 17 years behind the ACA desk (pictured)

One of the surprising names being thrown up for the coveted role is Network Ten's Carrie Bickmore, with The Project host off-contract at the end of the year

A CURRENT AFFAIR CONTENDERS NINE: Sylvia Jeffreys Deb Knight Karl Stefanovic Allison Langdon TEN: Carrie Bickmore Sarah Harris SEVEN: Melissa Doyle ABC: Lisa Millar Stan Grant Advertisement

But executives are also looking at bringing in talent from outside the network with a number of high profile personalities under consideration.

All the contenders are considered skilled presenters and journalists but also relatable and comforting to a mass audiences.

Popular Melbourne-based ABC News Breakfast host Lisa Millar is reportedly one of the names being talked about.

Sydneysiders Sarah Harris, currently with Studio 10, ABC's Q&A host Stan Grant, and Melissa Doyle, ex-Sunrise and Sunday Night host, are also all in the running.

Former Sunrise host Sam Armytage however is not being considered with Channel Nine bigwigs suggesting she's 'not a good fit' for the network.

Carrie's co-host at The Project Waleed Aly is also out of the running after penning a long-term deal with the CBS-owned network earlier this year.

If Bickmore is to land the iconic job, there is even a possibility production could be shifted from Sydney to Melbourne where she is based, as an extra sweetner on the contract.

But it may be some months before a full-time replacement is announced.

Grimshaw, 62, shared the news she would be stepping down with viewers during last Monday's episode of the popular Nine Network program.

'Normally right about now we'd be telling you what to expect tomorrow night but lately I've personally been thinking longer term, and I have some news that I wanted you to hear from me before you hear it from anyone else,' she began.

Grant has been working fulltime with the ABC since 2017. Above with wife Tracey Holmes

Carrie Bickmore (pictured) is based in Melbourne but production of the show could be moved from Sydney as an extra sweetner in her contract

'I've decided to finish up with A Current Affair this year.

'It's been a big decision and before the gossip websites start telling you rubbish, I want you to know it's been my decision alone and I'm not being shoved out the door by the boys' club because I'm too old.

'I'm not too old, I'm just a bit tired. And for the record both the boys and the girls have asked me to stay.

The uncompromising TV presenter whose been with Channel Nine for more than 40 years said shes basically been a shift worker for 26 years which has taken time away from her family.

Nine star Sylvia Jeffreys, 35, (pictured alongside husband Peter Stefanovic) is among the names being considered at Channel Nine

Former Sunrise host Sam Armytage (pictured) however is not being considered with Channel Nine bigwigs suggesting she's 'not a good fit' for the network

Today hosts Karl Stefanovic is reportedly on the ACA shortlist though fellow Nine talent Sarah Abo has not been publicly mentioned (pictured)

'I've talked to people who've made us all laugh and cry, who've shared their triumphs and their challenges and their wisdom and despair, she said.

'And because it's your show not mine and you get to vote each night with your remote control, you told us you wanted more of that.

'So thank you for that opportunity. Thank you for your loyalty. I hope I've repaid it.'

'I'm around until November then I'm going to take a long holiday, but it's business as usual until then. See you tomorrow night.'
The Kenyan safari lodge where Princess Elizabeth became the Queen has hosted tributes to the late monarch following her death.

The Treetops Hotel - an elaborate treehouse on the edge of a watering hole in Aberdare National Park - was where Elizabeth, aged 25, famously 'went up the tree a Princess and came down a Queen.'

She had been touring the Commonwealth in February 1952 and stayed the night at the Treetops - a three-bedroom cabin built in an ancient fig tree - with her new husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

The following morning, she was told that her father, King George VI, had died during the night, making her the new monarch.

Now, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II 70 years later, former staff have returned to light candles, place white roses and lay out a book of condolences.

'Thank you, Ma'am, rest in peace,' reads the one only entry so far, purportedly from a British army captain based nearby, The Telegraph reports.

A memorial for the Queen as seen inside Treetops Hotel on September 10, 2022

Pictured: Well-wishers lay flowers at Treetops Hotel on September 10, 2022 in Nyeri, Kenya

Princess Elizabeth with the Duke of Edinburgh at Treetops, Kenya, 1952

And Amos Ndegwa, a 68-year-old ex-bush ranger whose grandfather helped build the hotel, said that the Queen had been 'like a mother' to him, adding: 'All the jobs I've had were because of her coming to Treetops.'

During the time of the princess' visit, British colonial authorities had been putting down the Mau Mau Uprising, and there were fears that young Elizabeth could have been a target.

Big-game hunter and naturalist Jim Corbett went along with the couple on their journey and had spent a portion of the night outside the lodge with a shotgun on the lookout for leopards.

Claire Foy (pictured) portraying Princess Elizabeth at Treetops in Kenya in series 1 of The Crown

Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the Treetops Hotel on November 13, 1983 in Nairobi, Kenya

When the Queen and Prince Philip stayed, their accommodation was a comfortable three-bedroom shack, with a small servants quarter, built in the upper branches of a giant fig tree

Princess Anne, guarded by senior hunter Colonel Eric Hayes-Newington, walking through the bush to Kenya's Treetops Hotel. It was a sentimental journey for the Princess in February 1952

He later wrote in the visitor's book: 'A young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess  she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.'

The original treehouse was burned to the ground by Mau Mau rebels in 1954, leaving only a metal plaque remaining.

The plaque reads: 'In this Mgumu tree her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh spent the night of February 5 1952.

'While here Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne through the death of her father King George VI.'

Years later, a hotel was constructed on the other side of the nearby watering hole. The Queen visited in 1982.

But it has remained closed since the pandemic, leaving the former staff jobless.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has praised King Charles III in a sermon today, saying he has the same ability to bring 'healing' to people as his late mother did.

At this morning's Sunday service at Canterbury Cathedral, Rev Justin Welby said many people will be 'navigating their way around the raw and ragged edges of grief' following the Queen's death on Thursday.

The Archbishop said it was an 'unexpectedly extraordinary Sunday' as he began the service, which started about an hour after the Queen's coffin left Balmoral to begin its journey to her final resting place.

He said: 'King Charles III has the same ability to see the value of each person as God sees them. That is his conscious understanding of people.'

During his sermon, the Archbishop said those who met the Queen were 'always struck by her ability to make them feel as though they were the most important, the only person in the room, the only person in the street, in the crowd'.

King Charles III waves to the public after viewing floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace on Friday

The Archbishop of Canterbury praised King Charles III in a sermon this morning, saying he has the same ability to bring 'healing' as his mother

Mr Welby recalled seeing Charles work his way around the Lady Chapel in Liverpool Cathedral, where there were families of police officers who had died.

He said Charles spoke to an officer's young widow, adding: 'By the time the then-prince of Wales  His Majesty  had done the rounds, he'd talked to everyone in that chapel and every person there, and I quote that young widow, felt they mattered uniquely and found healing.'

The Archbishop recalled the Queen inviting a Rwandan woman, who had escaped the genocide but lost almost her entire family, to sit next to her at the end of a lunch.

They spoke for at least 20 minutes while some of her staff 'hovered, twitching'.

Reflecting on how the woman felt, Mr Welby told worshippers: 'When I spoke to her later, she said there was healing.'

He added: 'Both Her late Majesty and His Majesty treat others as special because, for both, their faith is built on the same rock  the rock of Christ.'

Mr Welby talked about grief and how this may be a difficult time for people mourning the loss of loved ones.

'We are not complete when one of us is lost,' he said.

'Many people will be navigating their way around the raw and ragged edges of grief today all because of the Queen.

The Archbishop of Canterbury at a special service at Canterbury Cathedral this morning

The Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. Recalling his last meeting with her in June, Mr Welby said: 'I came away thinking there is someone who has no fear of death, has hope in the future, knows the rock on which she stands and that gives her the strength, as it gives His Majesty the strength, to be that sense of permanence and of continuity'

'But many families, as well, will have lost loved ones or been reminded of the loss of loved ones this week.

'Their grief may well feel all the more painful during this time of national and international mourning, for loss is overwhelming to the person bereaved.'

Mr Welby referenced the Queen choosing to 'extend the hand of friendship to Martin McGuinness despite their differences and painful history'.

The encounter between the former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander and the Queen in 2012 was symbolic as the IRA murdered her second cousin-once-removed, Lord Mountbatten, who was also Philip's uncle, in a bombing on his boat in Co Sligo in 1979.

Concluding his sermon, Mr Welby said: 'This is a moment of deep grief, indeed. As Her Majesty said herself, grief is the price we pay for love.'

King Charles arrives at Buckingham Palace today, where he waved at crowds of well-wishers outside the palace gates

Thousands of patriotic Britons crowded outside the gates of Buckingham Palace today as the nation mourns Queen Elizabeth II

Crowds of people walk to Windsor Castle to bring flowers in memory of the late Queen

A record number of 25,000 people an hour have been pouring the gates of the long walk to lay flowers and lay their respects at Windsor Castle today

'And [God] will gather us all together in heaven on the glorious day of resurrection, where in a different context, as Her late Majesty once said to us in difficult times, we will meet again.'

The service ended with a heartfelt rendition of God Save The King from the congregation.

In a radio interview on Friday, Mr Welby described his final encounter with the Queen, who was the Supreme Head of the Church of England, say she 'had no fear of death'.

Recalling the meeting, which took place on June 21, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I came away thinking there is someone who has no fear of death, has hope in the future, knows the rock on which she stands and that gives her the strength, as it gives His Majesty the strength, to be that sense of permanence and of continuity.

'You felt that history was in front of you, but it was history with those piercingly blue eyes twinkling, that extraordinary smile and the relishing of a quick dry comment.'
Vice President Kamala Harris enthusiastically reaffirmed her support for President Joe Biden's re-election bid on Sunday even as a growing number of their fellow Democrats cast doubt on the commander-in-chief's 2024 ambitions.

During a wide-ranging interview on NBC News' Meet The Press, Harris also tried to avoid weighing in directly on the Justice Department's bombshell investigation into Donald Trump's handling of classified documents.

However, she did say that 'people are going to demand justice' in a broad sense, calling upon her past as a US prosecutor, and added that they would 'rightly' be doing so.

It comes as the White House continues to maintain that the president himself has not been briefed on the operation nor has he discussed it.

Ever since the FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last month, concerns have been raised about the visual of a Democrat president's government investigating a political rival - should the ex-president formally declare his 2024 candidacy.

Asked whether Biden has any plans to file for re-election after the November midterm elections, Harris replied, 'Listen, the president has been very clear that he intends to run again.'

'And if he does, I will be running with him proudly,' she added in the pre-taped discussion.

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for a wide-ranging pre-taped interview with NBC's Meet The Press that aired on Sunday, September 11

WATCH: VP Harris responds to those who say it would be too divisive to prosecute a former president, as the DOJ investigates Donald Trump. @VP: That's potentially going to always be the case in our country that people are going to demand justice. pic.twitter.com/OMX0pWyDd3  Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 11, 2022

The California Democrat's vote of confidence for Biden comes as other members of their party raise concerns about his prospective candidacy - chiefly, his age.

Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who is running for Senate there, called for a 'generational change' in leadership just a day before Biden visited his state.

And another left-wing Senate hopeful, Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, opted not to appear with Biden during a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee.

The president will be 81 years old on Election Day 2024, a new record that surpasses the one he currently holds.

Harris would not say on Sunday if or how she and Biden had discussed the 'worst case scenario' of his passing away while in office.

'I pray that it does not. And listen, I think that there is no question that the role and the responsibility of vice president is a very important one. And Joe Biden knows that more than anybody. He and I talk about it,' the vice president said.

'And it is the job of working with the president, doing what I can to be a great partner, to take on and help take on some of the biggest issues that impact our country, both domestically and in terms of foreign policy. And so that's the work that I do.'

Harris' enthusiastic support for President Biden running for re-election comes as multiple Democrats running for higher office have tread gingerly around him and his local appearances

Meanwhile she took a swipe at Donald Trump when asked her thoughts on the DOJ charging him over the classified documents scandal, stating: 'The president and I and our administration, unlike the previous administration, have been very, very careful to make sure that there is no question about any kind of interference'

Another future campaign trail concern for Biden and Harris would come if the Justice Department went forward with charging Trump, in the event its investigation proves he mishandled classified documents in violation of federal law.

Political experts have said it's highly unlikely that federal charges will get in the way of Trump mounting a campaign.

But it may pose a headache for Biden amid already-mounting GOP accusations that his officials are weaponizing the Justice Department against his top political opponent.

On Sunday, Harris declined to weigh in on whether those concerns should factor into the government's potential charges against the former president.

However, she did later suggest she supported calls for 'justice' when asked if charging Trump would prove too divisive.

The interview aired as she and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff took part in New York City's September 11th memorial

'I wouldn't dare tell the Department of Justice what to do. As a former prosecutor, I will tell you, I am not in the business of telling a prosecutor what to do with their case because they know best the facts and the evidence as applied to the law,' Harris said.

Taking a shot at Trump's tight hold over his own Justice Department, she said: 'And certainly, the president and I and our administration, unlike the previous administration, have been very, very careful to make sure that there is no question about any kind of interference in terms of the decisions that the Department of Justice makes.'

Host Chuck Todd pressed, 'Let me try to go to 60,000 feet. What do you say to the argument that it would be too divisive for the country to prosecute a former president?'

'I think that our country is a country that has gone through different periods of time where the unthinkable has happened, and where there has been a call for justice, and justice has been served,' the vice president answered.

'And I think that's potentially going to always be the case in our country that people are going to demand justice and they rightly do.'
The new Prince of Wales has vowed to serve the Welsh people with 'humility and respect' on the same day his father was proclaimed King Charles III at Cardiff Castle.

Prince William thanked the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford for his 'fitting tribute' to his grandmother and revealed over the phone that he would travel to the country 'at the earliest opportunity'.

William was given the title of Prince of Wales which had previously been bestowed upon his father - the new monarch - for more than 64 years, following the death of his grandmother, the Queen, on Thursday.

As Charles's eldest son, William also immediately inherited the title the Duke of Cornwall upon the death of the Queen.

However during his first speech to the nation on Friday, King Charles III announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be given the titles Prince and Princess of Wales.

Technically, Charles's wife, the now Queen Consort Camilla, had been the Princess of Wales, but she used the feminine equivalent of Charles's Duke of Cornwall title, the Duchess of Cornwall.

This was thought to be out of respect for Charles's ex-wife Princess Diana, who died in Paris in August 1997.

A statement from Kensington Palace said: 'HRH expressed his and The Princess of Wales's honour in being asked by His Majesty The King to serve the Welsh people. They will do so with humility and great respect.

'The Prince acknowledged his and the Princess's deep affection for Wales, having made their first family home in Anglesey including during the earliest months of Prince George's life.

The Prince and Princess of Wales spoke to mourners and looked at floral tributes left at Windsor Castle. William is 'honoured' to have become the new Prince of Wales

The Waleses took their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte to Cardiff Castle in June for the Platinum Jubilee celebration on what was their first visit to Wales

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford was speaking at the proclamation of King Charles III at Cardiff Castle today

The regimental mascot, a Welsh billy goat called Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, was present at the proclamation at Cardiff Castle

'The Prince and Princess will spend the months and years ahead deepening their relationship with communities across Wales.

'They want to do their part to support the aspirations of the Welsh people and to shine a spotlight on both the challenges and opportunities in front of them.

'The prince and princess look forward to celebrating Wales' proud history and traditions as well as a future that is full of promise.

'They will seek to live up to the proud contribution that members of the royal family have made in years past.'

The couple had lived in Anglesey as newlyweds when the Prince was stationed at RAF Valley while he was an RAF pilot.

After their first child, Prince George, was born in 2013, the family spent the first few months of his life on the Welsh island before moving to Kensington Palace the same year.

Today, thousands of people gathered at Cardiff Castle to hear Charles be proclaimed King in Wales.

More than 2,000 were allowed inside the grounds but hundreds more lined the street outside the castle walls, including two protesters holding signs reading: 'Not our king!'

Prior to the proclamation, 26 men of the 3rd Battalion the Royal Welsh  supported by the Band of the Royal Welsh  marched from City Hall at 11.25am along the Boulevard de Nantes, North Road and Duke Street to the castle.

King Charles III made William and Kate the new Prince and Princess of Wales during his first speech to the nation

They were accompanied by the regimental mascot, a Welsh billy goat called Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, and Goat Major Sergeant Mark Jackson.

Inside the castle, Mr Drakeford made a short address before the Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary, Tom Lloyd, made the Proclamation in English and the Lord-Lieutenant of South Glamorgan, Morfudd Meredith, proclaimed King Charles in Welsh.

After the readings, members of 104th Regiment of the Royal Artillery fired a 21-gun salute before the singing of God Save The King and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Wales's national anthem.

It was the third time in three days that artillery fire has resounded across the Welsh capital to mark both the Queen's death and the accession of her son to the throne.

When the gun salute ended, soldiers were ordered to remove their head dresses while a call was made for 'Three cheers for His Majesty the King'.

The Prince and his wife made a surprise trip to Cardiff during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee back in June.

They were joined by two of their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte on what was their first visit to Wales. Their youngest son, Prince Louis, was not present.

Prince William and Kate Middleton visited Wales with their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte at Cardiff Castle during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations

Charlotte appeared to offer her older brother, who might one day become Prince of Wales, a flower as they walked around Cardiff Castle with their parents

Princess Charlotte laughs as she conducts a band next to her brother, Prince George, during their visit

The Prince of Wales was getting involved as he put a headset on stage alongside the Princess of Wales

The family walked around Cardiff Castle as William and Kate took time to meet the performers involved in the Queen's Platinum Jubilee concert, which included contributions from Welsh acts Bonnie Tyler and Owain Wynn Evans.

Following the Queen's passing, Prince William paid a deeply personal tribute to his 'Grannie' in his first public statement about her death.

'On Thursday, the world lost an extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute. So much will be said in the days ahead about the meaning of her historic reign,' he said.

'I, however, have lost a grandmother. And while I will grieve her loss, I also feel incredibly grateful. I have had the benefit of The Queen's wisdom and reassurance into my fifth decade.

'My wife has had twenty years of her guidance and support. My three children have got to spend holidays with her and create memories that will last their whole lives.

'She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life.

The Prince of Wales, 40, said in a statement released on Instagram that while the world was mourning the loss of an 'extraordinary leader', he had lost his 'grandmother'

The Prince appeared at Windsor Castle yesterday along his wife, the Princess of Wales alongside Harry and Meghan who joined King Charles III on a walkabout around the grounds to speak to mourners and look at tributes

'I knew this day would come, but it will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real.

'I thank her for the kindness she showed my family and me. And I thank her on behalf of my generation for providing an example of service and dignity in public life that was from a different age, but always relevant to us all.

'My grandmother famously said that grief was the price we pay for love. All of the sadness we will feel in the coming weeks will be testament to the love we felt for our extraordinary Queen.

'I will honour her memory by supporting my father, The King, in every way I can.'

The Prince appeared at Windsor Castle yesterday along his wife, the Princess of Wales. Together with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the two couples spoke to mourners and looked at tributes to the Queen.

The Waleses and Sussexes were said to have been reunited for the walkabout after Prince William extended an '11th-hour' olive branch to Prince Harry, following a phone call with the new monarch.
A Democratic official in Nevada accused of murdering a Las Vegas journalist who exposed his affair with a staffer could continue drawing his $130,000 salary for months despite damning evidence against him.

Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested on Wednesday, five days after Jeff German, a reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was fatally stabbed outside his home.

Telles, 45, is being held without bail and faces one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, according to online court records.

City officials say that despite the murder charge, Telles will remain in his elected role and continue receiving his six-figure salary until another person is elected.

'For now, he's still an elected officer and he'll get paid while he's in jail,' Democratic Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom told WSAV on Friday.

German, 69, had spent months reporting on complaints that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and oversaw an abusive workplace, saying it was 'turmoil.'

Telles has denied the accusations.

German was found dead on September 3, and sources told KLAS that Telles' DNA was discovered under the journalist's fingernails.

Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles (right) had been the focus of recent articles by Las Vegas journalist Jeff German (left) who had spent three decades covering crime and corruption in the city before he was stabbed to death on September 3

Tellas, 45, is being held without bail and faces one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, according to online court records

Despite the mounting evidence against him, Commissioner Segerblom said Telles could remain in his elected position of a public administrator in Clark County.

Segerblom added that the only action he believed the commission could take could be to order a recall vote, which would require a recall petition, as well as gathering and verifying more than 100,000 signatures. Telles lost his June primary and an election to choose his replacement was already in the works, WSAV reported.

The other option is that he could resign.

Elected as the county's public guardian in 2019, Telles was also appointed to the Board of Indigent Defense the same year.

He was removed from the board on Friday.

'We can take the scope of work away from him, but as far as him having the title and getting the salary, it is that way, because the voters picked him,' Segerblom added.

Telles appeared in court on Thursday where Judge Elana Lee Graham denied to grant him bail. However, if the judge decides to set bail for Telles and he's released pending trial, he will not have access to county buildings, including his own office.

Prosecutors at the hearing said German had been stabbed seven times, and the judge noted that the suspect's DNA was found under German's fingernails and on his hands, which also had defensive wounds.

Telles is scheduled to appear in court again on Tuesday.

Democratic Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said Friday that despite the murder charge against Rob Telles, he will remain in his elected role and received salary for months

Telles is escorted into court, Thursday, September 8, 2022, in Las Vegas where he was ordered to be held without bail. However, city officials say he is able to keep is elected role

Telles, a Democrat, failed to win reelection following a series of stories written by German that exposed the turmoil in his office and claimed he had an affair with an employee.

Telles has denied the accusations, saying the complaints were from disgruntled 'old-timers.'

But a particularly damaging revelation came as German published a video of him exiting a vehicle with his lover.

Staffer Roberta Lee-Kennett, 45, left the backseat of the car at the same time as the official, and can be seen pulling her skirt down. The clip was published by the late investigative reporter in May according to The Daily Beast.

PICTURED: Staffer Roberta Lee-Kennett, 45, left the backseat of the car at the same time as the official, as she pulled her skirt down. The clip was published by the late reporter in May

PICTURED: Alleged killer Robert Telles, 45, seen leaving the backseat of his car, along with a member of his staff. The story was reported by the journalist he allegedly killed

Roberta Lee-Kennett, 45, (pictured with her husband) was seen leaving the car at the same time as the official, hoisting her skirt down. Late journalist German claimed that the two were having an affair

DailyMail.com previously revealed that Telles had been railing against German for months  including in an angry series of messages on social media in which he accused him of rifling through his trash and writing 'lying smear pieces' about him.

In the hours following German's murder, his colleagues helped track down the suspected killer when they stalked out the suspect's home on Google Maps before finding that a red car - matching the police description - was parked in his driveway.

Using skills they learned on the job with German, the five-person team at the newspaper sprung into action 'because that's what Jeff would have wanted us to do.'

Police later carried out a search warrant on the home, and his car was towed by midday on Wednesday.

The DNA of the now-arrested public official was found at the site of a Las Vegas investigative reporter's fatal stabbing.

Telles (pictured left with his wife) failed to get reelected after German wrote a series of stories exposing his alleged 'inappropriate relationship' with a member of his staff

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers found local journalist Jeff German (left) dead with stab wounds around 10:30am Saturday after authorities received a 911 call. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles has now been arrested in connection to his death

German's colleagues said that they were just doing what he had taught them to do -follow the story and 'aggressively' try to find out what happened.

They searched online for Telles' address after the reporters recalled the nasty tweets sent by him to their dead colleague.

After long, they spotted the red GMC Yukon Denali parked on his driveway.

It was there that they were able to snap pictures of the suspect washing the red car.

Reporters who worked with German at the Las Vegas newspaper tracked down the suspect's home and realized that a red car, matching the police description, was parked in the driveway

Colleagues of German, from the Review Journal, snapped pictures of Telles washing a car similar to one that cops said they were hunting as part of the probe into the reporters death the day before they raided his home

Briana Erickson, 28, told the Daily Beast: 'We're just acting on instinct right now, aggressively trying to find out what happened. We've finally been able to breathe.'

By 6pm on Wednesday, police had returned to Telles' home in tactical gear and surrounded the home while he remained inside.

About 30 minutes later, he was wheeled out of the home on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

After being on the scene reporting while police arrested Telles, Erickson said: 'Is this person going to harm themselves, and are we not going to have justice for Jeff?'

By 6pm on September 6, police had returned to Telles' home in tactical gear and were surrounding the home while Telles remained inside

'Of course, he's innocent until proven guilty. But, you know, the behavior's just very alarming.'

Speaking about the alleged affair that German exposed during his work at the newspaper, she said: 'Any one of us would have reported this story.

'Any one of us could have, meaning any story that you pursue could potentially lead to circumstances that are completely unforeseen while you're reporting it.

'So I guess it's just kind of puts me on alert, puts all of us on alert here that this is a possibility, which truthfully has never really crossed my mind before.'

Michael Scott Davidson, 31, who also worked with the renown journalist, added: 'We're here to break news, get it right, because that's what Jeff would want us to do.'
Authorities say Dr. Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr. tampered with IV bags at Surgicare North Dallas, leading to the death of a doctor

A Texas doctor had his license revoked and is under criminal investigation after evidence suggested he tampered with IV bags at his clinic, leading to the death of an anesthesiologist and the near death of a patient.

Authorities said footage showed Dr. Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr. - an anesthesiologist at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare North Dallas - tampering with IV bags, and that the bags were found to have small holes in them and to have been spiked with an anesthetic that is fatal if taken intravenously.

'Ortiz was seen on surveillance footage depositing single IV bags into a warmer in the hall outside operating rooms. Investigators found when he put a bag in the warmer, a patient would suffer serious complications shortly after,' according to a report from the Texas Medical Board.

'Inspection of the IV bags found tiny holes in the plastic wrap around the bags. Tests on the bags found they contained the local anesthetic bupivacaine, but were not labeled as such, according to the board.

On Friday evening Ortiz told CBS 11 he was not aware he was under investigation. He insisted he was innocent and said 'I'm just devastated.'

Ortiz's revocation comes after Dallas police opened an investigation into the death of Dr. Melanie Kaspar, 55, an anesthesiologist at Surgicare North Dallas, who died in June from cardiac arrest minutes after administering herself with an IV bag she had taken home from work. A toxicology report found her body contained the same drug in the IV bags Ortiz handled.

Dr. Melanie Kaspar, 55, died of cardiac arrest in June after she brought an IV bag home from work and hooked herself up to it because she was feeling dehydrated

Surgicare North Dallas ceased its operations in recent weeks after the discovery of an IV bag that 'appeared to have been compromised,' the facility said in a statement

The Medical Board's report found that the IV bag which killed Kaspar was one that had been handled by Ortiz.

'On June 21, 2022, a fellow physician from the Surgicare facility took one of the IV bags home with her when she was sick to rehydrate,' it read, 'When she inserted the IV at home she almost immediately had a heart attack and died.'

The Board also noted Ortiz's tampering appeared to be responsible for an incident two months later when an 18-year-old boy nearly died after being hooked up to the IV during a routine surgery.

'Tests were also run on the remaining contents from an IV bag given to an otherwise healthy patient who had a heart attack during a routine surgery. The tests indicated the IV fluid contained drugs that could and would be fatal when given intravenously,' the report read.

The boy was rushed to intensive care after suffering a huge spike in his blood pressure during his operation. He was placed on a ventilator for a week before being released from the hospital.

Ortiz graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine in 1989, and completed his residency in anesthesiology in 1993. It is unclear how long he had been with Surgicare North Dallas.

The Medical Board described Ortiz as a 'continuing threat to public welfare.'

'Dr. Ortiz was a part of an ongoing criminal investigation following serious cardiac complications and one patient's death connected with Ortiz's presence at the Baylor Scott & White Surgicare North Dallas facility from May through September 2022,' the report read.

Surgicare North Dallas ceased its operations in recent weeks after the discovery of an IV bag that 'appeared to have been compromised,' the facility said in a statement.

The hospital could not be reached for comment when contacted by DailyMail.com.

The company which owns the surgery facility, Baylor Scott and White, also could not be reached, but previously said in a statement it was working with the investigation.

'We remain focused on assisting investigators,' the statement said, 'There is nothing more important than the safety and well-being of our patients.'

Melanie Kaspar's Dallas home where she died in June after administering herself with an IV bag she had taken home from work

An obituary for Kaspar described her as a 'loving' person who always lived life to the fullest

An obituary for Kaspar described her as a 'loving' person who always lived life to the fullest.

'No words can adequately contain Mel. She was a whirling dervish and did nothing at half measure,' the obituary read.

'Melanie was a woman of integrity and honor. She was genuine and unapologetically herself. She had a style all her own.'

Numerous testimonials on another obituary described her as a dedicated and caring doctor who always knew how to put patients at ease.

'She was a most compassionate anesthesiologist and co worker,' wrote a former colleague, 'She loved her work and touched so many lives during her time in the operating room.
A proclamation of 'God Save the King' was met by boos from a small group of protestors in Edinburgh this morning but heckling was soon drowned out by jubilant cheers as Charles was proclaimed King.

Crowds had gathered in the capital city to hear the Lord Lyon King of Arms, who is responsible for overseeing state ceremonial in Scotland, formally announced the Queen's successor.

Similar announcements of the new monarch took place simultaneously in towns and cities across the UK and the Commonwealth.

But amongst the hundreds of royal fans who had turned out to watch the ceremony in Edinburgh, a small number took the opportunity to make clear their disapproval of the new monarch.

Spectators remained silent for the main declaration but as the Lord Lyon King of Arms Joseph Morrow ended his proclamation by saying 'God Save the King' there were audible boos.

They were soon drowned out by chants of 'God Save the King', before trumpets started playing the national anthem.

Crowds had gathered in Edinburgh today to hear the Lord Lyon King of Arms formally announced the Queen's successor King Charles III

One anti-monarchist protestor, holding a sign that said 'f*** imperialism, abolish the monarchy' was arrested outside St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh in connection with a 'breach of peace', Police Scotland said

Hundreds of royal fans who had turned out to watch the ceremony in Edinburgh around the Mercat Cross today

Declaration of God Save the King met with boos in Edinburgh #Scotland pic.twitter.com/Qj2048kknU  Phantom Power (@PhantomPower14) September 11, 2022

Another loud boo could be heard after the anthem as the Lord led three cheers of 'hip, hip hooray', sparking outrage amongst others in the crowd, with someone shouting back 'Oh shut up'.

One onlooker told Edinburgh Live: 'I was absolutely disgusted by the behaviour of some people in the crowd.

'It was meant to be a joyful occasion to mark the new King but there was petty people booing.

'It just looked like attention seeking.'

People could also be heard calling for a republic and a few individuals held up signs critical of the monarchy.

On Sunday morning, Our Republic, a Scottish campaign group that believes the monarchy should be ended, encouraged those with objections to the proclamation to 'make those clear'.

John Hall, 33, who is the treasurer of the anti-monarchy campaign group told NBC News: 'We wanted to make it clear that theres more than one viewpoint in Scotland.

'I wanted to make sure that I made it clear I didnt consent to this pageantry.'

Amongst the hundreds of royal fans who had turned out to watch the ceremony in Edinburgh, a small number took the opportunity to make clear their disapproval of the new monarch

One anti-monarchy protester, holding a sign reading, 'F*** imperialism, abolish the monarchy' was arrested.

As police took her away the crowd applauded, with one person shouting 'have some respect' at the republican.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: 'A 22-year-old woman was arrested outside St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh on Sunday, 11 September, 2022 in connection with a breach of the peace.'

The Scottish Community & Activist Legal Project later accused the police of being 'heavy-handed'.
Advertisement

King Charles III smiled through the pain as he met with dignitaries from across the Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace today - including officials from Antigua and Barbuda that are threatening to ditch the crown.

Both Charles and Queen Consort Camilla appeared to be in good spirits as they got straight to work just three days on from Her Majesty's death at Balmoral.

The new King hosted a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace, pictured smiling as he greeted officials from across the world.

It included dignitaries from Antigua and Barbuda, whose Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the Earl and Countess of Wessex that it was his country's wish to 'one day become a republic' during a royal tour in April.

During a meeting with Edward and Sophie, Mr Browne said despite his country wanting to change its position, he acknowledged that it is 'not on the cards' at the present moment. But he urged them to use their 'diplomatic influence' to achieve 'reparatory justice' for the island of Antigua and Barbuda.

Charles met Commonwealth general secretary Patricia Scotland in the 1844 Room, before attending the reception at the royal residence this afternoon.

Guests at Buckingham Palace included Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and the Commissioner for Antigua and Barbuda - whose republican Prime Minister is threatening a referendum on ditching the Crown - as well as representatives for Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, New Zealand, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Honorary Consul of Tuvalu and the Acting High Commissioner for Australia.

Later this afternoon, the King - who was formally proclaimed at St James's Palace yesterday - received the Dean of Windsor.

People then erupted in cheers as his motorcade emerged from the palace gates. He could be seen waving to people lining the street as the convoy travelled up the Mall

King Charles III spoke to Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace earlier today

The newly appointed monarch was speaking to High Commissioners and their spouses from countries where he is head of state

King Charles's wife and Queen Consort Camilla was also in attendance at the Bow Room after they were greeted by thousands of well-wishers on their way to Buckingham Palace

Charles was smiling through the pain as he spoke to people in the Bow Room just three days on from his mother's death

Charles laughs during the reception at Buckingham Palace today, which came shortly after he had been greeted with cheers by crowds lining The Mall

The new king pictured greeting the Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Patricia Scotland at Buckingham Palace today

Earlier today, an emotional Charles was greeted by thousands of well-wishers as he arrived at his royal Residence earlier today where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth - while his mother Queen Elizabeth II's coffin embarked on her historic final journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh, before it heads onto Westminster Abbey for her state funeral.

Crowds lining the length of The Mall - including excited young children sat on top of the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones - cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by mourners.

Next week, the King and Queen will embark on a tour of the four home nations in the run-up to his late mother's state funeral at Westminster Abbey and burial at St George's Chapel in Windsor, following her death at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.

In other developments today:

The Queen's coffin made the historic six-hour journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh. Her Majesty will lie in state at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight and then for 24 hours in St Giles' Cathedral tomorrow, so that well-wishers can pay tribute to the monarch. The coffin will then be transported down to London ahead of the state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Monday, September 19;

Prince William vowed to serve Wales with 'humility' - after he paid tribute to his 'extraordinary Grannie' in a heartbreaking statement yesterday;

The Prince and Princess of Wales yesterday reunited with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for a historic walkabout at Windsor;

Church services took place around the UK today to remember Her Majesty on first Sunday after her death;

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told his congregation that this was an 'unexpectedly extraordinary Sunday' as he paid tribute to the later monarch;

The Sussexes' children Archie and Lilibet continued to be listed as 'Master' and 'Miss' on the new order of succession;

First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, paid tribute to the late Queen in a tweet;

Former Prime Minister David Cameron described how he had to apologise to Her Majesty after revealing details of private phone call. He also revealed that he help Charles prepare for becoming King by holding 'practice' audiences.

King Charles III waving at well-wishers as he arrives at Buckingham Palace this afternoon

Members of the public gather to watch King Charles III arrive by car at Buckingham Palace today

King Charles is driven to Buckingham Palace, following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II

Camilla, the Queen Consort, waving to people gathered outside Buckingham Palace from her car today

Children sit on the shoulders of their parents as they watch the King arrive at Buckingham Palace today

People wait in line to lay flowers for the late Queen Elizabeth II in front of Buckingham Palace

The Queen 's oak coffin was today seen leaving Balmoral Castle on its way to Edinburgh in a black Mercedes Benz

King Charles III waves to waiting members of the public as he arrives by car at Buckingham Palace

King Charles at Buckingham Palace, following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II

The monarch was accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes

Camilla, Queen Consort arrives by car at Buckingham Palace as she is greeted by well-wishers this afternoon

Liz Truss will join the King on tour of the UK as they lead the nation in mourning Liz Truss will accompany the King as he visits the four corners of the United Kingdom to lead the nation in mourning. The Prime Minister will be by His Majesty's side as he attends services in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next week ahead of his mother's funeral. While she is not required to be present, she believes it is important to be present. Her official spokesman told reporters: 'In terms of the Prime Minister's involvement, she will join the King as he leads the national mourning across the United Kingdom, attending services of reflection in Scotland on Monday afternoon, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday.' He said it would not be a formal or constitutional role but had been agreed by Downing Street and the Palace. 'It's not a requirement but the Prime Minister believes it's important to be present for what is a significant moment of national mourning around the United Kingdom.' The spokesman also said that the scale of planning the Queen's funeral was 'equivalent to the Olympics'  but would need to be done in just ten days. Advertisement

Charles has also been proclaimed King in cities across the Commonwealth. Speaking from parliament's steps in Wellington, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a crowd that in the wake of the Queen's death, New Zealand had entered a time of change.

In Canberra, Governor General David Hurley, the monarch's representative in Australia, proclaimed Charles with a 21-gun salute at Parliament House.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a national day of mourning for the Queen would take place on September 22, with the day to be a public holiday. He also announced that he would attend Her Majesty's state funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19.

As a mark of respect, national flags in Australia are at half-mast, parliament has been suspended and a giant portrait of the Queen has been displayed on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

And in Ottawa, a 28-member band of the Canadian Armed Forces played God Save the King during a 21-run gun salute at a proclamation ceremony attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Though Canadians are somewhat indifferent to the monarchy, many had great affection for the Queen, whose silhouette marks their coins. She was the head of state for 45% of Canada's existence and visited the country 22 times as monarch.

Charles will visit Edinburgh, Belfast and Wales in the coming days with Camilla, and the Prime Minister, to hear condolences from politicians and respond to their words of sympathy.

The King will begin his visit to legislators at London's Westminster Hall tomorrow, where both Houses of Parliament will express their condolences to the new monarch and his wife - and the King will give his reply. Later that day, Charles and Camilla will fly to Edinburgh where the King will inspect the Guard of Honour at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, before attending the ceremony of the Keys on the forecourt.

During the day, the King will join his other siblings - the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence - walking behind the Queen's coffin when it is moved from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles' Cathedral where it will lie for 24 hours so the public can pay their respects.

Camilla and other members of the family will travel by car and all the royals will attend a service of thanksgiving for the life of the Queen.

At the Palace, the King will hold audiences with the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, followed by an audience with Alison Johnstone, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. Words of sympathy will be expressed by the Scottish Parliament when Charles and Camilla attend to receive a motion of condolence, with the King replying.

That evening, the monarch will hold a vigil at the Queen's coffin with other members of the royal family.

People stand to pay their respects as the hearse carrying the body of the Queen makes its way towards Edinburgh

A sombre Princess Royal in a Bentley limousine behind the Queen's hearse as it travels through Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh

Members of the public line the streets in Ballater, Scotland, as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes through

A slight mist hung in the air at Balmoral Castle early this morning ahead of the Queen's final departure from what was one of her most beloved places to spend time

The wreath is made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir

Dignitaries salute Queen Elizabeth II's hearse as it passes through the village of Ballater

Local people - dressed in black - gather in Ballater in tribute to the Queen as her coffin passed through the village

The coffin is expected to stop in Ballater for a short ceremony in the town famed for its connections to the Royals.

Local people dressed in tartan preparing for the arrival of the Queen's coffin at Glenmuick Church in Ballater

Policing operation for funeral will be 'hugely complex' A senior Metropolitan Police officer has said policing in the run-up to the Queen's funeral will be a 'hugely complex operation'. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy on Sunday said hundreds of extra officers had already been called in as thousands descended on the capital following the monarch's death. Officers are likely to be concerned with managing crowds, with a huge number of mourners expected to queue for several hours, including overnight, to pay their respects to the Queen as she lies in state, expected to be from Wednesday. Leaders from around the globe will also travel to the UK for the state funeral on Monday, meaning security will be of increased concern. Mr Cundy said: 'Our role is to ensure this is going to be a safe and a secure set of events. 'Our policing operation is hugely complex, with a huge amount of detail within it, as you can well imagine. 'So we're always mindful of all manner of different potential things that might occur. We know that not just the eyes of the United Kingdom but the world will be on London at this point in time.' Advertisement

Belfast is the next stop with the royal couple flying to Ulster on Tuesday to visit Hillsborough Castle, where they will view an exhibition about the late Queen's long association with Northern Ireland. The King will then meet the Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and party leaders and receive a message of condolence led by the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, again making his reply.

After a short reception at Hillsborough, the King and Queen Consort will travel to St Anne's Cathedral for a service of prayer and reflection and before the event Charles will meet leaders from all the major faiths in Northern Ireland, and later the royal couple will return to London.

In a tribute to his late mother, the King will lead Wednesday's procession behind the gun carriage carrying her coffin to Westminster Hall, where the lying in state will begin before her state funeral on September 19.

The planned trip to Wales is scheduled for Friday, with details to be released at a later date.

It comes as floral tributes were thrown into the path of Queen's coffin as thousands of people turned out to pay their respects as the monarch began the journey to her final resting place at St George's Chapel in Windsor, alongside her beloved husband the Duke of Edinburgh.

Her oak coffin, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top, began its six-hour trip from the Queen's summer sanctuary in the Highlands to Edinburgh.

The former monarch did not travel alone - the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence were in a limousine as part of a procession directly behind her.

A single motorbike police outrider led the way as the hearse, followed by six vehicles, travelled at a stately pace through the Aberdeenshire countryside.

Proclamations of the new King were read to large crowds at Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, at Cardiff Castle, in Wales, and at Hillsborough Castle, in Northern Ireland.

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, paid tribute to the Queen, calling her 'extraordinary'. In a tweet, she said: 'A sad and poignant moment as Her Majesty, The Queen leaves her beloved Balmoral for the final time. Today, as she makes her journey to Edinburgh, Scotland will pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.'

Hundreds lined the main street as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through Ballater, the village closest to the Balmoral estate, where locals considered her a neighbour.

The Queen and her family were often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the royal family have space to be themselves. Many shops in the picturesque Victorian village had photographs of the Queen in their windows.

A gun salute is fired during the proclamation ceremony for King Charles III at Cardiff Castle, Wales

The Royal Marines march down the Royal Mile during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh

Military guards march in Edinburgh prior to the arrival of the cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II

Drummers at the front of a military band play prior to the Proclamations near St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh

An Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, publicly proclaims King Charles III as the new monarch

A trumpeteer sounds a fanfare during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle, Wales

In Cardiff, the 3rd battalion of the Royal Welsh and The Band of the Royal Welsh arrive at Cardiff Castle accompanied by the regimental mascot during of the Welsh Proclamation of King Charles III

EDINBURGH: Members of the public during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch

CARDIFF: Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, the regimental mascot goat, accompanies the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh regiment at the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle

WALES: Crowds gather at Cardiff Castle ahead of the Welsh Proclamation of King Charles III

What happens next: Day two of mourning D+2 - Sunday September 11 The Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland, will be taken by road to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh from 10am. It will travel east from Balmoral to the coast, before travelling south to Holyroodhouse, in a journey lasting six hours. Huge crowds are expected to line the route of the 170-mile journey, as mourners pay their respects. The Queen will rest overnight in the oak-panelled Throne Room. Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. And King Charles will meet Commonwealth Secretary General, Realm High Commissioners, and the Dean of Windsor at Buckingham Palace today. D+3 - Monday September 12 At 2.35pm, the procession will be held along the Royal Mile to St Giles' Cathedral. The King and other senior members of the Royal Family will walk the 1,200 yard route on foot. At 7.20pm, the King and other family members will mount a vigil by the coffin. The Queen will then lie at rest for 24 hours, with thousands expected to file past. The House of Commons and the House of Lords are expected to come together in Westminster for a Motion of Condolence, which the King could attend. After leaving England and visiting Scotland, Charles will at some stage travel to the other countries of the UK - Wales and Northern Ireland - known as Operation Spring Tide. D+4 - Tuesday September 13 At 5pm on Tuesday, the Queen's coffin will be taken by hearse to Edinburgh airport, where it will be met by a Guard of Honour from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The Royal Air Force bearer party will then carry it on to a waiting aircraft, where it will be flown to London at 6pm. She will be accompanied by Princess Anne and arrive at RAF Northolt in West London shortly before 7pm. The coffin will then be driven to Buckingham Palace where it will be met by a Guard of Honour. There it will rest in the Bow Room, under the watch of a rota of chaplains. A rehearsal for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster is also expected to take place. D+5 - Wednesday September 14 The Queen's lying in state is expected to begin in Westminster Hall - Operation Marquee - following a ceremonial procession through London that will begin at 2.22pm. The King will walk behind his mother's coffin for the second time in three days. On arrival, the coffin will be placed on a raised bier where the Queen will lie in state for four full days. The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct a short service following the coffin's arrival. Hundreds of thousands of people will file past the coffin on its catafalque and pay their respects, just as they did for the Queen Mother's lying in state in 2002. The management of the queues outside is Operation Feather. During the Covid-19 crisis, plans included the possibility of the introduction of timed ticketing for those wanting to attend. Senior royals are also expected to pay their own moving tribute, standing guard at some stage around the coffin - the tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes. D+6 - Thursday September 15 Lying in state continues and a rehearsal is likely to take place for the state funeral procession. D+7 - Friday September 16 Lying in state continues, ending on D+9. On Friday, King Charles will continue his tour of the UK, travelling to Wales to receive a motion of condolence at the Welsh Parliament, and attend a service at Llandaff Cathedral, in Cardiff. D+9 - Sunday September 18 Heads of state begin to arrive for the funeral. An evening reception will be held for funeral guests, including prime ministers, heads of state and other dignitaries from across the world. The King will hold an audience with the Prime Minister. D+10 - Monday September 19 The Queen's state funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey in central London at 11am. The original plans are for the Queen's coffin to process on a gun carriage to the abbey, pulled by naval ratings - sailors - using ropes rather than horses. Senior members of the family will follow behind - just like they did for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The military will line the streets and also join the procession. Heads of state, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key figures from public life will be invited to gather in the abbey, which can hold a congregation of 2,000. The service will be televised, and a national two minutes' silence is expected to be held at midday. The same day as the funeral, the Queen's coffin will be taken to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for a televised committal service. Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family. The Queen's final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel - where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret. Philip's coffin will move from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen's. Advertisement

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church, where the Rev David Barr rang the church bells 70 times after the Queen's death was announced.

Flowers were thrown into the hearse's path by well-wishers on both sides of the road in Ballater, which was sombre and silent. The hearse slowed to a fast walking pace and mourners could clearly see the royal standard-draped coffin and the wreath featuring flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes as she considered what she had just seen.

She said: 'It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the Queen. She certainly gave service to this country, even up until a few days before her death.'

Earlier, the Queen's oak coffin was carried to the hearse by six Balmoral estate gamekeepers tasked with the symbolic gesture. It had been at rest in the Balmoral ballroom so the monarch's estate workers could say their goodbyes. The hearse is making a journey of around 180 miles from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

Some distance from the main cortege was a large number of support vehicles, including police vans and cars, an ambulance and what appeared to be a back-up hearse.

Richard Gledson, factor of the Balmoral estate, managed the event supported by Rev Kenneth MacKenzie, minister of Balmoral's Crathie Church where the Queen worshipped.

Rev Mackenzie travelled in a vehicle with the main procession, as did a representative of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, a department responsible for organising ceremonial or public-facing events in the monarch's diary.

Yesterday Charles paid tribute to the reign of the late Queen, 'unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion', as he was formally declared the nation's new monarch.

During a poignant and sombre meeting of the Accession Council, the King spoke movingly about his mother and the grief his family is experiencing, but said the 'sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers' had been the 'greatest consolation'.

Watched by the Queen, the new Prince of Wales and more than 200 privy counsellors - including six former prime ministers - the King pledged himself to the task now before him and the 'heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty'.

His mother would be his guide for the years ahead as he strived to 'follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government', he added.

The day included a moment of pomp and pageantry with David White, Garter King of Arm, in his colourful regalia and flanked by other Officers of Arms and Sergeants at Arms, reading the proclamation of the new King from a balcony at St James's Palace.

Meanwhile, in Scotland the late Queen's other children, the Princess Royal, Duke of York and Earl of Wessex, and their families attended a service at Balmoral's Crathie Kirk where their mother regularly worshipped.

Afterwards, Anne, her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence and her children Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips joined Andrew and his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and Edward and the Countess of Wessex with their daughter Lady Louise, at the gates of Balmoral Castle to look at floral tributes left for the late monarch.

Eugenie wiped away tears at one point and was hugged by her father Andrew, and returned the comforting gesture.

Charles began his momentous day by discharging the 'sorrowful duty' of announcing the death of his 'beloved mother', and told the council: 'I know how deeply you, the entire nation - and I think I may say the whole world - sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered.

'It is the greatest consolation to me to know of the sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers and that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our whole family in our loss.'

Charles spoke of the late Queen's 'selfless service', adding: 'My mother's reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life.'

He went on to say: 'I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me. In taking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional Government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these islands and of the Commonwealth Realms and Territories throughout the world.'

The King ended by saying: 'And in carrying out the heavy task that has been laid upon me, and to which I now dedicate what remains to me of my life, I pray for the guidance and help of Almighty God.'

The historic event was broadcast for the first time, giving the world a first glimpse of an ancient ceremony dating back centuries and one of the first changes to convention instigated by the new King.

Following convention, Charles did not attend the first part of the ceremony when the clerk of the council Richard Tilbrook read the proclamation to the packed meeting that confirmed the new monarch.

He said: '...Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege lord, Charles III...'

The meeting was staged in the state rooms of St James's Palace, and the clerk declared to the room: 'God Save the King,' with the privy counsellors repeating the famous phrase.

The new monarch became King the moment his mother died, but an Accession Council must be convened following the death of a Sovereign - usually within 24 hours.

More than 200 privy councillors - a group of mostly senior politicians past and present, some members of the monarchy and other national figures - were present to hear the Clerk of the Council read the Accession Proclamation.

Among them were ex-prime ministers Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson - Cabinet members, former Archbishops of Canterbury and York with everyone standing, a convention believed to have been established by Queen Victoria to keep such meetings short.

The current premier Liz Truss was part of the proceedings and stood at the head of the council with Camilla, William, Archbishop of York Justin Welby and other figures as the clerk read the proclamation.

Charles's address was made in the second part of the ceremony - when proceedings moved to the palace's throne room - and was effectively the King hosting his first Privy Council meeting.

After his personal declaration about the death of his mother the King took the oath to preserve the Church of Scotland - because in Scotland there is a division of powers between the church and state.

A number of procedural matters were completed including the King approving the day of the late Queen's funeral, which has yet to be confirmed, to be a bank holiday.

EDINBURGH: An Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross publicly proclaiming King Charles as the new monarch

EDINBURGH: People gather outside of the St Giles' Cathedral ahead of the ceremony of the proclamation

The new monarch became King the moment his mother died, but an Accession Council must be convened following the death of a Sovereign - usually within 24 hours.

At 11am the crowds stood in a road overlooking the St James's Palace's Friary Court saw the spectacle of the Garter King of Arms reading the proclamation from a balcony.

In the court below was the palace's detachment of the King's Guard made up of Number 7 Company, Coldstream Guards.

The national anthem was performed by the Band of the Coldstream Guards alongside eight State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry who were stood on the balcony.

Amid a burst of pageantry with a trumpet fanfare, it was a masterclass in royal choreography - the like of which not has not been witnessed for 70 years - as the change in reign was officially announced.

Behind the old stone castellations of the balcony above Friary Court in St James's Palace, the Garter Principal King of Arms David White, resplendent in a sumptuous red and gold velvet tabard, stepped into the warm September air under grey skies to shout out the proclamation.

It signified the formal notice to the people of the accession of a new sovereign, at the conclusion of the historic Accession Council.

In a poignant move, the Queen's grieving first cousins had made their way into Friary Court to watch from beneath the arches of St James's Palace.

LONDON: Members of Band of the Coldstream guards ahead of the reading of the Principal Proclamation in Friary Court before the accession council

King Charles III during the Accession Council at St James's Palace, London

Led by the late Queen's Master of the Household Vice Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, the Duke of Kent, aged 86 and 10 years the Queen's junior, looked ailing and frail as he walked slowly but without any aid to sit on a red leather and wooden seat specially set out for him under the arches of the courtyard.

There too were his brother Prince Michael of Kent, and the Duke of Gloucester and his wife the Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent's daughter Lady Helen Taylor.

The Duchess of Gloucester, sat next to the Duke of Kent, listened as he pointed towards the balcony discussing the scene before them.

The Queen's cousins have served Elizabeth II throughout their lives and shared precious times with her in childhood.

At one point the Gloucesters stood with their arms interlinked.

In the quadrangle, the King's principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, clutching a series of white documents, and the late Queen's private secretary Sir Edward Young were engrossed in conversation shortly before the public proclamation. Both have key roles in the busy days ahead as London Bridge gets fully under way - although Charles has yet to set out the details of royal court as monarch.

The Garter King of Arms confessed beforehand to being nervous at his 'emotional' role.

'It's a great honour and something that we have been preparing for, for years. It's a rather emotional occasion,' he said.

Asked if he had any nerves, he replied: 'I do.'

His intricately decorated tabard, embroidered gold thread, was thankfully not heavy or hot, he disclosed, due to it being made of velvet.

Given the ancient nature of the ceremony, it was also remarkably new, having been made just 10 years ago when the previous one which dated from 1838 became too frail to be used.

'Every garment has its working life,' he added.

There had been much to do in preparation. One of the 20 foot high huge sash windows at the back of the balcony was removed entirely on Friday to allow the Garter King of Arms and the Officers and Serjeants of Arms ease of access - with a scramble through a window unthinkable amid the carefully staged pomp.

It was replaced with a temporary window in case of poor weather and for protection, which was removed on Saturday as the scene was readied.

Special wooden steps - crafted by a carpenter - were created to allow the ceremonial officers, all decked out in tabards like a row of court playing cards - to process with regal effect onto the balcony, which overlooked the expanse of the red coloured court.

Ahead of the ceremony, the newly named King's Guard - made up of Number 7 Company Coldstream Guard - in familiar red tunics and black bearskin hats took their positions with shouts of 'Be still' from their Captain.

Timing was of the utmost importance and the Earl Marshal - the Duke of Norfolk - in charge of the accession proceedings and the funeral - checked his watch twice as he and the others waited for the precise start time of 11am.

The Garter King of Arms read his 197 word proclamation - to 'publish and proclaim that the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our only lawful and rightful liege lord, Charles III'.

He delivered his words loudly and without falter, the carrying of his voice assisted by two fluffy boom microphones hid out of sight behind the low dark red brick balcony wall, above the quadrangle.

The Captain of the King's Guard ordered his troops to 'Present arms' as the colour was lowered with the stomp of their feet.

The Garter King of Arms' shout of 'God Save the King' was echoed triumphantly by the gathered royals, including the Duke of Kent who rallied to stand, along with the household staff and public, as the state trumpeters sounded the royal salute.

Members of the household staff appeared moved as cheers from the crowds on The Mall and shouts of 'God Save the King' flooded into the courtyard, as the National Anthem was played, and those watching joined in.

In a poignant tribute, the King's Guard lifted their head-dresses raising them aloft three times as the Garter King of Arms declared 'Three Cheers for His Majesty The King. Hip-Hip' with the troops responding 'Hooray' to each.

The Duke of Kent raised his hand in the air for the two final cheers.

Friary Court plays a role in the Changing the Guard ceremonies, being where the Old Guard forms and is inspected by the Captain of the Guard before marching to Buckingham Palace - and on Saturday, it was a Changing the Guard of the monarchy, from a now departed monarch to her son.

Hour-by-hour guide to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II: World will watch as King Charles III and senior royals walk behind late monarch's oak coffin carried on gun carriage from Parliament to Westminster Abbey for historic service

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey at 11am on Monday, September 19.

It will be the first funeral service at the Abbey - which was the background to much of the Queen's astonishing life, from her marriage to her beloved Duke of Edinburgh to the Coronation - for a British monarch since that of King George II in 1760.

The funerals of kings and queens have been at St George's Chapel in Windsor since the reign of George III.

However, in a break with convention, Her Majesty - who died at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96 following many months of concern over her health - decided her funeral should be in the much bigger setting of Westminster Abbey.

Scotland Yard has now been tasked with organising the most significant security arrangement in British history for the funeral.

After a night at the Palace of Holyroodhouse tonight, the Queen will lie in state for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Her coffin will be flown to London on Tuesday, acccompanied by the Princess Royal, before being driven to Buckingham Palace. The Queen's lying in state is expected to begin in Westminster Hall in London on Wednesday afternoon.

Then on Monday, the coffin will be moved from the Houses of Parliament that morning on the state gun carriage and transported to the neighbouring Abbey. King Charles III and other senior members of the Royal Family, as well as the military, will follow the coffin while hundreds of thousands of mourners line the streets to pay their final respects to the late monarch.

Around 2,000 guests including Prime Minister Liz Truss and US President Joe Biden will then attend the hour-long televised service in the Abbey, which is expected to be one of the most watched live events in history - before the coffin is solemnly carried to Wellington Arch at 1pm via Whitehall, The Mall and past Buckingham Palace.

The coffin will then be carried to Windsor, before the Queen is buried at St George's Chapel next to her husband Prince Philip.

Her Majesty stands on the Buckingham Palace balcony on the final day of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in early June

6am-8.30am: Last vigil at Queen's coffin in Westminster Hall

At dawn on the last day of national mourning, the King's bodyguards will begin their final vigil at the Queen's oak coffin in the Houses of Parliament. It will then close at 8.30am in preparation for the procession.

9am: Big Ben will strike

Big Ben will strike clearly, before the bell's hammer is covered with a thick leather pad to muffle its strikes for the rest of the day, out of respect and deference to the late monarch.

10.30am: Queen's coffin is carried from House of Parliament to Westminster Abbey

The Queen's coffin will be moved onto the state gun carriage which will be outside the north door of Westminster Hall.

From there, it will be pulled by naval ratings using ropes instead of horses from the Hall to Westminster Abbey.

Enormous crowds of mourners are expected to line the streets in Westminster as King Charles and senior members of the Royal Family follow the coffin as they did at the funeral for Princess Diana and for Prince Philip. The military will also join the procession.

11am: The Queen's coffin is carried to the High Altar

Around 2,000 guests including members of the Royal Family, Prime Minister Liz Truss, former British premiers, foreign dignitaries including US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and possibly Japanese Emperor Naruhito, and other VIPs, will fill the Abbey and watch as the Queen's coffin is moved down the nave to the High Altar, before the nation falls silent.

The state funeral at Westminster Abbey (pictured) be led by the Dean of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury

11am-12pm: The state funeral at the Abbey

The state funeral will be led by the Dean of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is being televised and is expected to be beamed to millions around the world - and could well be one of the most watched live events in human history.

Royal experts believe that the choice of the Abbey could be both because it is so big - it has a capacity of 2,000 though can hold as many as 8,000 - and more live TV broadcasts have already been held there.

It is also believed that it could be a better place for large crowds to gather to pay their respects, since it is in Central London.

And the Abbey was the setting for many of the most important events of the Queen's life - from her Coronation to her wedding to Prince Philip. The Princess Royal and the Duke of York, and the Queen's sister Princess Margaret, were also married there.

Other royal funerals have been held at the Abbey, including Princess Diana's in 1997 and the Queen Mother's in 2002. The funeral of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Philip's uncle, was also held there in 1979.

Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey

12pm: The Last Post

At the end of the service, the Last Post and Reveille will be played.

12pm-1pm: Queen's coffin is carried to Wellington Arch via The Mall

The Queen's coffin will then be placed back on the state gun carriage, before the royal funeral procession will solemnly move through Parliament Square, Whitehall, Constitution Hill and The Mall, past Buckingham Palace, to arrive at Wellington Arch at 1pm.

1pm-4pm: The coffin is transported to Windsor

Then the coffin will be transported to Windsor, where the Queen spent much of the last years of her life, to her final resting place at St George's Chapel via the Long Walk.

The Queen's coffin will be lowered into the Royal Vault at St George's Chapel in Windsor (pictured), where she will be buried alongside her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, her beloved parents, and her sister Princess Margaret

Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in an official wedding photograph taken on their wedding day in 1947

4pm: Queen will be buried at St George's Chapel by her husband Prince Philip

The committal service conducted by the Dean of Windsor will then begin, and will also be televised around the world.

Before the last hymn, the Imperial State Crown, sceptre and orb will be removed from the Queen's coffin by the crown jeweller.

Then at the end of the service, a lament will be played by a lone piper as the coffin is lowered into the Royal Vault, where she will be buried alongside her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, her beloved parents, and her sister Margaret.

7pm: King Charles will attend private family burial service at chapel

King Charles and his closest family will return to the chapel for a private family burial service, where - as the late Queen did for her father - the monarch will scatter earth upon the coffin.
Claire McCaskill said that senators would constantly mock and look down on Joe Biden for being vice president, as the former senator defended Vice President Kamala Harris against 'premature' criticism.

She also said that there is a lot of similar chatter dissing Harris, who only served in the upper chamber for less than a term before she was brought on as Biden's running mate.

'I remember distinctly being in the Cloak Room in the first two years of the Biden vice presidency, and how many of my colleagues were looking down their noses at Joe Biden. Mocking him,' McCaskill said during a panel discussion on NBC's Meet the Press.

The former Missouri senator said: 'It's a hard, hard job  the vice presidency.'

'It's even harder, I think, if you are a woman in that job, who is seen as an opponent by a lot of the insiders in Washington for the presidency,' she added in reference to Harris.

Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said senators used to 'mock' and 'look down their noses' at Joe Biden when he was vice president

WATCH: Fmr. Sen. @clairecmc (D-Mo.) recalls how her colleagues looked down on Joe Biden when he was VP.



"It's a hard, hard job. ... It's even harder ... if you're a woman in that job, who is seen as an opponent by a lot of the insiders in Washington for the presidency." pic.twitter.com/cReicz83lf  Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 11, 2022

Comes as the former Missouri senator defended Kamala Harris, claiming criticism against her is 'premature'. Pictured: The vice president attends the commemoration ceremony for the 21st anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks

McCaskill's defense comes after Harris' full interview with Todd aired on the network.

The former Democratic senator, who was ousted in 2018 by Trump ally and Republican Senator Josh Hawley, said she felt Harris did 'a terrific job in the interview' despite criticism of her attacking the Supreme Court for being an 'activist' body.

'I think she has had a rough road to go,' McCaskill said. 'And so there's a lot of chattering behind the scenes of trying to diss Kamala Harris.'

'Maybe all this dismissing of Kamala Harris is way premature,' she added.

Harris launched another attack on the Supreme Court by branding it an 'activist court' for overturning Roe v Wade in her pre-recorded interview with Todd, which aired in full on Sunday morning's Meet the Press program.

Biden became Obama's No. 2 after 36 years in the Senate. The president delivers remarks at the Pentagon on the anniversary of 9/11

At the same time of its airing, Harris was in New York City at a commemoration ceremony at ground zero for the 21st anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The Vice President laid into the judges during the interview for 'taking a constitutional right away' after they put an end to the 49-year law.

Asked how much 'confidence' she has in the Supreme Court, the vice president replied: 'I think that this is an activist court.'

Such harsh words are unusual for a vice president as the Supreme Court fights to maintain public trust.

A clip of her comments regarding the high court aired on Friday, and the full airing came as Biden hasn't sat down for an interview with the press in more than 210 days.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the United Kingdom's late Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday because she claimed both 'fought' for what they believed in.

The remark's timing is controversial considering it came while the beloved monarch's casket was being brought to Edinburgh for the first leg of her final journey, as tens of thousands of Britons already line the streets in mourning.

'I think Nancy Pelosi is the gutsiest woman in politics right now,' Clinton said on CNN's State of the Union.

'She has shown, through all kinds of turmoil and challenge, what it means to - somewhat like the Queen to be drawing an analogy here - get up every day, put on those high heels she wears, suit up to fight for the values and ideals that she strongly believes in.'

Meanwhile mourners in Scotland gathered on Sunday for a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth's coffin as it was transported from her holiday home of Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

The queen's only daughter, Princess Anne, was in the motorcade accompanying her mother's hearse along with her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Lawrence. Two more of the late monarch's four children - Prince Andrew and Prince Edward - joined Princess Anne in Scotland's capital.

The United Kingdom and millions across the world are in mourning after Queen Elizabeth's 70-year reign ended on Thursday, September 8.

Hillary Clinton shared her memories interacting with Queen Elizabeth II earlier in her CNN interview but later brought up the monarch again when asked about the gutsiest women in US politics - when comparing her to Nancy Pelosi

Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully and surrounded by relatives on September 8, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday. She was 96

Clinton said of Pelosi (pictured on August 31), 'She has shown, through all kinds of turmoil and challenge, what it means to - somewhat like the Queen to be drawing an analogy here - get up every day, put on those high heels she wears, suit up to fight for the values and ideals that she strongly believes in'

Buckingham Palace announced that day that she had died peacefully, surrounded by relatives, at the age of 96.

Clinton remembered the queen as an 'engaging and lively conversationalist' who she had met multiple times, both as Barack Obama's Secretary of State and years earlier as First Lady of the United States.

'One of my favorite memories is when Bill and I stayed with her and Prince Philip on the Britannia, what used to be the royal yacht, as we commemorated the 50th anniversary of D-Day. So we were in close quarters,' she recalled.

'The Queen Mother was there. It was just like being with a family that was having a good time together despite the solemnity of the occasion.'

She also complimented the queen's longstanding 'devotion to duty and her sense of obligation to the people of her nation,' from when she first took the throne until meeting with the UK's newest prime minister just two days before she died.

'But I also saw a more playful and somewhat, you know, funny and very incredibly warm side of her as well,' the Democrat added.

Clinton's comments came the same day that mourners in Scotland lined the streets for the first leg of Queen Elizabeth's final journey (pictured: The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes St Giles' Cathedral on its way to Palace of Holyroodhouse)

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Countess of Wessex and the Earl of Wessex at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, awaiting the Queen's coffin

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

Clinton also claimed to have exchanged jokes with the queen about being female leaders in the current global system - despite their vastly different roles.

'Sometimes there would be, you know, a wry exchange about, you know, how as a woman leader, you always have to have your hair done, well, she always looked perfect, unlike some of us,' she said.

'She had a sense of style that really stayed with her. And so I knew that her sense of who she was and the role she played literally governed her life from every second of it.'

After her comparison of the Queen of England's seven decades of service to a US politician, Clinton also threw in praise for Vice President Kamala Harris - despite the Democrat's near-constant struggle with low approval numbers.

'And of course vice president, Kamala Harris, is someone who is breaking totally new ground, and I know that's not easy, having done a little of that myself,' the failed 2016 presidential candidate said.

'She's doing it with, you know, good humor and a smile on her face despite the challenges that come with the role. So those are two that immediately come to mind.'

It comes on the heels of her new Apple TV+ show 'Gutsy' with daughter Chelsea Clinton, in which the two explore the stories of historically important women.
The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for rain tonight ahead of King Charles arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow to follow behind the Queen's coffin as it is moved to St Giles' Cathedral.

The weather service said there would be heavy rain overnight into Monday morning, which should clear ahead of the King's arrival into Scotland for the memorial service.

Queen Elizabeth II's coffin arrived in Edinburgh earlier today to lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight as tens of thousands of people lined the streets.

Later today the monarch will be moved to St Giles' Cathedral for a vigil at 7.20pm.

The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning for rain tonight ahead of King Charles arriving in Edinburgh later today

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla will visit Edinburgh and - together with his other siblings - will walk behind his late mother's coffin when it is moved from the palace to the cathedral.

The journey will last 1,200 yards up the Royal Mile before the Queen lies in rest for 24 hours at St Giles'.

Thousands of mourners are expected to file past to pay their respects to their beloved Queen.

King Charles III (pictured today leaving Buckingham Palace) and Queen Consort Camilla will visit Edinburgh and - together with his other siblings - will walk behind his late mother's coffin when it is moved from the palace to the cathedral

The rain is due to begin for north England and Wales at midnight and will end at 11am, clearing ahead of tomorrow's procession.

During the day in Edinburgh, the Met Office predicts a ten per cent chance of rain, clearing to less than five per cent by the afternoon - meaning the royals and the crowds should remain dry.

A yellow weather warning means severe weather is possible and people should plan ahead, considering delays and likely disruption.

Tomorrow the Queen's coffin will be moved 1,200 yards up the Royal Mile before she lies in rest for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral. Pictured is the hearse carrying the monarch's coffin past the cathedral as it travels along the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, completing the journey from Balmoral

A yellow weather warning means severe weather is possible and people should plan ahead, considering delays and likely disruption

Temperatures for tomorrow in the Scottish capital are expected to average at around 16C.

Elsewhere in the UK it will be warm in the south - and cool and windy in the north.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, when the Queen's coffin has been flown to London, England will see sunny spells - although rain is possible in the south on Wednesday morning.
A massive Florida sex trafficking sting has resulted in the arrests of 160 people including two Disney workers, multiple teachers and a Georgia deputy police chief.

During the week-long operation 'Operation Fall Haul II,' investigators discovered at least two sex trafficking victims, and there could potentially be more, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said on Friday.

Among the 160 accused, who allegedly responded to online ads and agreed to meet up for sex, was 49-year-old Jason DiPrima, who at the time was the deputy chief of the Cartersville Police Department in Georgia.

DiPrima has since resigned from his position after the department placed him on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, according to a press release.

The operation resulted in 52 felony charges and 216 misdemeanor charge against the accused including several who work in the school system.

High school IT expert Cameron Burke from Ocoee, Florida, was also busted during the sting for soliciting a prostitute. Others included John Layton, an Orange County physical education teacher, Carlos Gonzales, an Osceola County math teacher, and two Disney employees.

Jason DiPrima, 49, deputy chief of the Cartersville Police Department in Georgia, was named as one of 160 people arrested as part of the week-long sting

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd also mentioned a 24-year-old corrections officer, a two-year employee of the Lake Correctional Institution, who is now accused of two counts of soliciting a prostitute.

'Now think about this,' Judd said. 'This guy is in charge of people who are in prison for violating the law. He comes and he violates the law. So, birds of a feather flock together, and he's in the jail as a jailbird like those jailbirds he watches.'

Cameron Burke, 41, a computer technician for a high school had been out on bond after being arrested for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student in 2021 when he was arrested as part of the sting, according to WKMG-TV.

DiPrima has since resigned from his position after the department placed him on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, according to a press release

Jason DiPrima is no longer a police officer according to Sheriff Grady Judd. He faces charges out of Florida after a prostitution sting last week

Several other teachers were arrested in the sting. Physical education teacher John Layton, 26, was reportedly wearing a track and field shirt for West Orange High School when he was arrested after allegedly agreeing to pay $40 for an unspecified sex act.

Carlos Gonzales, 36, a math teacher at New Dimensions High School, faces two charges of soliciting a prostitute after he allegedly agreed to have sex with two detectives who were working undercover.

Two Disney employees were also arrested as a result of the sting.

Guillermo Perez, 57, who works at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort as a bellhop allegedly agreed to pay $80 for a brief sexual encounter with an undercover detective, it was reported.

Samy Claude, 26, a photographer who is contracted by Disney, was charged with soliciting a prostitute and then he allegedly brought a bag of sour Skittles to the meeting.

Burke, 41, a computer technician for a high school had been out on bond after being arrested for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student in 2021 when he was arrested as part of the sting

Physical education teacher John Layton, 26, was reportedly wearing a track and field shirt for West Orange High School when he was arrested after allegedly agreeing to pay $40 for an unspecified sex act

Carlos Gonzales, 36, a math teacher at New Dimensions High School, faces two charges of soliciting a prostitute after he allegedly agreed to have sex with two detectives who were working undercover

Those arrested range in age from 19 to 64, with 26 of them who are reportedly married and seven suspected of being in the United States illegally, Crime Online reported.

'The online prostitution industry enables traffickers and allows for the continued victimization of those who are being trafficked,' Sheriff Judd said.

'Our goal is to identify victims, offer them help, and arrest those who are fueling the exploitation of human beings (Johns) and those profiting from the exploitation of human beings. Prostitution is not a victimless crime  it results in exploitation, disease, dysfunction, drug and alcohol addiction, violence, and broken families.'

Guillermo Perez, 57, who works at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort as a bellhop allegedly agreed to pay $80 for a brief sexual encounter with an undercover detective, it was reported

Samy Claude, 26, a photographer who is contracted by Disney, was charged with soliciting a prostitute and then he allegedly brought a bag of sour Skittles to the meeting

Those arrested range in age from 19 to 64, with 26 of them who are reportedly married and seven suspected of being in the United States illegally, Crime Online reported

A 61-year-old man from Kentucky on vacation in Kissimmee, Florida who is the owner of multiple pizza franchises was also arrested as part of the sting after responding to an online escort advertisement.

'He said 'Well, I've done this four times in the past.' Have you discussed this with your wife? Did you get her permission? Did she say, 'Go boy go?' Apparently not,' Judd said.

'So he told (a law enforcement officer), he says 'I'm paying for an hour of sex, 15 minutes is all I need, I'm just gonna give her a tip.' I guess kind of like the pizza delivery guy.'

Judd also briefly discussed the former deputy police chief who has since resigned from his post and 'lost his career.'

'He did a very mean, nasty thing to his family, and he certainly embarrassed all the people of Cartersville (Georgia),' Judd said.
Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson have said that they will look after two of the Queens beloved corgis following her death.

Muick and Sandy, who will now be adopted by the Queen's third son and Ms Ferguson, were gifted to the late Queen following the death of Prince Philip.

Yesterday evening the Duke of York's spokesperson confirmed that the two dogs will live at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, where the divorced couple reside.

It has been confirmed that the late Queen's corgis, Muick and Sandy, will be adopted by Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and will live at the Royal Lodge, in Windsor where the divorced couple resides

Up until now the fate of the beloved corgis had remained a mystery, although many predicted Prince Andrew, often referred to as the Queen's 'favourite' son, and his daughter Princess Beatrice would look after the pets.

It was believed the pair had been walking the dogs in the months leading to the Queen's death.

The late Her Majesty the Queen owned more than 30 of the sandy, short-legged dogs throughout her reign, however, had resisted taking on any new dogs in recent years not wanting to leave the dogs behind after her death.

Muick, pronounced Mick, joined the royal family at the start of 2021 along with a so-called 'dorgi', a cross between a corgi and a dachshund, called Fergus.

Prince Andrew, often thought of as the late Queen's 'favourite son', and his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugine, gifted Muick and Sandy to the Queen last year

The Royal pets will now live with Sarah Ferguson (pictured) and her ex-husband the Duke of York at the Royal Lodge in Windsor

Muick had been named after Loch Muick on the Balmoral Estate, where the Queen died on Thursday. Fergus had been named after the Monarch's uncle who was killed during battle in the First World War.

Fergus died after just five months and was later replaced with a new corgi called Sandy, as a 95th birthday present from Prince Andrew and his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Speaking at the time of the new corgi arrivals, the Queen's dresser Angela Kelly, said: 'I was worried they would get under the Queens feet, but they have turned out to be a godsend.

'They are beautiful and great fun and the Queen often takes long walks with them in Home Park.'

Muick and Sandy will soon be settling into their new home at Royal Lodge (pictured) in Windsor with the Duke and Duchess of York

It still, however, remains unclear what will happen to the late Queen's last surviving dorgi but is expected to join Muick and Sandy at Royal Lodge as the canine pals are used to each other's company.

If Candy does not go to the Duke and Duchess of York, Candy will probably be given to a member of staff.

Another of the Monarch's dogs, Lissy, whose pedigree name is Wolferton Drama, and is the current Kennel Club cocker spaniel gundog champion, has not been decided.

The spaniel, who was named after the late Queen, currently lives with her trainer Ian Openshaw.

The late Queen Elizabeth II being greeted by corgi enthusiasts in Edmonton, Canada in 2005. The Queen had 30 corgis throughout her long 70-year reign

A decision about her future is expected to be made by King Charles in the coming weeks.

The late Queen was gifted her first corgi, called Susan, for her 18th birthday from her late father King George VI. Ten generations of her corgis then descended from Susan.

Her dogs were given the Royal treatment having their own rooms with elevated wicker baskets and meals of beef, chick, rabbit, liver, cabbage and rice being prepared by a chef each evening.

Sometimes the Queen herself made the dog's meals.

Her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, however, was said to have 'loathed' the dogs' yapping.

In 1989 it was reported that an animal behaviour expert was called in to cure the corgis from their habit of nipping members of the Royal Family.

Two years later, however, the Queen tried to break up a corgi fight and needed three stitches after being bitten on her left hand.
This is the poignant moment Princess Anne maintained royal protocol with a deep curtsey towards the Queen as her mother's coffin was brought into the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

The Princess Royal, 71, performed the moving tribute as the coffin was carried into the palace, having travelled with the cortege from Balmoral to Edinburgh today.

Anne was visibly emotional as she lined up alongside the Queen's children and their spouses - Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Prince Andrew and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

Sophie was seen reaching out to console Anne, who was at her mother's bedside during her final hours at Balmoral on Thursday.

Being the Queen's only daughter, the pair shared a special bond that was highlighted today as Anne made the six-hour journey from her mother's beloved Balmoral to Edinburgh in a vehicle behind the hearse.

The Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top, crossed the River Forth via the Queensferry Crossing at around 4pm.

Thousands of mourners had gathered along the Royal Mile as the procession arrived, falling silent in respect as the convoy carrying Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence arrived.

Princess Anne curtseys towards her mother's coffin as it brought into Holyrood House in Edinburgh, where it will stay overnight

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, reaches out to console Anne as the coffin was brought in this afternoon

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex lined up outside the palace today

A round of applause then broke out, before the coffin received a guard of honour by the King's Bodyguard for Scotland as it was carried out of the hearse by pallbearers and into the palace.

The Queen will stay at the palace overnight before being moved to St Giles' Cathedral tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier today, a single motorbike police outrider led the way as the hearse travelled at a stately pace through the Aberdeenshire countryside.

At one point, as the cortege travelled through Dundee, a lone long-stemmed flower could be seen on the hearse windscreen and in a rural part of the route farmers paid homage to the monarch with tractors lined up in a field.

Hundreds lined the main street of Ballater, the picturesque Victorian village closest to the Balmoral estate, where locals considered her a neighbour, as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through. Her Majesty and her family were often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the Royal Family have space to be themselves.

Princess Anne approaches the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth as it arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Anne watches as the hearse carrying the coffin of her mother is readied to be carried into Holyrood House

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence and Princess Anne watch on as pallbearers carry the Queen's coffin today

The Queen's coffin was draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland as it made the journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church, where the Rev David Barr rang the church bells 70 times after the Queen's death was announced.

Flowers were thrown into the hearse's path by well-wishers on both sides of the road in Ballater, which was sombre and silent. The hearse slowed to a fast walking pace and mourners could clearly see the royal standard-draped coffin and the wreath featuring flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Earlier, the Queen's oak coffin was carried to the hearse by six Balmoral estate gamekeepers tasked with the symbolic gesture. It had been at rest in the Balmoral ballroom so the monarch's estate workers could say their goodbyes.

Tens of thousands took to the streets to witness the first stage of her final journey.

Many had travelled through the night to secure their place along the route after Her Majesty left her beloved Balmoral for the last time.

Later, there was a solemn mood as the coffin reached the climax of the journey to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.

Mourners stood six deep behind metal barriers on the narrow pavements along the historic Royal Mile which connects the palace with Edinburgh Castle.

Some with camping chairs had waited for more than eight hours to secure their positions on a day of history.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes St Giles' Cathedral on its way to Palace of Holyroodhouse

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing Edinburgh Castle

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing over the Queensferry Crossing as it continues its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral

King Charles III during a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace

The crowds built up steadily during the course of the day until there was barely an inch of space to pass on the packed walkways.

Many in the crowd told how catching just a fleeting glimpse of the coffin containing the Queen's body had brought the reality of her death into focus.

Meanwhile, an emotional Charles was greeted by thousands of well-wishers as he arrived at his royal Residence earlier today where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth, before it heads onto Westminster Abbey for her state funeral.

Crowds lining the length of The Mall - including excited young children sat on top of the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones - cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by mourners.
Senator Mark Warner insisted Sunday that it's important the Intelligence Committee is briefed on the damage assessment from the materials seized from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in the FBI raid last month.

Warner, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the classified information held improperly and mishandled for nearly two years could be the matter of life and death in some cases.

He claimed it's 'essential' that his panel be briefed on the damage assessment.

Thousands of documents were taken from the former president's Florida home, inventory lists reveal  and many of what was taken includes some sort of classification label, including up to the highest-level of classified material.

Warner and Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio, a Republican, are requesting a briefing from the Justice Department and FBI to provide more details on potential breaches.

'I believe it is our congressional duty to have that oversight,' Warner told CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan on Sunday morning.

'Remember what's at stake here is the fact that if some of these documents involved human intelligence, and that information got out, people will die,' he said. 'If there were penetration of our signals intelligence, literally years of work could be destroyed.'

Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday it's 'essential' that his panel be briefed on the damage assessment of the materials seized in the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago

Sen. Mark Warner, says it's essential the Senate Intelligence Cmte. leadership gets a damage assessment briefing on the documents fmr. Pres. Trump kept at Mar-a-Largo.



"If some of these documents involved human intelligence, and that information got out, people will die. pic.twitter.com/8eMCYn77Sz  Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 11, 2022

Damages could have also arisen, Warner added, in terms of what different foreign entities and allies may have shared with the U.S. while Trump was president, which could put them in jeopardy from foreign threats if the information got out.

Warner called the Senate Intelligence Committee 'one of the last functioning bipartisan committees' in the whole Congress.

Despite the call for a briefing, he acknowledged that 'we still don't know what's in those documents.'

'It is essential that the Intelligence Committee leadership, at least, gets a briefing of the damage assessment,' Warner added.

A judge in Florida ruled this month in favor of Trump requesting that a special master be appointed to handle the case as whistleblowers continue to come forward and claim bias against the former president within the higher ranks of the Justice Department of FBI.

The FBI seized thousands of documents from Trump's Florida residence, including hundreds of documents with classified labels, like 'secret' or 'top secret'

Trump insists that the FBI improperly took documents from his home during the raid on August 8, like his passport and medical history. He also lamented that the agents, of which there were about 30, 'rummaged' through former first lady Melania Trump's closet and his 16-year-old son Barron's room.

The raid culminated after a judge approved the probable cause search request approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

It followed a breakdown in a probe into Trump taking documents from the White House when he left office last year. Earlier in 2022, Trump turned over 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives.

The Presidential Records Act notes that presidential materials are the property of the people and not the officeholder  with that in mind, presidents must preserve and turn over the material to the National Archives once leaving office.

Trump took a slew of materials from his time in office, including classified or secret documents, photographs, gifts, books and thousands of magazines, newspapers and printed out articles.

Presidents can declassify information, but it is unclear if Trump did that before taking these documents from the White House.
Advertisement

Jane Fonda was spotted out and about in Los Angeles for the first time since she announced her cancer diagnosis earlier this month.

Fonda, 84, was seen sitting in the outside waiting area of the car wash while her car was cleaned. The actress sat cross-legged in a pair of black slacks, a black jacket, and with a grey scarf thrown over her shoulders.

She wore a black and grey mask to match over her nose and mouth, a pair of tortoise-shell sunglasses, and her silver hair up in her latest signature look. On her feet she wore white socks and pair of black loafers.

With a bag at her side, she kept her eyes on her phone and could be seen peering over her shoulder at one point.

The sighting comes a week after she published a blog post in which she said she was 'deeply moved and uplifted by the expressions of love from fans' she received after announcing her non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma diagnosis.

Fonda also said she was due to start chemotherapy within weeks, and that despite battling the disease twice before, she'd been told her condition is 'very treatable.'

Jane Fonda, 84, was seen sitting in the waiting area of an LA car wash while she waited for her car to be cleaned

The actress and model sat cross-legged in a pair of black slacks, a black jacket, and with a grey scarf thrown over her shoulders

The sighting was the first since she announced her diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer earlier this month

In the post, Jane wrote: 'I have been deeply moved and uplifted by all the expressions of love and support since I made public the fact that I've been diagnosed with B-cell Non-Hodgins Lymphoma.

'My heartfelt thanks to all. The messages of love and support mean the world to me.'

'I want to say again that this is a very treatable cancer and much progress has been made with the medicines patients are given,' she added.

'Since last week, so many people have written to me or posted that they have had this type of cancer and have been cancer-free for many decades.

'My heartfelt thanks to all. The messages of love and support mean the world to me.'

'I want to say again that this is a very treatable cancer and much progress has been made with the medicines patients are given,' she added.

'Since last week, so many people have written to me or posted that they have had this type of cancer and have been cancer-free for many decades.

Fonda revealed in a blog post that she feels 'stronger than she has in years,' as she discussed her cancer diagnosis for the first time

The actress, posted that she was 'deeply moved and uplifted' by the expressions of love from her fans in a post on her blog

'Well, I'll soon be 85 so I won't have to worry about ''many decades.'' One will do just fine.'

Detailing her current state of health, Jane explained she is feeling well ahead of her first chemotherapy session, and is following her doctor's advice to keep active.

She added: 'Today, about 3 weeks from my first chemo session, I must tell you that I feel stronger than I have in years.

'The doctor told me the best antidote to the tiredness that chemotherapy can cause is to move. Walk. And I have been walking. Very early before the record heat kicks in. Also working out.'

Jane also shared a YouTube video that showed her doing squats against a large green ball while holding a pair of dumbbells.

Fonda noted that this is not her first bout with the disease, as she has survived breast cancer, 'and come through very well and she will do so again.'

She continued: 'As I said in my statement last week, I am painfully aware that the top-drawer treatment I receive is not something everyone in this country can count on and I consider that a travesty. It isn't fair, and I will continue to fight for quality health care for all.'

She also noted that she is committed to her work 'confronting the urgent climate crisis, caused by fossil fuels' and will continue to campaign for the cause despite her health battle.

'This diagnosis has only made me more determined than ever to continue to end the deadly effects of fossil fuels,' she continued.

'While most of us know that fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis, many may not know that fossil fuel emissions also cause cancer as well as other major health problems like birth defects, childhood leukemia, heart attacks, strokes, lung disease and preterm birth,' Fonda said.

She added that we as a society, 'must come together to put an end to this deadly correlation,' and that too many families have suffered.

Tough time: The star explained that she while she would be receiving chemotherapy, she was hopeful for a good outcome

'It does not have to be this way. We have it within our power to change this and I intend to do everything in my power to do so. This cancer will not deter me,' she insisted.

She went onto ask her fans to visit JanePAC.com, 'to learn about our work to elect climate champions across the country and counter the outsized influence fossil fuel companies have on our government,' while asking them to donate, 'whatever you can.'

'We need you, your friends, your family and colleagues. With the crucial midterms around the corner, it's all hands on deck!' she said.

'Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for your loving thoughts!' she concluded.

Moved: 'I have been deeply moved and uplifted by all the expressions of love and support since I made public the fact that I've been diagnosed with B-cell Non-Hodgins Lymphoma. My heartfelt thanks to all. The messages of love and support mean the world to me,' Fonda began

On September 2, Jane took to Instagram to reveal she'd been diagnosed with cancer for the third time.

She wrote: 'So, my dear friends, I have something personal I want to share.

'I've been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and have started chemo treatments. This is a very treatable cancer. 80% of people survive, so I feel very lucky.'

The thrice-married star, who has previously battled the disease, went on to say she was 'lucky' to 'have health insurance and access to the best doctors and treatment.'

Fonda, a two-time Oscar winner, added that she is 'privileged as a celebrity.'

She has previously been diagnosed with both breast and skin cancer, and blamed the latter on her past love of sunbathing.

Fonda says she attended the 2016 Golden Globes in a ruffled white dress designed to disguise recent surgery she'd had to remove her breast.

Candid: The star, who previously battled breast cancer, revealed she wore a white gown to the Golden Globes in 2016 that hid her surgery bandages

She told Vogue: 'I get out of the car and I have the strange white dress with all the ruffles? That's because I'd just had a mastectomy and I had to cover my bandages.'

In her Instagram post, Fonda reassured fans and loved ones and said she would need to acclimate to a new reality as she fights the cancer.

'Cancer is a teacher and I'm paying attention to the lessons it holds for me,' she wrote. 'One thing it's shown me already is the importance of community. Of growing and deepening one's community so that we are not alone.

'And the cancer, along with my age - almost 85 - definitely teaches the importance of adapting to new realities.'

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the body's immune system, with symptoms including swollen lymph nodes, abdominal and chest pain, fevers, fatigue and weight loss.

The cancer can occur at any age, but the risks increases with age as it's most common in people 60 and over, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Cancer: Fonda added this is not her first bout with the disease, as she has survived breast cancer, 'and come through very well and I will do so again'

In 2018 Fonda had a cancerous growth removed from her lower lip, which was likely basal-cell carcinoma (the most common form of skin cancer).

'I just want to explain the bandage,' the 80-year-old acting legend told the AOL BUILD Series audience.

'I just had a cancer taken from my lip. I thought it was going to heal in time before I came before you, but it's fine. I just want to explain it. I don't normally go around like this. The world is falling apart. What's a lip?'

Fonda has been open about the health implications of getting older, admitting her 'whole body hurts' because of osteoporosis, a condition that weakens bones, making them fragile and more likely to break.

'The fact that I hurt a lot  my body hurts  is a surprise to me, and its not because of all that working out,' she said.

'Its genetic. My father Henry had it, my brother Peter had it. Your cartilage disappears and then its bone on bone, and then "ow". But we live in a time where you can just get a new one.'
The funeral directors carrying the Queens oak coffin from Balmoral to Edinburgh yesterday were faced with a blunder when eagle-eyed Royal watchers noticed its logo on the window of the hearse.

A large sticker with the name of the undertaker William Purves was spotted as the vehicle left the Royal Scottish estate around 10 am yesterday morning.

By the time the hearse arrived in the Scottish capital, however, the advertisement had been mysteriously removed.

The car had stopped at least once on the journey through Scotland to give the driver a rest, where the sticker was likely removed.

The funeral directors said that the logo had been removed at the earliest opportunity to redirect attention to the late Queen who died at Balmoral on Thursday afternoon.

The hearse carrying the late Queen Elizabeth II was spotted leaving Balmoral with a sticker advertising the funeral directors William Purves on its window. By the time the cortege reached Edinburgh the logo had been removed

By the time the Queen's coffin had arrived in the Scottish capital, to thousands of mourners lining the streets, the logo had been removed from the window. The undertaker's said it took the 'first opportunity' to 'redirect' attention towards the late Queen

The inappropriate ad had caught the eyes of some of those millions of those watching the 175-mile cortege that travelled through Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen, Angus and Tayside before reaching Edinburgh.

The undertakers website later crashed as hundreds flocked to the site, causing an error message to appear.

The site is now up and running for people to visit. Upon entering the website it reads: When you place your trust in William Purves you can expect the highest standards of professionalism, compassionate care and a truly distinct service.

Those trying to visit William Purves website after seeing the logo on the Queen's hearse were met with an error code after its site crashed

Whatever you need, whatever your plans, lean on our experience, wherever and whenever you need us.

The funeral director said it had been involved in the cortege and as arrangements are still ongoing they cannot be discussed in specific detail.

The spokesperson for William Purves told the MailOnline: It was a heavily rehearsed and meticulously planned event with all parties including the hearse and funeral directors under lord chamberlains authority.

We received a high volume of attention as soon as the hearse left Balmoral and we took the first opportunity we could to redirect the attention to Her Majesty - its not about us, its about her Majesty.

The late Queen's coffin has been laid to rest overnight in the Throne Room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Thousands of people turned out as her coffin was transported from Balmoral Castle to the Palace at Holyroodhouse on Sunday afternoon

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Princess Royal curtseying, the Countess of Wessex and the Duke of York stand as the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, completes its journey from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

The royal procession led by the hearse had travelled for nearly six hours across the 180-mile journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh, after crossing over the River Forth via the Queensferry Crossing at around 4pm.

The hearse bearing the Queen's coffin then arrived at the Palace just before 4.30pm, where it was received by Prince Andrew , Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

Today, King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort will visit Edinburgh and join his other siblings walking behind his late mother's coffin when it is moved from the Palace to St Giles' Cathedral. At 7.20pm, the monarch will hold a vigil at the late Queen's coffin with other members of the Royal Family.
A shoplifter knocked a 77-year-old woman unconscious as he made a mad dash from a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Manhattan on Saturday with just $35 in stolen Funko Pop! toys in a shocking moment that was caught on surveillance video.

New York City Police released footage that shows the thief running out the door after he snatched the popular collectibles from a display inside the Union Square location around 12:20 p.m.

When loss prevention employees tried to stop him, the brazen thief forced his way through and slammed into the unidentified elderly woman walking into the store.

The woman was knocked unconscious and rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where she has a head injury and is listed in stable condition.

Police released video and photos of the shocking moment a brazen shoplifter knocked a 77-year-old woman unconscious as he made a mad dash from a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan

Video shows the suspect as he snatches $35 in stolen Funko Pop! toys from a display inside the Union Square location around 12:20 p.m. on Saturday and fled the store

Video footage released by the NYPD on Sunday shows as the theft unfolds with what appears to be the suspect casually browsing the multi-level bookstore at the East 17th Street location on the edge of Union Square.

The suspect walks slowly around a display of Funko Pop! toys before carefully selecting one from the bottom shelf and another from the top before walking off.

The video cuts to the suspect holding his bag open as he's being confronted by a loss prevention worker at the entrance of the store.

He then suddenly dashes off and forcibly pushes through people walking into the store, knocking the 77-year-old woman to the ground.

The woman, who has not been identified, was rushed to the hospital with a head injury.

The suspect walks slowly around a display of Funko Pop! toys before carefully selecting one from the bottom shelf and another from the top before walking off

The man is seen on video as he makes his selection and casually walks away from the display

He then suddenly dashes off and forcibly pushes through people walking into the store

Loss prevention workers attempt to grab the suspect as he flees from the store with stolen toys

The brazen thief slammed into the unidentified elderly woman who was just walking into the store, knocking her flat on her back

The woman, who has not been identified, is seen lying on her back after being knocked to the ground by the shoplifter who slammed into her. She rushed to the hospital

Police say the suspect fled south in Union Square then turned east onto East 15th Street toward Irving Place. They're hoping the video will help them nab the thief.

The suspect was last seen wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, gray sweatpants and gray sneakers and carrying a black bag. He's described as being in his 20s with black hair, facial hair and is about 5-foot-3 tall with a medium build, police said.

Police are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers.

The brazen theft comes as crime continues to be a huge problem in the Big Apple under new Mayor Eric Adams, who ran on a promise to stop rising crime.

Overall crime is up over 35 percent from this point in 2021, with only murders and shootings down from last year.

This comes as crime continues to be a huge problem in the Big Apple under new Mayor Eric Adams, who ran on a promise to stop rising crime

Stores in the city's West Village and SoHo have become rampant with thieves in recent months - including when a gang of seven were recorded calmly walking out of Lululemon with $30,000 worth of gear.

They entered the store on 14th Street and 9th Avenue with empty carts and laundry bags while the guard casually glanced over as they grabbed piles of clothing on August 16.

The brazen robbers, targeting the posh West Village neighborhood, rushed out of the store with their finds - without being apprehended by the security guard.

Store surveillance footage showed the thieves walk in and out the store around noon - looting thousands of dollars worth of merchandise as the seemingly unbothered guard, dressed in a white shirt and black tie, stood by.

A string of West Village and SoHo clothing robberies took place from July 3 until July 23, often between closing times. These stores are: Loro Piana, Christian Louboutin, A.P.C., Scotch Soda, Rag & Bone, Meermin Shoes and Bonobos

One man who entered the Lululemon store in July filled his basket with clothes and walked out

But violence is also on the rise in New York City.

A 21-year-old visiting the Big Apple from St. Louis just last week was hoodwinked and then raped by a man offering to help her in a subway station at Times Square.

The woman was at the hub at the 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue station on September 1 at around 3 a.m. when her attacker showed up.

The man initially struck up a conversation and said he was going to help show her around the station, which leads to several lines on the New York City subway.

After riding with her to a few stations before stopping at an ending location, he brought her to the end of a platform near a tunnel and raped her, according to the NYPD.

The 21-year-old victim was sent to Bellevue Hospital for treatment after the assault. Her condition is unclear.

The NYPD put out an artist's sketch of him on late Thursday, describing the unidentified man as dark-skinned, with facial hair and a forehead scar

A 21-year-old visiting New York City from St. Louis was hoodwinked and then raped by a man offering to help her in a subway station at Times Square as crime continues to be a problem

The woman was at the hub at the 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue station on September 1 at around 3 a.m. when her attacker showed up

The alleged attacker was still at large as of Sunday morning.

The NYPD put out an artist's sketch of him late Thursday, describing the unidentified man as dark-skinned, with facial hair and a forehead scar.

He was last seen wearing burgundy and gold shorts, as well as black and white Crocs.

This comes as crime continues to be a huge problem in the Big Apple under new Mayor Eric Adams, who ran on a promise to stop rising crime.

Rapes are up 9.9 percent in New York City through September 4 compared to the already high rates in 2021.

In Manhattan's busy Union Square - in the same area of the bookstore theft - the park surrounded by shops and restaurants continues drug addicts have been seen shooting up in broad daylight.

Two women were spotted shooting up drugs on the stairs near the subway station, while a homeless man was seen touching himself while sitting on the steps of the Prince St subway station in trendy Soho at 10am in the morning.

Photos and videos show the scantly-clad pair in Union Square - one with electric blue hair - casually injecting themselves with an unknown substance next to a Citi bike. Despite sitting behind a structure, the vagrant duo could be seen by horrified tourists and passersby as they injected themselves with drugs.

Photos and videos show the scantly-clad pair in Union Square - one with electric blue hair - casually injecting themselves with an unknown substance next to a Citi bike

The were shooting up with the syringe for nearly 30 minutes, and no one questioned or attempted to tell law enforcement, according to witnesses.

In Soho, a homeless man in a black jacket, shot eerie looks at people walking up the steps of the subway as he touched himself inappropriately. He refused to move from the spot despite innocent bystanders realizing what he was doing.

Parts of the city are said to have become '24-hour drug and sex dens' as delinquents take to the streets to deal and do drugs.

In Manhattan's trendy Chelsea neighborhood, children have allegedly become exposed to nudity, sex acts and drug use while business owners deal with constant break-ins.

Some said they are begging city officials and the police department to do something.

In May, photos and video of the men lying on Park Avenue between East 115th Street and East 116 Street outside a popular marketplace showed men casually using needles to inject drugs into their arms.

The men were seen sitting underneath the railway surrounded by bags of their belongings and an overturned Citi bike, and photos of the block the following day show even more men shooting up drugs at the site.

Two men were pictured on May 28 taking drugs in East Harlem's La Marqueta marketplace

Seven men were pictured at the same spot taking drugs together in East Harlem in May

One of the men removed his shoe so he could inject his foot in order to get high

Major crimes in NYC have risen approximately 35 percent, according to NYPD data, an increase that has been mainly boosted by grand larcenies, robberies and auto thefts.

Subway crime has also been a particular problem for New York City, according to the police and the MTA.

Hammer attacks, feces smearing, fatal shovings and a smoke bomb-mass shootings have become risks for those traversing city public transportation.

Adams indicated last month that he doesn't plan to stop talking about the crime in the Big Apple, and said 'I'm not going to be inconsistent and not talk about the violence that has happened in our cities every day.'

Adams emphasized the necessity of preventative measures rather than reactive measures, and said 'by the time a child picks up a gun, we've already lost.'

The Mayor said reforming a system takes time, and 'when you look at how to reform a system, you don't destroy a system.'

Adams has been a vociferous supporter of an expansion in the city's police presence since becoming mayor in 2021, doubling the number of cops on the city's subway and bringing back plain-clothes officers in new Neighborhood Safety Teams.
He has taken on many roles during his long apprenticeship for the crown  royal action man, environmental warrior and, according to some, meddler-in-chief.

But now the UK and Commonwealth will be encouraged to view King Charles as the grandfather of the nation, whose kindness, compassion and wisdom will ensure a seamless transition from his late mother to her son.

It is an image which the new monarch and his team have been determined to project from the moment he left Balmoral on Thursday as he was forced to put his profound personal grief to one side in order to lead his dazed country in mourning.

King Charles, 73, knows he will never be able to replicate his mothers role or unique position in British national life  nor does he want to  but he has inherited many of her most admirable qualities.

The UK and Commonwealth will be encouraged to view King Charles as the grandfather of the nation writes Rebecca English

A friend says: Whilst he is not in the first flush of youth, that is not a bad thing for this country. His Majesty brings 50 years of experience on the world stage with him and will be able to adopt a grandfatherly presence in the nations life. It may make it easier to bear losing the nations grandmother.

Yes, you knew him before. But I think theres been a clear and immediate change in the way people look at him and the way he is presenting himself to the world.

He is making very clear he is about continuity and wants to dedicate himself to the service of the country, respecting its constitutional guidelines.

I think people are already responding to that. When the sun came out and the crowds applauded and cheered him at Buckingham Palace on Friday, it was an incredibly moving moment for those of us who have known him for many years. He was touched beyond belief.

The friend adds: His address to the nation that night was majestic and heartfelt, every word written with his own hand.

He was telling us that he understood what his mother meant to us all and that he would continue to do her proud.

Experienced PR professional Patrick Harrison was Charless Press Secretary for more than a decade and played a key role in working on the royals reputation and introducing Mrs PB [Parker Bowles]  Camilla  to the world.

The Lord Lyon King of Arms, Joseph Morrow (R) attends the proclamation of the new King, King Charles III, from the Mercat Cross outside of St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh

The marching band of the 3rd Battalion Royal Welsh, and their billy goat mascot, march to Cardiff Castle ahead of the ceremony of the proclamation

Few people have had such a ringside seat on history and he says the man we have seen in recent days is the same passionate, driven individual he knew, but one with an instinctive sense of what he needs to now bring to the table.

He tells me: The Kings sense of duty is exactly the same as her late Majestys. He has given 50 years of public service and is the most dedicated and committed individual Ive ever worked for.

Hes also one of the most hard-working. If you were flying back after a long trip and watching a film, he would be the only person still working through his papers. He is incredibly dedicated and hard-working and committed to public duty. Everything he has ever done is to try and make things better for other people. That is who he is and that isnt going to change.

But what we did see while Prince of Wales is that he had particular passions. And he more than anyone knows he cannot have that level of involvement now.

I think what we are seeing already is that passion now channelled into compassion. The passionate prince will become the compassionate king.

The role of the monarch is to be the nations unifier and the embodiment of compassion. He has that in abundance.

The fact that Charles has already, in such a short space of time, such goodwill from the nation doesnt come as a surprise to those who have known him for years. They believe the King has been unfairly caught in a PR time-warp, fuelled by unhelpful aide-memoirs such as Netflix drama The Crown.

Three cheers for the King rings out after the reading of the Accession Proclamation at Hillsborough Castle, south of Belfast

Members of the Yukembruk dance group perform during the proclamation ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia

Shortly after I took over my job as The Daily Mails Royal Correspondent more than 15 years ago, I was asked to tea by a senior aide who told me as we sat beside a roaring log fire: Hes a man who has made mistakes, but should he be forced to pay for them for the rest of his life? Another senior royal insider who has worked closely with the King agrees, arguing: All these things the outside world is now observing  the connection with the public, the emotion of the man, the fact that he will respect constitutional red lines  he has been saying and doing this for years.

The only difference is that so many people stopped actually looking at what was in front of them somewhere in the mid-1990s when his marriage broke down and he was characterised in a certain way. Many people made their mind up about him then  this po-faced, cold, uncaring prince.

And no one bothered to look at him again until Friday.

He is working incredibly hard to get his first days and weeks off to a good start. Its a careful balancing act between wanting to show he is ready and demonstrate that the continuity people are hoping for is in evidence, but at the same time he is wrestling with the loss of his mother after 73 years. And that is an incredible emotional tightrope. Actually, I think the work will be keeping him going. It will give him something to focus on apart from the loss of his mother.

Over the years, Charles has suffered from the curse of the opinion poll, regularly struggling to reach double figures when compared with younger, more glamorous members of the Royal Family or the unshakable popularity of his mother. Some believe it is a shame that it has taken until now to get into his stride, but others think he has saved the best for last.

The Band of the Honourable Artillery Company process to the Royal Exchange prior to the second Proclamation in the City of London which took place on Saturday

The Queen's funeral cortege proceeded down the Royal Mile towards Holyroodhouse earlier today (Sunday)

One former royal aide says: In many ways the idea of being a prince has a connotation of youth about it and that became increasing discordant as the prince got older. The minute he stepped into the role of King it was an opportunity for him to represent himself as this senior figure  the grandfather of the nation.

And he immediately fits that role well. He looks the right age, hes got the gravitas, the tone of voice and, crucially, hes got the experience. People talk a lot about the Queens first Prime Minister being Winston Churchill but Charles is someone who also met Winston Churchill as a young man and every single Prime Minister that followed. Hes reassuring, he brings continuity, and he looks the part.

He is a 73-year-old man, hes got grey hair, hes got a rich, mellifluous voice. So for the King its now about connecting with people and reassuring them that there is someone at the top of this country and the realms that you can literally lean on.

I think what is surprising people is the depth of emotion  the emotional range  which you are already seeing in him.

That is nothing new to people who have worked with the King for years. One tells me about a visit to a childrens hospice when a patient the then prince had planned to meet tragically died hours before he was due to arrive.

Many advisers were in favour of calling the visit off. Charles went ahead with it, taking the childs grieving parents into a chapel and spending 20 minutes comforting them. Not a word was revealed to the media.

Aids have described the new King as a 'very young 73' saying: 'This is a man who is extremely fit, whose work rate leaves most of his household trailing in his wake'

Floral tributes to the late Queen have been placed at Royal residences throughout the country

One source says: Thats something that people dont always see about him. Yes, they see his big sweep stuff, such as the environment, but they dont know about the hours he spends each week writing to people who are going through loss and a tough time, meeting them and talking to them.

Hes long been underrated for that. After incidents such as flood disasters in Cumbria, the Selby rail disaster  he insisted on going  and meeting with injured soldiers coming back from overseas, its always been there as part of his make-up and we see it in his sons as well. The same source admits it makes them baulk when royal commentators refer to Charless long wait for the top job.

The insider says: The prince I worked for wasnt waiting. He was getting on with it. He had 100 things he wanted to do and deliver. He would always say There have been 21 Princes of Wales and they all created their own different job description.

Destiny was always waiting  of course it was. But the idea of him waiting around for the top job was completely inaccurate.

Its a lot to ask at 73 though, surely? I ask another former aide. They argue: Except he is a very young 73. This is a man who is extremely fit, whose work rate leaves most of his household trailing in his wake.

Most staff find it exhausting working for him because he never bloody stops. He has a prodigious work rate that would be significant for somebody in their 40s, let alone in their 70s. And crucially he is interested in what he is doing. That cant be under-estimated. He is fascinated by everyone and everything. Its the fuel for driving him forwards. He has so much fire and passion in him.

The same insider believes we should view our new monarchs long period of learning his craft as a positive not a negative.

They say: He should not be categorised as an old king. He has been a moderniser the whole of his life and I think he will continue to be a moderniser in his own way.

I think he has got the energy of a man half his age and he has got the drive to continue to bring attention to the things that matter to him and the country.

Put it this way, he works seven days week and the concept of a weekend doesnt really exist. He just does it in a different place!
King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla will no longer use their Clarence House social media accounts and will instead use the Royal Family feed.

The Clarence House pages have been updated to say: 'This account is no longer being updated.

'Please follow The @RoyalFamily for updates on His Majesty King Charles III and Her Majesty The Queen Consort.'

The Clarence House accounts had 1.1million followers on Twitter and a further 1.7million on Instagram.

The last post shared from the account was a black and white portrait picture of the Queen confirming her death at Balmoral on Thursday.

It comes after William and Kate, now the Prince and Princess of Wales updated their social media pages to reflect their new royal titles.

The couple's website was also updated to the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales.

King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, look on during his proclamation as King during the accession council

Meanwhile, Charles smiled through the pain as he continued with royal duties three days on from the death of his mother. The new King met with dignitaries from across the Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace today.

Both Charles and Queen Consort Camilla appeared to be in good spirits as they got straight to work by meeting dignitaries from across the Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace today.

The new King hosted a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace, pictured smiling as he greeted officials from across the world.

Guests at Buckingham Palace included Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and the Commissioner for Antigua and Barbuda - whose republican Prime Minister is threatening a referendum on ditching the Crown - as well as representatives for Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, New Zealand, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Honorary Consul of Tuvalu and the Acting High Commissioner for Australia.

Crowds gathering outside the palace then erupted in cheers as his motorcade emerged from the gates. He could be seen waving to people lining the street as the convoy travelled up the Mall.

Earlier today, an emotional Charles was greeted by thousands of well-wishers as he arrived at his royal Residence earlier today where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth - while his mother Queen Elizabeth II's coffin embarked on her historic final journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh, before it heads onto Westminster Abbey for her state funeral.

King Charles III during a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace

King Charles III during an audience with the Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Patricia Scotland at Buckingham Palace today

Crowds lining the length of The Mall - including excited young children sat on top of the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones - cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by mourners.

Next week, the King and Queen will embark on a tour of the four home nations in the run-up to his late mother's state funeral at Westminster Abbey and burial at St George's Chapel in Windsor, following her death at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.


Among the thousands of filmed tributes to our late Queen, it is surely one of the more remarkable  given the circumstances in which it was made.

Dear brothers and sisters from Great Britain, the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is a tremendous loss to the whole civilised world, the young man begins.

She was more than the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, she was the Queen of her Age. Her Majesty had battled evil 80 years ago, fighting the Nazi threat. Nowadays we fight a new threat to the whole of the civilised world.

Why remarkable? Because the social media eulogy is being delivered by a Ukrainian soldier in full camouflage and body armour, travelling at speed in a jeep along a forest track near Kharkiv.

He is taking part in the counter-offensive that this weekend recaptured huge swathes of territory as the Russian frontline collapsed.

His message ends: Please accept these condolences from all Ukrainian warriors. God save the King! And so into battle he goes.

Since Thursday a growing number of floral tributes and messages have been left outside the UKs embassy in central Kyiv. One of the messages, in both Ukrainian and English, read: With great gratitude and respect to Her Majesty the Queen for supporting the Ukrainian nation in the struggle for the right to exist'

Perhaps no other country outside the Commonwealth had revered the Queen as much as Ukraine, nor responded with such genuine sadness and regret following her death on Thursday.

She was seen to represent not only particular values of decency and civilisation, but Britains outstanding support of Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February. That the support also came from her own private pocket too was noted.

In March, the Disasters Emergency Committee, representing the British Red Cross and 14 other groups, thanked the Queen for making a generous donation to its Ukraine appeal.

Other subtle signs of her sympathy for their cause were recognised by Kyiv. A bouquet of blue and yellow flowers  the Ukrainian national colours  featured prominently in photographs when the Queen received Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at Windsor Castle.

An artillery unit has been decorating the casing of the shells it is to fire at Russian positions with messages to record their sincere gratitude and respect to the remarkable leader of a great nation

In May, during one of her last public appearances, the Queen chose to wear an outfit of the same colours.

This moved Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, to post on social media: Ukraine will warmly remember the priceless support of Her Majesty.

Having spent several months in Ukraine since the Russian invasion I can attest to her standing there. On a number of occasions at military checkpoints in far-flung places, my British credentials elicited the same warm greeting from soldiers: God save the Queen.

In recent days there have been other tributes to her from the Ukrainian military.

An artillery unit has been decorating the casing of the shells it is to fire at Russian positions with messages to record their sincere gratitude and respect to the remarkable leader of a great nation.

One read RIP Queen Elizabeth II, another glory to the Queen. Since Thursday a growing number of floral tributes and messages have been left outside the UKs embassy in central Kyiv. One of the messages, in both Ukrainian and English, read: With great gratitude and respect to Her Majesty the Queen for supporting the Ukrainian nation in the struggle for the right to exist.

She was seen to represent not only particular values of decency and civilisation, but Britains outstanding support of Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February. That the support also came from her own private pocket too was noted

One of the many bouquets came with a note: Condolences from the residents of Hostomel. This is the Kyiv satellite town and airport bitterly fought over from the first day of the war until April.

Evidence of that long-standing Ukrainian admiration can be found on the gable end of a house in the village of Yely zavetivka, near Dnipro.

In the summer of 2019 a huge mural portrait of the Queen was unveiled there. The name of the village  which was struck by Russian missiles only last month  derives from the Ukrainian name Yely zaveta, which translates into English as Elizabeth.

Now Ukrainians, as the infantrymans tribute suggested, are looking to King Charles for continuity. The mutual admiration between an embattled nation and the British monarch looks set to remain firm.

Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kostiuchenko in Kyiv
The mother and her three children who were shot dead by their father in a Maryland home has been identified.

Authorities say Marcus Edward Milligan, 39, shot dead his wife Tara Devina Ricker Milligan, 37, inside their Elk Mills home on Friday morning.

He then killed their three children, Teresa Milligan, 14; Nora Milligan, 11; and Finn Milligan, 8, before turning the gun on himself.

Police say they then received a call at around 9.20am to report the children and a woman had been fatally shot. It is unclear whether that man was Marcus.

Authorities then arrived on the scene about 10 minutes later to find all five family members dead from gunshot wounds in the garage and on the first and second floors of the house in the suburban cul-de-sac.

Investigators then found a handgun next to Marcus' body inside the garage.

The tragedy comes three years and one week to the day since Marcus and Tara lost their youngest son, Conor, to childhood cancer.

She shared a photo of her holding him on Facebook on September 3, writing: 'Somehow its been three whole years since we had to say goodbye to Conor.

'What wouldnt I give for another perfect moment like this one, even if just for a heartbeat.'

It remains unclear whether the anniversary of their son's death is related to Marcus' apparent murder-suicide of his family.

An investigation into the family's deaths is ongoing.

Authorities say Marcus Edward Milligan, 39, shot dead his wife Tara Devina Ricker Milligan, 37, inside their Maryland home on Friday morning

He then took the lives of his three children, Teresa Milligan, 14, right; Nora Milligan, 11, center; and Finn Milligan, 8, left; before turning the gun on himself

The tragedy comes three years and one week to the day since Marcus and Tara lost their youngest son, Conor, to childhood cancer

Following the news of their deaths, friends and family members took to Facebook to remember the Milligans.

Tara's sister, Aislinn Ricker Mellor, wrote on Friday: 'Our hearts are shattered.

'Teresa, Nora and Finn deserved to grow up,' she said. 'We grieve, too, for Tara's husband, Marc.

'Mental health is so important and so difficult to navigate and understand.'

She added: 'We know Tara is having a beautiful reunion with her precious little Conor, and while we ache for them here on Earth, we know they are at peace and with our Savior.'

Family friend Alisha Minter also wrote that when her family first moved to Maryland, the Milligans were the first family they met.

'The light they and their beautiful children brought in, you immediately fell in love with them,' she wrote. 'Watching them from the church pews, smiling and laughing. Having dinner and lunch dates with this family was a highlight of our day.'

Minter went on to write that Conor was diagnosed with cancer at around the same time her daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder.

Friends and family took to Facebook to remember the family, who Alisha Minter said were always smiling and laughing in the church pews

When authorities arrived on the scene of their Elk Mills home, they found all five family members dead from gunshot wounds in the garage and on the first and second floors of the house in the suburban cul-de-sac

An investigation into the family's deaths is ongoing. Sheriff's deputies are pictured on the scene Friday morning

'Tara and I spoke a lot about our babies and the hardships that would soon follow, but I never ever thought this would be the end of their loving family.

'Tara held my hand many times and I held hers,' she said, adding: 'I know that the reunion is a beautiful one for the family.'

She then apologized to Marcus 'that we, as a congregation failed you in these dark times. I'm so sorry you felt this was the only way out of it.

'Tara and the children should be alive today,' Minter concluded. 'They didn't deserve this.

'Marc should be alive today,' she went on. 'You didn't deserve this either.

'We need to do better about checking on one another and making sure they are OK,' Minter wrote. 'Mental illness is a debilitating disease that effects an entire family.

'Please heed this warning, and check on your kin, and your friends, especially when they go quiet.'

Tara's sister, Aislinn Ricker Mellon, wrote that she knew her sister was reuniting with Conor

Family friend Alisha Minter also encouraged her Facebook friends to 'check on your kin, and your friends, especially when they go quiet'

During a Friday afternoon news conference, Cecil County Sheriff Scott Adams said, 'this is a terrible and tragic day for our community.'

There had been no previous history of emergency calls from the house and the police put out a reverse 911 call to assure the surrounding areas there was no threat to the public.

The Elk Mills residential neighborhood is in northeast Maryland about five miles away from the Delaware border.

For confidential support, call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
Goldman Sachs has done away with its free coffee station as leadership scrubs away the last of their COVID-era benefits in a push to bring employees back to the office five days a week.

The 'grab and go' coffee bar had previously been stationed at the bank's 200 West Street office lobby, offering bankers a selection of complimentary craft coffees as an incentive to brave the commute throughout the pandemic.

But the coffee bar disappeared after Labor Day, marking the latest pandemic perk to be taken away according to an insider at the bank, who told The New York Post that the alternative to coming into the office - being fired - ought to be incentive enough to hop on the subway and head downtown.

'RIP to another pandemic perk for junior bankers,' the source, a jaded junior banker at Goldman, told The Post, 'I'm sure the partners still don't have to pay for their coffee - or anything in their fancy dining hall.'

Goldman CEO David Solomon has long made his stance against work from home known, cautioning as early as winter 2021 that work from home was 'not a new normal,' and calling it an 'aberration.'

Goldman CEO David has long made his stance against work from home known, cautioning as early as 2021 that work from home was 'not a new normal,' and calling it an 'aberration'

The 'grab and go' coffee bar had previously been stationed at the Goldman Sachs 200 West Street office lobby was removed after Labor Day

In August Goldman notified its staff that all pandemic protocols would be gone after Labor Day, and employees would be expected to be in the office five days a week.

The announcement was the culmination of several months of the stripping away of accommodations offered to employees to incentivize them to come into the office when they weren't required to be there.

In April the bank ceased offering employees free rides to and from the office, and also did away with free breakfasts and lunches.

'Of course they took the coffee away,' a second source told The Post, 'But I've been so slammed since Labor Day I haven't really had time to think too much about it.'

The source noted there was still free drip-coffee in an 11th floor lobby, but that it was lesser quality than the old coffee station and difficult to get to. They also noted Goldman gave bankers complimentary cupcakes on their first day back after Labor Day.

In April the Goldman Sachs ceased offering employees free rides to and from the office, and also did away with free breakfasts and lunches

In April the bank ceased offering employees free rides to and from the office, and also did away with free breakfasts and lunches.

Goldman is not the only bank wrestling with what to do with their employees and offices.

At JP Morgan, CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly to told senior staff that he expected junior workers to be at their desks five days a week, despite official policy that only expects them there three days a week.

But over at Citigroup, CEO Jane Fraser has maintained a ban on Zoom calls on Fridays, and still only asks employees to come into the office a few days a week without requiring them to be there for a full five days.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has said the bank would be announcing office plans in the coming weeks.
When Prince Charles was born, in November 1948, footman John Gibson was working temporarily in Winston Churchill's household.

He told me, 'When I heard the news on the radio, I went in to tell Mr Churchill and he jumped up in the air and gave three cheers.

'He was over the moon for the Princess. He ran round the room waving his hands above his head and shouting, 'Hooray! It's marvellous news! Tell everybody to come in, John. And bring the champagne. We must toast the heir to the throne.' '

Princess Elizabeth's confinement  in the Palace's Buhl Room, specially converted into a well-equipped surgery  had been a painfully long one. Afterwards, she spent ten days in bed recuperating (as new mothers were encouraged to do) and breast-fed her son from the start.

She wrote to her former music teacher: 'The baby is very sweet and we are enormously proud of him. He has an interesting pair of hands for a baby. They are rather large, but with fine long fingers quite unlike mine and certainly unlike his father's. It will be interesting to see what they become. I still find it hard to believe I have a baby of my own!'

These two were good companions: during the whole of their remarkable marriage  the longest-lasting of any sovereign and consort in history  the chattering never stopped

Patricia Mountbatten told me she thought Philip and Elizabeth chose 'Charles' as a name simply because they liked it. Boy Browning [Philip's Comptroller] was one of those who felt the name was 'bad news', given the precedents of Charles I and II, to say nothing of the unhappy fate that befell Charles Stuart, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'.

Princess Margaret, however, was delighted with the choice of name, explaining that henceforward she would be known as 'Charley's Aunt  probably my finest title'.

Philip and Lilibet were very happy with their new baby. According to friends who have known them across all their adult lives, the first few years of their marriage were, in many ways, the happiest.

Gina Kennard said to me, 'Princess Elizabeth was not yet Queen, Philip was still in the navy. They were young, they were relatively carefree.'

And they were cosseted. While devoted to little Prince Charles, they did not have to tend to him unaided. He had two Scottish nurses in constant attendance.

Before Charles was born, Elizabeth had declared, 'I'm going to be the child's mother, not the nurses.' Well, she was  but, inevitably, because she was a princess as well as a mother, because 'royal duty' called and all her life Elizabeth made answering the call of royal duty her first priority, and because it was the way of her class and her time, much of the nitty-gritty of childcare was left to the nurses.

Until Clarence House was ready for the family to move into in July 1949, the baby lived at their country house, Windlesham Moor, only seeing his parents when they came down from London at weekends.

After that, Elizabeth saw her young children as much as any aristocratic mother of her generation and more, perhaps, than many busy working mothers today.

John Gibson, who returned to royal service as 'nursery footman' at Windlesham Moor, assured me that Princess Elizabeth was 'very hands-on' with Charles, 'like a real mother  not a princess'. He could not fault the young royal couple: 'When they were on their own, it was a very simple life. They were quite normal people, really. They were waited on hand and foot, obviously, but they sat at the table and they had a natter about what was going on in the day.'

Much of the domestic conversation overheard by John related to home-making. 'They couldn't wait to get into their new home at Clarence House. They talked about it all the time. 'I think Grandma is giving me a nice sideboard. I'm sure she is.' Grandma was Queen Mary, of course.'

When John Dean, Philip's valet, had a day off, John Gibson would take the young Duke of Edinburgh his early morning tea. Philip would look in on Elizabeth in her intercommunicating room and tease her for not being out of bed yet.

The Queen's former private secretary Lord Charteris said to me: 'Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats the Queen simply as another human being. He's the only man who can. Strange as it may seem, I believe she values that'

When they were up at Birkhall in Scotland, Philip and Elizabeth would drive over to Balmoral with the staff piled into the back of the shooting brake.

'He'd drive like mad over the country roads,' according to John Gibson. 'Philip, Philip, slow down for God's sake, slow down, you're killing all the rabbits,' she said. 'What's the matter with you?'

At 28, Philip was appointed second-in-command of HMS Chequers, the Leader of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla of the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta. For several weeks at a time, Elizabeth would leave Charles with her mother and fly out to join him.

This is the period in her adult life that can perhaps be described as the most normal  or, at least, the least unreal. He was a serving officer; she was a naval wife. Buckingham Palace was a thousand miles away.

'It was a good time,' according to Philip. 'It was a fabulous time,' according to his equerry Mike Parker. 'I think it was their happiest time,' said his valet John Dean. 'They were so relaxed and free, coming and going as they pleased.'

In Malta, there were parties and picnics, swimming expeditions and boat trips. Elizabeth went out for coffee and shopping and visits to the hairdresser with the other young officers' wives.

Of course, nothing is ever entirely normal when it comes to royalty. The princess, who had arrived with the ever-faithful Bobo (her nursery maid-turned dresser and confidante) plus a new lady-in-waiting, stayed with her husband at the Mountbattens' villa  where the indoor help included a butler, a housekeeper, three cooks, six stewards, two housemaids, two cleaning ladies, and a valet.

Princess Anne was born at Clarence House in August 1950. Elizabeth reported to a friend, 'We only hope that Charles will take kindly to it. He has only seen Fortune Euston's baby at close quarters and he then tried to pull her toes off and poke her eyes out, all of which she took very kindly, having a brother of two who presumably did the same.'

The following year, Princess Elizabeth became the first member of the Royal Family to fly the Atlantic. She and Philip were accompanied on their gruelling 35-day tour of Canada and the U.S. by her new private secretary, Martin Charteris.

'Please smile more, Ma'am,' pleaded Charteris at one point. 'But my jaws are aching,' sighed the Princess.

(Fifty years later, accompanying the Queen on a tour of the West Country, the Duchess of Grafton told me, 'She does find this constant smiling very exhausting, you know. After a day like today, her jaw really aches.')

'Oh, yes,' said Gina Kennard, who knew them, individually and as a couple, for something like 75 years, 'They own each other. Nothing could come between them. What they have for one another is the greatest respect  which counts for so much  and deep love. Deep love that goes back a long, long way'

Martin Charteris said to me, 'It was a long trip and it wasn't plain sailing. It wasn't easy for either of them.'

Is it true, I asked, that, at breakfast one morning on the Governor-General's train, the Duke called the Princess 'a bloody fool'? 'He might have done,' said Charteris, smiling. 'He had a naval turn of phrase.'

On a long train ride across Canada that autumn, Philip did his best to entertain his wife with a range of practical jokes. According to John Dean, these included surprising her with a booby-trapped can of nuts and chasing her down the corridor wearing a set of joke false teeth.

The idea that, as a mother, the Queen was remote and uncaring  an idea spread by Prince Charles via Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994  is flatly rejected by the Princess Royal.

'I'm not going to speak for anyone else,' said Princess Anne, 'but I simply don't believe that there is any evidence whatsoever to suggest that she wasn't caring. It just beggars belief.

'We as children may have not been too demanding, in the sense that we understood what the limitations were in time and the responsibilities placed on her as monarch in the things she had to do and the travels she had to make. But I don't believe that any of us, for a second, thought she didn't care for us in exactly the same way as any other mother did. I just think it's extraordinary that anybody could construe that that might not be true.'

Anne found her mother tolerant in a way that allowed her children to find their own feet.

'If she'd been a disciplinarian,' she said with a wry smile, 'and said 'no' to everybody, we'd have all been psychoanalysed out of existence on the basis that we had too controlling a mother. We've all been allowed to find our own way and we were always encouraged to discuss problems, to talk them through.

'People have to make their own mistakes and I think she's always accepted that.'

Once, I travelled in the car behind theirs and watched the Queen and her husband chatting. For half an hour, I saw them telling each other stories, listening to each other, laughing repeatedly

There are those who persist in believing that Prince Andrew's natural father was the Queen's racing manager, Henry Porchester ('Porchey'), 7th Earl of Carnarvon. The conception occurred in 1959, they suggest, when Philip was away on a long sea voyage. Never mind that the dates don't stack up: the idea that the Queen ever committed adultery is simply preposterous.

I asked Geordie, 8th Earl of Carnarvon (and one of the Queen's godchildren), if his father and Her Majesty knew of the rumour and what they made of it. Were they amused?

'They knew all about it,' Geordie told me, 'and were not in the least amused. They were angry. My father was very annoyed by it, and embarrassed. It was dreadful.'

The Queen and Porchey were best friends. They had known each other all their adult lives: they shared a passion for racehorses and a sense of humour. They may even have been a little in love  in the nicest possible way  but the idea of a romance between them is risible.

'Both my parents were friends of the Queen and Prince Philip,' Geordie told me. 'Obviously my father saw a lot of the Queen throughout the year, but in October he used to invite them to Highclere [Castle, now familiar to television viewers as the setting for Downton Abbey] for a shooting weekend, partridge shooting.

'Prince Philip sometimes came, not always. He's an extremely good shot. And the Queen, of course, has always been good at working dogs.

'On Saturday night, my mother would do dinner, the best of English country house cooking. And on Sunday, my father and the Queen might walk round the stables or visit Highclere stud. The Queen adored going on the gallops early in the evening. It was just a perfect, relaxing weekend.'

When they were up at Birkhall in Scotland, Philip and Elizabeth would drive over to Balmoral with the staff piled into the back of the shooting brake. 'He'd drive like mad over the country roads,' according to John Gibson. 'Philip, Philip, slow down for God's sake, slow down, you're killing all the rabbits,' she said. 'What's the matter with you?. They are pictured in June 2020

She was, he said, completely at ease in the world of horses. 'It's a world she knows and loves. When she's in it, she is wholly absorbed by it. And I suppose my father was the centre of that part of her life.

'The Queen has a long and successful history as an owner and breeder. She knows the background of the stallions, she knows all the good bloodlines. My father had a photographic memory  he could remember the names of all the descendants of the great horses with no difficulty at all. The Queen and he could talk about horses for hours.

'They had a shared interest that was all-consuming  and a shared sense of humour. When my father and the Queen were together, there were always a lot of laughs. The Queen is more comfortable around men, anyway. She is easy with them, more chatty.

'And I think their relationship was special because they knew each other so well. They were happy together. You could tell. When he died [in 2001], quite unexpectedly, the Queen came to his funeral. She very rarely went to funerals.'

Indeed, Princess Anne once said that Porchey was the one person in the world who could telephone the Queen and always be put through at once.

At 3.30am on Sunday, August 31, 1997, when the Queen was at Balmoral with her family, the British Embassy in Paris confirmed that Diana, Princess of Wales, was dead.

That day, the Queen and Prince Phillip did exactly what anyone who knew them would have expected them to do. They comforted their grandsons in private and, in public, went about their business as usual.

On the whole, it is evident that she accepted Prince Philip as he was  she never tried to 'change' him  and admired and loved him deeply for what and who he was

They took William and Harry to church with them on that fateful Sunday morning because William and Harry wanted to go, and because the Queen believed that, at times of tribulation, there is no better place to be. Her faith was her rock, and doing things much as they have always been done is a practice that, on the whole, served her well.

There is comfort to be had from familiar hymns and prayers. There is solace to be found in form and custom long established, and in doing what you have to do in the way that you normally do it.

While Prince Charles flew to Paris to accompany Diana's body on its journey home, the Queen and Prince Philip kept William and Harry at Balmoral, out of harm's way, out of the public eye. The Queen viewed Diana's death as a private tragedy for the boys.

The public displays of grief  worldwide and extraordinary  caught her by surprise.

Her instinct and upbringing had taught her, and her generation, that you kept your tears for the pillow.

Crying in public was not something the Queen would allow herself, or expect of her children and grandchildren. It was not the royal way. It was neither dignified nor necessary  nor helpful.

Diana's funeral was not a comfortable experience. Elton John had never been one of Prince Philip's favourite performers. Tony Blair's over-emotional reading of the Lesson was embarrassing. And Charles Spencer's address, while perhaps forgivable, was, from the point of view of the Queen and the Duke, both illogical and insulting.

In the course of it, Earl Spencer spoke directly to Diana's sons and, on behalf of his mother and sisters, solemnly vowed that 'we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned'.

The congregation began to clap. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh did not join in.

Later, privately, Her Majesty said that what disappointed her about Charles Spencer's address was that it failed to do justice to his sister's memory. He devoted so much of his address to castigating the media and disparaging the Royal Family that he left himself no time to pay proper tribute to Diana's many gifts and achievements.

The Queen was especially saddened by the fact that her godson Earl Spencer failed to acknowledge the importance to Diana of her personal faith.

To friends, the Queen occasionally complained about her husband's 'pigheadedness' and about the speed at which he sometimes drove through Windsor Great Park.

But on the whole, it is evident that she accepted Prince Philip as he was  she never tried to 'change' him  and admired and loved him deeply for what and who he was.

Were they happy together? Off and on. Particularly when they were young and middle-aged, they seemed to spend quite a lot of time apart. Even when they were in their sixties and seventies, the Queen was frequently on her own, walking the dogs, riding her horses, playing Patience, completing a jigsaw, sorting her photograph albums, watching television.

Was she neglected? Did she mind? Or did she  as I've come to think  simply take it in her stride because she understood the nature of her man? Elizabeth and Philip had different attributes and different interests. Each was royal; they had shared values, a joint heritage and a common purpose. But as characters, as personalities, they were not at all alike.

Philip was more adventurous, more assertive, and more intellectual than his wife. She was more placid, more cautious, more conventional, less changeable in mood. Yet they understood each other  and they got on so well.

Before Philip's death, I spoke to a number of their friends. Lord Buxton and Lord Brabourne had stories to tell of the Duke holding his wife's hand, gently stroking her hair, coming into the room at the end of the day and saying simply, 'Lovely to see you'  and watching her face light up with happiness.

'Philip is not sentimental,' Lord Brabourne said to me, 'but he is sensitive, profoundly so. When our son was killed [by the IRA bomb that killed Lord Mountbatten] the first letter that arrived was from Philip. It was wonderful. You can talk to him about matters of the heart.'

Countess Mountbatten said, 'The Queen and Prince Philip have a mutual understanding that's profound. And they get on. They are good together  anyone who knows them well will tell you that.'

'Oh, yes,' said Gina Kennard, who knew them, individually and as a couple, for something like 75 years, 'They own each other. Nothing could come between them. What they have for one another is the greatest respect  which counts for so much  and deep love. Deep love that goes back a long, long way.'

But what about Philip's testiness, his grumbling and his grouches?

The Queen's former private secretary Lord Charteris said to me: 'Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats the Queen simply as another human being. He's the only man who can. Strange as it may seem, I believe she values that.'

Once, I travelled in the car behind theirs and watched the Queen and her husband chatting. For half an hour, I saw them telling each other stories, listening to each other, laughing repeatedly.

These two were good companions: during the whole of their remarkable marriage  the longest-lasting of any sovereign and consort in history  the chattering never stopped.

Adapted from Philip: The Final Portrait by Gyles Brandreth, published by Coronet, 12.99.  2022 Gyles Brandreth. To buy a copy for 11.69 go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Offer valid until 24/9/2022, UK p&p is free on orders over 20.
Voters overwhelmingly back Liz Trusss plan to freeze energy prices for families and businesses, a poll for the Daily Mail has found.

Nine in ten adults said they backed a cap for consumers, while 79 per cent said they supported a similar policy for hard-pressed businesses.

The survey also found two-thirds of voters back the new Prime Ministers plan to scrap the 1.25 percentage point national insurance hike.

On Thursday, Miss Truss announced a two-year plan to spare households and firms from crippling increases in energy bills.

Voters overwhelmingly back Liz Trusss plan to freeze energy prices for families and businesses. Nine in ten adults said they backed a cap for consumers, while 79 per cent said they supported a similar policy for hard-pressed businesses

The average household will pay no more than 2,500 per year for their energy  saving around 1,000  from October.

Businesses will be helped with a six-month scheme offering equivalent support.

Seven in ten voters supported her policy to scrap green levies on domestic energy bills. Just 6 per cent opposed this move.

The Savanta ComRes poll, which interviewed 2,098 UK adults, also found support for Miss Trusss plan to cancel the planned increase in corporation tax next year  with 53 per cent backing the move.

The most important factor in how people will vote in the next general election will be the Governments response to the cost of living crisis, the poll found, with 93 per cent of respondents saying it was a crucial issue for them.

This was closely followed by the state of the NHS (92 per cent), policies on taxation (85 per cent) and the response to the Ukraine war (81 per cent).

A majority of voters said the new Prime Minister should call a snap election by the end of the year, with 55 per cent calling for the country to go to the polls compared with 32 per cent opposing the idea. Among Tory voters, however, almost three in five said a general election should not be called.

In welcome news for Labour, the poll found that 72 per cent of voters  including three-quarters of Conservative voters  support imposing a further windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has for months been calling for the tax to fund cost of living support, and has accused Miss Truss of forcing working people to foot the bill instead.

The poll put Labour seven points ahead of the Tories, with the Opposition on 42 points and the Conservatives on 35.

And Sir Keir was narrowly ahead of Miss Truss  36 per cent to 33 per cent  when voters were asked who would make the best prime minister. Fifty-six per cent of Tory voters said the committee investigating Boris Johnson over Partygate should not continue.

The Privileges Committee is investigating whether the former PM was in contempt of Parliament by telling the Commons on several occasions that there were no lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street.

The poll also suggested that Miss Trusss pledge to continue with plans to send migrants to Rwanda is popular with Tory voters.

Two-thirds  67 per cent  of Conservative supporters said they supported the policy, while almost half (47 per cent) of Labour voters said they opposed it. Overall, the policy has a net support of 47 per cent  while 29 per cent oppose it, according to the poll.
Australians will be given a public holiday on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's memorial Down Under to remember and celebrate the monarch's life.

The one-off national holiday will take place next Thursday on September 22, meaning Victorians can look forward to a four-day weekend thanks to the AFL Grand Final holiday on Friday.

Here's everything you need to know:

Australians will get a public holiday next Thursday, September 22, the celebrate the life of Queen Elizabeth II

What is the date of the public holiday?

The public holiday will be held on Thursday, September 22.

Who will be able to take the public holiday?

The public holiday will be held in all Australian states and territories.

As with all public holidays, different employers may chose whether to give workers a day off, pay penalty rates or give workers a day in lieu.

Several industry heads, including medical bodies, have criticised the lack of notice before the holiday as already strained workforces will be put under further pressure.

What happens if I have to work? Do penalty rates apply?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed on Monday that workers can expect to receive penalty rates, or time in lieu, as with any other public holiday.

Commuters are advised transport could be running to a different timetable.

Will I need to pay extra for goods and services?

As the day is being treated as any other public holiday you can expect to pay a surcharge at most hospitality venues, which is typically 10 per cent.

Businesses will either close or pay workers penalty rates on the upcoming 'national day of mourning' (pictured, a Bondi Beach cafe)

Will schools be open?

State-run schools will also be closed for the holiday, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese encouraging people to respect the 'national day of mourning'.

Private schools can choose whether to opt-in or out of public holidays.

Will their be any special events on the day?

An 11am memorial service for the Queen will be held in Parliament House's Great Hall on the public holiday, three days after her London funeral.

It will be attended by the governor general, prime minister, premiers and other dignitaries.

Mr Albanese has also encouraged communities to hold their own memorials, especially in places where Her Majesty visited during her 16 Australian tours.

However, many have chosen to commemorate the day by booking holidays and making the most of the extra day-off.

Some Australians will likely take the opportunity to take a trip away (pictured, James Price Point in Western Australia)

Why do we need a public holiday?

Mr Albanese said it's important for Australians to take time to process the death of not just our sovereign leader of 70 years but a woman many looked up to and respected.

He added that the holiday is part of a protocol that has existed 'for a long period of time'.

'This has been a time of grieving but there has been that sense of gratefulness, of a life well lived, a life of service. Quite clearly, over generations, that affection for the Queen was there,' Mr Albanese told Sunrise on Monday.

'She was someone who didn't just go to Sydney and Melbourne, she went to regional communities, remote communities, and had an engagement with them.

'This is a historic event that is touching many Australians and that Australians want to participate in.'
Advertisement

The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, has been lit up with an image of Queen Elizabeth II and the Union Jack in tribute to Her Majesty.

It is one of a number of iconic sites across the world that have marked the death of the 96-year-old monarch, with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the Empire State Building in New York also commemorating her.

Since the Queen's death was announced on Thursday evening, tributes have poured in from around the world as the UK and millions of others mourn her passing.

In a striking image, the 2,700ft tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai was covered in the livery of the British flag as the United Arab Emirates showed its solidarity with the UK.

It also displayed a huge portrait of Her Majesty, beaming her image bright into the night sky in the Middle Eastern country.

In Germany the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin was also lit up with the Union Jack as it expressed its mourning for the Queen.

And in the United States the Empire State Building was lit up in purple in its own tribute to the late Monarch, while in Australia an image of the Queen was displayed on the Sydney Opera House.

The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, was lit up with the Union Jack last night as the United Arab Emirates paid tribute the Queen following her death

The 2,700ft tall building was also lit up with a giant portrait of Her Majesty as it commemorated the monarch, who died on Thursday

In New York the Empire State Building was lit up in the colour purple (which signifies royalty) to mark Queen Elizabeth II's passing

In Berlin the Brandenburg Gate had the British flag displayed onto it in a show of solidarity following the monarch's death this week

The Sydney Opera House in Australia was also lit up with an image of Her Majesty, who was also the country's head of state for 70 years

Closer to home Legoland paid its own unique tribute to Her Majesty by adding flags at half mast and mourners laying flowers to its Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace displays.

Smaller details such as a notice of the British monarch's death on the gates of Buckingham Palace were also added.

The theme park closed for a day following the news of Her Majesty's death aged 96 but has now reopened.

The park is based in Windsor, where the Queen also lived. In past years people living in the area grew used to seeing her in the Great Park there.

Legoland paid tribute to the Queen with miniature versions of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle with flags at half mast and mourners laying flowers

Smaller details such as a notice of the longest-reigning British monarch's death on the gates of Buckingham Palace were included in the display at the theme park in Windsor

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died at her summer home in Balmoral, Scotland, on Thursday at the age of 96, prompting an outpouring of grief in the UK and around the world.

Her eldest son, Charles, was proclaimed as king yesterday, while today her coffin was moved from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of the Scottish capital as her cortege arrived, while family members such as Prince Andrew, Princess Anne and the Earl and Countess of Wessex were present as it drove into the city.

They gave her a guard of honour, along with the King's Bodyguard for Scotland (Royal Company of Archers), as she was carried into the royal palace.

She will rest overnight in Edinburgh before she is carried to St Giles Cathedral in the city in the afternoon, during which she will be accompanied by the King and other family members.

Her body will then lie in rest in the cathedral for until Tuesday, when it will be flown to RAF Northolt by a military plane. She will be accompanied by Princess Anne on this journey.

On Wednesday afternoon Her Majesty's body will travel in a public procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, where the coffin will be placed on a raised platform and topped with the Imperial State Crown, orb and sceptre.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Edinburgh today to witness Her Majesty being transported to the Palace of Holyroodhouse

The Queen's funeral will be held on Monday, September 19, after 10 days of national mourning. Pictured is her cortege arriving at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh today

It will be guarded 24-hours-a-day by soldiers and for the next four days will lie in state until the morning of her funeral on Monday, September 19.

The coffin will then be taken by procession to Westminster Abbey for her funeral service which is expected to see heads of state from around the world attend.

After this service she will then be taken in a hearse to St George's Chapel in Windsor Chapel, where a committal service will take place.
Lady Violet Manners, eldest daughter of the Duke of Rutland, was swept off her feet by dashing Old Etonian banker Ted Morrison, the son of interior designer Penny Morrison. But, sadly, it seems its curtains for their romance.

The couple were last seen together six weeks ago, and Violet recently hinted at a split by saying the summer had been one of two halves.

Friends say it was Ted who called it a day, but Violet is not letting the news get her down. She celebrated her 29th birthday in August with a wild rooftop party, and says she still had lots of moments to be grateful for. Having graced the cover of Tatler, shes quite a catch. Form an orderly queue, chaps

Lady Violet Manners, eldest daughter of the Duke of Rutland, was swept off her feet by dashing Old Etonian banker Ted Morrison, the son of interior designer Penny Morrison. But, sadly, it seems its curtains for their romance

Friends say it was Ted who called it a day, but Violet is not letting the news get her down. She celebrated her 29th birthday in August with a wild rooftop party, and says she still had lots of moments to be grateful for

As owner of the upmarket Daylesford Organic farmshops that kept Boris Johnson supplied with gourmet ready meals during lockdown, shes the queen bee of the Cotswolds.

Now I hear Lady Bamford is to expand her wellness empire by opening a private members club next year on her Gloucestershire estate. The Club by Bamford will focus on fitness, with personal training, meditation and even a cryotherapy chamber to provide cold therapy at minus 160C temperatures. Perfect for local David Cameron to indulge in a spot of chillaxing

Russell Brand is making a meal of things

He's been battling with neighbours to build a recording studio at the Oxfordshire pub hes bought  with locals insisting on major sound-proofing. Now I note the teetotal star wants to serve vegan food when the pub reopens after a refurb. But dont all rush over for a healthy treat  the council confirms Russells Crown Inn in Pishill is not registered as a food business. Lets hope that changes  or else youll need a picnic.

Russell Brand has been battling with neighbours to build a recording studio at the Oxfordshire pub hes bought  with locals insisting on major sound-proofing

Crush of the week

She wore a dazzling white ballgown and glittering tiara as one of 15 debutantes chosen to attend this years Queen Charlottes Ball. But 20-year-old Ashelen Lund, is not just a society belle  back home in Las Vegas, shes a professional figure-skater.

Last year she found herself on extremely thin ice after an accident saw her develop such a serious infection on her ankle, there were fears her foot would need to be amputated.

But in a happy twist, she tells me her date for the ball was her dad, who is also a plastic surgeon  he performed an emergency operation that saved her foot and career.

I am so grateful to have been able to experience this with him, says Lund, adding: Debutantes are role models for the younger generations.
Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne looked in great spirits as they attended the International Film Festival in Toronto on Saturday.

The American actress, 45, looked radiant as she laughed and joked while discussing her film career in front of her co-stars Eddie, 40, and Nnamdi Asomugha, 41.

The actress attended the film festival alongside her co-stars to promote their latest film The Good Nurse.

Film festival: Jessica Chastain , 45, and Eddie Redmayne , 40, looked in great spirits as they attended the International Film Festival in Toronto on Saturday

And Jessica wowed in a dusky pink crochet lace midi dress that featured a plunging neckline and showcased her cleavage.

The Molly's Game star also donned a natural makeup look and opted for wearing her auburn locks down in a sleek and straight style.

The film star looked happy and relaxed as she sat amongst other actors and members of the industry in the studio.

Meanwhile, Eddie on the other hand opted for a more casual look for the day ahead.

Having fun: The American actress looked radiant as she laughed and joked while discussing her film career in front of her co-stars Eddie, and Nnamdi Asomugha, 41

By wearing a chunky blue knit sweater that featured the words 'You and I are Earth on the front.'

The actor, best known for his roles in biopics and blockbusters decided to pair his casual jumper with a pair of classic black jeans and styled his hair in tousled waves.

Nnamdi, however, opted for a smart casual look that consisted of a white tee, a grey over shirt and a pair of black jeans.

Latest: The actress attended the film festival alongside her co-stars to promote their latest film ' The Good Nurse '

Pretty in pink: Jessica wowed in a dusky pink crochet lace midi dress that featured a plunging neckline and showcased her cleavage

Stunning: The ' Molly's Game ' star also donned a natural makeup look and opted for wearing her auburn locks down in a sleek and straight style

Happy: The film star looked happy and relaxed as she sat amongst other actors and members of the industry in the studio

All smiles: Meanwhile, Eddie on the other hand opted for a more casual look for the day ahead by wearing a chunky blue knit sweater that featured the words 'You and I are Earth on the front

Jessica plays the role of nurse 'Amy Loughren' in the movie 'The Good Nurse', which is written by Scottish screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns, 35.

The crime drama movie, directed by Tobias Lindholm, 45, tells the horrifying true story of Charles Cullen (played by Eddie), the serial killer who used his position as a nurse to murder up to 40 patients.

According to People Jessica will portray as a compassionate nurse and a single mother with a life-threatening heart condition.

Movie star: Jessica plays the role of nurse 'Amy Loughren' in the movie 'The Good Nurse', which is written by Scottish screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns , 35

Drama: The crime drama movie, directed by Tobias Lindholm , 45, tells the horrifying true story of Charles Cullen (played by Eddie), the serial killer who used his position as a nurse to murder up to 40 patients

Strike a pose: The screen stars posed for TIFF portraits in their chic looks on Saturday

Playful: Jessica beamed for the camera as she snuggled up to Eddie

Gorgeous: The actress tried to get her more serious co-star to crack a smile

Who gets stretched to her physical and emotional limits by the hard and demanding night shifts at the ICU, according to the movie's official synopsis.

However, Amy's life seems to get better when Charlie, a new nurse at the hospital, comes into the picture.

However, an investigation into patient deaths soon points to him as the prime suspect.

And in the trailer, Amy meets Charlie in a diner to find out more after he's no longer working at the hospital.

Nurse ready: According to People Jessica will portray as a compassionate nurse and a single mother with a life-threatening heart condition

Thrill: Who gets stretched to her physical and emotional limits by the hard and demanding night shifts at the ICU, according to the movie's official synopsis

And confronts him with 'Is it because what they're saying is true?'

And when investigators go to question Amy about the patients, she learns they have died from 'double medication errors' in which they had been given too much insulin.

The movie is based on the 2013 book 'The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber.

And 'The Good Nurse' will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 and will hit theatres and Netflix on October 26.

Sun between the clouds: However, Amy's life seems to get better when Charlie, a new nurse at the hospital, comes into the picture

The Toronto International Film Festival returned on September the 8th and will be continuing till the 18th of September for its 47th edition.

The Film Festival will involve 11 days of International and Canadian cinema.

And will include special events featuring some of the biggest names in film.

And TIFF's industry conference will offer a diverse and innovative perspective on the art of business and film.

Festival CEO Cameron Bailey, recently indicated that the full line-up will comprise around 200 feature films and roughly 40 short films.

And is the largest line-up the festival has booked since the pre-pandemic 2019 edition.
The original cast members of the 90s mega-hit Heartbreak High returned to the red carpet on Friday as Netflix premiered its upcoming reboot.

Actors Lara Cox, Abi Tucker and Scott Major all returned to the spotlight at the Paddington Town Hall premiere.

The stars were all smiles as they brought the nostalgia, 23 years after the original series finished.

Original cast members of the 90s mega-hit Heartbreak High including (back) Barbara Gouskos, Danny Raco, Lara Cox, Abi Tucker, (front) Hugh Baldwin, Scott Major and Rel Hunt all appeared at the premiere of the Heartbreak High reboot in Sydney on Friday

The iconic series, which ran from 1994 to 1999, was known for his gritty storylines.

Lara, now 44, who played Anita Scheppers on the series, opted for a green polka dot top and a pair of black jeans at the event.

Actor Rel Hunt, who payed Ryan Scheppers on the series, opted for a black shirt emblazoned with fish.

Rel Hunt, Lara Cox and Callan Mulvey are all pictured during their days on Heartbreak High

Scott Major, who played Peter Rivers, opted for a black V-neck T-shirt, jeans and boots.

Abi Tucker, who played Jodie Cooper, wore a colourful jacket along with blue jeans and black shoes.

Danny Raco, who played Marco Vialli, opted for a crisp white shirt and blue suit.

Abi Tucker (pictured) starred in Heartbreak High for three seasons

He stood with Hugh Baldwin and Barbara Gouskos, who are also from the series.

Elsewhere on the red carrpet, socialite Suzan Mutesi put her best foot forward in a thigh-grazing red dress which featured cut-outs.

The Challenge star paired the eye-catching frock with a pair of embellished heels.

Socialite Suzan Mutesi put her best foot forward wearing a thigh-grazing red dress which featured cut-outs. She paired it with embellished heels

Carla From Bankstown opted for a green jumpsuit for the red carpet. She carried a stylish red handbag by the top handle

Model Josh Heuston (pictured) showcased his muscular biceps wearing a striking blue vest and black pants which he paired with boots

Carla From Bankstown opted for a green jumpsuit for the red carpet.

The star wore the jumpsuit with a black belt and carried a red handbag.

Model Josh Heuston showcased his muscular biceps wearing a striking blue vest and black pants which he paired with boots.

Model James Parr (pictured) opted for a pair of shorts and a jumper which he topped with a camel trench coat. He finished the look with white Nike sneakers

Model James Parr opted for a pair of shorts and a jumper which he topped with a camel trench coat.

The star finished his look with a pair of white sneakers.

Actor Meyne Wyatt opted for a 90s look wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and a denim jacket.

Actor Meyne Wyatt opted for a 90s look wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and a denim jacket. He finished his look with gold-tipped black boots

He finished his look with gold-tipped black boots.

Actor Brodie Townsend went shirtless with a multi-coloured cardigan.

Among the inclusive line-up of the Heartbreak High reboot are gay and non-binary characters, TV Blackbox reports.

Sherry Watson (pictured) opted to wear a striking pink dress with spaghetti straps to the event

Set in the fictional Hartley High, the eight-episode series is a woke update of the '90s high school drama that made Callan Mulvey and Ada Nicodemou household names.

According to Que Minh Luu, Netflix's Director of Content in Australia and New Zealand, it has always been a dream for the streaming service.

'Making Heartbreak High for today's generation of Australians has been a long-standing dream,' she said.
Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis jas jetted off to meet her former pro dance partner Giovanni Pernice's family in Italy after reportedly splitting from her long-term boyfriend Sam Arnold.

The EastEnders actress, 27, had been with her partner Sam for seven years, with him cheering her on as she lifted the glitterball trophy with partner Giovanni last year.

In a snap from the trip, Rose beamed beside Giovani and his sister Angela at her dance studio in Sicily, as well as being joined by Strictly's Anton Du Beke.

Meet-up: Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis has jetted off to meet her former pro dance partner Giovanni Pernice's family in Italy after reportedly splitting from her long-term boyfriend Sam Arnold

Giovanni was reportedly filming a new BBC1 travel show with Anton, 56, when Rose turned up to surprise the pair.

It comes after Rose reportedly split from her long-term boyfriend Sam.

According to The Sun, the couple have called it quits, with Sam leaning on Rose's pal and CBeebies host Aimee Campbell-Nottage for support.

A friend told the publication: 'Rose and Sam's relationship is definitely over, it's very amicable and they'll remain close friends, but unfortunately there is no future for them romantically.

Split: The EastEnders actress, 27, had been with her partner Sam for seven years, with him cheering her on as she lifted the glitterball trophy with partner Giovanni last year

Happy: She beamed beside Giovani and his sister Angela at her dance studio in Sicily, as well as being joined by Strictly's Anton Du Beke

They continued: 'They spent a lot of time apart while Rose was away on tour, which has had an impact. It's been difficult for them both, of course, but they're certain it's the right move  and Sam's had a shoulder to cry on in their mutual friend Aimee.'

The source added that Rose has been throwing herself into her work as she has been inundated with offers after Strictly.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Rose for comment.

It came after Rose's friends expressed doubt over the couple's future due to their busy work schedules and have said they are worried that the infamous Strictly curse may strike again.

Sad: Rose reportedly split from her long-term boyfriend Sam (pictured together)

Rose - who has kept her relationship fairly private over the years - holidayed in Barcelona by herself earlier this year.

A source told the publication: 'Rose and Sam drifted apart, especially after she became so busy with work projects and was in-demand with new work opportunities.

'They still have a lot of love and respect for each other, but they're also still young and working out their lives.

Dancing queen: Rose made history as the first deaf contestant on Strictly Come Dancing last year (pictured with partner Giovanni after they won)

'Rose went to Barcelona on her own to gather her thoughts and think about what she wanted. They have both grown as people since they first starting dating.

'This is Rose's moment and she is grabbing life by the horns, focusing on her career and taking any opportunity that she can.'

The Strictly curse sees couples who appear on the show break up with their partners as a result of appearing on the programme.
China's Nantong, Serbia's Zvezdara establish sister-city relationship

Xinhua) 15:29, September 11, 2022

NANJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The city of Nantong in east China's Jiangsu Province and Zvezdara in Serbia on Friday signed an agreement via video link to establish a sister-city relationship, vowing to deepen cooperation in fields such as the economy and trade, technology, tourism and sports.

Wu Xinming, mayor of Nantong, expressed hope that the sister-city relationship would open a new chapter in which the two cities would share development opportunities and build a regular exchange mechanism.

Vladan Jeremic, president of the City Municipality of Zvezdara, thanked Nantong for helping Zvezdara combat COVID-19. After the pandemic began, Nantong called upon local enterprises and the Nantong chamber of commerce in Serbia to donate medical supplies like masks and protective suits to Zvezdara.

Jeremic also said that he welcomes more Chinese companies to invest in Zvezdara and obtain win-win outcomes.

So far, Nantong has established international sister-city relationships with 27 cities in 17 countries and regions, according to the municipal government's foreign affairs office.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
A company linked to one of President Emmerson Mnangagwas sons has embarked on a multi-million dollar housing project at a wetland in Harares Belvedere suburb without the requite approvals from the Environment Management Authority (EMA), investigations have revealed.

Kudakwashe David Mnangagwa is part of the directors of a company that is forging ahead with a project in the ecologically sensitive area without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

Investigations carried out with support from Information for Development Trust, a non-profit media organisation supporting independent investigative journalism, also revealed that the project has not been given the go-ahead by the Harare City Council.

The company, Brickstone Builders Contractors operating as Brickstone Housing Project, reportedly intends to establish over 200 upmarket housing units on the site, which was declared a wetland by EMA, according to a report seen by this publication.

The planned housing project sits on an estimated 11 hectares.

The directors are likely to make, in excess of US$5 million as the stands, which average 600 square metres are being sold at prices ranging from US$35 to US$45 per square metre, investigations established.

According to the report, Brickstone Housing Project applied for a housing development permit from EMA early this year, but it was turned down. It was also barred from doing any civil works on the land.

The company has, however, defied EMA and in May it went on to open roads, leading to an outcry from Belvedere residents and environmental activists.

The Standard had to carry out an investigation into the matter and search for the directors of the company after being tipped by concerned residents about the conflict.

The particulars of the company directors, according to the documents seen by this publication revealed that one of them is Kudakwashe.

The documents show that the company was founded by little-known MacKenzie Macheka and Chester Macheka on July 16 in 1998.

Kudakwashe and three others, Spencer Macheka, a relative of the founders, and two Zanu PF activists identified as Lilian Chitanda and Enison Hwingwiri  who is the company secretary  were incorporated on the same day on July 20, 2021.

This means that Kudakwashe was roped in well after the formation of the company.

Even though information on his professional life is scant, Kudakwashe describes himself on his LinkedIn account as a lawyer who has gained extensive knowledge from studying (law) around the world, the USA, UK and Zimbabwe included.

But other online accounts indicated that he holds a BSc in Business Administration obtained from Drake University in Iowa, USA.

He is the executive director of a company called Flame Lily Venture Capital, which, according to his LinkedIn account, is a private equity investment and advisory firm primarily focused on investing in financial services, mining, real estate and construction within Zimbabwe and the Southern Africa region.

A Harare lawyer, Farai Chauke, once alleged to a Chiredzi magistrate that Kudakwashe was involved in wildlife poaching in the Nyangambe area in the Save valley conservancy.

Kudakwashe, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the president and has been pictured with other Mnangagwa siblings, is from a mother whose identity could not be immediately established.

He is neither son to Auxillia, the first lady, nor Mnangagwas late first wife, Jane Matarise.

The Architect Magazine says Kudakwashe built a luxurious house in an unnamed part of Harare this year and a picture accompanying the brief listing shows massive opulence on the property.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima also appointed him to the National Building Society board.

Kudakwashe has also tried his hand in politics after he submitted his curriculum vitae to contest for a top post at the Zanu PF youth national conference held four months ago, but failed to make it.

EMA declares project illegal

According to the EMA report which accompanied a ticket and prohibition order seen by this publication, Brickstone Housing Project applied for a prospect for a housing development on February 28, but the Agency turned it down on March 14 based on ecological assessments of the land, which had been done in January prior to the application which designated the land as 100% wetland.

Kudakwashes company defied EMA and started opening roads, which culminated in a raid by the Agency on May 20 and the inspectors found that there was development taking place.

The company was then fined $500 000, which is a level 14 fine according to the EMA fines schedule and also issued with a prohibition order to cease operations with immediate effect.

On the 20th of May 2022 an EIA inspection was conducted in Belvedere in response to a complaint that development was occurring on a wetland adjacent to HIT (Harare Institute of Technology) A team comprising, Mr Muguzva inspected the affected site, read the prohibition order by EMA.

Upon inspection the team established that Brickstone Housing Project submitted a prospect for a housing development on 28 February 2022.

Comments rejecting the project were sent on 14 March 2022 based on an ecological assessment that was conducted on 23 January, which indicated that the area is 100% wetland. Representatives of the project were Polite Captain.

The site had been cleared of the vegetation for the purpose of constructing roads, opening of roads was in progress and the site is 100% wetland.

A ticket was issued of level 14 for doing a prescribed project without an EIA and an order was given to stop all activities in the area, states the order.

EMA said if the developer continued to defy the environment protection order, a docket will be opened for court proceedings.

The Agency would like to urge all developers to consult EMA before any development takes place, it added.

The National Wetland Policy and National Wetland Guidelines give guidance to how wetlands are utilised. The National Development Strategy (NDS 1) clearly states that there should be sustainable utilisation of wetlands and encourages implementation of soft projects such as recreational parks.

So what is happening is uncalled for and is wanton break down of the law.

Harare City Council said it was not aware of the project.

The city did not allocate the land in question and the policy on wetlands is clear, it does not allow development on wetlands, council said.

The city applies to EMA for EIA certificate. If it's true what the company is doing is illegal and should stop forthwith.

The law is very clear about developments in wetlands and they should diligently follow due process or the long arm of the law will catch up with them.

Development control under the director of works is dealing with the matter to stop the illegal development.

Harare Wetlands Trust director, Celestino Chari said the Brickstone Housing Project should have a valid EIA certificate to carry out developments in the area as stipulated by the law.

The company should have a valid EIA certificate and a development permit from council and anything outside that is illegal and council should apply the necessary legislation to repossess the land and reclaim it, Chari said.

He said government should establish environmental courts to deal with what he termed the current mess in wetlands or at least establish a commission to investigate and recommend actions to be considered.

An enabling legislation to pave way for compensating private ownership in wetlands should be enacted urgently, Chari added.

We have over 25 cases in the courts over illegal developments in wetlands and we created a watchdog and network of residents and community based groups to oversee illegal developments in the city.

We are also lobbying for the review of the wetlands guidelines and the review of the EMA Act so that it responds to the current trends.

We are also lobbying government to create a fund to compensate people settled in wetlands.

Chari said there was need for EMA to urgently gazette wetlands as ecological sensitive areas to stop any developments and council should pass a resolution to stop any allocations of land in wetlands.

Yes we are working with them on the development of environmental action plans and continuously capacitating the different relevant committees in council, he said.

We also have a draft implementation plan with council on the management of wetlands and we also encouraging the city to come up with a wetlands policy and publish the land bank for transparency.

A one stop shop should be immediately established to scrutinise all developments in wetlands.

A visit to the sight revealed that Brickstone Housing Project is continuing with development, which involves pegging of stands and opening of roads and also construction sites.

Some of the stands are pegged under Zesa Holdings power pylons and with some in very swampy areas.

The workforce on the ground was very hostile and could not entertain any questions.

They repeatedly advised the news crew to talk to Mudhara, if they wanted some answers on the project, but did not mention who this Mudhara was.

Efforts to get a comment from the Macheka siblings and Hwingwiri hit a snag as their numbers were continuously unavailable.

Kudakwashe was not answering calls.

It was also the same with the company secretary Chitanda, who was also not answering calls.

A research paper by HWT released in October 2021 showed that Harare wetlands were dwindling mainly due to housing developments.

Section 97 and 113 of the Environmental Management Act requires an EIA certificate for any infrastructural development on wetlands.

To get the certificate an EIA consultant prepares a prospectus and a report which assesses the environmental impact of the proposed project and must consult with affected stakeholders.

The land must also be zoned for residential or commercial use and one also need a development permit from the council under the Regional Town and Country Planning Act.

Zimbabwe is part to the International Convention for the Protection of Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention) which requires the protection of Ramsar Sites in Zimbabwe we have seven including the Victoria Falls and even urban ones like Monavale Vlei and establishment of nature reserves on wetlands. Standard
Preparing for the release of the new Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford walked out on stage at the D23 Expo and gave an emotional speech introducing the trailer.

'I'm very proud to say this one is fantastic. Indiana Jones movies are about mystery and adventure, but they are also about heart,' said the star.

'We have a very human story to tell and a movie that will kick your a**!'

His last time: Preparing for the release of the new Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford walked out on stage at the D23 Expo and gave an emotional speech introducing the trailer

The actor got choked up throughout the talk, but the audience cheered and applauded his heartfelt message when he finished.

Now 80 years old, Harrison said this would be the last time he would star as the treasure-hunting character, a physically demanding role, 'This is it! I will not fall down for you again.'

During the brief speech, his costar, Phoebe Waller-Bridge walked on stage as the Star Wars actor praised her work in the upcoming thriller.

For this franchise installment, Ford V Ferrari director James Mangold will take over the role in place of Steven Spielberg.

Hyping his co-star: Costar, Phoebe Waller-Bridge walked on stage as the Star Wars actor praised her work in the upcoming masterpiece

Although the trailer will not be released online yet, it is described as an action-packed nostalgic movie that uses a digitally-enhanced, younger looking version of the actor for certain flashback scenes.

The musical score will be composed by the legendary, John Williams who scored the original soundtrack 40 years ago.

Last week, the iconic musician gave fans a first listen to a song he created for Phoebe's character, Helena's Theme, during his Maestro of the Movies concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

Defining role: Ford has gone down in history for many important roles but without a doubt, his lead role in the Indiana Jones movies helped catapult him to super-stardom; pictured on set in Sicily on October 18, 2021

To perform the song before the film's release, Williams obtained full permission from the film's director, Mangold.

At the concert, Williams told the audience, 'Jim said, 'Why don't you play it at the Bowl next week?' and I said, 'Jim, the picture is not coming out until next year!'

The director's response was, 'That doesn't matter. Play it at the Bowl anyway.'
She landed a career-making role in Coronation Street fifteen years ago.

And even though she's become one of the best-loved actresses in Britain - Michelle Keegan says she still can't get used to being famous.

The award winning performer, 35, who is currently starring in a new BBC 1950s drama Ten Pound Poms in Australia, has gone on to star in prime-time dramas such as Our Girl and Brassic.

Down to earth: Michelle Keegan says she still can't get used to being famous despite being a household name

Speaking to The Guardian, the former soap star revealed how she still hadn't adjusted to becoming a household name.

'Even now, 15 years on, you never get used to being famous.' she said.

'One minute I walked out of the Coronation Street gates and no one knew who I was.

'Then, as soon as my first scenes were on screen, I remember walking out the gates and getting stopped and asked for an autograph. I had no idea how to sign an autograph.'

Soap star: Michelle landed a career-making role as Tina McIntyre in Coronation Street fifteen years ago

The businesswoman has also been kept busy working with online retailer Very and recently released a new collection with the brand.

Michelle, who married TOWIE star Mark Wright on 24 May 2015 is now also set to move into their 3.5million Essex mansion which they have been renovating for two years.

However, despite all the fame and fortune - the TV favourite said she does struggle with some of the negative comments which she gets on social media.

She says: 'Luckily I don't get it much. The only time it gets to me is when it's about work because you could have a thousand lovely comments, and then you could have one negative comment, and that one negative stays with you.

Loved-up: Michelle married TOWIE star Mark Wright on 24 May 2015

'With time you build a thick skin. I don't know if that's being in the public eye or just an age thing where I just don't care about false stories as much.

'It can be frustrating, but I know that it will pass and that it won't change the opinions of those people that matter to me. I just bury it and get on with my day. There's other more important things to worry about.'

Michelle has been Down Under filming since mid-May while having regular Zoom chats with Mark.

Down under: Michelle recently jetted off to Australia while teasing an exciting project which has now been revealed as new six-part series Ten Pound Poms

Having celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary in May the couple are still very much loved-up with her reality star husband having his own unique nickname for her,

'My husband's nickname for me is Treacle Pants.

'I'm sorry to say I don't have a nickname for him. I wish I could say I do, but I genuinely don't.'

Exciting: Michelle gave a glimpse into her work life as she soaked up the sun on the beach while reading over her script

Michelle recently jetted off to Australia while teasing an exciting project which has now been revealed as new six-part series Ten Pound Poms.

The show will tell the story of a group of British migrants who swap post-war Britain for Australia in the mid-1950s.

A friend of Michelle's told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre TV column: 'Michelle has always had one big dream, which is appearing in a period drama and 'Ten Pound Poms' will let her dip her toe in those past times.

The project will see Michelle once again team up with writer Danny Brocklehurst, who worked with the star on 'Ordinary Lies' - her first TV drama after she departed Coronation Street in 2014 - and Sky comedy Brassic, in which she plays Erin Croft.

Danny has told how the show asks questions about 'success and failure, identity, parenthood and belonging'.

He explained: 'It is a big, bold character piece about what it means to start again, to be an outsider in a new land. It asks questions about success and failure, identity, parenthood and belonging.

'The assisted migration programme is a little-known part of British and Australian history but offers endless stories about the people who travelled to the other side of the world in search of a better life.'

From 1945 to 1972 more than a million UK migrants relocated to Australia to help populate the country, through a scheme devised by the Australian and British governments, and they became known as the Ten Pound Poms.

Michelle recently reunited with her husband Mark Wright after spending eight weeks apart while the actress is filming.
Tommy Lee has joined OnlyFans after his naked pictures were deleted from Instagram.

The legendary rocker, 59, shared a snap of his famously tattooed body and revealed his manhood while sitting down on what appeared to be the edge of a bath.

Musician Tommy was seen wearing nothing but a chain necklace and nipple rings as he exposed his genitalia to his 1.4million fans on the social media platform - but they were swiftly deleted after they garnered a lot of attention.

New career move: Tommy Lee, 59, has joined OnlyFans after his naked pictures were deleted from Instagram

The father-of-two, who was previously married to Pamela Anderson and infamously starred in a sex tape with her, is now planning to move explicit content over to subscription platform OnlyFans, which is open to people sharing sexual media.

During his band Motley Crue's performance at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Friday, Tommy delivered the news to his fans.

He said: 'In case you guys are f**king living under a rock, Ive been in trouble a little bit lately.

All on show: The legendary rocker shared a snap of his famously tattooed body sitting down on what appeared to be the edge of a bath last month

Big reveal: During his band Motley Crue's performance at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Friday, Tommy delivered the news to his fans by mooning them after a speech

'I want to see what kind of trouble we can get into tonight. We are in f**king Las Vegas, right? And I think that we should dispel that f**king b*******t, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. F**k that. Lets f**king share it with the world.

I showed you my s**t. They took it down off the internet. No more d**ks, no more t*****s. What Ive done is I have now gone over to a place where you can be free as f**k. And you can show anybody whatever the f**k you want, and they dont f**king take it down.

He then turned around and bent over to reveal his bare behind to the audience, with the words 'Only Fans' scrawled across his bottom.

Cheeky: Tommy clearly found his post hilarious. The star was quick to follow it up with an image of an elephant staring at a naked male model, while swaying its trunk

Tommy originally posted his nudes on Instagram in August this year, with the star amusing himself with his mischievous activities at the time.

The musician captioned the NSFW image: 'Ooooopppsss.'

As his followers began to comment on the snaps, Tommy clearly found his post hilarious, with the star quickly following it up with an image of an elephant staring at a naked male model, while swaying its trunk.

It was captioned: 'How do you breathe through that little thing??' - no doubt a reference to the size of Tommy's manhood.

Wild: In Tommyland, Lee's 2005 memoir, he describes having a full conversation with his private parts about falling for Baywatch bombshell Pamela Anderson (both pictured)

Tommy claimed he was on a 'motherf**king bender' at the time he posted the X-rated photo to Instagram.

He said he got 'f**king sideways as f**k' before taking the nude snap when he opened up to fans about the image during his band's San Antonio concert last month.

'A couple weeks ago, we had like a two week break off the tour and I went on a motherf**king bender, bro. A bender! I got f**king sideways as f**k and got naked and posted pictures of my d**k,' he told fans on stage.

He then encouraged male audience members to show off their own genitalia.

'Usually, I mean I'm a t*tty man, so I like to see t*tties. But tonight, tonight it's equal opportunity night! Tonight I want to see everyone's d**k! Come on boys, pull your s**t out!'

The rocker appeared to have one taker, who ultimately backed down from the challenge.

Steamy scenes: The rocker recently reached a new fanbase after his relationship with Pamela was revisited in dramatic miniseries Pam & Tommy (Pictured, actor Sebastian Stan)

'Pull your f**king junk out, let's go! You ready!?' he said, pointing at one person. 'My man in the pink shirt, he's got a pink shirt on, he's ready to pull his d**k out! Show the whole world that motherf**king hot dog! The wife says no!? Divorce!'

The rocker recently reached a new fanbase after his relationship with Pamela Anderson was revisited in dramatic miniseries Pam & Tommy.

While former Baywatch star Pamela was not pleased with the racy biopic, Tommy threw his support behind the series, which follows their tumultuous relationship and their stolen sex tape.

In Tommyland, Lee's 2005 memoir, he describes having a full conversation with his private parts about falling for Baywatch bombshell Pamela Anderson.

Looking back: Tommy found fame as the raucous drummer in Motley Crue, but he skyrocketed to A-lister status thanks to his headline-hitting marriage to 90s icon Pamela

The scene was recreated in Disney+'s Pam and Tommy, which saw Sebastian Stan transform into the star.

Several puppeteers were hired for the racy scene in Pam & Tommy with actor Jason Mantzoukas voicing Lee's animatronic genitals.

Stan previously revealed that he took drum lessons, watched hours of videos, chatted with Lee personally and read his controversial 2005 memoir.

Tommy found fame as the raucous drummer in Motley Crue, but he skyrocketed to A-lister status thanks to his headline-hitting marriage to 90s icon Pamela.

The couple split in 1998 but their romance was revisited in the series, also starring Lily James.
Advertisement

Kate Hudson and Janelle Monae led the glamour on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of the highly-anticipated Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, on Saturday.

The pair attended the event alongside a number of their co-stars, including English actor Daniel Craig.

Hudson, 43, was a sight to behold in a fiery red dress with a huge, ruffled adornment on her right shoulder.

Star-studded: Kate Hudson and Janelle Monae led the glamour on the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of the highly-anticipated Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, on Saturday

Her gown clung tightly to her slender figure, and matched perfectly to her lipstick.

She tucked her long dirty blonde locks behind her ears and let the rest of it fall down her back in glamorous, loose waves.

Monae, 36, looked magnificent as she arrived to the star-studded soiree in an off white avant-garde gown that showed off her trim waistline and toned legs.

Red hot! Hudson, 43, was a sight to behold in a fiery red dress with a huge, ruffled adornment on her right shoulder

Blonde bombshell: She tucked her long dirty blonde locks behind her ears and let the rest of it fall down her back in glamorous, loose waves

Lady in red: The Hollywood actress added a pair of chunky platformed heels to elevate her height in the gorgeous look

Coordinated: Kate held onto a glimmering red clutch bag, as her nails matched the ensemble in a darker shade

Welcome: The star appeared in high spirits for the bash, giving a wave to onlookers as she headed in

High spirited: Kate beamed as she sipped on a cocktail alongside Rian Johnson and Netflix Co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos

Wow! Monae, 36, looked magnificent as she arrived to the star-studded soiree in an off white avant-garde gown that showed off her trim waistline and toned legs

A long train trailed behind her as she made her way down the street to the event.

Her short honey blonde hair was worn in gravity defying curls to create the illusion of an updo.

Daniel Craig looked sharp as he stepped onto the red carpet in a lavender suit jacket and tapered trousers.

Layered beneath the James Bond star's blazer was a crisp white dress shirt and a silky blue tie.

Defying gravity: Her short honey blonde hair was worn in gravity defying curls to create the illusion of an updo

Beauties: Kate and Janelle posed for a gorgeous snap with Kathryn Hahn as they took to the red carpet

So many stars: Hudson and Monae attended the event alongside a number of their co-stars, including English actor Daniel Craig

Sharp: Daniel Craig looked sharp as he stepped onto the red carpet in a lavender suit jacket and tapered trousers

The star: Daniel Craig will reprise his role from the first film in Knives Out 2

Casual chic: Edward Norton kept it casual in a red t-shirt with a white maple leaf in the center of it underneath a dark gray blazer

Edward Norton kept it casual in a red t-shirt with a white maple leaf in the center of it underneath a dark gray blazer.

He was joined by his wife Shauna Robertson, who wore a seafoam green dress to the suave affair.

Kathryn Hahn stunned in a black leather dress and bright red lipstick.

Director Rian Johnson wore a classic black suit with a charcoal gray tie to the event.

Happy couple: He was joined by his wife Shauna Robertson, who wore a seafoam green dress to the suave affair

Classic looks: Kathryn Hahn and Rian Johnson donned classy ensembles for the evening

He's back for more mystery: The first trailer for the Netflix upcoming sequel, Knives Out 2, also known as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, was shared on Thursday morning

The first trailer for Knives Out 2 was released earlier this week. Former James Bond actor Daniel Craig, 54, is once again the lead as he has reprised his role of Detective Benoit Blanc from the smash hit original film Knives Out from 2019.

The British star has a superb supporting cast who all make their debut in the fast paced clip: Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline and Janelle Monae can all be seen.

The anticipated mystery is set to premiere on Netflix 'soon,' the trailer shared. The movie will also be shown at select theaters, but the date has yet to be announced.

The premise of the new film is: 'When a tech billionaire Miles Bron, played by Edward Norton, invites some of his nearest and dearest for a getaway on his private Greek island, it soon becomes clear that all is not perfect in paradise.'

Daniel's character, Detective Blanc, will then have a new mystery on his hands to solve.

New investigation: The premise of the new film is: 'When a tech billionaire Miles Bron, played by Edward Norton, invites some of his nearest and dearest for a getaway on his private Greek island, it soon becomes clear that all is not perfect in paradise'

(L-R) Netflix Co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos, Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Edward Norton, Jessica Henwick, Janelle MonAe, Daniel Craig, Rian Johnson, Netflix VP Global Scott Stuber, Ram Bergman
Jake Gyllenhaal looked comfortable as he took the stage at the D23 expo Friday in Anaheim, California.

The 41-year-old donned a short sleeve plum toned shirt, dark pants and white sneakers as he appeared beside his Strange World voice co-stars Lucy Liu, Jaboukie Young-White and Dennis Quaid. The upcoming release will be Jake's first foray into animation.

Dennis, 68, plays the family patriarch. He was decked stylishly in a black jacket, white button down and black jeans. He added a pop of color with argyle socks.

Comfortable: Jake Gyllenhaal, 41, looked comfortable as he took the stage at the D23 expo Friday in Anaheim, California donning a short sleeve plum toned shirt, dark pants and white sneakers

Lucy, 53, fought the California heatwave if a pink and white sleeveless dress. The __ star's dark hair was styled in natural looking waves and she wore gold earrings and bangles to accessorize her ageless ensemble.

Jaboukie, 28, looked hip in a plum, pink and yellow v-neck sweater, with a tan t-shirt and brown pants.

They all play members of the Clade family, who are legendary explorers. However, their differences threaten to topple their latest and most crucial mission.

Animated: The versatile actor appeared along with co-stars Dennis Quaid, Lucy Liu and Jaboukie Young-White to promote their animated film Strange World at the Disney fan event

Family film: The cast star as members of the Clade family, explorers whose latest mission is threatened due to their differences

The Oscar nominee posted several snaps Saturday from the event billed as the ultimate Disney fan event on social media, writing, 'So fun to be at D23 yesterday to celebrate 100 years of Disney and show a sneak peak of Strange World! '

'Thank you to all the folks at Disney animation but especially Don Hall, Qui Nguyen and Roy Conli who have made a spectacular movie.'

He also thanked his fellow cast members in the heartfelt message.

First animated film: Strange World is the first time the Oscar nominee has starred in an animated film. He told The Hollywood Reporter he was 'really moved by the story'

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, the versatile star said he was 'really moved by the story. When they pitched it to me for the first time, I was like, "this is exactly the kind of movie that I love and I love watching and I would love to be in." It was that easy.

'I think the issues that it's dealing with in the microcosm of a family being the way which you heal the macro of the world, is a beautiful new idea.'

The multitalented star was also impressed by the latest technology, explaining, 'I think they way they're updating animation now... what they're doing in this film, it's just extraordinary.'
Grey's Anatomy originals, Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey, had a reunion of sorts when they shared the same red carpet during the D23 Expo in Anaheim on Saturday.

Realizing the massive impact their characters - Dr. Meredith Grey and Dr. Derek 'McDreamy' Shepherd - had during their 11 season run together, the two stars seized the moment and played up their onscreen identities and chemistry.

With striking new blonde locks, Dempsey grabbed a microphone from Yahoo's Kevin Plowly and then proceeded to play the role of journalist by asking Pompeo a series of questions, according to People.

Reunited! Ellen Pompeo and former Grey's Anatomy co-star Patrick Dempsey had a reunion of sorts when they crossed paths on the red carpet at the D23 Expo in Anaheim on Saturday

'There's someone missing from the show, I can't think of who it is,' Pompeo, 52, joked to Dempsey during the impromptu Q-and-A, as seen in a viral clip. 'Someone is missing from the show that was a big part of the show, and it's not the same.'

Going along with the light banter, Dempsey shot back, 'Justin Chambers', in a reference to the actor who only just left Grey's Anatomy in 2020 after playing Dr. Alex Karev for 16 seasons.

Moments later, Pompeo confessed to Extra TV that she would like to work with Dempsey again in the future, and that they may have already texted about it at one point.

'We've done some of our greatest work together. Both of us are very proud of the work we did, Pompeo shared, adding, 'We had a great time doing it, and we created something really iconic.'

Chemistry: While on the red carpet for the D23 Expo, Dempsey played the role of journalist and did a Q-and-A with Pompeo; the two stars are pictured during a romantic moment in Season three of Grey's Anatomy

Dempsey, 56, would go on to confirm that he does in fact have 'a couple of ideas' that they could work on together, which includes being back onscreen together.

'It's always been a really special relationship Ellen and I have had together in front of the screen and behind it as well,' the actor said of his longtime co-star. 'I remember the first time I met her, she had a Boston accent, and I'm from Maine originally, so it was very endearing and had that connection right away.'

After admitting he too feels much of the show's success was due to their onscreen chemistry, Dempsey acknowledged that 'people want to believe in love,' so much so that many fans wished they were real-life couple.

'People around the world, too, were wishing we were actually together. But she's got Christopher [Ivery] and I have Jillian [Fink], and they're incredible people, so fortunately they have that with us,' he shared of their personal lives.

Teaser: Pompeo told Extra TV that she would like to work with Dempsey again in the future, and that they may have already texted about it; they are seen in season five of Grey's Anatomy

Mutual admiration: 'It's always been a really special relationship Ellen and I have had together in front of the screen and behind it as well,' Dempsey said; they are pictured in season 10 of Grey's Anatomy

While both stars were on hand to be honored as Legends at the Ultimate Disney Fan Event and for Grey's Anatomy, Dempsey was also there to promote the Enchanted sequel, Disenchanted, with some of his co-stars.

All this mutual love and respect between the former colleagues comes about 10 months after former Grey's Anatomy co-star Isaiah Washington claimed Pompeo was paid $5 million in hush money to keep quiet about Dempsey's questionable behavior on the set.

During an interview on KBLA Talk 1580 with Tavis Smiley, Washington said Pompeo took the payout and in return she would not talk publicly about 'how toxic and nasty Patrick Dempsey really was'.

Some of those years he was on the set of the medical drama happened when dozens of high-profile Hollywood names were accused of workplace misconduct amid the #MeToo movement.

Washington went on to maintain that he was 'used as a scapegoat' when he was let go from the series in 2007 after being accused of using a homophobic slur at castmate T.R. Knight.

So far, Dempsey and Pompeo have stayed silent on the claims.

Legends honoree: Bob Chapek, Chief Executive Officer of Disney, joined Pompeo when she was honored at the 2022 Disney Legends Awards during Disney's D23 Expo

Season 19 of Grey's Anatomy is scheduled to premiere on ABC on October 6. Pompeo is scaling back her onscreen time and will only be appearing in eight of the episodes.

Some of the new faces in the cast include the likes of Adelaide Kane, Alexis Floyd, Niko Terho, Midori Francis and Harry Shum Jr.

The medical drama series premiered back in March 2005 on ABC as a mid-season replacement.

It has since gone on to become the longest-running scripted primetime show currently airing on the network, as well as the longest scripted primetime series carried by ABC.
Nathalie Kelley has called for Burning Man festival to ban guests from wasting fuel, after driving to the event to pose at a protest.

Posting to Instagram on Sunday, the Australian actor-turned-activist, 36, shared videos and photos of herself attending a protest at the festival, which is held in the Nevada desert's Black Rock City.

One clip showed the Fast and the Furious star burning a large effigy that spelled the words: 'We are the climate problem', as another woman played a traditional song using a wooden percussion instrument.

Aussie actress Nathalie Kelley, 36, has called for Burning Man festival to ban guests from wasting fuel, after driving to the event to pose at a protest

'What does it look like to celebrate an event like Burning Man in an era of climate collapse?' Nathalie began her caption.

Nathalie, who has spent the last week partying at the influencer-studded festival, went on to thanks her fellow protestors for taking a stand and forcing festival-goers to 'challenge their privilege'.

The star, who recently ruffled feathers for claiming that wearing feather accessories to festivals is 'harmful', said she 'yearned for the day' when Burning Man becomes environmentally friendly.

Posting to Instagram on Sunday, the Australian actor-turned-activist, 36, (left, with a fellow protestor) shared videos and photos of herself attending a protest at the festival, which is held in the Nevada desert's Black Rock City

One clip showed the Fast and the Furious star burning a large effigy that spelled the words: 'We are the climate problem', as another woman played a traditional song using a wooden percussion instrument

'As of now we just give them our trash and disrespect,' wrote Nathalie.

Bizarrely, Nathalie then admitted she spent 'so much fuel' driving around the festival to attend the protest - rather than taking public transport, riding a bike, or simply coping with the heat and walking.

'It hurt my heart to spend so much fuel to get there and stay cool,' she wrote.

Nathalie, who has spent the last week partying at the influencer-studded festival, went on to thanks her fellow protestors for taking a stand and forcing festival-goers to 'challenge their privilege'

Nathalie went on to voice her fears about climate change disaster, and how Burning Man is seemingly contributing to the decline of the global environment.

'The apocalyptic heatwaves and sandstorms we experienced this year are just a taste of what is to come if we dont radically change course.'

'I wonder if it will be enough to wake people up? 'BMs pledge to be climate neutral by 2030 is too little too late.' she warned.

Bizarrely, Nathalie then admitted she spent 'so much fuel' driving around the festival to attend the protest - rather than taking public transport, riding a bike, or simply coping with the heat and walking

changed how they celebrate. 'We must demand that Burning Man and its attendees stop burning propane and natural gas for fun, ban private jets, limit fossil fuel generator usage and eventually ban RVs,' she declared

Rather than calling to boycott the festival, Nathalie claimed that it's time guests changed how they celebrate.

'We must demand that Burning Man and its attendees stop burning propane and natural gas for fun, ban private jets, limit fossil fuel generator usage and eventually ban RVs,' she declared.

She went on: 'Lets go back to the roots of why we are burning the man - to evolve the conscious mind of humanity and break free from the limitations that are holding us down.'

Burning Man, which sees tens of thousands of descend upon the Nevada desert each year, is known to create significant atmospheric carbon emissions during its iconic burning ceremonies.

However these carbon emissions are far outweighed by emissions generated by festival-goers' transportation and personal power consumption.
Security on the set of Jodie Comer's latest movie has been increased following a series of incidents which left the star frightened.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Liverpool-born actress has been given a bodyguard who once worked for Benedict Cumberbatch  her co-star and executive producer of the film.

Sources working on the apocalyptic thriller, The End We Start From, say 'a situation' occurred in recent weeks involving someone connected with the movie.

This prompted bosses to strengthen Miss Comer's safety and Cumberbatch appears to have recommended a bodyguard previously assigned to him.

A source said: 'The film's producers want to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible and, with Jodie's unpleasant experiences, they didn't want to take any risks, no matter how small.

'A bodyguard who has previously looked after Benedict was drafted in and other measures have been implemented. Jodie's safety is paramount. She has had some nasty experiences lately.'

Security on the set of Jodie Comer's latest movie has been increased and the actress assigned a personal bodyguard following a series of incidents which left the star frightened

Sources working on the apocalyptic thriller, The End We Start From, say 'a situation' occurred in recent weeks involving someone connected with the movie

In April, 29-year-old Miss Comer, who played psychotic assassin Villanelle in the award-winning BBC thriller Killing Eve, was the victim of a stalking incident. A fan is understood to have arrived at the Harold Pinter Theatre for her one-woman show, Prima Facie, trying to present a bouquet of flowers.

Just a month later, the smartly dressed admirer was spotted again 'behaving oddly' and was pointed out to security staff.

In August 2021, Miss Comer was left terrified after a crazed fan based in France sent threats to kill her, including one chilling message which read: 'I am coming to England to create carnage.'

The star's family also reportedly received messages from the 44-year-old man, who was arrested by police after they raided a house in Roubaix, northern France.

In 2016, a woman, thought to be an obsessed fan of Cumberbatch's TV series Sherlock, made several trips to the star's North London home where he lives with wife Sophie.
Dr Alex George paid a heartfelt tribute to his late brother on World Suicide Prevention Day on Friday.

The former Love Island star, 31, lost his younger brother back in 2020, after Llyr took his own life at just 19 years old.

Taking to Instagram on Friday, the television personality paid tribute by sharing a video of his sibling playing with the family dog.

RIP: Dr Alex George paid a heartfelt tribute to his late brother on World Suicide Prevention Day on Friday

Heartfelt: The former Love Island star, 31, lost his younger brother back in 2020, after Llyr took his own life at just 19 years old

He captioned the clip: 'Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Im sat here watching this video, wondering how this ever could have come to pass. Why are you gone? Will I ever see you again? Did I miss an opportunity to save you?

'If you are amongst the darkness, please reach out for help. Always remember This too shall pass. Samaritans are 24/7 on 116 123.

'Please dont become a memory to your loved ones.'

Referring to his book A Better Day: Your Positive Mental Health Handbook, Dr Alex added: ''The fact "A Better Day" is being published next week is no accident. Prevention is key, arm young people with the tools, knowledge and most importantly the words they need. I dont want anyone to get the call I did. Given them a copy of my book, it could be the difference #worldsuicidepreventionday.'

Looking back: Taking to Instagram on Friday, the television personality shared a video of his sibling playing with the family dog

On his Instagram Stories, the Department for Education's UK Youth Mental Health Ambassador shared a picture of the house he was staying in when he learned the heartbreaking news of his brother's death.

The Welsh physician snapped a picture of the black and white stoop and black front door as he walked past the building in London, writing: 'This is the house I was in the night my brother died.

'Not sure why, I just wanted to walk past today. My life changed forever that night.'

Difficult times: On his Instagram Stories, Dr Alex shared a picture of the house he was staying in when he learned the heartbreaking news of his brother's death

It comes after Dr Alex paid tribute to his late brother on the second anniversary of his death in July this year.

Alex posted the picture from the last time he saw his brother, as they smiled with their arms around one another - with the reality star dressed in his doctor scrubs.

Explaining his wish to 'wake up from this nightmare', the doctor wrote in the caption: 'I can't believe two years have passed. This is the last time I saw you, I wish this was all a nightmare and I'd wake up. Sometimes the reality, is worse than your nightmares.

Tragic: The former Love Island contestant lost his younger brother back in 2020, after Llyr took his own life at just 19

'I love you Llyr': Explaining his wish to 'wake up from this nightmare' in July this year, the doctor wrote in the caption: 'I can't believe two years have passed'

'The worst days are waking up and forgetting for a moment, because then I have to remember all over again. I hate those days. One day we will meet again, I hope. I love you Llyr, my boy.'

Taking to Instagram Stories, Alex thanked his 2M followers for all of their support, as he admitted that the days 'don't get any easier'.

Gushing his love and appreciation for his fans, the reality star continued that he would try to remember all of the good times with his brother.

'These days don't get any easier, maybe they will, maybe they won't. I'm going to try and think about Llyr and the memories we had,' he wrote.

Family: Llyr pictured with Alex and their parents

In an ode to his brother, Alex continued that he would be spending the day by the sea, referencing the Welsh mythology meaning of the name Llyr - which represents the 'god of the sea'.

He continued: 'I am so lucky to be surrounded by loved ones today and we are going to be spending the day at the sea. I find the sea always works wonders for me. I love and appreciate you all.'

Earlier this year, Alex paid tribute to Llyr with a tattoo on his wrist - reading his name alongside a line drawing of a wave.

The ink was written in Llyr's handwriting, which Alex took from one of his school books for extra meaning.

For help, call the Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org for a response within 24 hours, or visit www.samaritans.org.

Tribute: Earlier this year, Alex paid tribute to Llyr with a tattoo on his wrist - reading his name alongside a line drawing of a wave
Strictly Come Dancings Ellie Simmonds is being guided by a US reality TV star who also has dwarfism on how to triumph over her able-bodied rivals for the Glitterball Trophy.

The 4ft Paralympian swimmer has been talking to Terra Jole, who is 2in taller, to learn how she reached the semi-final of Dancing With The Stars in 2016.

Miss Simmonds, who won five gold medals in three Paralympics, has sought advice on how to dazzle while only being able to take little steps, and tips on wearing heels for the first time.

Strictly Come Dancings Ellie Simmonds (pictured) is being guided by a US reality TV star Terra Jole, who also has dwarfism on how to triumph over her able-bodied rivals for the Glitterball Trophy

The friendship blossomed when Ms Jole sent the Briton a supportive message on Instagram. Now she is giving 27-year-old Miss Simmonds pointers on the moves shell need to succeed on the dancefloor.

A source close to the US reality star told The Mail on Sunday: Ellie is so happy to have someone to guide her. She is the first little person to ever appear on Strictly and it is daunting.

While she adores her fellow contestants, she is different and she will come up against different challenges. Terra knows what it is like to have shorter legs, shorter arms and also to be the victim of some not very nice social media messages.

Terra also knows what it is like to dance with a normal-sized professional dancer as a dwarf. She has become a fundamental part of Ellies Strictly armoury.

Mother-of-three Ms Jole, 42, got to the semi-finals with 5ft 7in dancer Sasha Farber.

Strictly will unveil Miss Simmonds when the show returns for its 20th season next Saturday. Ms Jole has already tipped her to triumph, saying: She can win.
The government is under fire after releasing a measly $23 million loan facility to health workers to buy or construct houses, yet the figure is only enough to construct one house.

Vice-President Constantino Chiwengas Health and Child Care ministry is struggling to stem the mass exodus of health professionals, who are protesting poor pay and working conditions.

Health workers have been pushing for better pay and in United States dollars, saying the local currency component has pushed them into deep poverty.

Government says it has no capacity to meet their demands, and promised other non-monetary incentives such as housing loans, which have been dismissed as laughable by unions.

In a memo addressed to Health and Child Care ministry heads of divisions, chief medical officers and provincial medical directors dated August 30, Jasper Chimedza who is the ministry's secretary said $23 million has been received from Treasury for the housing loan scheme.

Please be advised that the ministry of Health and Child Care was allocated $23 000 000 for the junior civil service loan facility and is calling for applications from eligible junior members (below deputy director level) to access the loan scheme, Chimedza wrote.

The loan is being coordinated at head office level and your respective officers are expected to forward one application from a member in dire need of financial assistance to be utilised for the construction of residential properties and upgrading of residential properties.

Using the interbank rate, $23 million translates to an estimated US$46 000 and approximately US$35 000 at the parallel market.

A housing stand costs anything about US$5 000 to US$15 000 depending on the size and location.

Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina) president Enock Dongo said government was never serious about addressing the plight of health workers.

There is no sincerity at all from government as far as this issue is concerned, Dongo said.

How can they allocate such a small amount which can only afford to build or buy one house in Glenview?

We are saying to government, lets stop fooling each other.

Can we realistically improve the working conditions of health workers.

If they want to give that money to one person, let it be clear to everyone and not waste peoples time.

As the wage dispute with government rages on, nurses have been quitting their jobs en-masse.

According to Dongo, an estimated 3 000 nurses have quit their jobs and left for the United Kingdom since 2021.

A few months ago, the UK said its health system needs to fill about 110 192 posts left vacant after the death of frontline health workers because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Government has announced plans to ban doctors and nurses from embarking on strike for more than three days under new proposed amendments to the Health Services Act.

Under the Health Services Amendment Bill, worker representatives who face charges of inciting nurses and doctors to embark on a strike action deemed illegal could be jailed for three years in what authorities argue is necessary to ostensibly instil discipline in the health sector. Standard
Newly-single Abbie Chatfield has risked a ban on Instagram by going braless in a sheer top, exposing her nipples.

The Bachelor star shared one of her raunchiest looks yet on the platform on Sunday, posing in a bathroom in the slinky outfit.

Abbie, 27, wore just the dress and a pair of black underwear during the impromptu shoot while out on the town.

The Bachelor's Abbie Chatfield (pictured) risked an Instagram ban as she went braless in a sheer dress in racy bathroom selfies on Sunday

The star wore her curly brunette hair out and opted for a glossy make-up look.

'Do we think this photo will last longer on the gram than tommy lee's c**k did?' Abbie, said.

The star referenced the naked photo of rocker Tommy Lee posted in August.

'Do we think this photo will last longer on the gram than tommy lee's c**k did?' Abbie, wrote

It comes after she split from her boyfriend Konrad Bien-Stephen, just six months after announcing they were in an open relationship.

Two separate sources confirmed the break-up to Daily Mail Australia, revealing Konrad had told co-stars on the set of Ten's series The Challenge he was single.

The former Bachelorette star then reportedly hooked-up with Bachelor alum Megan Marx during filming of the show in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It comes after she split from her boyfriend Konrad Bien-Stephen (left), just six months after announcing they were in an open relationship

'Oh, my gosh! The drama is insane. Konrad is sleeping with Megan [Marx],' one insider revealed.

'Konrad said he was single and his relationship with Abbie was over because she broke up with him.'

The source claimed Konrad and Megan couldn't keep their hands off each other once the cameras were rolling.

Two separate sources confirmed the break-up to Daily Mail Australia, revealing Konrad had told co-stars on the set of Ten's series The Challenge he was single

'On the first night of filming he hooked up with Megan. I didn't know what was happening,' they said.

'It was awkward because he was all over her the second we started filming. It was like he was trying to make Brooke [Blurton] jealous because she was there too.'

Konrad was a contestant on Brooke's season of The Bachelorette, which aired last year. He began dating Abbie shortly after being sent home by Brooke.
Advertisement

Sydney Sweeney showed off her classic and elegant side as she attended the special Glamour x Tory Burch Luncheon earlier on Saturday in West Hollywood.

The Euphoria star, 24, donned a long, floral dress as she posed for photos once she arrived at the event which took place at the social club, Holloway House.

Other celebrities were invited to celebrate the upcoming Emmys, including Issa Rae, 37, who donned chic pants while Rachel Brosnahan, 32, showcased a vibrant skirt.

Exciting day: Sydney Sweeney, 24, Issa Rae, 37, and Rachel Brosnahan, 32, looked stunning as they attended the Glamour x Tory Burch Emmys luncheon on Saturday in West Hollywood

Sydney slipped into a long, flowy dress with thin straps that comprised of a black and cream-colored floral pattern.

The gown fell down towards her ankles, showcasing a pair of fashionable, black boots to complete the look.

The talented actress was pictured holding a black Tory Burch shoulder bag in her hand as she posed for a few snaps when she arrived at the star-studded luncheon in Hollywood.

To accessorize her look, the beauty added a pair of gold-colored, dangly floral earrings to bring her outfit together.

Her blonde hair was parted to the side, allowing her long locks to fall down straight past her shoulders, with the ends slightly curled.

Celebration: The Euphoria star was pictured for a group photo with other talented celebrities such as Nasim Pedrad, Samantha Barry, and Arden Cho

Sydney is currently nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Support Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Cassie on Euphoria. She is also nominated for her role in White Lotus.

Issa was one of the other stars at the glamorous event. She donned a pair of sleek, brown pants which were secured with a belt of the same color at the waist. The Lovebirds actress added a dark brown-colored crop top with the pants.

To complete her look, Issa threw on a colorful, long-sleeved jacket and slung a yellow, small Eleanor bag from Tory Burch that is priced around $648, according to the brand's website.

For an additional touch of color to her look, she slipped into a pair of bluish-colored, open-toed heels.

Big smiles: The Insecure star was pictured with Natasha Rothwell, Janelle James, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Quinta Brunson at the luncheon

Rachel opted for an edgy look, and is known for her role as Miriam Maisel in the hit Amazon series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

She opted for a vibrant, reddish-colored skirt with a slit on the left side, along with a black cropped top with a pink floral design on the front.

Her brunette hair was styled up into two buns at the top of her head. The star held a black, rectangular-shaped purse in her right hand as she posed for photos.

Rachel is nominated for an Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, along with Issa for her role in Insecure.

Gorgeous: Connie Britton also was in attendance at the event and posed for a few photos at the Holloway House

Glamorous: Melanie Lynskey donned a summer-themed Tory Burch dress to celebrate the Emmys on Saturday

Connie Britton arrived at the event wearing a red, cotton Eleanor dress from Tory Burch, which is priced at $598.

The American Horror Story alum opted to leave a few of the buttons open at the top of the dress. A bucket bag from the luxury brand was held in her right hand as she paused for some snaps.

Melanie Lynskey wore a Cotton Poplin Claire McCardell dress in blue and cream, which is priced at $898.

The Candy actress slipped into a pair of black, cutout heels to add an stylish edge to the look.

Connie has an Emmy nomination for The White Lotus, while Melanie is nominated for Yellowjackets.

Elegant: Both Sheryl Lee Ralph and Nasim Pedrad turned heads in elegant dresses at the luncheon

Sheryl Lee Ralph, who has a Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Abbott Elementary, chose to wear a cotton dress with puffed sleeves.

The summer dress was tied at the waist with a black, chord fabric to showcase her fit physique.

The actress carried a Tory Burch Spaghetti Strap Raffia Tote bag which can be purchased at $898.

Saturday Night Live comedian and star, Nasim Pedrad, donned a short-sleeved, cream-colored dress that fell down towards her ankles.

She held a gold clutch bag in her hand and slipped into a pair of gold, strappy heels.

The 74th Emmy Awards are set to air on NBC on September 12, and the star-studded awards show will be hosted by comedian, Kenan Thompson.
Cody Simpson has shared footage of himself performing in front of the late Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey.

The pop star, 25, took to Instagram to share footage of himself singing the Louis Armstrong cover 'What A Wonderful World.'

The suited-up crooner performed for Her Majesty in March 2017, as part of the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Cody Simpson, 25, (pictured) shared footage singing for Queen Elizabeth II in a tribute to the beloved sovereign on Instagram on Sunday

The Commonwealth Games were held on the Gold Coast in 2018.

'Upon the passing of Queen Elizabeth, I'm reflecting on singing at Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace four years ago in the presence of Her Majesty,' he wrote.

Cody went on to write 'Rest In Peace' to the sovereign.

'Upon the passing of Queen Elizabeth, I'm reflecting on singing at Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace four years ago in the presence of Her Majesty,' he wrote

Cody met the Queen as part of the festivities in 2017. He also held the baton as part of the Queen's Baton Relay.

Australia has joined the world in mourning Queen Elizabeth II, as her death prompts the first change in head of state in more than seven decades.

A statement from Buckingham Palace early on Friday (AEST) confirmed the 96-year-old's death.

Cody met the Queen as part of the festivities in 2017. He also held the baton as part of the Queen's Baton Relay

'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,' Buckingham Palace said.

'The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.'

Flags were flown at half mast across Australia on Friday.

Cody met with Queen Elizabeth II in March, 2017. He performed as part of the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the Queen, who is succeeded by her son King Charles III.

'An historic reign and a long life devoted to duty, family, faith and service has come to an end,' Mr Albanese said in a statement.

'The government and the people of Australia offer our deepest condolences to the royal family, who are grieving for a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother - the person whom for so long was their greatest inner strength.'

Australia has joined much of the world in mourning Queen Elizabeth II, as her death prompts the first change in head of state in more than seven decades. She is pictured receiving flowers from schoolchildren waving flags after a Commonwealth Day Service in Sydney in March 2006

Mr Albanese said that 'from her famous first trip to Australia, the only reigning sovereign to ever visit, it was clear Her Majesty held a special place in her heart for Australia'.

'Fifteen more tours before cheering crowds in every part of our country confirmed the special place she held in ours.'

He praised the Queen's relationship with Australia and the rest of the world.

'As monarch for more than half the life of our Federation, the relationship between Australia and Britain matured and evolved throughout Her Majesty's reign,' he said.
Advertisement

Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans is among the films making its world premiere on day three of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.

Directed by Spielberg from a script he co-wrote with Tony Kushner, the acclaimed filmmaker was on hand with wife Kate Capshaw and his cast for the red carpet buildup before the debut showing at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

Michelle Williams, who is expecting her third child, looked chic in a flowing black and white dress as she posed wit her co-stars Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Gabriel LaBelle

Iconic: Steven Spielberg joined many of the stars, including leading lady Michelle Williams, for the world premiere of The Fabelmans at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday

Williams, 42, showed off her impeccable fashion sense decked out in a black and white, one-shoulder dress

The full-length design had a loose feel on her toned figure, and came complete with just one black sleeve on her right arm, while leaving other arm bare.

The leading lady styled her trademark blonde locks short with a parton the left.

Family affair: Michelle Williams plays Mitzi Fabelman, Sammy's mother and a skilled pianist

Spielberg, 75, stepped out in front of the sea of photographers in a grey three-piece suit that he matched with brown leather shoes.

After striking a few poses solo, he then had his wife, actress Kate Capshaw joined him for a few moments.

Soaking in the happy moment, Capshaw, 68, was all smiles in a black suit with a pink shirt that came compete with a bow along the neckline.

The couple will soon be celebrating their 31st wedding anniversary on October 12.

Sweet: The acclaimed filmmaker also shared the red carpet spotlight with his wife Kate Capshaw, who was decked out in a black suit with a pink shirt

All-star cast: Paul Dano, 38, choose a classic black suit with a white dress shirt, black tie, and matching dress shoes, while Gabrielle LaBelle, 19, showed off his fashion sense in a shiny charcoal-colored suit

Dano, 38, choose a classic black suit with a white dress shirt, black tie, and matching dress shoes.

Opting for an old school vibe, Rogen, 40, went with a double-breasted grey-patterned suit with black dress shoes.

The This Is The End director had his normally dark brown hair dyed blonde and cut in a short cropped style.

Rogen eventually was joined on the red carpet by his wife of nearly 11 years, Lauren Miller, who looked lovely in a shiny black plunging dress with matching open-toe heels.

LaBelle, 19, showed off his fashion sense in a shiny charcoal-colored suit with a white button-down shirt and black dress shoes.

On point; Paul Dano went with a classic black suit , while Seth Rogen went with an old school look in a grey-patterned double-breasted suit

Couples night: Rogen shared the red carpet spotlight with his wife Lauren Miller, 40

Leggy: Chloe East, 21, showed off her gams in this unique minidress

Many of the other cast members that made it for the premiere included Julia Butter, 13, who's best known for her riveting scenes in Quintin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019).

The child actress went with an all-black ensemble and black heels.

Other cast members to strike a pose or two on the red carpet included Chloe East, Keeley Karsten and Judd Hirsch.

The film is a semi-autobiography that stars LaBelle as Sammy Fabelman, a young aspiring filmmaker based on Spielberg himself.

Rising star: Julia Butters, 13, looked red carpet ready in a black ensemble

Chic: Keeley Karsten opted to go with a soft yellow, shoulder-less gown

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, from age seven to eighteen, young Sammy discovers a shattering family secret and then proceeds to explore how the power of films can help him see the truth.

Along with LaBelle, Williams plays Mitzi Fabelman, Sammy's mother and a skilled pianist; Dano portrays Sammy's father, Burt Fabelman, who works as a computer engineer; and Rogen plays Bennie Loewy, Burt's best friend and co-worker, who becomes a surrogate uncle to Sammy.

Joining the cast are Alina Brace, Jeannie Berlin, Robin Bartlett, Judd Hirsch, Oakes Fegley, Gabriel Bateman, Nicolas Cantu, Sam Rechner, Isabelle Kusman and Jonathan Hadary, among others.

The Fabelmans is scheduled to have a limited theatrical release by Universal Pictures in the U.S. on November 11 before expanding wide on November 23.
It's only fitting that Oprah Winfrey was on hand for the world premiere of the new documentary about the late Hollywood screen legend Sidney Poitier.

Not only did the so-called Queen Of All Media consider him a mentor and friend, she also helped produce the new film with Derik Murray.

Directed by Reginald Hudlin who worked with writer Jesse James Miller, Sidney made its much-anticipated debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, which sadly comes eight months after Poitier's death at the age of 94.

Oprah Winfrey, 68, attended the world premiere of the new Sidney Poitier documentary, Sidney, which she co-produced with Derik Murray, at Roy Thomson Hall on Saturday, as part of day three of the Toronto International Film Festival

Winfrey, 68, was absolutely glowing when she arrived out front of Roy Thomson Hall, just feet from the red carpet.

Not only did she blind admirers with her spectacular silver sequin dress, but she was equally glowing with her proud and infectious smile.

Her striking metallic number came complete with buttons up and down the front, which were left undone at the top portion as well as the bottom.

That allowed for her rustic-patterned heels to shine through with the ensemble.

Blinding elegance: The so-called Queen Of All Media, who considered Poitier and friend and mentor, shined on the red carpet in a silver sequin dress and rustic-patterned heels

Shining stars: Winfrey would eventually share the spotlight of the red carpet with friend Tyler Perry, who has long considered Winfrey his mentor

On this proud evening, the legendary talk show host complimented the dress with sparkling earrings and a couple of matching rings.

The Mississippi native had her dark styled back off her face in the front, while it hung long on the sides and the back.

After striking a few poses on the red carpet solo, Winfrey was joined by friend and filmmaker Tyler Perry.

The writer, director and actor, 52, who has been friends with Winfrey and considers her a mentor, looked stylish in shiny black slacks that were paired with multi-colored jacket over a white shirt.

At certain points, the two stars wrapped their arms around each other for the photographers while laughing and chatting with each other.

Stylin': Perry, 52, looked stylish in shiny black slacks , a multi-colored jacket over a white shirt, and black dress shoes on the red carpet

Digs deep: Sidney, which had been in development and production for five years, takes a wide-ranging look at Poitier's life told in linear fashion and narrated by the actor himself through the use of eight hours of interviews done in 2012 with Winfrey, among other footage

Supportive: Winfrey's longtime friend, Gayle King, was on hand to support the documentary

Sidney tells the story of the life and career of heralded actor and director, who has the distinguished honor of being the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

The film, which had been in development and production for five years, takes a wide-ranging look at his life told in linear fashion and narrated by the actor himself through the use of eight hours of interview footage done in 2012 with Winfrey, as well as other archival interviews, according to Deadline.

Poitier's family lived in the Bahamas, then still a Crown colony, but he was born unexpectedly in Miami, Florida, while they were visiting, which automatically granted him U.S. citizenship.

He would go on to moved to Miami at age 15, and then on to New York City when he was 16, all in the hopes crafting a career as an actor.

Poitier eventually joined the American Negro Theatre, leading to his breakthrough film role as a high school student in the film in Blackboard Jungle (1955).

Historic: Poitier, who grew up in the Bahamas, would go on to become the first Black Man to win the Best Actor Oscar with his performance in Lilies of the Field (1963

His guiding light: Winfrey long considered Poitier a mentor and friend; they are pictured together n Los Angeles in February 2007

By 1958, Poitier was starring alongside Tony Curtis as chained-together escaped convicts in The Defiant Ones, which received nine Academy Award nominations, including both actors who received Best Actor nominations, that was a first for a Black Actor.

He would finally get his historic Best Actor Oscar win for Lilies of the Field (1963), by playing a handyman who helped a group of German-speaking nuns build a chapel.

Winfrey has been open about which Poitier film is her favorite: 1965's A Patch Of Blue. She watched it again when she paid tribute to her mentor after his passing by viewing his movies for 30 days.

'I went back and watched that one in particular because he always said it was one of his favorites because it was so groundbreaking at the time,' Winfrey said, adding, 'And when you think of it, it is extraordinary. Poitier is in the park with a blind white girl.'

And although Poitier himself didn't get to see the finished work following his passing in January, fans will now get to witness the measure of the man when Sidney drops on Apple TV+ on September 23.
She's known to turn heads with her bold sense of style.

And Christine Quinn did just that on Saturday evening as she headed to the Daily Front Row Awards in New York, during the city's Fashion Week.

The reality star, 33, opted for a risque look for the fashion event - bared her full torso in a black bralet and miniscule denim skirt.

Risque: Christine Quinn, 33, bared her toned torso in a bra and micro skirt ensemble at the Daily Front Row Awards during New York Fashion Week on Saturday evening

She added a pair of jean-style thigh high boots to the look, which were complete with knee pads and a pointed toe heel.

Layering, a longline white shirt was added over her bralet, alongside a black leather coat from Alexander Wang as she showed off her toned physique.

Christine had her bleach blonde locks styled sleekly into a low ponytail, with two sections left down to frame her face.

Bombshell: Christine had her bleach blonde locks styled sleekly into a low ponytail, with two sections left down to frame her face

Double denim: She added a pair of jean-style thigh high boots to the look, which were complete with knee pads and a pointed toe heel

Accessorising: And amping up the glamour, Christine sported chunky silver hoop earrings

The Selling Sunset star opted for a full palette of makeup - with a chunky winged cat liner and a bright lip.

She added a metal handbag in the shape of a bottom, proudly holding it to the camera for some snaps at the event, which was held at the Rockefeller Center's Rainbow Room.

And amping up the glamour, Christine sported chunky silver hoop earrings and a black, gold-buckled belt.

Staement: The Selling Sunset star opted for a full palette of makeup - with a chunky winged cat liner and a bright lip

The TV star also took to Instagram to share snaps with her 3.2M followers while she headed to the star-studded event.

The Daily Front Row awards are held annualy during fashion week, the the style publication welcoming a slew of famous faces for the seventh annual bash on Saturday.

Giving out a host of gongs, Doja Cat nabbed the Breakthrough Fashion Icon award - while Olivia Culpo was awarded Fashion Entrepreneur of The Year.

Selfie stop: Christine also took to Instagram to share snaps with her 3.2M followers while she headed to the star-studded event
Brian Cox is visiting Australia and on Sunday he was taking in the sights alongside his wife Nicole Ansari.

The Succession star played tourist as he strolled around Sydney Harbour, posing for photos alongside Nicole.

The 76-year-old was dressed in a casually chic look including a blue sweater with a dress shirt underneath.

Brian Cox is visiting Australia and on Sunday he was taking in the sights alongside his wife Nicole Ansari (both pictured)

He added a pair of pale slacks and kept sun safe in a straw hat decorated with a black ribbon band.

Nicole, 53, looked edgy in a black leather jacket paired with skinny jeans and aviator sunglasses.

The couple cuddled up for a photo with the stunning sights of Sydney Harbour behind them.

The Succession star played tourist as he strolled around Sydney Harbour

The 76-year-old was dressed in a casually chic look including a blue sweater with a dress shirt underneath

The couple cuddled up for a photo with the stunning sights of Sydney Harbour behind them

Cox, who plays family patriarch Logan Roy in Succession, appeared on The Project this week during his time Down Under.

He admitted the Roy kids are 'truly horrible' but said his character Logan still 'loves' them regardless.

'People love that kind of family drama and of course this is the most impossible family ever with these truly, truly horrible children,' he said.

Roy added a pair of pale slacks to his ensemble and kept sun safe in a straw hat decorated with a black ribbon band

Cox, who plays family patriarch Logan Roy in Succession, appeared on The Project this week during his time Down Under

He admitted the Roy kids are 'truly horrible' but said his character Logan still 'loves' them regardless

'People love that kind of family drama and of course this is the most impossible family ever with these truly, truly horrible children,' he said

'They're quite horrible and poor old Logan has to deal with them on a regular basis,' Cox continued.

'He loves his children, that's his problem. If he hated the children it would be so much easier because you'd just kill the lot.'

The actor also said that before taking the role of Logan Roy, he asked creator Jesse Armstrong if Logan 'really loves these kids', to which Armstrong replied that he does.

Succession has earned an impressive 23 Emmy nominations for its first two seasons, taking home nine wins.
Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' daughter Sami Sheen showed off her incredible figure in a bikini while soaking up the sun in the sea in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday.

The OnlyFans model, 18, looked sensational as she posed up a storm in a pink and white two piece while her pal snapped her best angle.

She opted for a radiant palette of makeup including fluttering lashes and a swipe of pink lipstick as she left her wet blonde tresses to fall from a centre parting.

Looking good: Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' daughter Sami Sheen showed off her incredible figure in a bikini while soaking up the sun in the sea in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday

Sami enjoyed the warm summer weather in the tropical location as she made her way into the water to cool off.

The star has made headlines recently for joining OnlyFans alongside her 51-year-old Bond girl mom.

It was revealed earlier this month that Denise's husband Aaron Phypers helps her shoot her OnlyFans content.

The Wild Things star joined the website in June just days after her daughter Sami signed up for the service.

Summer: The OnlyFans model, 18, enjoyed the warm summer weather in the tropical location as she made her way into the water to cool off sporting an eye catching pair of hoop earrings

And Denise has now recruited her partner to help her take the sexiest shots for the adult platform - admitting she values his opinion.

During an appearance on Sirius XM's Jeff Lewis Live, she explained: 'Aaron takes a lot of my content for me. He knows what guys like. I ask him, I show him things, and say, 'What do you think?''

Denise went on to reveal she takes pictures in bikinis and lingerie and isn't afraid to show off her body - insisting pictures of her semi-naked already exist on the internet,

Peachy display: She looked sensational as she posed up a storm in a pink and white two piece while her pal snapped her best angle

She told host Jeff: 'I do bikini, I do lingerie, I do stuff that is sexier 'cause I also think, 'Why not?' if I'm able to do stuff outside of some of the more conservative stuff that's on my Instagram. I do show my boobies, my tush,' she explained.

'They're already out there if you Google them.'

The actress said she first joined the site to show support for her daughter, but she grew to understand why it feels 'empowering'.

She went on: 'I did it to support my daughter, being a mom who is an actress who has done stuff, and I just thought it was empowering too as a woman  to take control.

'You own all of the content and (on) a lot of the other platforms, you don't own the content. So, it's nice to be able to control it.'

Sami previously faced opposition from her actor dad Charlie Sheen, who wasn't happy with her decision to join OnlyFans, and she recently revealed he still hasn't been won over.

The teenager told TMZ: '(My mom) has been incredibly supportive from the jump. I'm grateful to have to her in my corner. But my dad hasn't seen the light yet. '

Sami also has three sisters, Lola, 17, as well as 11-year-old Eloise and 37-year-old half-sister Cassandra Jade Estevez, whose mother is Paula Profit.

She also has 13-year-old half-brothers Max and Bob Sheen whose mother is 45-year-old Brooke Mueller.
Justin Hemmes likes to indulge in the finer things in life.

On Sunday, the billionaire pub baron took his seaplane home to his Vaucluse mansion alongside his model girlfriend Madeline Holtznagel.

The loved-up couple were spotted exiting the craft with Justin's two young daughters in tow.

Justin Hemmes likes to indulge in the finer things in life. On Sunday, the billionaire pub baron took his seaplane home to his Vaucluse mansion alongside his model girlfriend Madeline Holtznagel. Both pictured

Justin carried one of his children in his arms as he disembarked and walked across the sand.

The 50-year-old dressed casually in a simple beige t-shirt which he paired with white trousers.

Rolling up the slacks to avoid getting them wet, Justin went barefoot as he traversed the shore.

The loved-up couple we spotted exiting the craft with Justin's two young daughters in tow

Justin carried one of his children in his arms as he disembarked and walked across the sand

Madeline looked chic in a loose jumper in a pale pink tone with a textured design

The 50-year-old dressed casually in a simple beige t-shirt which he paired with white trousers

Madeline meanwhile looked chic in a loose jumper in a pale pink tone with a textured design.

The 26-year-old paired the top with skin-tight blue jeans, and also went barefoot while carrying her sneakers in her hand.

She appeared to have on minimal makeup and wore her blonde hair down, adding a pair of sunglasses to the look.

Rolling up the slacks to avoid getting them wet, Justin went barefoot as he traversed the shore

Justin and his pals unloaded the plane before leaving

The 26-year-old paired the top with skin-tight blue jeans, and also went barefoot while carrying her sneakers in her hand

The pilot gave the passengers a hand getting hold of their luggage

The hotelier shares his two young children, Alexa, five, and Saachi, four, with his model ex Kate Fowler, 31.

Last month, Madeline wished Justin a happy 50th birthday, telling the businessman she 'adores him'.

The Aussie model shared a selection of nine images to Instagram showing the couple's exotic adventures across the world, which included days at the beach, sleeping on a private jet and camping in the woods.

Justin rolled up his trouser legs before stepping into the water

The doting dad picked up his young daughter and carried her

Madeline followed close behind her man as she left the plane

'Happy birthday my love, I adore you,' she captioned the post.

While it's not known exactly how long they've been dating, they have been publicly together for about two years.

However, Madeline previously hinted they'd known each other for much longer.

The plane parked on the sand in the shallows of the ocean

Madeline appeared to have on minimal makeup and wore her blonde hair down, adding a pair of sunglasses to the look

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald in October 2020, she said they'd actually met two years before reports emerged of their relationship.

'We have known each other for two years and met when I was modelling in Singapore,' she said at the time.

It was also reported that Madeline was living in a penthouse apartment owned by Justin in the beachside Sydney suburb of Coogee.

The hotelier shares his two young children, Alexa, five, and Saachi, four, with his model ex Kate Fowler (pictured)

She added that while the majority of her family was yet to meet her boyfriend, her older sister Simone Holtznagel was a fan.

Justin made his debut on the Financial Review Rich List in 2018 with an estimated net worth of $951million.

Last year, his net worth grew to $1.2billion, making him the 97th richest person in Australia.
James Bond star Daniel Craig described filming a scene with the Queen for London 2012 as "an incredible thing" while admitting the country will never again see the likes of the late monarch.

The world saw a more spirited side to Her Majesty when she made a cameo appearance in director Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for the Olympic Games.

In the comedy sketch, Craig, 54, who played British spy 007 in five consecutive films, called at Buckingham Palace to summon the Queen to the event.

Looking back: James Bond star Daniel Craig described filming a scene with the Queen for London 2012 as "an incredible thing"

The Queen, who was sitting at her writing desk, made him wait before greeting him with the words: 'Good evening, Mr. Bond.'

They walked together, along with some of her corgis, towards a helicopter and set off, flying over London to the Olympic Stadium, concluding with a stunt double of the Queen parachuting into the arena.

Seconds later, the real Queen, wearing the same peach dress as the stunt double, entered the stadium to rapturous applause.

Reflecting on the scene, Craig told the BBC at the Toronto International Film Festival: 'What an incredible thing. We will not see the likes of her ever again.

'To be alive during her reign is something else. (I'm) very saddened, so I suppose good luck to Charles, really.'

Old times: The world saw a more spirited side to the monarch when she made a cameo appearance in Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for the Olympic Games (pictured)

Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who co-wrote the Queen's TV appearances with Paddington Bear and Daniel Craig, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday that the Queen had volunteered herself for the Bond scene.

He said: 'We went to the Palace asking for permission to represent her and to know what she was wearing on the day, and it was her amazing dresser who said "No, no, she wants to be in it." She was game and she was up for that.

'In fact on the day when we were filming, she asked Danny Boyle if she could have a line because there wasn't a line in the script, probably because when I was typing the script I didn't quite know how you would type the character of the Queen... what would you type?'

Fond memories: The actor reflected on their scene during a red carpet appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada on Saturday (pictured)

Prior to her death during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the US on Wednesday, the former James Bond actor looked back on their meeting as he told the host what she was like in private.

Keen to know what the monarch was like behind closed doors, Stephen, 58, asked: 'I understand that you may not be able to answer this question, but I'm gonna ask anyway: What's she like in private?'

Remembering their time together, Craig replied: 'Very funny. Very funny. [She] wants to crack a joke, and [she] cracked a joke about me.

'We were having our photographs taken and she just went, "Oh no, he's the one that doesn't smile. Fair enough!"'

He went on to describe what her beloved corgis were like, recalling how he enjoyed time playing with the 'friendly' dogs.

Craig explained: 'I was rolling around on the floor with them most of the time. I think they have their own footmen, they're very friendly.'

Memory: Craig has recalled the joke the Queen made at his expense when they met during their 2012 Olympics skit, with the star hailing her as 'very funny'

So sad: The country's longest-reigning royal, Queen Elizabeth II, died 'peacefully', aged 96, at Balmoral in Scotland on Thursday

Chat: Prior to her death during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the US on Wednesday, Craig looked back on their meeting

Funny: 'We were having our photographs taken and she just went, "Oh no, he's the one that doesn't smile. Fair enough!" (pictured with the Queen at the Casino Royale premiere in 2006)

Speaking about the skit in 2012, he said: 'It wasn't supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be serious.

'She was fun, incredibly game. We had a short space of time and I was a bit grumpy as it was my day off and suddenly I am at the Palace with the Queen at her private chamber.'

'And she improvises a little bit. She was supposed to be sitting at the desk and she asked if she could write, so she pretended to write.'

Four-legged pals: Craig went on to describe what her beloved corgis (pictured) were like, recalling how he enjoyed time playing with the 'friendly' dogs

After recalling his interaction with the Queen, Craig shared a heartwarming tribute to her following her death.

In a statement to the PA news agency, the 007 actor paid tribute to the former monarch.

It read: 'I, like so many, was deeply saddened by the news today and my thoughts are with the royal family, those she loved and all those who loved her.

'She leaves an incomparable legacy and will be profoundly missed.'

Rest in peace: It comes as Britain is today mourning the death of its beloved Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II
Zimbabweans living and working in South Africa without critical skills risk failing to benefit from the extended stay that has been given to Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) holders.

South Africa Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledis recently said they had extended the stay of ZEP holders to the end of June next year, after the initial deadline of 31 December this year. The permits were also extended last year by one year, after being introduced in 2009.

Media reports from South Africa said after considering numerous factors, including that only a few Zimbabweans have so far applied for other permits to regularise their stay in the country, Motsoaledi announced the six-month extension.

In an interview with News24, Zimbabwe Community in South Africa chairperson Mr Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena said Zimbabweans have now been given more time to get their affairs in order, although those without critical skills were still in limbo.

We appreciate the extension. It gives people some bit of time to gather all the necessary documents. What we would try is to send the concerns raised by our members to the South Africa Home Affairs Department.

He added there were some grey areas around the latest extension.

There is a lack of clarity around the issue of a waiver, particularly for people who work in low-skill jobs because we are told people should apply for waivers, but according to the requirements in the Immigration Act, a person who applies for a waiver is one who can prove that there is no South African [that] can do the job that one does , even though they dont have critical skills. So, this has caused a lot of problems for people that are working as domestic workers.

Those with critical skills are in the fields of medicine, finance, science, Information Communication Technology, agricultural experts, and engineering, among other skilled professions. Mabhena said once clarity was made on people with no critical skills, he was hopeful that by December many Zimbabweans would have come forward to regularise their stay in the country.

Last month, News24 reported that only 9 000 of the 178 000 permit holders had made representations about why the department should not terminate their permits. Meanwhile, self-appointed illegal immigrant watchdog Operation Dudula has said it is heading to the apex court to interdict the Home Affairs ministers extension of the permits.

Zandile Dabula, national secretary-general of the movement, said it rejects the vague reasons behind the special advisory committees decision.

Operation Dudula has instructed its attorneys to apply for direct access to the Constitutional Court on an urgent basis, with an intent to prevent the minister of Home Affairs [from extending the] ZEP. If Zimbabwean permit holders were serious about legalising their stay in South Africa, [they] would have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the Department of Home Affairs. Failure to make representations could mean the current permit holders dont have valid legal grounds to advance or consciously elect to ignore legalising their stay in South Africa, said Dabula. Sunday News
Carol Vorderman has paid tribute to the newly appointed King Charles III after developing a lasting friendship with the Royal through her association with his principal charity, the Prince's Trust.

Charles, formerly the Prince Of Wales, was proclaimed King at a historic ceremony in St Jamess Palace on Saturday following a meeting of the accession council, during which he swore an oath to privy counsellors.

Reacting to his appointment in a series of Instagram posts, Vorderman, 61, reflected on her association with the new King, largely through her hosting role at the Pride Of Britain Awards and its ongoing support his long-running youth charity.

All hail the King: Carol Vorderman has paid tribute to the newly appointed King Charles III after developing a lasting friendship with the Royal through his principal charity, the Prince's Trust

Sharing a photo of the historic moment he signed his proclamation, she wrote: 'Long live the King!'

Touching on his work with disaffected children across the United Kingdom, she added: His organisation @princestrust formed over 40 years ago and was way ahead of its time... changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for the better.'

The former Countdown co-host also shared photos featuring King Charles during his various appearances at the Pride Of Britain Awards, where she has served as host since 1999, including the moment he attempted a dance routine with Britain's Olympic athletes.

Support: Reacting to his appointment in a series of Instagram posts, Vorderman reflected on her association with the new King, largely through his long-running youth charity

Old times: The former Countdown co-host also shared photos featuring King Charles during his appearances at the Pride Of Britain Awards, where she has served as host since 1999

Memories: Other shared photos drew attention to Vorderman's various meetings with the King, including one that included former NASA Deputy Center Director Colleen Hartman

She added: 'On the @prideofbritain awards we have awarded the @princestrust Young Achiever Award each year...

'And we've laughed... here asking King Charles to do the MOBOT with our Olympians onstage. He's a great sport.'

Other undated photos drew attention to Vorderman's various meetings with the King at social gatherings over the years, including one that included former NASA Deputy Center Director Colleen Hartman.

Remember that time you do the MOBOT? Vorderman with King Charles in another undated Instagram photo shared with followers on Sunday

Convoy: The presenter drew further attention to the transportation of the Queen's coffin from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace (pictured)

Drawing further attention to the transportation of the Queen's coffin from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace, she wrote: 'The roads and streets lined in Scotland by people to pay their respects, and rightly so that they have their opportunity to do so.

'I wish that the same would happen from Edinburgh to London. So many millions in other parts of our nation, who can't afford to get to London, would want to do the same.'

The former Prince of Wales ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday.
Kyle Sandilands stepped out for a casual coffee date on Sunday.

The radio star enjoyed a catch up with paparazzo Darryn Lyons in Sydney's Potts Point.

The 51-year-old dressed down for the meet up, donning a simple black shirt and black jeans.

Kyle Sandilands (pictured) stepped out for a casual coffee date on Sunday

Darryn, 57, was meanwhile flamboyant as ever in a neon pink sleeveless shirt and blue pants.

He showed off his bleached hairdo and carried a shopping bag as he left the cafe after meeting up with Kyle.

The radio host and his fiancee Tegan Kynaston, 36, welcomed their baby boy Otto in August.

The radio star enjoyed a catch up with paparazzo Darryn Lyons (right) in Sydney's Potts Point

The 51-year-old dressed down for the meet up, donning a simple black shirt and black jeans

The men joined a group of friends at a local cafe

Kyle listened closely as Darryn bent his ear

Kyle's co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson announced the happy news on air and Kyle's manager Bruno Bouchet told Daily Mail Australia : 'Little Otto was born this morning. Mum and bub both doing well.'

'Kyle's beyond excited. Kyle will be back on tomorrow's radio show to chat all things Otto,' he added.

Jackie, who is Otto's godmother, shed tears of joy as she declared: 'Otto has been born!'

Darryn was meanwhile flamboyant as ever in a neon pink sleeveless shirt and blue pants

The shock jock stopped for a smoke break with a friend

The radio host and his fiancee Tegan Kynaston, 36, welcomed their baby boy Otto in August

Kyle and Tegan also became engaged in Port Douglas, Queensland, over the Christmas holidays

Kyle later gave a rather graphic update about the birth, telling 'Intern' Peter Deppeler live in the hospital car park: 'Otto's born, Otto's fabulous. I cut the cord, I didn't realise it was like tough calamari and blood spurted out.'

The high-profile couple announced they were expecting their first child in February.

Kyle and Tegan also became engaged in Port Douglas, Queensland, over the Christmas holidays.

In June it was reported that Kyle had purchased a $13.8 million mansion in Sydney's elite Bellevue Hill to make room for their growing family.
Nadia Bartel ensured all eyes were on her on Sunday night.

The 37-year-old headed out to dinner at the Flower Drum Chinese restaurant in Melbourne in a very risque ensemble.

The former WAG opted for a blazer under which she went braless, showing off her cleavage and lots of skin.

Nadia Bartel (pictured) ensured all eyes were on her on Sunday night. The 37-year-old headed out to dinner at the Flower Drum Chinese restaurant in Melbourne in a very risque ensemble

She added some interest with the barely-there top underneath, which left little to the imagination and was fastened in place by glistening strap details.

Nadia paired the look with a pair of skintight flared leggings which clung to her amazing figure.

She chose a glamorous makeup look with a pink lip-gloss and wore her caramel locks down around her face.

She added some interest with the barely-there top underneath, which left little to the imagination and was fastened in place by glistening strap details

Nadia paired the look with a pair of skintight flared leggings which clung to her amazing figure

Nadia wrote simply in her caption alongside the images: 'Din at flower drum'

The ensemble was completed with a pair of wedged heels and a black satin clutch purse.

Nadia wrote simply in her caption alongside the images: 'Din at flower drum'.

The fashion designer has lately enjoyed showing off some skin and wearing more racy outfits than usual.

The fashion designer has lately enjoyed showing off some skin and wearing more racy outfits than usual

She recently flaunted her physique in a bondage-inspired ensemble and risked a wardrobe malfunction as her busty assets almost spilled out of her green top.

Nadia's posts come after she returned from her summer vacation in Europe.

The fashion designer heavily documented her stunning getaway on Instagram and turned up the heat with her sexy bikini selfies.

During the trip, she showed off her incredible figure in a revealing white G-string crochet two-piece during a boat ride with male friends.
Sylvester Stallone's domestic disputes were put to one side on Sunday as the actor made a welcome appearance at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.

The actor, whose separation from wife Jennifer Flavin, 54, was confirmed in August, was in a buoyant mood as he made his way across the paddock for an informal chat with the Red Bull team.

Sporting a casual black T-shirt and jeans, Stallone, 76, looked relaxed as he greeted onlookers before introducing himself to Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner, the husband of Spice Girl Geri Horner.

In attendance: Sylvester Stallone's domestic disputes were put to one side on Sunday as the actor made a welcome appearance at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza

The musclebound star, best known for his role as punch-drunk boxer Rocky Balboa, playfully placed a clenched fist beneath Horner's jaw as the pair posed for a photo.

Stallone was one of several public figures in Monza on Sunday, with actor Hugh Grant and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay also in attendance at the Autodromo Nazionale.

His appearance at the event comes just weeks after Flavin, his wife of 25-years and the mother of his three daughters, filed for divorce.

Greetings: Stallone joined Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner for a photo at Autodromo Nazionale Monza ahead of the Italian Grand Prix

According to divorce documents obtained by DailyMail.com, she claims Stallone 'has engaged in the intentional dissipation, depletion and/or waste of marital assets which has had an adverse economic impact on the marital estate.

'Moreover, the Husband should be enjoined from, selling, transferring, assigning, encumbering, or dissipating any assets during the pendency of proceedings.'

Jennifer, who took her husband's last name, is also seeking to restore her maiden name, Flavin.

Low-key: Sporting a casual black T-shirt and jeans, Stallone looked relaxed as he greeted onlookers while making his way across the Paddock

Ripped: Sylvester put his bulging biceps on show in his fitted T-shirt as he put on an animated display chatting to fellow racegoers

'I love my family. We are amicably and privately addressing these personal issues,' Sly told DailyMail.com in a statement via his publicist.

However Flavin said in divorce docs: 'The marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken.'

The former couple married on May 17, 1997 at the posh Dorchester Hotel in London, and with Stallone's reputation as a playboy, few predicted they would last long.

All over: Jennifer Flavin has filed for divorce from Stallone after 25 years of marriage

'I'm not naive about what may go on when I'm not around  he's a 45-year-old man  I can't change the way he is,' Flavin told People at the time.

'Still, he's not a cheating dog every day of the week,' she added. 'We spend five out of seven nights together, so I don't know where he'd find the time.'

But last it did and just this May they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. The marriage produced three daughters, Sophia, now 25, Sistine, 24, and Scarlet, 20.

He also had two sons with first wife Sasha Czack, Sage, who died of coronary artery disease in 2012 aged 36, and Seargeoh, 43.
Good Morning Britain aired on ITV on Sunday for the first time ever, with the special show added to the schedule following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

And fronting the news show solo was presenter Kate Garraway, 55, who dressed in black to pay her respect.

Taking to social media, viewers were quick to praise the host for her professional manner during the momentous moment - taking to social media as they dubbed her 'a true pro'.

Queen Elizabeth died at the age of 96 on Thursday at Balmoral Castle, Scotland.

'A true pro': Good Morning Britain viewers have praised Kate Garraway as she presented the show solo for it's first ever Sunday episode - in honour of Queen Elizabeth II

Despite usually sticking to a weekday schedule, Good Morning Britain had a quick switch up as they aired on both Saturday and Sunday this week.

Presenters Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid fronted Saturday's show, while Kate took on Sunday's edition alone.

The show followed Her Majesty's 'final journey', as they showed her hearse going from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh - where her coffin will lie in state at the Palace of Holyrood.

Schedule change: Despite usually sticking to a weekday schedule, Good Morning Britain had a quick switch up as they aired on both Saturday and Sunday this week

Guests: During Sunday's show, Kate was joined by Royal photographer Chris Jackson and Royal commentator Emily Andrews

And as viewers watched the rare episode, many took to Twitter to share their kind words on Kate's good work.

'What a moment and @kategarraway doing a fantastic job at covering events this morning. More of this please over the coming days,' wrote one viewer.

'This time they've gone above and beyond well done team,' wrote another.

Others also referenced the good work amid Kate's ongoing personal struggles, as her husband Derek Draper continues to struggle medically.

'Above and beyond': And as viewers watched the rare episode, many took to Twitter to share their kind words on Kate's good work

Tough time: Some viewers also referenced the good work amid Kate's ongoing personal struggles, as her husband Derek Draper continues to struggle medically (pictured in 2019)

Kate's husband Derek has required round-the-clock care since he contracted coronavirus in March 2020.

The presenter recently took a leave of absence from GMB after her husband's health took a downturn when he contracted sepsis.

He is now at risk of losing one of his kidneys, although he has been moved out of intensive care and is now in the hospital's high-dependency unit.

But praising her ability to stay professional, one viewer wrote: 'A true pro our Kate still with all her problems she delivered fantastic journalism / Well done and thank you.'

Tribute: Kate dressed in black to pay her respect to the late Monarch

Journey: The show followed Her Majesty's 'final journey', as they showed her hearse going from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh - where her coffin will lie in state at the Palace of Holyrood

ITV introduced a bout of scheduling changes this week following the announcement that the Queen had passed away, cutting shows such as This Morning and Emmerdale from the TV guide to make way for extended news coverage and tributes.

And as the UK goes through a period of mourning for Her Majesty, newscasters have been wearing black since Thursday to show their respects.

During Sunday's show, Kate was joined by Royal photographer Chris Jackson and Royal commentator Emily Andrews.

The show played clips as Princes William and Harry reunited following the heartbreaking death of their grandmother - with presenter Kate suggesting it may resurface memories of the death of their mother, Diana.

Coming together: The show played clips as Princes William and Harry reunited following the heartbreaking death of their grandmother - with presenter Kate suggesting it may resurface memories of the death of their mother, Diana

Weekend show: GMB, which usually only takes to ITV on weekdays, also aired on Saturday - with Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid fronting the first weekend episode

Theres potential triggering isnt there? The rawness of that grief for whom William said in his statement, the Queen was absolutely there with him through those darkest days,' Kate explained to Chris and Emily.

Continuing: 'And so to be there thinking about her passing I mean very very poignant moments.'

The media personality also penned a heartfelt tribute to the Queen via Instagram, sharing to her 1.1M fans how hard she 'feels the loss'.

Kate penned: 'RIP HM Queen Elizabeth II . We will forever be in your debt for your lifetime of dedication. Mother, grandmother , great grandmother - my thoughts are with all the Royal family for their loss.

'Sending love too to all those , like me , who feel the loss of her extraordinary presence as a constant in all our lives , seems even now , strangely and unsettlingly unreal.'
Heidi Klum was anything but low-key as she stepped out in New York Sunday to make her way to the airport for an early morning flight.

The supermodel, 49, who had been enjoying New York Fashion Week, looked fabulous in a colorful boho chic outfit for her return to the west coast.

The Making the Cut host brought the drama with an orange button down shirt, white undershirt and frayed jeans.

Boho chic: Heidi Klum, 49, looked fabulous in a colorful boho chic outfit for her return to the west coast at the end of New York Fashion Week Sunday

She topped that look off with a knee length light weight coat of many colors in vertical stripes.

The Emmy winner's long blonde locks were flowing down her back, but her head was covered with a beige billed hat.

She wore a pair of wide square shaped sunglasses and natural looking makeup with a pale pink lip.

Bright colors: The Making the Cut host brought the drama with an orange button down shirt, white undershirt and frayed jeans, topping that look off with a knee length light weight coat of many colors in vertical stripes

Socks: Heidi kept up the colorful theme with multi-toned socks and brown YEEZY slides. The Emmy winner's long blonde locks were flowing down her back, but her head was covered with a beige billed hat

Heidi kept up the colorful theme with multi-toned socks and brown YEEZY slides.

The proud mama was spotted spending time in the city that never sleeps with her oldest daughter, Leni, 18, who has begun her own modeling career.

While attending a star-studded event together, the mother-daughter duo both donned sparkly frocks. Leni's was a silver strapless mini with an A-line skirt and a bright pink belt.

Mother-daughter: The proud mama was spotted spending time in the city that never sleeps with her oldest daughter, Leni, 18, who has begun her own modeling career

Catching up: Heidi caught up with Making the Cut co-host, Tim Gunn, 69, season three winner Yannick Zamboni and season two winner season two winner Andrea Pitter, who proudly showed off her baby bump

Heidi's choice was a multi-colored long sleeved mini-dress with high heels to show off her long legs.

She also spent some time with Making the Cut co-host, Tim Gunn, 69, season three winner Yannick Zamboni, who donned one of his trademark white Avant Garde looks.

Making the Cut season two winner Andrea Pitter was there too, and showed off her baby pump in a brightly colored yellow suit with a plunging V-neck and a bustier on top of the jacket to keep the look sexy.
Jedward have called for the monarchy to be abolished just days after Charles became king as a result of Queen Elizabeth II's death.

The former X Factor duo, 30, took to Twitter on Saturday to voice their opinion and asked the new king to 'give the people real democracy'.

It comes just days after the Irish twins - whose real names are John and Edward Grimes - were criticised for sharing 'insensitive' comments about the Queen's health before she passed away.

Despite the recent backlash, Jedward set out to create more outrage as they penned: 'Abolish the monarchy and give the people real democracy!'

Opinion: Jedward have called for the monarchy to be abolished just days after Charles became king as a result of Queen Elizabeth II's death

They followed up with a second tweet which read: 'King Charles should hand back the six Irish counties on his visit to Northern Ireland  No war! Just words! It's time,'

The brothers were inundated with responses from the public who were unimpressed with their stance.

One follower wrote: 'Any chance you two could just be quiet? It is not Ireland's place to call for the abolishment of the monarchy of another country. What about Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden?'

Honest: The Irish twins - whose real names are John and Edward Grimes - took to Twitter on Saturday to voice their opinion and asked the new king to 'give the people real democracy'

Other outraged Twitter users added: 'British affairs are nothing to do with the Republic of Ireland or Planet Jedward so do one'; 'What has this got to do with Ireland and YOU?';

'The monarch doesn't 'rule' in that sense of the word. We are a democracy!'; 'Guys your embarrassing yourselves now enough enough!'; 'Whoever is babysitting these two clowns needs to be reprimanded.'

'Abolish the monarchy!': Jedward voiced an opposition to the monarchy in the wake of the Queens death

Another outraged user posted: 'I do hope you dont mean that and this is some pathetic excuse to get clicks . Im Irish and I dont think you have any say in what the uk want. Expected better boys.'

'Luckily you're Irish lads, so you don't have a monarchy to abolish! Chill!,' another added.

The monarch's death was confirmed on Thursday evening as a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow'.

The Queen's son Charles, the former Prince of Wales, is now King Charles III, as the world grieves his mother, Britain's longest-reigning monarch.

Backlash: The brothers were inundated with tweets from people who were unimpressed with their stance

Jedward's posts come just days after the pair came under fire on social media for sharing 'insensitive' comments about the Queen's health after it was revealed doctors are 'concerned' for her health.

On Thursday the pair took to Twitter to speculate about the Queen's condition in a set of tweets deemed 'not appropriate' by enraged followers.

All Her Majesty's children had rushed to Balmoral today after doctors became 'concerned' for her health. Hours later she died, surrounded by her family.

Under fire: The former X Factor duo, 30, were criticised for sharing 'insensitive' comments about the Queen 's health before she passed away

In one tweet, they joked new Prime Minister Liz Truss 'must have done something' on her visit to see the Queen at Balmoral Castle on Tuesday - referencing Her Majesty's decline in health.

Their first tweet read: 'The Queen is Dead?'

The twins then posted another, which said: 'Liz Truss must have done something on that visit to the Queen!'

Furious Twitter users were quick to pile on the criticism as they slammed the musicians for their 'really not funny' and 'inappropriate' comments.

They fumed that Jedward should be 'ashamed of themselves' and argued it was not the time for 'sassy jokes' as people flocked to condemn the brothers.

'Not appropriate': The Irish twins took to Twitter on Thursday to speculate about the Queen's health in a set of tweets deemed 'not appropriate' by enraged followers

'Really not funny': In one tweet, they joked new Prime Minister Liz Truss 'must have done something' on her visit to see the Queen at Balmoral Castle on Tuesday

The Queen's death will see Britain and her Commonwealth realms enter into a ten-day period of mourning as millions of her subjects in the UK and abroad come to terms with her passing.

And as her son accedes to the throne, there will also be a celebration of her historic 70-year reign that saw her reach her Platinum Jubilee this year - a landmark unlikely to be reached again by a British monarch.

Charles, the King, said: 'The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family.

'We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.

'During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held.'
Tilda Swinton looked the picture of elegance at the Variety Studio event on day three of the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday.

The actress showed off her style credentials in an all-black ensemble as she stood for photographers at the star-studded event.

The 61-year-old oozed sophistication in the understated look - after unveiling her dramatic new yellow crop on Tuesday.

Sophisticated: Tilda Swinton looked the picture of elegance at the Variety Studio's on day three of the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday

The leather skirt and fitted blazer were the perfect match for her eye-catching tresses on the night as she kept her accessories to a minimum.

She accentuated her striking features with a light dusting of make-up and finished the look with a pink lip.

She was joined by British screenwriter Joanna Hogg, director of her latest film The Eternal Daughter.

She was joined by British screenwriter Joanna Hogg, director of her latest film The Eternal Daughter.

Friendship: Mixing business with pleasure - the close friends held hands on the red carpet as they posed for waiting photographers as they promoted their new project

Wowzers! Tilda debuted a head of neon yellow hair at the photocall for her new film The Eternal Daughter at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on Tuesday (pictured right in June)

Mixing business with pleasure - the close friends held hands on the red carpet as they posed for waiting photographers as they promoted their new project.

It's been a busy week for the award winning actress as she graced the red carpet earlier this week to promote her new film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

The movie also stars Joseph Mydell and Carly-Sophia Davies in untitled roles. Its trailer has not been released yet.

Exciting: The Eternal Daughter is directed by Joanna Hogg and stars Tilda (pictured), Joseph Mydell and Carly-Sophia Davies in untitled roles. Its trailer has not been released yet

Its IMDb description reads: 'In this ghost story from acclaimed filmmaker Joanna Hogg, a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother must confront long-buried secrets when they return to their former family home, a once-grand manor that has become a nearly vacant hotel brimming with mystery.'

Oscar winner Laura Poitras All the Beauty and the Bloodshed walked away with the top honor at the festival.

The film is a portrait of Nan Goldin, the 68-year-old photographer who was prescribed Oxycontin, quickly became addicted to it, found recovery through a replacement drug and then threw her energies into calling the Sackler family to account.

Loving life: Also at Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday was Andrew Scott, who attended the Catherine Called Birdy Premiere

Looking good: Andrew cut a dapper figure in a cornflower blue suit and aquamarine top
Ray J issued an emotional post in the aftermath of the current feud with Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner regarding the infamous 2007 sex tape that was reportedly leaked to the public more than a decade ago.

In a distressed social media post Saturday night, the Raycon founder, 41, wrote, 'My. Soul hurts - but God is working this out!!! - I get emotional bc I love my kids and I care about what rhey (sic) think and feel about me in their life!! - It kills me to think that they would keep this inhumane, no love or value of other emotions or families! - You thought you won it all!! - But you are about to lose.'

The For the Love of Ray J star issued a 40-minute video Saturday, while he was still vacationing at a luxury mansion in the Dominican Republic.

In a bombshell interview with DailyMail.com in May, Ray J claimed the infamous sex tape was 'released like an album' by Kim herself - who also kept the only copy of it stashed in a Nike shobox under her bed along with other steamy tapes she made with him.

Emotional: Ray J issued an emotional post in the aftermath of the current feud with Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner regarding the infamous 2007 sex tape that was reportedly leaked to the public more than a decade ago

During the expletive laced missive over the weekend, he lashed out at his former girlfriend and her mother, alleging they re-ignited the controversy to increase ratings on their current reality show The Kardashians.

Ray J, whose legal name is William Ray Norwood, Jr, has shared documents he signed during that era, claiming the Kardashian family matriarch was behind the entire scheme and that they made three different tapes.

At one point, after refuting allegations that he did something to the Skims founder while she slept, the Pump actor exclaims, 'I will not have my kids looking at me like no f-ing, I don't know what it's called, domestic violence...'

In a later post, he said, 'My daughter and my son is like....' as he gets choked up and looks at the camera saying 'I shouldn't have f**ked up' and shakes his head. As he recovered, he became angry and said 'the only thing I'm doing this for is my kids.... because the moral integrity and the values and integrity that I stand for would kind of be a blur.' He promised to shut the issue down before his daughter can become aware of it.

Scandal: The Raycon founder seemed distressed as he posted about his concerns over how his children would react when they learned about the scandal

Vacation: The single father left his vacation in the Dominican Republic and headed to New York tagging both Kim and Kris in Instagram stories and warning, 'I'm rally boutto be a problem'

The actor and producer has since shared on social media that he has left his vacation and is returning to the US, writing in Instagram stories, ' I'm not stopping until you know it's real!! - Hate me 4ever!! F**k You!!! My kids is all that matters!!' tagging both Kim and Kris in the post.

In a second story post he shared video from his drive to the airport, indicating he was heading to New York with the comment, 'I'm really boutto be a problem.'

The divorced father of two shares daughter Melody, four, and son Epik, two, with his ex-wife Princess Love.

Family: The divorced father of two shares daughters Melody, four, and Epik, two, with his ex-wife Princess Love

Ray J's allegations are being heard. His most recent live video received more than 600 thousand likes. The first received more than 400 thousand.

Kris Jenner, 66, has denied she helped leak the sex tape, and took a lie detector test when she appeared last week on The Late Late Show with James Cordon.

Ray J has pushed back, claiming the person who administered the test is a fraud.
Brittany Hockley is looking fitter than ever after taking part in the gruelling new reality show The Challenge Australia.

The podcast host, 35, showcased her flat tummy in a skintight black crop top and purple leggings while going for a jog in Bondi, Sydney, on Saturday.

The stylish activewear drew attention to her toned legs and lithe arms as she enjoyed some light exercise with her dog Delilah.

Brittany Hockley showcased her flat tummy in a skintight black crop top and purple leggings while going for a jog in Bondi, Sydney, on Saturday

The former Bachelor star swept her brunette hair into a ponytail and accessorised with gold-rimmed sunglasses and earrings.

She added a pair of box-fresh white sneakers and listened to music via AirPods.

Brittany is back in Sydney after a brief trip to Los Angeles, where she reunited with her friend Sam Kennedy.

The stylish activewear drew attention to Brittany's toned legs and lithe arms as she enjoyed some light exercise with her dog Delilah

Before her holiday in LA, she had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she filmed the new reality show The Challenge.

The series, in which celebrities compete in physical challenges for a $100,000 cash prize, will air on Channel 10 later this year.

Brittany is starring alongside fellow Bachelor franchise alumni Konrad Bien-Stephen, Megan Marx, Ciarran Stott, Kiki Morris and Jessica Brody.

The podcast host, 35, swept her brunette hair into a ponytail and accessorised with gold-rimmed sunglasses and earrings

The show has already made headlines after it emerged Konrad and Megan had hooked up early on in production.

Their fling came hot on the heels of Konrad's split from radio host Abbie Chatfield.

Brittany rose to fame as one of the unlucky finalists on Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins' season of The Bachelor in 2018.

The former Wallaby infamously chose neither finalist, becoming the first Australian Bachelor to leave the show a single man.
Former Sunrise presenter Samantha Armytage has been ruled out of the race to fill Tracy Grimshaw's seat on A Current Affair.

As reported by The Australian's Media Diary, Nine isn't interested in hiring Armytage for the top job, considered one of the most demanding in television.

Meanwhile, she is said to be enjoying taking things at a slower pace since swapping breakfast TV for a quieter life in the country with her husband Richard Lavender.

Former Sunrise presenter Samantha Armytage (pictured in Sydney on December 3, 2019) has been ruled out of the race to fill Tracy Grimshaw's seat on A Current Affair

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Nine and Seven for comment.

A Seven spokesperson clarified Armytage remains under contract at Seven and has several roles at the network lined up, including hosting coverage of the Spring Racing Carnival.

Speculation is rife over who will be the new host of ACA following Tracy Grimshaw's (pictured) shock resignation, with Nine insiders revealing a surprising hitlist of presenters being targeted

Meanwhile, speculation is rife over who will be the new host of A Current Affair following Grimshaw's shock resignation, with Nine insiders revealing a surprising hitlist of presenters being targeted.

Nine bosses are looking to bring in someone who can deftly handle the program's mix of general interest and consumer justice segments, but also hold their own when locking horns with a prime minister.

As reported by The Australian's Media Diary, Nine isn't interested in hiring Armytage for the top job. This is apparently because network executives feel she is not a good 'fit' for Nine

A Seven spokesperson clarified Armytage remains under contract at Seven and has several roles at the network lined up, including hosting coverage of the Spring Racing Carnival. She is currently a guest host on Farmer Wants a Wife (pictured)

Grimshaw's interview with former PM Scott Morrison during this year's election campaign made headlines itself after she grilled the stunned politician on his government's failures.

One of the surprising names reportedly being thrown up for the coveted role Grimshaw is leaving behind after 17 years is Channel 10's Carrie Bickmore, with The Project host off-contract at the end of the year.

Frontrunners at Nine include Grimshaw's ACA stand-in replacement Sylvia Jeffreys and weekend host Deborah Knight, along with Today co-hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon, who are both seen as capable to make the jump from mornings to the prime-time slot, The Australian reports.

Grimshaw is set to step down in November, after 17 years behind the ACA desk

One of the surprising names being thrown up for the coveted role is Channel 10's Carrie Bickmore (pictured), with The Project host off-contract at the end of the year

ACA CONTENDERS NINE: Sylvia Jeffreys Deb Knight Karl Stefanovic Allison Langdon TEN: Carrie Bickmore Sarah Harris SEVEN: Melissa Doyle ABC: Lisa Millar Stan Grant Advertisement

But executives are also looking at bringing in talent from outside the network with a number of high profile personalities under consideration.

All the contenders are considered skilled presenters and journalists but also relatable and comforting to a mass audiences.

Popular Melbourne-based ABC News Breakfast host Lisa Millar is reportedly one of the names being talked about.

Sydneysiders Sarah Harris, currently with Studio 10, ABC's Q&A host Stan Grant, and Melissa Doyle, ex-Sunrise and Sunday Night host, are also all in the running.

Bickmore's co-host at The Project Waleed Aly is also out of the running after penning a long-term deal with the CBS-owned network earlier this year.

If Bickmore is to land the iconic job, there is even a possibility production could be shifted from Sydney to Melbourne where she is based, as an extra sweetener on the contract.

But it may be some months before a full-time replacement is announced.

Grimshaw, 62, shared the news she would be stepping down with viewers during last Monday's episode of the popular Nine Network program.

'Normally right about now we'd be telling you what to expect tomorrow night but lately I've personally been thinking longer term, and I have some news that I wanted you to hear from me before you hear it from anyone else,' she began.

Stan Grant (here with wife Tracey Holmes) has been working fulltime with the ABC since 2017

Carrie Bickmore (pictured) is based in Melbourne but production of ACA could be moved from Sydney as an extra sweetener in her contract

'I've decided to finish up with A Current Affair this year.

'It's been a big decision and before the gossip websites start telling you rubbish, I want you to know it's been my decision alone and I'm not being shoved out the door by the boys' club because I'm too old.

'I'm not too old, I'm just a bit tired. And for the record both the boys and the girls have asked me to stay.

The uncompromising TV presenter whose been with Channel Nine for more than 40 years said shes basically been a shift worker for 26 years which has taken time away from her family.

Channel Nine star Sylvia Jeffreys, 35, (pictured with her husband, Sky News Australia anchor Peter Stefanovic) is among the names being considered

'I've talked to people who've made us all laugh and cry, who've shared their triumphs and their challenges and their wisdom and despair, she said.

'And because it's your show not mine and you get to vote each night with your remote control, you told us you wanted more of that.

'So thank you for that opportunity. Thank you for your loyalty. I hope I've repaid it.'

'I'm around until November then I'm going to take a long holiday, but it's business as usual until then. See you tomorrow night.'
Olivia Colman praised King Charles III's address to the nation after the Queen's death during her appearance at Toronto International Film Festival.

The actress, 48, who was promoting her new film Empire Of Light at the Variety Studio, told the publication the King delivered his speech 'so beautifully'.

Olivia, who portrayed Queen Elizabeth II for two seasons on Netflixs The Crown, gushed over the long-serving monarch and is still processing the devastating news.

'He did it so beautifully': Olivia Colman praised the way King Charles III addressed the nation after The Queen's death during her appearance at Toronto International Film Festival

Speaking about her majesty, Olivia said: 'She made a promise as a young woman and she absolutely kept it with such dignity. We're all incredibly impressed by what she did.'

She then went on to compliment King Charles III's recent televised speech: 'From a British point of view, he did it so beautifully. He did it about love, tolerance and gentleness, and that is what she always wanted and she's done.

She continued, 'From the outside world looking at Great Britain, at the moment, we've got some comedy going on at one side  politics  and something so dignified. I felt proud to be British. I think he's going to do a good job.'

The actress, 48, complimented King Charles III's recent televised speech: 'From a British point of view, he did it so beautifully'

The monarchy's death was confirmed and a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow'.

Her son Charles, the former Prince of Wales, is now King Charles III, as the world grieves his mother, Britain's longest-reigning monarch.

And as her son accedes to the throne, there will also be a celebration of her historic 70-year reign that saw her reach her Platinum Jubilee this year - a landmark unlikely to be reached again by a British monarch.

Looking good: The Crown star looked the epitome of chic in a grey blazer and matching trousers, teamed with a cream blouse

Charles, the King, said: 'The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family.

'We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.

'During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held.'

Award-winning: Oscar-winner Olivia (L) played Queen Elizabeth II (pictured right in 1964) in series three and four of The Crown

Olivia was joined by her Empire Of Light co-stars Tanya Moodie, Roger Deakins and Michael Ward.

The Crown star looked the epitome of chic in a grey blazer and matching trousers, teamed with a cream blouse.

While plot details remains tightly under wraps for the new film, it is known the production is a love story 'set around a beautiful old cinema on the South Coast of England in the 1980s.'

Talent: Olivia was joined by her Empire Of Light co-stars Tanya Moodie, Roger Deakins and Michael Ward

Sam Mendes is producing Empire of Light alongside Pippa Harris through his Neal Street Productions, and he will also reunite with his longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins on the production.

Aiming to release the film in late 2022, Sam said in a statement: 'I have long been an admirer of Searchlight and the dynamic way they have produced and released some of my favourite theatrical releases of recent years.

'This project is very close to my heart, and I couldn't be more delighted that it has found its ideal home.'
A number of celebrities took to social media Sunday to commemorate the somber anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson posted a number of single phrases to encompass the American spirit more than two decades after nearly 3,000 Americans perished after the extremist group al-Qaida hijacked four commercial airliners.

They crashed two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, while a fourth planned attack was thwarted when passengers and crew attempted to storm the cockpit, leading the jet to crash in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A number of celebrities including Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson took to social media Sunday to commemorate the somber anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks

He wrote: 'Strength. Resiliency. Heart. Loyalty. Soul. FAMILY. 9/11.' The pro wrestler-turned-actor added the hashtags, #neverforget and #patriotday to the post.

New York City native Bethenny Frankel called the date 'such an important day in American history,' reflecting on the emotions Americans experienced on the horrific day.

'Many of us remember exactly where we were; in disbelief, feeling helpless and confused,' Frankel said. 'Its a day for reflection, to realize how precious life is and how strong and resilient we are'

She continued: 'I just wish I did more to help that day. I didnt know how to insert myself, so I was a stunned deer. I wish I knew how every little bit helps as I do now. My heart goes out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives.

Johnson posted a number of single phrases to encompass the American spirit, including, 'Strength. Resiliency. Heart. Loyalty. Soul. FAMILY. 9/11'

Maria Shriver called the anniversary 'a painful day in our nations history,' and 'deeply painful for thousands who lost loved ones'

George Takei also referenced those who selflessly helped with the catastrophic situation

'If we really give the day the reflection it deserves, we are making meaning of this terrible tragedy and of the poor souls who lost their lives. #neverforget.'

Maria Shriver called the anniversary 'a painful day in our nations history,' and 'deeply painful for thousands who lost loved ones.'

She added: 'For them, this day is a private tragedy. May we all hold space for them. Be gentle with everyone today as we dont know how this day triggers our neighbors.

'And thank you to all the first responders who rushed in to save their fellow citizens. They didnt care about who they were or the color of their skin or their political affiliation. They put their lives on the line. Thank you to them and to their families.'

George Takei also referenced those who selflessly helped with the catastrophic situation, saying, 'The best way to honor 9/11 is to take care of our First Responders who continue to need our help.'

Kris Jenner posted multiple shots of the New York City skyline with the caption, 'Remembering those who were lost 21 years ago today'

New York City native Bethenny Frankel called the date 'such an important day in American history,' reflecting on the emotions Americans experienced on the horrific day

Brooke Shields said, 'May we never forget this day, those impacted by loss, and the show of strength from our incredible city that followed'

Kris Jenner posted multiple shots of the New York City skyline with the caption, 'Remembering those who were lost 21 years ago today. My thoughts are with the families who lost their loved ones, and of the heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their bravery. We will never forget!

Brooke Shields wrote: '21 years. Remembering all those lost on 9/11 and holding those who continue to suffer in my heart. May we never forget this day, those impacted by loss, and the show of strength from our incredible city that followed.'

Mayim Bialik shared an image of Manhattan's St. Paul's Chapel, noting that 'the church is directly across from One World Trade Center and it was completely unharmed when the towers fell down.'

Irina Shayk and Yolanda Hadid posted graphics depicting NYC in observance of the somber day

Karlie Kloss reposted an image of a brave firefighter working amid the wreckage

Lindsay Lohan and Reese Witherspoon both posted graphics with the message, 'Never Forget'

Yolanda Hadid, Irina Shayk, Lindsay Lohan, Karlie Kloss, and Reese Witherspoon were also among the stars to express their thoughts on the somber anniversary, posting graphics observing the somber day.

The tributes came in as President Joe Biden attended a ceremony at the Pentagon, saying that 'we will never forget' and 'never give up,' adding that 'our commitment to preventing another attack on the United States is without end.'

Vice President Kamala Harris was at a ceremony in New York at the National September 11th Memorial, while first lady Jill Biden gave a speech in Shanksville at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance.
Country

Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Canada Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cuba, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Dominican Republic Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Haiti, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Jamaica Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Mexico, United Mexican States Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu US Virgin Islands Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
Visakhapatnam: Firecrackers, seized by police from illegal traders and manufacturers, exploded inside the Saluru police station in Parvathipuram, Manyam district on Saturday morning.

Though there were no injuries in the incident, the explosion led to panic in Saluru town. The people nearby the police station ran away from the spot after the explosion. The intensity of the blast was not high, but it caused slight damage to the storeroom of the police station.

Inspector of police, Saluru, D. Sudhakar said that they seized a huge cache of firecrackers around six months ago and produced them before the court. The seized illegal firecrackers were stored on the first floor (storeroom) of the police station for safe custody. At around 7.30 am on Saturday, some firecrackers exploded accidentally. Fortunately, there was no damage to the police station and no injuries occurred to anybody in the explosion, he added.

The police and fire service personnel suspect that the short-circuit in the storeroom might have caused the explosion. A case has been registered and the investigation is on to ascertain the exact reasons for the explosion, the police added.
HYDERABAD: Queen Elizabeth IIs visit to Ramalayam temple in Devaryamjal village of Medchal-Malkajgiri 39 years ago during her nine-day India sojourn has shot the tiny unknown village to the international spotlight.

The Queen and Prince Philip visited the 1,000-year- old temple on November 19, 1983, marking their 36th wedding anniversary. The Queen mother visited the village on many occasions when the royal family stayed in the present-day Rashtrapati Nilayam in Bolarum.

The head priest of the temple Sitaram Achary, who was 15 years old in 1983, expressed grief at the Queens passing away. He recalled her visit to the village and the temple.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Achary said, My uncle was the head priest when she visited the temple. She first visited the temple during World War II. Later, when she could not conceive, someone advised her to visit the temple and offer prayers to Lord Rama. She visited again. It is believed that Queen Mothers first child Elizabeth II was conceived after her first visit to the temple.

The Queen Mother is said to have narrated this experience to Queen Elizabeth and had urged her to visit the temple.

The preparations were grand as the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister P.V. Narsimha Rao had specifically looked into the welcome arrangements for the Queen. The village soon boasted of a new gram panchayat building, tar roads, a new library, community hall and a residential colony of around 250 houses for the underprivileged, said Achary. More than ten generations of the priest have served the temple.

Although the Queen did not stay in touch with the villagers or the temple after her 1983 visit, the event is vividly remembered by the locals as the temple got a makeover and the village was decked up for the grand occasion, which was unheard of.

A resident of Devaryamjal, T. Pavala Kumar, said, When we got to know about the Queens visit to our village, I and my friend Papalal headed to the place on a bicycle. We were stopped by the police for breach of security, but we managed to reach the venue. She came in an open jeep along with her husband, dressed in a whitish gown. It was a breathtaking visual and she was very pretty. She was presented with handicraft idols by our villagers, who also performed a local dance in the temple premises.

Rare features mark ancient temple

The Ramalayam located in Devaryamjal in Medchal district on the outskirts of Hyderabad is believed to be at least 1,000 years old.

It is believed that it was constructed by the Chola dynasty and the idol of Lord Rama was consecrated by Ramanujacharya.

The temple has three idols. Chaturbhuja Rama at the centre, with Sita on his right and Laxman on his left and Sri Hanuman seated at the feet.

Chaturbhuja means four hands, which is an unusual form of Lord Rama, who is always depicted in his human form with two hands.

It is said to be symbolic of the unified avatar of Lord Vishnu and Lord Rama in human form.

The varna (hue) of the deity is shaligram, indicating dark colour.

The Lord Rama idol holds a shankh, chakra and a vilu dhanush

The temple is spread over one acre of land. There is a pond to the left of the sanctum sanctorum. The pond is surrounded by 28 mini temples, symbolic of 28 nakshatras in Hindu astrology.

This temple design has distinct features like the rare combination of Shri Chakra on the floor and the Nagabandha on the ceiling exactly above it. This is found in temples in Travancore and Thanjavur. The Nagabandha is the rarest symbol to be found in any temple.

Sitaram Achary, Head priest of Ramalayam at Devaryamjal

My village Yamjal, about 20 km away from Hyderabad, has a huge 11th century Ramalayam with a well. The queen visited it in the 1980s.. that's how we got the road as well..."

 Sundeep Gummadi, Entrepreneur, Devarayamjal native
VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has approved the proposal for the transfer of employees between the two Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Pleas for such transfers had been made by employees belonging to both AP and TS. Acknowledging the request of staff, the two state governments issued notifications and collected details of employees seeking transfers.

While 1,338 employees from Telangana want to shift to Andhra Pradesh, 1,804 government staff of AP have applied for a transfer to TS.

General Administration Department of Andhra Pradesh had prepared a proposal in this regard and sent it to the AP CM for approval. Jagan Mohan Reddy has okayed that proposal.

The proposal approved by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister will be sent to Telangana state government for consent. If the Telangana government also agrees, the procedures related to transfers will be formulated and the process of transferring will be taken up.

With Jagan Mohan Reddys okay, the AP government will now provide no objection certificates (NOCs) to all those who prefer being transferred to Telangana. The CM has also approved the request to consider eight years of service for mandatory transfers in upcoming transfer of teachers.

Andhra Pradesh Government Employees Federation chairman Kakarla Venkata Rami Reddy thanked AP CM for approving the inter-state transfers between AP and TS and vice versa, which have been pending for past few years.
Ganesh idols being taken to Tank Bund on the second day of immersions in Hyderabad on Saturday. (P. Surendra/DC)

Hyderabad: The Ganesh idol immersion continued for the second day on Saturday at Hussainsagar and several waterbodies around the city. Civic staff had worked through the intervening night to immerse the idols, and police stood guard all long the procession routes to provide security.

However, the festivies had not ended and the civic staff and security personnel appeared to be in for a long night. A senior official of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said, We are expecting the immersions will continue into the early hours of Sunday.

According to sources, a total of 1.25 lakh idols had been immersed so far in 35 water bodies and 74 artificial ponds in and around the city. According to members of Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti (BGUS), the immersion was extended by a day as many devotees were against immersing the idols on a Friday.

The GHMC collected 7,334 metric tonnes of garbage in the two days. It is expected that clearing of the waste will take ten days.

On Saturday morning, traffic movement on Tank Bund and roads leading to and from Hussainsagar was affected by trucks carrying idols for immersion and empty trucks leaving the lake.

With Saturday being a working day for the government, schools and offices, there was a heavy rush of school and college-goers and employees. That it was a Saturday when some offices were closed for the weekend was a blessing.

Some educational institutions on the routes leading to Hussainsagr declared a holiday in view of the traffic chaos and opted for online classes.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Ravinuthala Shashidhar, secretary of BGUS said according to our records, around 1.25 lakh big idols have been immersed. Due to sentimental reasons, some refrained from immersing on Friday. They did so on Saturday.

The Ganesh festival immersion returned truly gigantic figures:

1.25 lakh

Number of idols immersed, as per BGUS

89,505 idols in GHMC jurisdiction

35 waterbodies

74 ponds artificial ponds

Vehicles used

300 regular; 97 special vehicles; 40 JCBs; 27 special JCBs

Debris lifted: 73,34,000 kg

We are expecting the immersion will continue into the early hours of Sunday.

 GHMC official
The devotees will witness the spectacle of the priest sitting on top of the 55-foot pole (sirimanu) in regal robes to be taken around the fort. Hanging from the upper end of the Sirimanu, the priest blesses the devotees and the chariot covers the thoroughfares of Vizianagaram on October 11.  DC File Image

Visakhapatnam: The Vizianagaram district administration has decided to conduct the annual Sirimanotsavam, a major folk festival of the region, in a grand manner on October 11.

The festival is a part of Pydithalli Ammavari Jatara, Vizianagaram. The festival could not be celebrated for the last two years due to the Covid pandemic.

Traditionally, the Sirimanu Jatara is celebrated on the first Tuesday after the Dasara festival every year. The annual fest, also known as Sirimaanu Panduga, draws three to four lakh people from different parts of Andhra Pradesh and from neighboring Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Minister for Education Botsa Satyanarayana held a meeting with the collector A. Surya Kumari and other officials on the arrangements to be made for the festival on Saturday evening.

The collector said that the restrictions related to Covid-19 were not in force, the district administration would allow the devotees to participate in the festival this year. Sirimanotsavam, the main event of the fest, will be held on October 11 and the Tholelu festival will be held on October 10, she added.

Keeping in view of the rush of the devotees, the APSRTC will run special buses for the festival. The district administration is chalking out plans to introduce ticket darshan of the deity during the festival days. The price of the darshan ticket will be between Rs 100 and Rs 300. The online darshan tickets will be available at all mandal headquarters and Sachivalayams in the district.

The devotees will witness the spectacle of the priest sitting on top of the 55-foot pole (sirimanu) in regal robes to be taken around the fort. Hanging from the upper end of the Sirimanu, the priest blesses the devotees and the chariot covers the thoroughfares of Vizianagaram on October 11.
NEW DELHI: With crucial electoral battles in several states, including in Rajasthan, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana and Chattisgarh, lined up before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP held a three-day national executive meet of its OBC morcha in poll-bound Rajasthan.

Senior BJP leader and Union minister Amit Shah addressed the concluding day of the meet on Saturday.

Taking on the Congress in Chief Minister Ashok Gehlots home turf Jodhpur, Shah recalled various efforts undertaken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government for the OBC community, including providing constitutional status to the National Commission of Backward Classes after almost three decades of Mandal Commission implementation and representation of 27 members from the community in the Modi government.

The party will focus on reaching out to OBC castes and sub-castes, with a special task force for youth and womens outreach.

Later, Shah addressed a gathering of the BJPs booth-presidents, where the Union minister targeted the incumbent state government over various issues, including the deteriorating law and order situation.

Tailor Kanhaiya Lal was brutally killed, would you bear it? Would you tolerate the Karauli violence? Would you tolerate the demolishing of the 300-year-old temple in Alwar? he was quoted as saying. He accused the Congress of pre-planned riots in Rajasthan cities.

Shah said that the Congress had "pre-planned riots" in Jodhpur, Chittoor, Nohar, Malpura and Jaipur.

"I want to tell Ashok Gehlot that if you can`t handle, then step down, he said. The number of cases against women has increased by 56 per cent. A woman teacher was set ablaze alive in Jaipur. Gau mata is also not safe here."

Shah also took a jibe at the ongoing "Bharat Jodo Yatra" of the Congress, saying the Congress leader (Rahul Gandhi) had once said India is not a nation and is now out to "unite" the country wearing a "foreign-made" T-shirt.

"I want to remind Rahul baba and other Congress members about his speech given in Parliament. Rahul baba had said India is not a nation. Rahul baba, in which book have you read this? This is the nation for which lakhs and lakhs of people have sacrificed their lives... Rahul Gandhi has gone to connect Bharat, but I think that he needs to study Indian history first," Shah said.
Kyiv: Russia's Defence Ministry announced Saturday that it was pulling back troops from two areas in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made significant advances in the past week.

The news came after days of apparent advances by Ukraine south of Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war.

The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do  showing its back," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video released by his office Saturday night. And, of course, it's a good decision for them to run.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izyum areas to the eastern Donetsk region. Izyum was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, and earlier this week social media videos showed residents of Balakliya joyfully cheering as Ukrainian troops moved in.

Konashenkov said the Russian move was being made in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,' an eastern area home to two separatist regions that Russia has declared sovereign.

The claim of a withdrawal to concentrate on Donetsk is similar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the capital.

Igor Girkin, a Russian who was an early leader of a Moscow-backed separatist uprising in Donetsk in 2014, sneered at the portrayal of the pullback being strategic. On the messaging app Telegram, he acidly called it the brilliant (clearly within the framework of the plan and even ahead of schedule) operation to transfer the cities of Izyum, Balakliya and Kupiansk to respected Ukrainian partners.

Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian officials claimed major gains in the Kharkiv region, saying their troops had cut off vital supplies to Izyum.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko also suggested troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometers (45 miles) north of Izyum.

The Ukrainian Security Service posted a message hours later saying troops were in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized. The military did not immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub that Russia seized in February.

Videos on social media appeared to show Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Izyum at a roadside checkpoint. A large statue with the city's name could be seen in the images. Ukrainian forces did not acknowledge holding the city.

Britain's Defense Ministry said Saturday that it believed Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izyum as increasingly isolated.

Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns, the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 2,500 square kilometers (965 square miles) in its eastern breakthrough. The institute said it appeared that disorganized Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance, and cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The same report said Ukrainian forces may collapse Russian positions around Izyum if they sever Russian ground lines of communication north and south of the town.

Vladislav Sokolov, head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izyum had started evacuating residents to Russia.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in the south. Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce the latter area, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the television channel Ukraina that the Russians had no food or fuel for their troops in the area as Kyiv had cut off their supply lines.

It will be like an avalanche, he said, predicting a Russian fallback. One line of defense will shake, and it will fall.

The Ukrainian military was more circumspect, claiming to have taken more than 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) from pro-Kremlin forces this week. It said that in some areas, units of the Defense Forces have penetrated the enemy's defenses to a depth of 50 kilometers, matching the British assessment, but did not disclose geographical details.

Officials in Kyiv have for weeks been tight-lipped about plans for a counteroffensive, urging residents to refrain from sharing information on social media.

However, Zelenskyy said Friday that troops had reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of the counteroffensive.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region when her home was flattened overnight.

The Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, accused Moscow of pummeling retaken settlements. He said via Telegram that five civilians were hospitalized in the Izyum district, while nine others suffered injuries elsewhere in the region.

In the embattled Donbas, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two were injured in Bakhmut and the neighboring village of Yahidne.

In the Russian-held city of Enerhodar, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, electricity and water were restored after a four-day outage due to an explosion, the city's Ukrainian mayor, Dmytro Orlov, said.

Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant have come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, which Russia and Ukraine accused each other of committing. The shelling has raised fears of a radiation leak at the plant, which has been cut off from outside power sources; the facility has been forced to rely on power from its only working reactor for systems cooling and other safety measures.

Orlov said workers from the plant assisted in restoring Enerhodar's power, but it was not clear if the electricity was coming from the plant or from a nearby thermal generating station.

Also Saturday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock paid an unannounced visit to Kyiv and said Europe would not tire of helping Ukraine, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to raise the pressure by withholding energy supplies.

Baerbock said Germany will assist Ukraine in finding and removing mines and other unexploded ordnance left by Russian troops in areas where they have been pushed back.

Despite Ukraine's gains, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of NATO warned Friday that the war would likely drag on for months. Blinken said the conflict was entering a critical period and urged Ukraine's Western backers to keep up their support through what could be a difficult winter.
The BBMP may have launched a drive to remove encroachments from lakes and stormwater drains in Bengaluru in the wake of last weeks flooding but it may not do anything against tech parks, some of which are said to be blocking the flow of floodwater.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai last week blamed illegal constructions on lakes and stormwater drains for the floods along the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in southeastern Bengaluru. Local BJP leader N R Ramesh went a step further, accusing IT firms of being the major reason. Of the 79 tech parks in the city, 63 are on ORR. Most of the flooded areas were either densely populated with tech parks or apartment complexes. Isnt it evident that they are the main encroachers, he had said.

A senior BBMP official agreed. Things are so bad, he said, that drains have narrowed down to less than 20% of their original width in many places, reducing their water-carrying capacity and causing waterlogging on roads.

However, the civic body has done little to identify, let alone remove, these encroachments and has chosen to go after the proverbial small fish.

The BBMP has identified 696 encroachments, mostly the evident ones. It removed 21,963.82 square feet of encroachments at 34 places on the first nine days of this month, mostly compound walls or sheds built on vacant lands. Fourteen of these places are located in the Mahadevapura zone, which consists of areas in the IT corridor.

Asked why no action has been taken against big players, officials said it was an uphill battle and hinted at political pressure. We have only identified encroachments which are evident. Considering the amount of water that was overflowing on ORR, we are certain there are many more small drains that are encroached upon inside tech parks and IT firms. But without village maps and inspections by revenue officials, it is impossible to pinpoint them, a senior BBMP official said on condition of anonymity.

Another senior official, also speaking anonymously, said surveying and identifying encroachments was a tedious process as the places had to be cross-verified with maps and marked accurately. Political pressure is another factor.

We all know that most IT companies only rent office space in tech parks that are owned by influential people. Initiating action in such cases is not easy, the official admitted.

BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath vowed a crackdown on all encroachments, irrespective of the building. There might be tech companies, non-tech companies, individual houses, apartment complexes and many other buildings that have encroached upon the stormwater drains. Irrespective of the type of building, all encroachments will be cleared, he told DH.

He added that the civic body was first removing critical encroachments.

It is important that we remove encroachments from the lower level to the upper level to prevent any mishaps during the process of removal. Eventually, all the encroachments will be removed, he asserted.
Maria Villamizar feared the worst when she learned 16 people had vanished in Venezuela's mountain town of La Grita, a famous meeting point for Catholic pilgrims near the Colombia border.

"It was shocking because we had never heard of something like this here," Villamizar, a government employee in the farming town of 90,000, told AFP on Friday.

More than 160 police officers aided by dogs and drones were deployed to find the group after they went missing on August 22, when they set off for a religious retreat, leaving their cell phones behind to avoid being disturbed.

Local media labeled the group "religious fanatics" and a cult of "extraterrestrials" who were waiting for "the end of the world".

Officers searched for days in the mountains before announcing on Thursday that the group, which included a 20-day-old baby, had been located and were safe and sound on a farm called El Rodeo.

Agents showed the group videos on their phones of locals expressing concern about them, said Yesnardo Canal, a local police officer.

"The children, innocently, said they had become famous, but the adults were ashamed," and many apologized, Canal said.

"They were surprised. The last thing they thought was that all this commotion was happening."

All 16 were transferred back to La Grita early Friday and have undergone medical and psychological examinations, police said.

The news triggered relief across La Grita.

"Thank God they are fine," Villamizar said in a local church, standing near towering stained glass windows and a figure of Jesus Christ that local Catholics credit for multiple miracles.

"There was anxiety" and "very crazy theories," said Deivis Marquez, 30, deacon of the church.

"For us it was a great joy" that the lost people, who live in and around La Grita, turned up, he said.

"Everywhere you went" in the town, people were talking about the missing group, said Maria Isabel Rolon, 53, at her street stall in front of the basilica where she sells paintings and holy cards.

Some parents have expressed outrage that their children were taken on the retreat.

A father of six minors in the group asked police for help when he was unable to reach them, police told AFP.

Another parent said their 13-year-old had gone on the retreat without their permission.

"It was not a show," said Yeilen Gutierrez, the 13-year-old's aunt. "It was not a game, it was a child who was missing."

After days of anxiety, calm has now returned to La Grita.

The town is an important agricultural hub in Venezuela and has a certain mystique for the Catholic parishioners.

Every year on August 6 the city receives hundreds of pilgrims who go to give "thanks" to the Christ of La Grita for his "favors".

Locals are "deeply religious people," said Juan Escalante, mayor of the Jauregui municipality, to which La Grita belongs.

"It is important that we receive these families with open arms."
Hyderabad-based firm Bharat Biotech has sought permission from the drug regulator to conduct phase-3 study of its intranasal Covid-19 vaccine in the 5 to 18 age group.

On September 6, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had approved its intranasal Covid vaccine 'iNCOVACC' for restricted emergency use in those aged above 18 years.

"Now the Hyderabad based firm has submitted an application seeking permission to conduct phase-3, multicenter study to evaluate the safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity of iNCOVACC (BBV154) in those aged 18 to 5 years," an official source told PTI.

Also read | Bharat Biotech's nasal Covid-19 vaccine gets DCGI approval

iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilised spike protein. This vaccine candidate was evaluated in phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials with successful results, a release from the vaccine-maker said.

BBV154 has been specifically formulated to allow intranasal delivery.

"Being an intranasal vaccine, BBV154 may produce local antibodies in the upper respiratory tract. These may provide the potential to reduce infection and transmission. Further studies are being planned, the firm had said.

Separately, the DCGI also granted permission to the firm to conduct a phase-3 clinical trial to compare the immunogenicity and safety of BBV154 (intranasal) with Covaxin.

This trial has been permitted to be conducted at nine sites.
The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday seized crores of rupees during a search operation that covered six premises in Kolkata.

The raids concern an investigation related to a mobile gaming app, designed for defrauding its users. The new recovery has provided one more opportunity to the ruling Trinamools opponents for pointing fingers, and blaming the ruling party for rampant corruption.

The mobile gaming application, E-Nuggets, was launched by a person named Amir Khan. It initially rewarded the users with commission, and it was possible to withdraw the wallet-balance. As the confidence of the users grew stronger, investments became bigger. After strong collections from the users, withdrawal from the app was stopped under different pretexts. After this, data and profile information was deleted from the app servers.

The case under consideration was recorded based on a first information report (FIR) filed by a police station under Kolkata Police in February last year.

The FIR was filed against Aamir Khan and others, and was based on a complaint filed by Federal Bank authorities in the court of Ld. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta.

During the operation, it was discovered that dummy accounts had been used. The amount found initially was Rs 7 crore, before the agency revised to Rs 17 crore later in the day according to a PTI report, and could go higher, after a final assessment is made.

Leaders in the Opposition camp, representing the BJP in Bengal, blamed the Trinamool Congress for the prevalence of corruption in the state.

Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim said the TMC has nothing to do with the businessman concerned but alleged that the Centre wanted to drive away investors from the state by spreading the fear of "harassment" by federal agencies.

The BJP rejected the charge, saying the raids were only against unscrupulous businessmen, and asked the TMC leader if he had anything to hide.

Hakim wondered if the ED's investigations into money laundering cases are restricted to states ruled by non-BJP parties like West Bengal.

"If Rs 7 crore has been unearthed, the source of that money should certainly be investigated. But what about Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi who had swindled more than Rs 7,000 crore? Why did their wrongdoing not come to light before they left (India)?

"There are businessmen in BJP-ruled states and they might also have amassed large amounts of money," he said.

"Does that mean that the raids will be directed selectively against businessmen of non-BJP ruled states like Bengal? It is for dissuading investors from coming to Bengal in the fear of harassment by central agencies," the senior TMC leader alleged.

Reacting to Hakim's comments, BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya claimed that such statements come from fear as people are aware of the unholy nexus between money launderers and the TMC.

"The ED raid is not directed against the business community in general. It is only against unscrupulous businessmen. Does the former state transport minister has anything to hide?" Bhattacharya added.

(With PTI inputs)
In a well-coordinated operation, the Customs department seized 12 kg gold valued at Rs. 5.38 crore from a group of Sudanese passengers who landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai.

The group came to Mumbai by Emirates flight EK-500 from Dubai.

The group of around 23 Sudanese gathered and attempted to clear the green channel by creating commotion to divert the attention of the Customs officers.

The Sudanese passengers deliberately created a ruckus at the Customs arrival area through visible signs and acts of aggression including shouting at the officers and even indulging in physical bouts, Mumbai Air Customs officials said.

However, the Customs officers remained professional and through reasonable force, officers were able to restrain the hostile passengers and manage the situation.

The modus operandi was to create a commotion at the customs arrival area to facilitate the sly escape of passengers carrying gold, the officials added.

Effective and swift execution by customs officers resulted in the recovery of 12 gold bars of one kg each concealed in a specially designed belt worn by one passenger trying to slip away under the cover of commotion.

In this matter, five other passengers who deliberately acted in a hostile manner to divert the attention of the customs officers were also detained for questioning.

While with the help of the Bureau of Immigration, Mumbai Airport office, these six passengers have been blacklisted and sent back to Sudan six of them have been arrested.
Anti-corruption campaigns are catnip to voters. Everyone wants to see the dubiously rich and powerful taken down a pegthe richer and more powerful than themselves, that is. But nothing really changes except the cast. The self-styled clean BJP government goes after the alleged corruption of its political opponents in search of power, not propriety. If it cared for financial transparency, then PM-CARES, the electoral bonds scheme, and buying state governments with magical crores is a funny way to show it.

No, nothing has changed. And when Modi cheerleaders start to rail against corruption-worse-than-the-Congress in BJP-ruled Karnataka, you know that not even the faithful can pretend any longer. Thats apart from the small-scale corruption permanently embedded into the everyday life and business of the nation. Dirty money, crony capitalism, and low-grade cheatingits not a pretty picture.

But there are other, worse forms of corruption.

Political Hindutva (the use of Hindu identity for political purposes, as opposed to Hinduism the religion) has been growing like a malignancy, lesion by lesion, for decades, and it is rotting Indias already imperfect democratic, secular, pluralist flesh. The Republic is far from dead, but parts of it are undead, zombified by a deliberate corruption of our founding ideals.

Weve been watching this for years nowchauvinism steamrolling justice, law, and basic human decency to valourise certain kinds of people for oppressing and killing certain other kinds of people. Weve been watching public representatives of this chauvinism back their constituents and repeatedly survive any blowback. Weve seen a perversion of morality settle into the public view, via public representatives and State officials: the then Union Minister for Culture visiting the family of Ravi Sisodia -- who lynched Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri -- whose body lay draped in the national flag. The then Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, garlanding eight people convicted of lynching a Muslim cattle trader. PM Modi hosting a felicitation for social media trolls, including one best known for celebrating the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. The BJP catapulting terror-accused Pragya Singh Thakur to Parliament, while jailing journalist Siddique Kappan for some invented future crime. BJP members marching in support of the men accused of raping the 8-year-old child in Kathua. The BJP leadership repeatedly roaring for Hindu sentiments and maintaining radio silence in the face of anti-minority violence. Weve seen how a cancerous ideology can hollow out a democracy and overwhelm all its institutional defences.

So, as journalist Jyoti Punwani has pointed out, it isnt surprising to watch the State of Gujarat release the criminals who gang-raped Bilkis Bano and murdered and mutilated her family and child in the 2002 Gujarat riots, and to watch those who should never again have seen a day of freedom be welcomed home like heroes and be called good Brahmins with good values, and to hear the silence of the countrys leadership.

But, of course, unsurprising is not the same as oh well. There is nothing new to say about these grotesque perversions of ethics, but if it doesnt bring political Hindutvas barbaric face into sharp relief for you, nothing is likely to.

The rapist-murderers were released on our 76th Independence Day, by the BJP government of the PMs home state, advised by a panel comprised heavily of BJP representatives and supporters. Almost no BJP leader has made any public comment about their release, except to defend the PM. If thats not a pointed display, I dont know what is. To get into the legal weeds of the remission policy, to start arguing about whether releasing rapists is consistent with Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao is to miss the big picture, and the big picture is this: Hindutva proudly holding up a new-birthed version of the republic for inspection and allegiance, like Rafiki holding up Simba in The Lion Kingexcept that its not a heart-melting cub, but an abomination, destined to prevail by force and fear and complicity and absolute amorality.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)
On September 12, 1962, then US president John F Kennedy informed the public of his plan to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

It was the height of the Cold War and America needed a big victory to demonstrate its space superiority after the Soviet Union had launched the first satellite and put the first man in orbit.

"We choose to go to the Moon," Kennedy told 40,000 people at Rice University, "because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

Sixty years on, the United States is about to launch the first mission of its return program to the Moon, Artemis. But why repeat what has already been done?

Criticism has risen in recent years, for example from Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, and the Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin, who have long advocated for America to go directly to Mars.

Also Read | NASA's Webb catches Tarantula Nebula

But NASA argues re-conquering the Moon is a must before a trip to the Red Planet. Here's why.

NASA wants to develop a sustainable human presence on the Moon, with missions lasting several weeks -- compared to just a few days for Apollo.

The goal: to better understand how to prepare for a multi-year round trip to Mars.

In deep space, radiation is much more intense and poses a real threat to health.

Low Earth Orbit, where the International Space Station (ISS) operates, is partly shielded from radiation by the Earth's magnetic field, which isn't the case on the Moon.

From the first Artemis mission, many experiments are planned to study the impact of this radiation on living organisms, and to assess the effectiveness of an anti-radiation vest.

What's more, while the ISS can often be resupplied, trips to the Moon -- a thousand times further -- are much more complex.

To avoid having to take everything with them, and to save costs, NASA wants to learn how to use the resources present on the surface.

In particular, water in the form of ice, which has been confirmed to exist on the lunar south pole, could be transformed into rocket fuel by cracking it into its separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

Also Read | No gamma rays from dwarf galaxy solves astronomical puzzle

NASA also wants to pilot on the Moon the technologies that will continue to evolve on Mars. First, new spacesuits for spacewalks.

Their design was entrusted to the company Axiom Space for the first mission which will land on the Moon, in 2025 at the earliest.

Other needs: vehicles -- both pressurized and unpressurized -- so that the astronauts can move around, as well as habitats.

Finally, for sustainable access to an energy source, NASA is working on the development of portable nuclear fission systems.

Solving any problems that arise will be much easier on the Moon, only a few days away, than on Mars, which can only be reached in at least several months.

A major pillar of the Artemis program is the construction of a space station in orbit around the Moon, called Gateway, which will serve as a relay before the trip to Mars.

All the necessary equipment can be sent there in "multiple launches," before finally being joined by the crew to set off on the long voyage, Sean Fuller, responsible for the Gateway program, told AFP.

"Kind of like you're stopping at your gas station to make sure you get all the stuff, and then you're off on your way."

Apart from Mars, another reason put forward by the Americans for settling on the Moon is to do so before the Chinese, who plan to send taikonauts by the year 2030.

Also Read | India to design, build reusable rocket for global market: ISRO

China is the United States' main competition today as the once proud Russian space program has withered.

"We don't want China suddenly getting there and saying, "This is our exclusive territory,'" NASA boss Bill Nelson said in a recent interview.

While the Apollo missions brought back to Earth nearly 400 kilograms of lunar rock, new samples will make it possible to further deepen our knowledge of this celestial object and its formation.

"The samples that we collected during the Apollo missions changed the way we view our solar system," astronaut Jessica Meir told AFP. "I think we can expect that from the Artemis program as well."

She expects further scientific and technological breakthroughs too, just like during the Apollo era.
North West Regional College (NWRC) and Bishops Gate Hotel are inviting applicants to apply to an HLA (Higher Level Apprenticeship) in Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Bishops Gate in Derry is one of the award-winning hotels to participate in this years programme.

Ciaran ONeill, Managing Director, Bishops Gate Hotel is offering three Hotel Trainee Manager positions and explains the importance of the partnership:

We have teamed up with North West Regional College (NWRC) in the city to attract new candidates to our Trainee Manager Development Programme. Candidates will be given the opportunity to study at North West Regional College one day per week and have a full-time position with us.

We are keen to attract new candidates who are thinking of pursuing a career in the hotel and hospitality sector. At Bishops Gate, we are committed to bringing in top talent and building a strong team. Courses of this calibre allow candidates to progress into a number of career pathways within the sectors of Hospitality, Tourism, Travel and Events.

JP McCafferty, General Manager, Bishops Gate Hotel added: The Trainee Manager Programme represents an enviable opportunity to establish a lasting career with an award-winning hotel property.

"The programme aims to identify highly motivated individuals and develop them into future leaders by combining operational support experience, fast-track leadership training and tailored development opportunities in partnership with NWRC.

The development programme rewards drive and determination, which involves professional hands-on experience combined with on-the-job cross-training and development in functional areas. In return candidates will have the opportunity to achieve a Foundation Degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Helen McGonigal, HLA Skills Development Officer at NWRC explained that the college is in talks with businesses across the North West about opportunities to offer employment to students enrolled on the HLA in Hospitality and Tourism Management.

This will equip the trainees with the knowledge and experience required to become future managers within the hotel and hospitality sector.

Helen McGonigal, HLA Skills Development Officer at NWRC explained that the college is in talks with businesses across the North West about opportunities to offer employment to students enrolled on the HLA in Hospitality and Tourism Management.

She added: The NWRC is delighted to be working in partnership with Bishops Gate Hotel. HLA candidates can be newly recruited employees or used to upskill and progress existing staff.

The courses are all funded by the Department for the Economy so students never have to worry about tuition fees, in fact, the HLA is a unique work-based programme that enables participants to earn while they learn, while gaining a recognised Level 5 qualification. And there is no cost to the employer for participation.

This programme has been designed to prepare candidates for a career in the Hospitality and Tourism industry. Modules of study will include: Event Operations, Introduction to Hospitality & Tourism, Food & Beverage Operations, Incoming & Domestic Tourism; Global Tourism Destinations, Facility Operations, Finance, Employability, Work Based Learning, Management in Action, Human Resources Management, Marketing & Entrepreneurship and Global Tourism Management Issues, Food & Beverage Management.

On full course completion, candidates have the opportunity to progress to the BSC Hons Degree in International Hospitality Management at Ulster University or a similar subject degree programme at another HE Institution or University within the UK or Ireland.

NWRC has led the way in developing the HLA framework based on strong links with academic partners and businesses.

Helen added: Higher Level Apprenticeships enable businesses to attract and retain employees with potential, expanding workplace diversity and benefiting the local community and wider economy. With Higher Level Apprentices learning at work, they can develop the knowledge and occupational competencies demanded by specific job roles and meet the unique needs of your business.

Higher Level Apprentices can keep your business up to date with the latest techniques and technology, increasing your productivity for the future. With a higher-level apprentice, you are training someone for the way your business works from the start.

This experience will feature a close mentoring relationship and academic support provided by NWRC as they progress through the relevant higher-level qualification.

To apply for a Hotel Trainee Manager position at Bishops Gate, please send a cover letter explaining why you wish to be considered and an up-to-date CV to careers@bishopsgatehotel derry.com.

Closing date for registration is 30 September 2022.
Unionists in Mid Ulster have voiced their disappointment after a local council's decision on flying the Union flag during the period of mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Despite Mid Ulster District Council operating a 'no flags' policy, councillors representing the DUP and UUP had requested an exception to allow the Union flag to be flown at half mast.

However, councillors agreed to fly the flag at half mast only at the Council offices in Dungannon and not at premises in Cookstown and Magherafelt.

A joint statement from DUP and UUP councillors said they were 'disappointed' with the outcome.

Mid Ulster constituents share in this great loss but are also saddened that parties within the Council whilst calling for a shared future, at the same time are blocking others from expressing their respect in the same way as local authorities throughout the rest of the United Kingdom by flying the Union Flag at half-mast for ten days, they said.

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) representatives for the constituency went further, describing the decision as 'diabolical' and said Council had caused 'hurt and distress' as a result.

It is with a profound sense of disappointment that we have witnessed another case of discrimination against the Unionist minority in Cookstown and Magherafelt, said a spokesperson.

For far to (sic) long now this republican controlled council has used various tactics to ride roughshod over the civil and religious liberties of their Unionist neighbours.

That being contrary to their leader who only the other day said to reach out the hand of friendship to their Unionist neighbours.

The group appealed to the Council to 'reconsider this diabolical decision and do the right thing'.

These councillors either dont know or dont care what untold damage they are doing to community relations in these areas, they said.

All we are asking is that they take their own advice and show tolerance, integrity and equality at a time when tolerance could go a long way.

A Council spokesperson said they had taken the decision in 'exceptional circumstances'.

While the Council has a no flags policy, as a mark of respect in this exceptional circumstance, party leaders have agreed that a flag will fly during the mourning period outside the main civic offices in Dungannon, they said.
The proclamation of the new King has been read to the people of Northern Ireland at Hillsborough Castle.

The Norroy and Ulster King of Arms Robert Noel formally declared the accession of Charles III to the throne following the Queens death.

Amid heavy rain, around 200 invited guests were inside the castle grounds, while hundreds more watched from under umbrellas outside the main gates.

Hillsborough Castle is the royal familys official residence in Northern Ireland, and the Co Down village was recently honoured with a Royal prefix in recognition of its long-standing regal links.

The ceremony began with the Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) band leading a procession of a Proclamation Guard from the 2nd Battalion of the RIR and representatives of Lisburn and Castlereagh Council to the front of the castle.

Prior to the proclamation, a 40-second fanfare was sounded by a bugler.

A bell in the clock tower of the castles Court House chimed once at 12pm to signal the start of the reading.

As Norroy and Ulster King of Arms, London-born Mr Noel is one of three senior officers of arms at the College of Arms in London.

Following the proclamation, a 21-gun salute was fired by the 206 (Ulster) Battery Royal Artillery.

After the last round, the bugler sounded a royal salute before the RIR band played a verse of God Save The King.

Mr Noel then invited guests to cheer three times for Charles.

Guests included Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Northern Ireland Office minister Steve Baker.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie and Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister were also there.

After the short service concluded, the bells from St Malachys Parish rang out across the village.

The armed forces played a major role in the ceremonial activities, with senior figures from the Royal Navy, Army and RAF in attendance.

Commodore Kris Nicholson from the Royal Navy represented the First Sea Lord at the service.

He told the PA news agency: It was a huge privilege.

A huge honour and one of the highlights on the ceremonial side of my career. This is my first time here and I was hugely impressed.

I understand there has been renovations recently, and the grounds, the inside of the castle, it is superb and reflects extremely well on the occasion.

Brigadier James Senior, Commander of the 38 (Irish) Brigade, represented the Army.

He said: It is a great moment of solemnity as we reflect on Her Majestys seven decades of service, but then also a moment of change for our country as we look forward to the reign of King Charles.

As well as these fantastic public buildings, there is a very warm and deep sense of affection for and between the people of Northern Ireland and our late Queen. But then also similarly with His Majesty.

Air Officer NI Marshall Sean Reynolds is the RAF Chief of Air Staffs senior representative in Northern Ireland.

He said: It is a moment of sadness as we reflect on Her Majesty.

I was lucky enough to get to meet her on a number of occasions and she had that unique ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the world when you spoke to her.

But we are also welcoming the new monarch, His Majesty the King.

There is a huge amount of pride in how the armed forces managed to do this so well.

My hats off to the Royal Artillery for a magnificent gun salute to mark the occasion.

As well as the VIP guests, more than 100 residents of Hillsborough were invited inside the palace grounds to watch the ceremony.

Pauline Hampton and Collette McGowan, who both live in the village, spoke of their pride at receiving an invitation.

Ms Hampton said: I ring the church bells in St Malachys, Hillsborough Parish Church, and an invitation was kindly extended of which I accepted.

It meant everything to me to be here today. It truly was a momentous occasion.

The weather certainly did not put us off. We would have been here no matter what the weather.

I was devastated when I heard the news about the Queen, we knew at lunchtime that she wasnt well. It was just devastating when the news came through at teatime.

When asked about the new King, she said: Charles has had a good teacher, I dont think he will go too far wrong.

Ms McGowan added: I think Charles will do a great job.

He has watched what his mother has done for the last 70 years and I think he will make a good king.

The ceremony in the small Co Down village comes ahead of Charles first visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, when he will travel to Hillsborough Castle to view an exhibition on the Queens long association with Northern Ireland.

Later on Sunday, the proclamation was read at Belfast City Hall by the High Sheriff of Belfast, John Hussey, before a special meeting of the council where representatives paid tribute to the Queen.
In a bid to improve the user experience for Teams, tech giant Microsoft is now planning to show users search results within context by navigating to the thread containing a queried item.

According to Windows Central, the new option may arrive in October 2022 to Teams for Windows and Mac.

Currently, when you search for text, Teams takes users to a view of their messages and any directly connected thread, but it is completely out of context, the report said.

Clicking on the search result does not take users to where the chat was sent within a channel or conversation, which is about to change.

"When users search for a chat message in Teams and click on a message result, they are taken to a view that contains only the selected message, rather than the entire chat thread," the company quoted an entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

"This fix will now land the users on the full chat thread once the message search result is clicked, thereby providing the full context of the conversation around the message result," it added.

The report mentioned that the change should make it easier to see messages' context.

(Except for the headline and cover image, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in
Tech giant Google is likely readying to launch a cheaper Chromecast, which might be sold for $30 (Rs 2,390 approx) in October.



According to GSMArena, a set of photos obtained by TecnoBlog shows images of a new, cheaper Chromecast that looks exactly like the Chromecast with Google TV.



As per the report, though it is visually identical to the Chromecast with Google TV launched in 2020, it carries a different model number -- G454V.



This model has gone throughAFederal Communications Commission (FCC) certification already and it is rumoured to be different internally.



This unreleased Chromecast will run an Amlogic S805X2 chip with AV1 support and 2GB RAM. While it is less powerful than the 4K model, it is expected to support up to 1080p output resolution, the report said.



This cheaper Chromecast is expected to come with a voice remote, as per WinFuture.



This new lower-cost Chromecast could arrive during Google's October 6 event, where it will fully launch the Google Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, as well as the Pixel Watch and rumour has it there will be some more Nest Home devices coming as well.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in.
Results published from a recent survey carried out on behalf of the FASTER Project has revealed that 55% of motorists living in the border region of the Republic of Ireland are likely to choose a Battery Electric Vehicle when purchasing their next car. This further demonstrates intentions to move away from petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles.

Drivers and transport users from across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland were invited to participate in the survey conducted by Glasgow based, Transport Research Partners with the aims to uncover any changes in attitudes to zero emission vehicle use over the past 12 months.

Further statistics reveal 94% of battery electric vehicle owners are likely to purchase another zero emissions vehicle in the future. Additionally, the survey revealed 88% of existing electric vehicle owners have access to charging facilities at home and 90% of owners charge their vehicle at home just once each week.

The FASTER Project, which supported the development and the distribution of this survey research is a 6.4 million EU funded initiative under the INTERREG VA programme.

Having launched one year ago, the project is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body to facilitate the transition to electric vehicles. Match-funding for the FASTER project has also been provided by the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland and the Department for Transport in Ireland, as well as Transport Scotland.

The key aim of the FASTER Project is to deliver an interoperable 73 rapid charging stations across Western Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland border region before the end of October 2023. Cllr Michelle Hall, Chair of East Border Region who are leading the FASTER project stated:

We are delighted in East Border Region to be at the forefront of this exciting and much needed project. The results from the survey illustrate that the 73 rapid chargers the FASTER project will bring to the three project jurisdictions of N.I., the border Region of R.O.I. and Western Scotland are vital to developing our EV infrastructure and will be well utilised. We look forward to reporting on project progress over the coming months as we proceed with procurement in each jurisdiction.

Donal Monaghan, Behavioural Change Project Officer at South West College added: This past 12 months has been one of the most challenging periods for motorists and transport users living across the three project regions with fuel shortages, price increases and the rising cost of living.

"Not only does the survey reveal that across the project areas 54% of all motorists are strongly considering the switch to electric vehicles, over 1300 of those surveyed reflected that their awareness of electric vehicles had improved this past year with 59% of all respondents confirming that they had taken a test drive in a vehicle not powered by traditional fuels.

"South West College is leading an educational programme to promote the recognised benefits of electric vehicles and to dispel any persisting myths or inaccuracies. We have developed a series of monthly webinars led by respected automotive industry professionals which are designed to answer key questions around electric vehicle use and ownership and we continually engage with a range of industry organisations and user groups to determine new and efficient methods to promote the technology.

Over the coming months South West College will work alongside councils in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to assist them with the development of their own fleet and electric vehicle infrastructure strategies. For further information on the FASTER Project please visit www.fasterevcharge.com
The Tree Council of Ireland, supported by SPAR, is encouraging primary school children across the country to take the pledge and plant a tree on SPAR National Tree Day, Thursday 6 October 2022. This years campaign theme Root for Nature encourages children, parents and teachers to connect directly with nature by planting one of the 2,000 FREE Native Irish Holly tree saplings available on www.treeday.ie.

This years Root for Nature theme calls on children to get involved in helping the environment while also teaching them about the complex root system under the tree commented Eanna Ni Lamhna, President of the Tree Council of Ireland. Intertwined with the roots of the tree is a fascinating microscopic network of fungus known as The Woodwide Web that allows trees to communicate and connect to other trees, plants and animals.

Commenting on the initiative, SPAR Sales Director Colin Donnelly said, SPAR is very proud to support this initiative and encourage everyone to let their green fingers come to the fore. We have a natural connection through our iconic fir tree and tagline, Under the tree at SPAR and are delighted to be associated with this terrific campaign.

As part of this years campaign, SPAR and the Tree Council have teamed up with award-winning childrens illustrator Fatti Burke to create the SPAR National Tree Day Colouring Competition. Children can pick up the colouring sheets in SPAR stores nationwide from September. Colouring resources for schools are also available on www.treeday.ie.

To claim a FREE Native Irish Holly tree and to find out more about this years SPAR National Tree Day and the Colouring Competition visit www.treeday.ie.
According to deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak on Saturday, the BJP will win all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the next parliamentary elections, totally erasing the vote share of all opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party.

Pathak attacked the head of the Samajwadi Party by saying, Akihlesh Yadav has confined himself to Twitter and social media, while BJP leaders and workers are carrying out the message of welfare schemes launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

His statement came hours after a banner emerged at the Samajwadi Party headquarters in Lucknow with the message: UP + Bihar = Gayi Modi Sarkar (If Uttar Pradesh and Bihar join hands, the Modi government will be ousted.

Pathak predicted that the Samajwadi Partys vote share would vanish by 2024. The BJP has defeated Opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party, in 2014, 2017, 2019. And in 2024, we will get all 80 seats, he said.

Pathak also replied to a question by saying there was no cause for concern regarding the state governments proposed survey on unrecognised madrassas in Uttar Pradesh.

Those who are indulging in illegal practices will face action and those who are following the law must not be afraid. No action will be taken against them, he claimed.
THE Cork campus of Munster Technological University (MTU) has confirmed that it is currently in the process of applying for official recognition of its two social care programmes.

Under new rules, the Social Care Workers Register will open in November of 2023 and will introduce regulation to that profession for the first time in Ireland.

The register will list approved qualifications, and if a qualification is not listed, it cannot be used to apply for entry to the Social Care Workers register.

During a two-year transition period until November 2025, CORU will offer an alternative option for applicants who have been practising in the profession for a minimum of two years out of the previous five on the date the register opens; [or if they] hold the relevant qualifications.

Without recognition of MTUs social care programmes by CORU, the regulator for health and social care professionals, graduates of those courses would not in the future be able to become registered social care workers.

The regulator told The Echo earlier this week that it had not currently received any application from MTU for recognition of its Cork campuss social care courses, but the university has since said preparation of its application was at an advanced stage.

Responding to a query from The Echo, a spokesperson for the university said: MTU is currently engaged in the CORU application process and is at an advanced stage of preparation to complete the application process for its two Social Care programmes.

A final document was submitted by the North Kerry Campus in March 2022 and it is anticipated that a submission by the Cork Bishopstown Campus will be made later this year.

MTUs spokesperson said the university has been providing programmes in social care on its campuses in Cork Bishopstown Campus and Kerry North Campus for over 20 years.

These programmes were originally approved by Academic Council and have since been subject to a five-year cyclical review, as per the universitys academic quality assurance procedures. Currently there are hundreds of graduates of these MTU programmes in successful careers in the social care sector, the spokesperson said.

Last month, social care students in the Dublin Business School were told the college had withdrawn its application for graduates of the course to be accredited by CORU. That decision is reported to be impacting in the region of 80 students.
A 45-year-old woman shouted aggressively after an argument with a friend and now in court she has said she is embarrassed and regretful about the incident.

Lisa OBrien of 128 Comeragh Park, The Glen, Cork, pleaded guilty to engaging in threatening and abusive language and being drunk and a source of danger.

She apologised and expressed her remorse through her solicitor, Shane Collins-Daly at Cork District Court.

Judge Colm Roberts fined her 150 fine for being threatening and abusive and 50 for being drunk and a danger at Rutland Square, Rutland Street, Cork, on the occasion.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Washington, D.C.



On September 23, 2022, The Washington Opera Society will mount a production of Mozart's most renowned and beloved opera, The Magic Flute. This work contains some of the most recognizable melodies in the operatic canon.

We are thrilled to announce that Ron Dukes, a critically-acclaimed incredible young bass from The Lyric Opera of Chicago, will sing the formidable role of Sarastro. A local favorite, rising superstar tenor Michael Butler, will portray the ever hopeful and romantic hero, Prince Tamino. Praised for her warm and lyric voice, Kira Neary will sing the role of Princess Pamina. Coloratura Rachel Singh, will deliver virtuosic vocal fireworks during the Queen of the Night aria, and the charming Collin Power will sing the boyish and lovable Papageno.

Artistic Director Julien Benichou, will conduct the newly-minted WOS orchestra. His infectious energy and love of Mozart will bring this performance to life. "The Magic Flute is the essence of Mozart, and Mozart is the essence of music," says Maestro Benichou. "We are delighted to be presenting this central masterpiece of the operatic repertoire." For the first time in WOS history, we will be projecting supertitles alongside a slideshow of thematic -related paintings.

The following Covid related restrictions will apply. Masks covering the nose and mouth must be worn at all times except while eating or drinking.

Doors will open at 6:30pm. Guests will be greeted with a glass of sparkling wine and the performance will begin promptly at 7pm. This memorable evening will culminate in a reception. To purchase tickets visit:



https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-magic-flute-in-concert-tickets-410071885047

WOS Board President, Alexandra Senyi says: "Experiencing The Magic Flute is one of my earliest, most wondrous childhood opera memories in Vienna. But it is so much more than just an uplifting opera for children. It is a beacon of hope, where love triumphs, courage and conviction defeat evil and it is all magically guided by Mozart's enchanting music. No other Austrian composer has marked the classical music scene in Austria more than Mozart. For the Washington Opera Society to produce The Magic Flute at the Austrian Embassy, it is bringing a piece of Austria and its culture to Washington DC."

Embassy of Austria,3524
Chinese community in Nigeria marks Mid-Autumn Festival

Xinhua) 15:30, September 11, 2022

LAGOS, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of Chinese nationals living Nigeria on Friday night celebrated in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub, the Mid-Autumn Festival with songs and dances, amid a copious flow of food and beverages.

At a five-and-a-half-hour gala, which was held at the famous Oriental Hotel in Lagos, artists from the Huaxing Arts Troupe Nigeria, the Nigeria Dance Troupe, and artists from major tribes in Nigeria staged a variety of traditional music, dances and songs.

An audience of about 500 people attended the gala, including Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria Cui Jianchun, the Consul General of China in Lagos Chu Maoming, and some senior officials from Nigeria's ministry of information and culture, and ministry of science, technology and innovation.

Speaking at the ceremony, Cui Jianchun said both countries had gone through many historical events and helped each other to bring peace, development and growth in all sectors, which brought significant benefits to the peoples of the two countries as well as world peace and progress.

The envoy, who said China and Nigeria enjoy historical relations that are growing from strength to strength, also expressed support for Nigeria's efforts to maintain development and stability.

Ni Mengxiao, Chairman of the Chinese Industrial and Commercial Enterprises Association and Huaxing Arts Troupe Nigeria, told Xinhua that the development of the bilateral ties between both countries has greatly contributed to the social and economic development of Nigeria.

"China and Nigeria are good friends, partners, and brothers. A good relationship between the two nations has brought tons of benefits to our people and countries, and it contributes to peace and development regionally and globally," he said.

Other speakers at the event, including the wife of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, stressed that they expect stronger cooperation and more progress in China-Nigeria relations.

They said China has been critical in supporting Nigeria in building key infrastructure projects like railways, roads, hospitals, among others.

The performance received strong support from viewers. Each of the performances drew hearty rounds of applause from the audience.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important traditional Chinese festivals.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
A bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a $2.46 billion reorganization plan proposed by the Boy Scouts of America, which would allow it to keep operating while compensating tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting.

Though legal hurdles remain, the ruling by Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Delaware marked an important milestone for the BSA, which sought bankruptcy protection more than two years ago to stave off a flood of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by Scout leaders and volunteers.

MORE BUSINESS NEWS: Tesla among surge of companies rushing to take advantage of Texas expiring tax incentive program

Lawyers for some of the victims said the amount an individual survivor may receive from the bankruptcy plan depends on multiple factors relating to the alleged abuse. The plan calls for the BSA and its local councils, along with settling insurance companies and troop sponsoring organizations, including Catholic institutions and parishes, to contribute to a fund for survivors. In return, those groups would be shielded from future lawsuits over Scout-related abuse allegations.

More than 80,000 men have filed claims saying they were abused as children by troop leaders around the country.

RELATED: CPS Energy bills jump 43% in July to a record $254, but unpaid bills creating headaches for utility

Credit to the courageous survivors that this breakthrough in child and scouting safety has been achieved, said attorney Jeff Anderson, whose firm represented more than 800 Boy Scout abuse survivors.

Anderson said most of the $2.46 billion is to be paid to survivors, but some funds would be set aside in a trust to continue litigation against entities that have not settled, mainly insurance companies.

It will likely take months for any of the abuse claimants to receive compensation.

Anderson said the settlement has drawn mixed reactions from his clients. Many are proud they stood up and demanded a cleanup of the Irving, Texas-based Boy Scouts, while others feel like they were dismissed because the organization hid behind the statute of limitations in some states.

The Boy Scouts of America said it is pleased the court has approved its reorganization plan.

We continue to be enormously grateful to the survivor community, whose bravery, patience, and willingness to share their experiences has been instrumental in the formation of this Plan, the organization said in a statement.

The Boy Scouts said the perspectives and priorities of the survivors will be ingrained in the BSA's programming moving forward."

S.A. VOTES Voter Guide: What to know for the Texas runoff election A breakdown of key state and local races and candidates in the May 24 primary runoff.

The BSA also said that because certain parties have said they plan to appeal the order, the organization will next begin an appeal process in order to emerge from Chapter 11, which will allow survivors to be equitably compensated and preserve the mission of Scouting for future generations.

A federal district judge must sign off on Silberstein's ruling.

When it filed for bankruptcy, the BSA faced about 275 filed lawsuits and was aware of numerous other potential cases. More than 80,000 abuse claims were eventually filed as part of the bankruptcy.

Attorneys for BSA insurers argued early on that the sheer volume of claims was an indication of fraud and the result of aggressive client solicitation by attorneys and for-profit claims aggregators. While some of those insurers later negotiated settlements, other insurers continued to oppose the plan. They argued that the procedures for distributing funds from the compensation trust would violate their contractual rights to contest claims and set a dangerous precedent for mass litigation.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden has formally accepted an invitation to attend the state funeral service for Queen Elizabeth II.

The White House said Sunday that the president will be accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden. The service will be held on Sept. 19.

Earlier in the day, Biden remembered the words of comfort that the late monarch had provided to the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks more than two decades ago.

Grief is the price we pay for love, said Biden, quoting part of the Queens message to America during remarks on the 21st anniversary of the attacks.

Speaking at a commemoration at the Pentagon, Biden said the queen's words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago but the weight of loss also remains heavy.

On this day, the price feels so great, Biden said.

-

KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

 Queen Elizabeth II loved corgis breed from childhood

 Former British colonies conflicted over Queen Elizabeth II

 Queen Elizabeth II's coffin begins journey through Scotland

 Whats next for the UK as Queen Elizabeth II laid to rest

 King Charles III is officially proclaimed monarch in London

 What will happen to all the currencies that feature the queen?

 Explainer: The formal rules around Charles' accession

 Mourners in the street: Sincere grief flows out across Britain

 Will Charles be loved by his subjects, like his mother was?

 Find more AP coverage here: https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii

___

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

DONCASTER, England - British horse racing has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II as the late monarchs favorite sport returned after a pause following her death.

Two minutes of silence were held at Doncaster on Sunday. A video was then played on the big screens of the queen at various races through the years, along with some of her greatest triumphs as a racehorse owner.

Horse racing was the big sporting fascination of the queen, who became one of the biggest faces of the sport both in Britain and globally and had more than 1,800 winners.

No one person ever has, or ever will, do so much for so long for horse racing, than did her majesty the queen, narrator Brough Scott, a former jockey turned TV presenter, said during the video. The sport worldwide will forever be in her debt.

It was followed by a long ovation from the jockeys and officials who lined up for the tribute ceremony.

____

EDINBURGH, Scotland - Queen Elizabeth IIs flag-draped coffin has arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the British monarchys residence in the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh.

The arrival followed a slow, somber and regal procession through the Scottish countryside on Sunday. Mourners had packed city streets and lined rural roads to take part in a historic goodbye to the monarch who reigned for 70 years.

The hearse drove past piles of bouquets and other tributes as it led a seven-car cortege from Balmoral, where the queen died Thursday at age 96, for a six-hour trip through Scottish towns to the palace in Edinburgh. The late queens coffin was draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland and topped with a wreath made of flowers from the estate, including sweet peas, one of the queens favorites.

Members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland carried the coffin past the queens only daughter, Princess Anne, and into the throne room. It will remain there until Monday afternoon so residence staff can pay their last respects.

King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla will travel to Edinburgh on Monday to take the coffin to St. Giles Cathedral on the citys Royal Mile. The coffin will remain there for 24 hours before being flown to London on Tuesday.

___

A young Bosnian girl is remembering Queen Elizabeth II for her love of dogs and her kindness.

Asya Isovic, 12, says she will never forget the day she found a letter waiting for her at home in Sarajevo that was sent on the queens behalf.

Isovic had made a card decorated with a drawing of a Queens Guard with three corgi dogs and mailed it to the Queen along with some poems and a couple of more things.

She did not expect a reply, but one signed by the queens lady-in-waiting had arrived. The letter said the Queen was touched by your thoughtfulness and really appreciates the time and care taken to create your card and gifts.

Isovic said she hoped the royal family will find a way to cope with the loss. She also hoped that King Charles III will take care of the (late Queens) corgis.

-

LONDON  King Charles IIIs son William, the new Prince of Wales, has told the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, he will serve the country with humility and great respect.

William was given the title when his father, the previous Prince of Wales, ascended to the throne following the death Thursday of Queen Elizabeth II.

William told Drakeford that he and his wife Catherine have a deep affection for Wales, having made their first family home in Anglesey, including during the earliest months of Prince Georges life.

He said the couple would travel to Wales very soon and want to do their part to support the aspirations of the Welsh people and to shine a spotlight on both the challenges and opportunities in front of them.

___

BEIJING  Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a message of congratulation to Britains King Charles III on his accession to the throne, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

I am willing to work with King Charles III to enhance mutual understanding and friendship ... and strengthen communication on global issues, so as to benefit the two countries, Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

The Chinese president also commemorated the 50th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations. The message comes amid strained relations over trade, human rights and Chinas crackdown on the democratic opposition in the former British colony of Hong Kong.

___

King Charles III has been formally proclaimed the monarch in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The moves Sunday in the rest of the United Kingdom came a day after the same proclamation was made in London at a pomp-filled accession ceremony steeped in ancient tradition and political symbolism.

In Belfast, bells chimed and a bugler played before the proclamation was read. It was followed by a 21-gun salute and a military band playing the anthem, God Save the King. In Wales, a regimental mascot goat accompanied the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh regiment at the ceremony at Cardiff Castle.

Earlier, proclamations were held in other parts of the Commonwealth  the group of former British Empire colonies  including Australia and New Zealand.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

UVALDE  Dark scribbles.

Thats what students in Uvalde were drawing in the days immediately after the shooting at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 kids and two teachers, said Ayla Rahmberg, a San Antonio-based volunteer with Canines for Christ.

The pictures were so sad, Rahmberg said. The feelings they were drawing were really heart-wrenching.

But over the summer, the national organization provided therapy dogs to accompany or just interact for a few minutes with hundreds of kids. The dogs were with them at funerals, community events and vacation Bible school, a summer church tradition.

The kids are back in school and their sketches have become brighter, Rahmberg said.

There were pictures that we saw of kids drawing a school with a dog and a heart around it, she said. That is new. That was a change. We are watching healing. That progress is happening. Its slow. The grief is not going to ever go away, but the process is hopefully in motion.

Sam Owens, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

Multiple organizations have helped Uvalde residents deal with loss and grief, in and out of school settings, with many trying to hire mental health professionals from a supply of applicants that cant keep up with demand.

That leaves animals to play a central role. Parents have purchased puppies for their kids. The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, which started classes Tuesday, has therapy dogs for its students.

Sacred Heart Uvalde, the local Catholic school that doubled its enrollment after the tragedy, has had dogs on campus almost every day since its semester began Aug. 15. Canines for Christ will supply them once a week for the rest of the year.

Something about petting a dog. People start petting a dog and it just brings down the defenses, said Jill Powell, another volunteer and the organizations director of membership. It helps you feel better and more relaxed and helps you start talking.

Sacred Heart has a designated play therapy room where counselors meet with students in groups to share strategies for coping with mental health struggles or for one-on-one chats.

The dogs are like counselors with fur, said Joseph Olan, the schools principal.

Students can come into the room at any point during the school day to play with the dogs. Sometimes counselors will specifically request a dog to join a session.

Dogs create a comfort like no other, Rahmberg said. Even if the kids dont want to talk, they can pet them, or lay on them, or hug them.

Uvalde CISD will have at least two comfort dogs on each campus every day for the first three weeks of school, along with a handful of changes being made to support the still grieving community.

The district previously had five licensed clinicians serving its eight campuses, along with one academic school counselor on each campus. This year, it has added two more licensed clinicians and is trying to hire a third.

Its been a challenge because all of the agencies in our area are also looking to hire, said Nichole Henderson, the districts lead family and student support counselor. We are all going after the same applicants.

After their first week, students seem to be adjusting, smiling and thrilled to see their friends and their teachers, she said.

But more difficult times might lie ahead, Henderson warned.

The need for support is going to be long term and we are adjusting based on what we are seeing, Henderson said. It is still the first week of school. I think the excitement has been a nice distraction for students; but we know that with grief and trauma, those times of the years that create stress are around the holidays, anniversaries, birthdays.

Its just going to take time.

Sam Owens, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

Help from Texas

Communities in Schools, an organization that supplements counselors at school districts throughout Texas, including 12 districts in and around San Antonio, is providing three counselors in Uvalde this school year. The goal is to provide seven, but that, too, will depend on hiring.

Working with the Texas Education Agencys Region 20 Service Center, the nonprofit brought in counselors over the summer to help the whole town, with more than 200 counselors from San Antonio school districts on rotating shifts.

Region 20 brought three counselors to Uvaldes public schools last week, and in the fall we will hopefully be able to identify any gaps in resources and connect to any of those resources that do exist, said Jessica Weaver, the Communities in Schools CEO.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio schools, bolstered by federal dollars, still struggle to meet students mental health needs

The Uvalde school district is also partnering with Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine, or TCHATT, to connect even more students to counselors and nurses, utilizing the Rhithm App, which provides a daily check-in tool for students to log how they are feeling each day.

Uvalde teachers have received special training to support students affected by trauma and grief.

Northside ISD, San Antonios largest school district, is sharing classroom guidance lessons with the Uvalde CISD counselors, to augment their options in teaching students how to express and ask for what they need, said Mary Libby, Northsides director of counseling.

Maybe they need to go see a counselor or maybe they need to just cry, Libby said.

The lessons also help students with personal relationships, health and safety, and college and career readiness. Libby hopes the new school year brings students much needed regularity to help them through such an unusual and difficult time.

Routine is so important, Libby said. It isnt about rigidity, that is very different. But when I know what to expect every day, that just allows me to feel a little safer, a little more secure in what the day is going to bring. Predictability, breathing, mindfulness and regulation is just what helps us get through the day and allows the brain to do what it needs to do.

Several organizations are providing mental health resources outside of school.

The Childrens Bereavement Center has child grief counselors and is also working in the schools, training some of the teachers and running support groups for teachers and parents, said Marian Sokol, its executive director. It has six counselors there from throughout Texas.

We are trying our best to get counselors from the area, but obviously it is very difficult because the school district is hiring, Sokol said.

Starting in October at Uvaldes public library, the center will be hosting Smart and Art Saturdays to bring learning and art experiences to the community on the second Saturday of each month.

We are just trying to have a long-term presence in the community, Sokol said.

She didnt see an immediate rush of families to get counseling, but a lot of people asked what was available and many simply wanted to know if their childs behavior was normal.

There is a high level of anxiety. They have not done this before. That community has not lived through this kind of an experience, Sokol said. Right now, many are anxious for their child and they are protective of their child.

Families can also visit the Uvalde Resilience Center to get connected to counselors supplied by the Ecumenical Center in San Antonio, as well as other resources like food assistance, the Salvation Army, Red Cross, legal aid and the regional Workforce Solutions office.

The Ecumenical Center is also looking to hire more counselors.

Family Service, a nonprofit that has served Uvalde for 25 years, has increased its number of dedicated counselors, who can go wherever a family needs them to be, including in their homes or schools.

We realize for most of these folks that telehealth is not an answer for them, given the intensity of tragedy, said Mary Garr, its president. We see the value of the face to face.

All the Family Service counselors are bilingual.

When you are dealing with a tragedy, sometimes you might say something in one language and some things in another language, Garr said. That is how you might process emotion.

Right now, families have to get used to going back into school buildings, a tough time, she said.

We are still recovering from learning loss and social emotional development loss because of the pandemic, Garr said. We want to make sure these students can still thrive and understand it is OK to smile even if you lost your best friend or cousin or sibling.

Another way to honor those that they have loved and lost is to keep moving forward and create positive happy moments and community moments.

claire.bryan@express-news.net
Photo of a wolf (Photo via Flickr | CC-BY-SA 2.0).

Several conservation groups argue that because Montana and Idaho are hellbent on eradicating wolves, a court should instate equally aggressive measures aimed at restoring federal protection for gray wolves.

In both of the Rocky Mountain states, lawmakers have relaxed rules about wolf hunting. For example, Idaho now allows private contractors to kill wolves, permits year-round trapping on private land, and allows hunters and trappers to kill an unlimited number.

Montana has also loosened trapping rules and increased the number of wolves that can be killed. It has drawn fire for nearly decimating a pack of wolves that spend most of the time inside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park but were hunted after crossing the border into state land.

Montana can use bait to lure wolves, as well as use night scopes to hunt them, means not usually allowed for other species.

While wolves are protected in many states under the federal Endangered Species Act, they were delisted in Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Utah because of a congressional legislative rider in 2011. A court battle in Wyoming also booted the wolves from protection there.

Supporters of more permissive wolf hunting measures have argued a high wolf population in some places means the animals are killing more elk, deer and moose. Some hunters have said more wolves mean fewer ungulates for them, although biologists have reported other predators have a significant impact on elk.

However, groups, including The Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club, have filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the wolves need emergency protection in the two states to prevent wolves from being virtually eradicated from the northern Rockies as a result of the new laws.

Because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to make a decision on whether the gray wolves warrant the designation threatened or endangered, they argue in the lawsuit that courts must order the federal agency to protect them. Late last year, the FWS made a finding that information filed by the groups last year to re-list the wolves presented credible and substantial information that human-caused mortality may be a potential threat to species in Montana.

The federal wildlife service also addressed the new laws passed by the states saying the new laws may be inadequate to address this potential threat.

Because the FWS missed its own deadline to make a determination, the groups are asking the court to order it to make a decision about whether federal protection is warranted.

The Endangered Species Acts substantive protections cannot safeguard a species facing extinction until the species is formally listed as endangered or threatened, the lawsuit states.

Because Idaho and Montana are hellbent on eradicating wolves from their states, these animals desperately need federal protection now, said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The Fish and Wildlife Service cant stand idly by while these states let hunters and trappers kill hundreds of wolves every year.

The post Groups urge federal courts to relist wolves in Montana, Idaho to protect them appeared first on Daily Montanan.
A cross-party group of MPs has visited a farm which is trialling nitrogen-enriched fertilisers to help reduce ammonia and methane emissions.

MPs who sit on the Environmental Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee visited Holly Green Farm, near Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire, on 8 September.

The on-farm project has trialled plasma conversion technology, developed by Norwegian agri-tech business N2 Applied, which adds nitrogen from the air to cattle dung slurry.

Using a scientific technique that applies just air and electricity to slurry, the technology locks in both methane and ammonia to the liquid waste material, producing a sustainable, nitrogen-rich fertiliser.

The resultant enriched fertiliser can be spread on farmland using existing agricultural equipment.

The visit was part of EFRA's food security inquiry, launched in June, looking at factors currently affecting the UK's food security and rising food prices.

One of these factors is the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, both of which are major exporters of fertiliser.

MPs looked at the machinery involved, which fits into a converted shipping container, as well as the results of technical trials by N2 Applied and ADAS.

Last year, the two groups tested and trialled the technique for its ammonia emissions and nitrogen use efficiency.

When applied to winter wheat and monitored over the course of a week, the plasma-treated material recorded average ammonia emissions reduction of 90%, compared with untreated slurry.

N2 Applied has run multiple trials and pilot projects across nine countries that have shown elimination of methane and ammonia emissions and improved grassland yields..

The firm says that treated slurry produced on-farm has the potential to reduce the need for chemical fertiliser, and therefore further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sir Robert Goodwill MP, who took part in the recent farm visit, said innovative solutions were needed to help the UK strengthen its food security.

"Fertiliser prices are currently high. This technology - which creates a richer fertiliser while reducing the pollution associated with slurry - sounds like a step forward. It could help both farmers and the environment.

"Im keen to learn more about developments like this and to discuss what role the government can potentially play in encouraging initiatives that can help make us more self-sufficient in the food we produce.
The Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI) Turkiye manufacturing export climate index posted 50 in July, pointing to a standstill in export demand conditions. The index dropped from 51.8 in June, putting an end to the improved export climate since February 2021. The main source of increase in export demand was the United Arab Emirates, where non-oil activities continue to rise sharply.

As for the other Middle Eastern countries, economic activity slowed down in Egypt and Lebanon, while Qatar and the Saudi Arabia continued to post strong growth.

The Istanbul Chamber of Industry Turkiye manufacturing export climate index posted 50 in July, pointing to a standstill in export demand conditions. The index dropped from 51.8 in June, putting an end to the improved export climate since February 2021. The main source of increase in export demand was the UAE, where non-oil activities continue to rise sharply

In Europe, growth continued, though slower in the United Kingdom, Spain, France and the Netherlands. But the output in Germany, Italy, Poland and Greece dropped, ICI said in a press release.

In Germany, the biggest export market of the Turkish manufacturing industry, economic activity decreased for the first time since the beginning of the year, the highest decrease since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Private sector activity in the United States returned to the contraction zone. The output decreased for the first time in more than two years, the highest drop since May 2020.

The index measures the operating conditions in the key export markets of the Turkish manufacturing sector. A figure above the 50 no-change mark signals an improvement in the export climate, while the figures below signals deterioration.

Outside the Middle East, the fastest output rises were seen in Asia, with a significant growth in India, Singapore and Thailand. China also saw a rise in economic activity for the second month in a row after the pandemic restrictions were loosened.

The sharpest drop in output was in Poland. The demand in Taiwan, Kenya and the Czech Republic also slowed down.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
Seoul, South Korea--(Newsfile Corp. - September 11, 2022) - BaaSid has announced the launch of 'Agendabook', a real-time mobile research & marketing platform service:

New web3.0-based innovation platform for online and mobile research marketing





Unlimited expansion as a marketing promotion platform





Provides real-time statistics and cross-analysis data targeting

Society is becoming more diverse, and users' dependence on mobile is increasing. In particular, the online research and marketing market is rapidly expanding, centering on mobile. Against this background, 'Agendabook' (www.agendabook.io), a service that shows statistical data in real-time through voting on people's various preferences and opinions, was opened.





BaaSid Announces Launch of Agendabook



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8520/136539_2afec62ba4467aab_001full.jpg

"Agendabook" collects various data on an anonymous basis. The collected data can more clearly target customers. In addition, data analysis is possible more conveniently and rationally by using big data algorithms without personal information.

In particular, 'Agendabook' is a direct platform that directly connects voting participants and research writers. In addition to basic research such as corporate market research and preference research, 'Agendabook' is an algorithm called, 'target setting' for small and medium-sized businesses that are burdened with big data operation. Targeting can be set more easily and conveniently.

The Agenda Book Service, operated in a combination of UCC (User Create Content) and SNS, is a community service that allows anyone to write a variety of agendas and obtain statistical data in real-time, through discussion and voting. All voting data generated by Agendabook is securely stored in blockchain and decentralized storage, making it difficult to tamper. This ensures transparent voting results. And by linking MetaMask wallet, it is possible to withdraw the rewards received from Agendabook's activities in cryptocurrency. Through this, BaaSid implemented a complete voting system and research system based on anonymity without storing sensitive personal information based on Web 3.0.

Currently, cryptocurrency that can be withdrawn with rewards obtained through activities is possible with the BaaSid (BAAS) token, and BaaSid plans to gradually increase the types of cryptocurrencies.

BaaSid (www.baasid.com) said, "Agendabook is a social consensus service that helps people think through the collective intelligence of various political, economic, social, cultural, product issues and topics as logical results of voting and real-time statistics."

In addition, BaaSid said, "Social consensus will help to compare my thoughts with those of groups in living in a more complex and pluralistic society, and to have an objective view with statistical results."

"We can grow based on intelligence, social consensus, and statistical logic," BaaSid said of their vision for the service.

BaaSid (www.baasid.com) is a blockchain-specialized company established in 2018, and it is a company that develops blockchain technology and conducts blockchain interworking services in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Agendabook can be downloaded from Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.agendabook.agendabook) and iOS App Store (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/agendabook-more-fun-than-game/id1614980820).



Company Name: BaaSid (Agendabook)

Contact person Name: Moon Inshic

Email: team@baasid.com

Website: www.baasid.com | www.agendabook.io

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/136539
On September 1, H.E. President George Manneh Weah of the Republic of Liberia met with Chinese Ambassador to Liberia H.E. Ren Yisheng. The two sides exchanged views extensively on China-Liberia relations and cooperation in various fields. Hon. Charles Bright, Economic Advisor to the President, Mr. Xu Kun, Political Counselor of the Embassy and others were present.

Ambassador Ren conveyed President Xi Jinping's greetings to President Weah and his congratulations on the 175th anniversary of Liberia's independence, appreciated Liberia's firm support for the one-China principle, and said that various bilateral friendly and pragmatic cooperation between China and Liberia was steadily advancing. China is willing to continue to deepen the friendly and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries based on the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs between the two countries.

President Weah thanked President Xi Jinping for his greetings and congratulations, and extended his cordial greetings to President Xi. President Weah expressed that Liberia will continue to firmly support the one-China principle, respect China's core interests, thanked China for its long-term support and assistance to Liberia's economic and social development, and is ready to work with China to continuously promote Liberia-China relations and bilateral cooperation in various fields.
Beloved stand-up comedian and writer David A. Arnold has unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54, due to reported natural causes.

By Britta DeVore |

On September 7, it was revealed that comedian, actor, writer, and producer, David A. Arnold, had passed away peacefully at his home. The entertainer was 54. A man with a full life both inside and outside his home, Arnold was known for his stand-up comedy career, which recently landed him two Netflix comedy specials, and also for his recent work as a writer and producer on Netflixs Fuller House. Arnold was also the brain behind Nickelodeons 2021 comedy, The Girl Lay Lay.

A statement penned by David A. Arnolds family revealed that they were shocked and devastated by the loss, adding that his death was due to natural causes. Asking for peace and privacy while they move forward, the familys statement is clearly weighted in grief. We are wishing them the best as they mourn their tremendous loss.

Cutting his teeth as strictly a stand-up performer, David A. Arnold was first featured on Comedy Centrals Jamie Foxxs Laffapalooza alongside Jamie Foxx and Cedric the Entertainer, the Montreal Comedy Festival, The Tom Joyner Show, BETs ComicView, BETs The MoNique Show, HBOs Entourage, Def Comedy Jam, and others. Proving himself to be just as talented in writing bits as he was in performing them, Arnold would go on to be the joke creator behind a slew of series including TBS Meet The Browns, TV Ones The Rickey Smiley Show, OWNs Raising Whitley, and TBS Tyler Perrys House of Payne.

As mentioned above, David A. Arnold most recently held credits as a writer and producer on Netflixs revival of the beloved series Full House, titled Fuller House. The series picks up two decades after the events of the original production with D.J. Tanner-Fuller (Candace Cameron Bure) now widowed and moving back into her childhood home owned by her father, Danny Tanner (Bob Saget). Many of the original cast members also returned including Jodie Sweetin, Andrea Barber, John Stamos, Dave Coulier, and Lori Laughlin. Sadly, Arnolds death marks the second one from the production over the last year with Saget unexpectedly losing his life too soon back in January.

David A. Arnold also made a huge name for himself as the showrunner and executive producer on Nickelodeons series That Girl Lay Lay. The teen comedy series centers around Sadie (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green), who wants to be noticed and not constantly overlooked in her high school. When she tosses out the wish that Lay Lay, an AI avatar comes to life to help her with her problems, the wish is granted and Lay Lay comes to life. The series then sees the duo in a coming-of-age series as at the same time, they try to hide Lay Lays true identity from those who may want to pull the plug on their fun.



Back in 2019, the comedian received his own standalone special on Netflix titled David A. Arnold: Fat Ballerina, which would receive a follow up over this summer titled It Aint For The Weak. Like his late peer, Bob Saget, Arnold would also pass away while doing what he loved the most  traveling on a comedy tour. The performer passed when he was three stops in on a four-month tour around the country. Our thoughts are with his surviving family members.
Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
Guiyang, Guizhou, China, Sept. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Moutai is going to launch a 53-day Share-the-Full-Moon-themed overseas marketing campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day, in order to build the Chinese Baijiu brand via the platform provided by Moutai. Aiming at spreading the culture of harmony and happiness, the campaign consists of multiple online events in four topics, namely the Mid-Autumn culture, Mid-Autumn customs, the reunion atmosphere, and the Harmonious and Happy Moutai. From the perspectives of shared happiness, shared culture, shared mind, and shared tour, the beauty of the Mid-Autumn Festival and Moutai is presented to fans overseas, who can get to know traditional Chinese culture through Moutai. Moutai also serves as a ticket to the boat for overseas Chinese that are homesick to travel home.

Share the Full MoonShared Happiness

Starting with the popularization of the Mid-Autumn culture and Mid-Autumn customs, Moutai is releasing Mid-Autumn-themed illustrations on its overseas homepages and introducing Mid-Autumn customs such as appreciating the Moon, setting up festive lanterns and eating mooncakes, and the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival to its overseas fans. The lively game of rolling dices, the dazzling feasts, and the poem reciting under the tree in the moonlight comprehensively display the harmony and happiness embodied in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Share the Full MoonShared Culture

From August 30th to October 10th, Moutai Discover, one of the Share the Full Moon events, closely ties Moutai with the worlds cultural customs by integrating creative posters and photos with Moutai products or its brand elements. The event focuses on promoting culture and marketing in countries along the Belt and Road and important markets for Moutai in ways that are in line with local conditions. Moutai will strengthen its cultural integration with countries along the Belt and Road and seek more recognition of its products and value in the shared culture.

Share the Full MoonShared Mind

Though thousands of miles away, Moutai is always there for its fans. Moutais A Reunion with Xiaomao event is in full swing from August 25th to September 10th. No matter where we are, we share the same moon. Xiaomao has brought mooncakes and Moutai products to overseas Chinese from their homeland on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival. They can have the taste of the homeland and the sweetness in homesick ness with one sip of Moutai.

Share the Full MoonShared Tour

From August 20th to October 10th, Xiaomao guides oversea fans to travel around the world. In the Follow Moutai, Follow us event, Xiaomao is leading fans to many natural and cultural scenic spots in China and across the world. With photos and illustrations, Xiaomao is showing up in the scenic spots in various forms. Up to now, Xiaomao has been to more than eight scenic spots and attracted more than five million companions.

During the beautiful moment of reunionthe Mid-Autumn Festival, Moutai is presenting the beauty of Moutais culture and that of traditional Chinese culture. As an old Chinese saying goes, we just wait for the moon to rise, so that we can appreciate the moonlight and think of each other together. Let Moutai be a part of your Mid-Autumn Festival celebration. We wish for a long life so as to share the graceful moonlight together, even though we are miles apart.

Contact:

Company Name: Guizhou Moutai Chiew I/E Co. Ltd.

Contact Person: Winnie Hu

Email: moutaigloble@gmail.com

Website:https://www.facebook.com/moutaiglobal
Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen will most likely have their cars fitted with a new engine during the Belgian Grand Prix. This is what De Telegraaf reported on Thursday evening. As a result, both drivers are expected to start at the back of the grid.

Article continues under ad

The noises surrounding the Monegasque have been heard before. Not only does Ferrari choose to give Leclerc a new engine, they also provide an upgraded hybrid system. Because of the engine freeze at the beginning of September it is the last chance for the team to improve its performance.

Verstappen has already used three engines this season, which means he is at his maximum. According to the medium, Red Bull Racing will therefore also choose to use a new power unit in order to further expand the Dutchman's pool. The team will also renew the gearbox.

Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps logical place

It is not without reason that several drivers choose to replace their engine in Belgium. The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is a relatively easy place to overtake, so Leclerc and Verstappen still have a good chance of victory.

Verstappen said earlier in the day that he is confident of winning in Belgium. The reigning world champion and current season leader is therefore showing a lot of conviction for the coming weeks.
Marc van Geel was one of the stewards on duty at Zandvoort last weekend. Van Geel is one of three Dutchmen who can be deployed by the FIA during the Dutch Grand Prix. At any moment on the track where there is a need to watch, the rotating race directors Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas contact the stewards.

Article continues under ad

"They submit to us: can you watch this?" Van Geel explains the procedure to the NOS."If we think that a penalty belongs to that, we pronounce that penalty. The match officials do not change anything about that." Van Geel admits that it is never completely watertight, purely because you can cut someone off in many more ways and it can also be portrayed in many different ways.

Masi

After the controversial Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, race director Michael Masi was forced to step down and was replaced by the duo of Wittich and Freitas, who act as race directors on a rotating basis. Van Geel says that this season will tell if it was a good move to let Masi go. He is positive about the new duo, however. "I have the idea that both men are on the same wavelength. Because one must remain consistent. There has to be a lot of consultation to find one line that you want to stick to."

Read more F1 Social Stint | Verstappen and Perez sail with Team Oracle

Van Geel says that he and his three fellow stewards often quickly find themselves on the same page and try to punish consistently. They then also look at the history to choose the most appropriate punishment. "But every situation is different. You never have the same incidents or events one on one."

Respectful

On Friday the Dutch steward called Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz to him, after the Briton, with all the risks that entailed, had steered into Sainz who wanted to overtake him. Van Geel says: "Then I want to know: how do you look at it, what is your vision? We have decided not to do anything with it, but we hear them at the same time, so they hear from each other who says what. In motor sport, this is done with a great deal of respect for each other."
Piedmont Lithium has (earlier post) selected Etowah, Tennessee as the location of the companys planned 30,000 metric ton per year (tpy) LHP2 lithium hydroxide operation (Tennessee Lithium). Planned completion and start of production is in 2025.

The project will convert spodumene concentrate sourced principally from Piedmonts international project investments to expand significantly the US supply of lithium hydroxide, a key component in the manufacturing of EV batteries.





Conceptual design of the 30,000 TPY Tennessee Lithium plant

Piedmonts Tennessee Lithium facility should be among the first lithium hydroxide plants built with the Metso:Outotec process. This process eliminates the acid-leaching of spodumene and the production sodium sulfate waste, which will make Tennessee Lithium one of the worlds most sustainable lithium hydroxide operations, according to the company.

Tennessee Lithiums production target of 30,000 tpy of lithium hydroxide will complement the companys planned Carolina Lithium operation to bring Piedmonts estimated total US-based production capacity to 60,000 tpy by 2026. Current total US production of lithium hydroxide is just 15,000 tpy.

The projects location in Tennessee was selected for its cooperative government relations, access to excellent infrastructure including rail, road and river transportation, a talented workforce, a constructive business climate, as well as its proximity to the battery and automotive plants being constructed by prospective customers, and the Companys headquarters and Carolina Lithium project, both in Gaston County, North Carolina.





Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) for Tennessee Lithium will be performed by Kiewit and Primero. FEED will conclude in H1 2023 and position Piedmont to sign an EPC contract for the construction of Tennessee Lithium upon completion of permitting and project financing activities. As part of FEED, Kiewit and Primero are expected to complete a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for Tennessee Lithium by the end of 2022.

Based on prior studies, Piedmont plans to invest approximately $600 million in the development of the operation. The Tennessee Lithium Project is expected to drive significant economic activity and create approximately 120 new, direct jobs.

The timeline for the progression of the Companys global portfolio of four projects and estimated start of production date for each facility is as follows:

2023: Quebec Project / North American Lithium restartSC6 production planned for H1 2023

2024: Ghana Projectspodumene concentrate; preliminary feasibility study (PFS) Q3 2022

2025: Tennessee Lithiumlithium hydroxide production from Ghana and/or NAL concentrate

2026: Carolina Lithiumintegrated spodumene concentrate and lithium hydroxide production

Development of each of the planned projects is dependent upon receipt of permits necessary for construction and operations as well as project financing.
At the VinFast manufacturing complex in Hai Phong, VinFast held an event to mark the deliveries of the first batch of 100 VF 8 all-electric vehicles for VinFasts pioneer customers who made the earliest reservations. After these initial deliveries in Vietnam, VinFast plans to export the next batch of approximately 5,000 VF 8s to the US, Canada, and Europe.

The first international customers are expected to receive their vehicles as early as December 2022.





The VinFast VF 8 is an electric SUV made for global markets with a 5-seat configuration and overall dimensions of 187.00" (length) x 76.14" (width) x 65.63" (height). The VF 8 is equipped with ADAS, a series of advanced automated driving features that includes Highway Assist, Automated Lane Changing Assist, Smart Parking Assist, Smart Summon Mode, and Remote Parking Assist.

In addition, the VF 8 is equipped with the Smart Services package, along with features for controlling and interacting with the vehicle through voice, remote vehicle control which can be accessed via the VinFast app. The package also includes other impressive high-quality user experiences, such as online shopping, and video games that synchronize with your phone.

The VinFast VF 8 has two versions: Eco and Plus. The VF 8 Eco version is equipped with a 260 kW-maximum-power electric motor reaching a maximum torque of 500 Nm (approximately 369 lb-ft) that sustains a range of up to 260 miles after each full charge (WLTP). The VF 8 Plus version is equipped with a 300 kW-maximum-power electric motor reaching a maximum torque of 620 Nm (approximately 457 ft-lbs) with a range of up to 248 miles per each full charge (WLTP).

In addition to the battery subscription policy announced earlier this year, as of 1 September, VinFast offers an option to purchase batteries with cars to meet the diverse needs of customers. Customers who made reservations to purchase a VF 8 or VF 9 before September 1, 2022, can keep their original battery subscription option and enjoy a permanent rate for the lifetime of their vehicle. They also have the option to select a new optionpurchasing the vehicle and battery together, to own the complete package.

Customers who made early reservations under the VinFirst program also received offers including a voucher worth 150-million VND (Vietnam), $3,000 USD (US), $3,500 CAD (Canada) 2,500 EUR (EU); a VinFast Smart Driving package worth 132 million VND (Vietnam), $6,500 USD (US), $8,125 CAD (Canada), 7,250 EUR (EU); and a 118-million VND Vinpearls voucher (about US$5,000 USD), and more.

Customers who own a VF 8, or any VinFast vehicle, will receive customer care service and after-sales assistance including VinFasts 10-year warranty, mobile charging, mobile service, 24/7 free rescue during the warranty period, and more.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3





ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)  An alligator, drugs, guns and money were seized during a raid at two homes in Albuquerque last month, but New Mexico wildlife officials said Saturday they are still searching for a young tiger they believe is being illegally kept as a pet.

Investigators think the tiger is with someone in New Mexico or a nearby state, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish conservation officers said in a statement
GREENWICH  The days of fines for overdue books at the Greenwich Library are about to become a thing of the past.

A new policy eliminating the fines will go into effect Monday at the main library in downtown Greenwich and at the branches in Byram and Cos Cob. Additionally, Kevin McCarthy, director of the independent Perrot Memorial Library in Old Greenwich, said it is also getting rid of overdue fines.

Dropping the fines will remove any financial burden that may have created a barrier to entry for use of the library and its branches, officials said, as they aim to increase access to the librarys resources to all town residents, students and employees.

Also, all currently owed fines will be removed from accounts, and no future fines will be charged on books, DVDs CDs and other pieces of Greenwich Librarys collection.

The amount collected in fines from overdue materials has steadily decreased in recent years, Greenwich Library Director Barbara Ormerod-Glynn said. More patrons are taking out digital items such as e-books, which are automatically returned on their due dates and never face fines.

The fine-free movement has been gaining momentum for a number of years, Ormerod-Glynn said. Before the pandemic, the American Library Association passed a resolution calling fines a form of social inequity. We took a long, hard look at what our fines were doing.

The fines were not bringing in significant revenue, but they might have been keeping patrons away, either because they were embarrassed to have the fines on their accounts, or they couldnt pay their overdue balances, she said. Neither reason should be a barrier to access.

The New York Public Library has eliminated fines as have the public libraries in Boston, Chicago, Seattle and San Diego, along with hundreds of smaller systems across the country, Ormerod-Glynn said.

The idea gained momentum at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she said, as materials were circulated in no-contact ways and fines were, at that time, temporarily waived.

During this time, the fine-free movement continued to gain momentum across the country, and staff and trustees began to consider a policy change in earnest, Ormerod-Glynn said. Planning for this initiative took about a year.

Accumulating fines on materials has been cited by studies as a reason low-income families and other individuals stop using public libraries, she said.

The practice is ineffective and leads to confusion among library patrons, said Peggy Edersheim Kalb, president of Greenwich Librarys Board of Trustees. It causes unnecessary anxiety and does not support the librarys primary mission of being a portal to knowledge and resources for all.

Moira Danehy, Greenwich Librarys lending services manager, said she hoped the new policy would encourage patrons with inactive accounts to reactivate their cards, which can be done online or in-person at the library.

We believe that this new policy is the best course of action, and we hope it encourages everyone to make use of the library and all we have to offer, Danehy said.

If this brings in more library patrons, gets more books in readers hands and attracts crowds to library programs, then it will be more than worth it for our community as a whole, Ormerod-Glynn.

Library patrons will still be subject to replacement fees if something they check out is damaged or lost, she said.

Additionally, the library will still charge late fines on its museum pass program, which provides passes to area museums, including the Bruce Museum, the Stamford Museum & Nature Center, the Intrepid and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Those passes are borrowed from the main desk for three days, with an overdue fine of $1 a day.

The lack of fines could lead patrons to keep materials out for long periods, especially when it comes to new releases with a wait list of reserves, but Ormerod-Glynn said they are not concerned about that.

We know that things come up and sometimes books and other materials will be returned past their due date, she said. But we also trust our patrons and believe that they will respect our materials and their fellow community members.

For more information or questions on the new policy, send an email to lendingservices@greenwichlibrary.org.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

MERCED, Calif. (AP)  After a months-long manhunt, police arrested a suspect in the death of an 8-year-old girl who had been reported missing before her body was found last March inside a central California home, authorities said Sunday.

Dhante Jackson was taken into custody Saturday in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Newark on suspicion of killing Sophia Mason, police and the California attorney generals office said.

Investigators determined the child suffered continuous physical abuse, was malnourished and at times was forced to live in a shed in the backyard of Jacksons home, Merced Police Department Lt. Joe Perez said during a news conference Sunday.

Jackson was in a relationship with the young victim's mother, 30-year-old Samantha Johnson, who was arrested in March and has pleaded not guilty to murder and child abuse, prosecutors said.

Jackson, 34, also faces murder and child abuse charges. It wasn't known Sunday if he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Four other people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of helping Jackson evade arrest, Perez said.

In my 20 years of law enforcement, this case is the most disturbing and horrific that Ive seen," the lieutenant said.

Sophia was reported missing by relatives in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Hayward. They told police they had not had contact with the girl since December, and that she was known to stay at different locations between Hayward and Southern California.

The missing person report led Hayward police to arrest Johnson on a warrant stemming from a case of child abuse in Alameda County last year, police said.

Statements Johnson made to Hayward police prompted them to ask for assistance from the Merced Police Department, which served a search warrant in March at the house in Merced where Jackson lived, they said.

Merced police found Sophias body in a bathtub, inside a locked bathroom, according to court documents.

Johnson told a Merced police detective that Jackson, her boyfriend, had kept Sophia in a shed and that the child was subjected to physical and sexual abuse by Jackson.

Sophia twice personally told social workers that her mother had choked and hit her, according to child-welfare documents uncovered by the Bay Area News Group.

At one point, the internal documents show, a teacher and a social worker reported grave concerns over what they considered signs of abuse.

Sophias grandmother, Sylvia Johnson, last week filed a wrongful death legal claim against Alameda County, alleging the Department of Child and Family Services didnt do enough to protect the little girl.

Alameda County has 45 days to respond to the familys claims, the news group reported Sunday. If no settlement is offered by the county and the claim is rejected, the family has six months to file a lawsuit.
Apple is a trend-setter and even non-techies tune in to watch major new announcements like the one we had this week. The iPhone 14 series is official and already on pre-order as of this Friday. The first lucky users will have one in their hands next week.

We have extensive coverage of the event and relevant news that cropped up around it (some of which revealed things Apple didnt). Here we wanted to share some thoughts about the new models now that the dust has settled down.

Subtle and not-so-subtle price hikes

Apple has subtly increased the price of iPhones a few times and it did it again this year. In 2021 the cheapest (non-SE) iPhone was the mini, which started at $700, now the cheapest member of the premium lineup is the iPhone 14 at $800.

Yes, the iPhone 13 was also $800 and Apple is pointing at that, hoping that you wont notice that the price of admission went up as the mini went away. We have detailed pricing info for the new models, if you want to have a look. The mini itself was part of a subtle price hike  the vanilla iPhone 11 started at $700 in 2019, the base iPhone 12 was also $700 in 2020. However, that was the newly-introduced mini, the 6.1 iPhone 12 (which was the actual successor to the vanilla iPhone 11) went up to $800.

There was another fib during the Wednesday event  Apple showed the US pricing of the iPhone 14 models, suggesting that it is the same as the 13 series. And it is, though there is a but coming. The new models cost the same as the old ones in several countries (including the US, Canada and China), but have considerably gone up in Europe, parts of Asia and other regions.

iPhone 14 iPhone 14 Plus iPhone 14 Pro iPhone 14 Pro Max US USD 799 USD 899 USD 999 USD 1,099 UK GBP 849 GBP 949 GBP 1,099 GBP 1,199 Germany EUR 999 EUR 1,149 EUR 1,299 EUR 1,449 India INR 79,900 INR 89,900 INR 129,900 INR 139,900 China CNY 5,999 CNY 6,999 CNY 7,999 CNY 8,999 Japan JPY 119,800 JPY 134,800 JPY 149,800 JPY 164,800

Waiting may have been a mistake

Well talk about the Plus and the mini, but while were on the subject of prices, we wanted to cover the older models too. As it does every year, Apple discontinues the old Pro series and keeps the vanilla models around with a discount.

It did so this year too  the iPhone 12, 13 and 13 mini are still available at a reduced price. Well, not quite, the reduction is relative to the iPhone 14 series and since those prices went up in some regions, the cost of the older models actually stayed the same in several countries.

Worse still, the price of the iPhone SE (2022) went up in some places. We know some of you waited for the new generation to launch so that you can pick up one of the older models at a discount, but this year this strategy didnt work out quite as well as it usually does.

The Plus is a welcome addition to the family

Apple resurrected the Plus naming for the new iPhone 14 Plus. It is the same size as the 14 Pro Max (off by just fractions of a millimeter) and it claims the same 6.7 screen diagonal. It has effectively the same pixel density too (458ppi), making for a nice, sharp image.

However, that is where the similarities between the Plus and Pro Max end. For starters, it is still a 60Hz panel and it doesnt support Always On Display (new on the Pros). Also, the Pro panels are brighter, the Plus and vanilla iPhone 14 keep the typical brightness at 800 nits and peak at 1,200 nits (vs. 1,000 nits typical and 2,000 nits peak for the 14 Pro duo).

There are a couple of other major differences between the Plus and the Max  the chipset and cameras  but well get to those later.

The iPhone 14 Plus is a welcome addition to the Apple family. Not everyone cares about having the best cameras, even fewer demand peak performance these days, but some do want a larger screen and battery than the 6.1 vanilla iPhone offered. Previously their only option would have been the iPhone 14 Pro Max model at $1,100, now they can pick up the Plus at $900 instead.

The iPhone lineup needed a Plus model and we think it will be quite successful. But did its birth require the death of the mini? Probably not and it doesnt matter, anyway. Going by sales numbers reported by analysts, the mini died on its own due to a lack of interest from consumers.

A new mini wasn't really necessary

We know a few people will protest the statement above, so lets address it before moving on to the upgrades (and sometimes lack thereof) on the 14 series.

The mini is still around in the form of the iPhone 13 mini. Considering the incremental upgrades to the camera, chipset and display on the base 14-series, a hypothetical iPhone 14 mini wouldnt have been all that different. If you want a small phone (properly small, not Android small) with a premium build and performance, the 13 mini is still a great pick.

An exciting camera upgrade for the Pros

Like Google, Apple hyper-optimized a camera setup and was reluctant to make major changes. It got great results for several years, but it was high time to leave behind the 12MP resolution and standard Bayer filter.

Apple did a great job of explaining the benefits. The new 48MP sensor offers a high quality image at 2x zoom, which bridges the gap between the main cam and the 3x telephoto camera. In daylight it can take detailed 48MP RAW images, in the dark it uses pixel binning to reduce noise. It could have enabled 8K video recording too, but maybe next year.

Either way, the new iPhone Pro camera is much more versatile. The other side of the stable has less to show. The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus cameras do bring in a larger sensor and a brighter aperture for the main camera, plus they benefit from the new Photonic Engine. However, they are starting to feel really outdated now as it has been nothing but iterative improvements since 2019.



The vanilla models get a bigger sensor (1.9m vs. 1.7m)  All four have AF on the selfie cams

One change we applaud is the addition of autofocus to the selfie camera, this can (and usually does) have a major impact on the quality of selfies. But for how long will we have to look at notches and pill-shaped punch holes before under display cameras arrive on iPhone?

AOD and Dynamic Island

The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max displays are some of the best OLED panels on the market  1-120Hz LTPO, sharp, remarkably bright, HDR10 and Dolby Vision support, tough glass and now with Always On mode to boot. Its hard to find a fault with the displays themselves.

That is not the case for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, which bring basically no upgrades since the 13-series and they really arent that different from what the iPhone 12 has.

Were going back to the Pros to look at the first major redesign of the TrueDepth camera. Its the largest punch hole weve seen yet, but Apple dressed it up with the so-called Dynamic Island.

The Dynamic Island pops up icons from apps that want your attention, shows indicators (e.g. showing that the camera or microphone is active), it can even expand to show a new notification.

We have to give it to Apple, the animations are buttery smooth and the marketing is sleek, but the Dynamic Island doesnt do anything that a typical status bar cant. Of course, with a pill this wide, theres no room for a proper status bar.

Apples relentless progress on chipsets is slowing down

Apple stood out with not just having the best mobile chipsets, but also using them on all smartphones in a given generation  even the iPhone SE (2022) has an Apple A15 chip. There was a small divide as the A15 had two tiers, one with a 4-core GPU (used in iPhone 13, 13 mini and SE) and one with a 5-core GPU (used in the Pros).

Now there is a much bigger gap between vanilla and Pro models as the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are still using the A15 chipset. Its the more powerful 5-core GPU version (which Apple says will deliver 18% more GPU performance), but were not sure that will have much of an impact when the target is 60fps.

We suspect that one change that Apple didnt talk about will be much more beneficial  all iPhone 14 models have 6GB of RAM (no change for the Pros, but the 13 and 13 mini had only 4GB). Even moderate multitaskers should get an improved experience.

As for the new Apple A16 chipset, Apple compared it to a three year old A13, but that was mostly to flex how fast it is (the company claimed that the A13 is faster than the best Android chipset of 2022, but that could only be true with a lot of fine print). Early reports show that Apple cranked up the peak CPU clock speed  at 3.43GHz theirs is the fastest smartphone core  but actual performance improvements are slim to none.

While it is true that Apple has the fastest mobile chipset, the competition isnt far behind and the A16 is about to come face to face with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is coming in a couple of months.

T-Mobile and SpaceX stole Apples satellite thunder

This feels a bit like science fiction  a small, pocketable phone with no external antenna can connect to a satellite and send out an SOS. There is no arguing that it will be invaluable if the worst happens and you find yourself in trouble far away from rescue.

However, Apple left some things unsaid. iPhone 14 buyers will get a free 2-year subscription  but only in the US and Canada, which is where the beta testing starts. But how much would it cost after that? Will it be a monthly subscription or pay-per-use? Also, in some regions you need to have Search and Rescue Insurance. Youll still get rescued even if you dont, it will just cost a lot.



Apple's SOS emergency service and location sharing over satellite

And how does the location sharing through Find My work if connecting to a satellite requires the user to carefully point their iPhone at the satellite (with on-screen guidance)?

Anyway, the timing of T-Mobile and SpaceXs partnership is quite conspicuous. A couple of weeks ago they announced that by late next year they will have smartphones connecting to satellites.

Unlike Apples solution, this will work with current phones and it will be available for general chatting (SMS, MMS, even some third-party chat apps), not just SOS and location sharing. Google is already working on satellite support for Android 14. If T-Mobile and SpaceX can pull it off, Apples new emergency SOS feature will look like an old hat a year after launch. Of course, iPhone users (including ones with older models) on T-Mobile will benefit from this too, but Apple will get no revenue from that.

CDMA lessons weren't learned

The new iPhone 14 models launching in the US will not have a SIM slot, they will rely exclusively on eSIM. While eSIM is undeniably a handy thing, it is entirely under the control of carriers.

This is how it was with CDMA phones, but back then switching carriers meant getting a new number. Things had gotten much better since then and users had the freedom to swap phones without making it the carriers business. This is a step back with not much benefit that we could see  iPhones already had eSIM and they are some of the best waterproofed phones on the market. How does removing the physical SIM tray benefit consumers?
Sony has never been the go-to brand for cheap phones, certainly not in the flagship segment, and the Xperia 5 IV is no exception. That being said, last weeks poll shows that the phone can have broad appeal if only its pricing was more palatable.

Half of the voters who took part like the phone, but are not willing to part with $1,000/1,050/950 to pick one up. For comparison, the Mark 3 model from last year cost almost the same at $1,000/1,000/950. Thats nothing compared to Apples price hikes for the new 14-series, which now lacks a mini member to boot (the iPhone 13 mini is still available at a reduced price).

Going back to the Mark 3, when we polled you last year the fraction of people who thought it was too expensive was smaller and a good deal more people were preparing to buy one. However, looking at the Xperia 1 IV poll from this year also shows a prevalent opinion that the price is too high. A sign of the times, perhaps?

There were plenty of reasons given as to why the Xperia 5 IV is not worth as much Sony wants for it. The limited software support is a big one  Sony is bad at it compared to Android makers, never mind Apple.

The choice of the original Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is another, especially considering how small of a gap there will be between Mark 4s arrival (later this month) and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (to be announced in November with phones to follow shortly).

The step back in the telephoto camera department didnt go unnoticed either. Also, while most love the lack of punch holes and notches on the Xperias, not everyone is in love with the 21:9 aspect ratio as Sony is.

But no one can knock the Mark 4 for not having a 3.5mm jack or a microSD slot or now even wireless charging support. That is why a good 20% of voters are ready to buy the phone, even if it is on the pricey side.
More Information To find out about delays, visit www.gswa.guam.gov or call 671-646-3111.

With a minimum 24-month delay on the delivery of new garbage trucks for Guam, residents can expect delays with trash pickup schedules until new vehicles arrive.

We all just have to have a little bit of patience. We are going to definitely pick up your refuse. It may not be the same day, but were gonna get it and our guys are working literally all hours trying to accomplish that with what we have available to us, Guam Solid Waste Authority General Manager Irvin Slike said Wednesday.

Slike on Aug. 25 told GSWAs board they were down to just four trucks servicing the entire island. With two out of the shop Wednesday, the count was back up to six he said, but that could be back down to five tomorrow.

Staffing, service issues

Issues with hiring staff to operate the vehicles and novice truck drivers are exacerbating the problem.

GSWA has been cannibalizing parts from three out-of-service trucks to keep the current fleet running and will have to continue doing so until a new shipment can be delivered. The current fleet hit the ground in 2018 and may have to keep running until 2025  the tail end of their seven-year service life.

Slike said there was no succession plan in place for the equipment when he took the helm of the agency last October. New trucks and parts should have been ordered in 2018, he said.

Shipping delays

Delays in the current shipment of new diesel trucks are driven by the shortage of microchips and other parts on the manufacturer side, according to Slike. But the procurement of the vehicles also is being held up by a protest from another company that wants to provide trucks to GSWA  vehicles that Slike says arent suitable or safe for Guam roads.

The safety issue of Guam needing cab-over trucks, which dont have an engine bay out front of the vehicle blocking driver visibility, was previously settled by the courts in 2011, Slike said. Either way, they are tied up consulting with their lawyers to speed the purchase along.

GSWA has been working double shifts: Using the same set of trucks throughout the day to cover routes that would ideally be handled by a bigger fleet in the morning. We start at three in the morning and work almost until sunset every day, Slike said.

Using the same truck drivers and borrowing other employees from the Solid Waste transfer stations is expected to drive up overtime costs.

Mandatory collection

According to Slike, the mandatory, islandwide trash collection initiative will require at least 10 operable trucks. GSWA also ordered two containers of trash carts in anticipation of mandatory collection, but has received only one as of September, Slike said. Two more orders are needed in 2023 to keep up with the cart backlog.

Mandatory collection is intended to kick off around the end of the year, PDN files show. Its meant to get all of the estimated 38,000 eligible residences to pay their fair share for waste disposal and help Solid Waste with its financial woes.

Slike said the agency may try to get electric garbage trucks, which may be easier to obtain than the diesel versions, by seeking federal assistance and partnering with other agencies in GovGuam. Hes also presented the board with the option of getting used trucks from either the Philippines or Australia, however, The used equipment market is also under strain. Everybody wants them because they cant get the new stuff, so its whatever is left.

Slike said his review of Solid Wastes files shows this is the third time in 14 years that theres been a significant delay in getting new garbage trucks. He previously told GSWAs board that the agency spent $620,000 maintaining trucks with a net value of just $540,000.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close




Haiti - Health : Graduation of 17 nursing staff specializing in infectious diseases





Several personalities from the Ministry of Health, the deanship of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (FMP), the State University of Haiti (UEH) and American government agencies attended the graduation ceremony of the 1st Promotion of 17 nurse clinicians specializing in infectious diseases, marking the success of the collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Haiti) supported by the fund of the President's Emergency Plan for the Fight against AIDS.



The theoretical courses of this training were given in the premises of the Haitian Center for the Strengthening of the Health System (CHARESS) and at the Campus of Health Sciences, rebuilt by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The practical internships were held in various university hospitals and other health institutions in Haiti.



The 17 newly graduated clinicians are deployed in different health establishments across the country, already using their skills to fight against infectious diseases, which are, as Dr. Laure Adrien, Director General of the Ministry of Health, pointed out, the third leading cause of death in Haiti.



Dr. Adrien was delighted that the Haitian health system could count on new skills and urged CHARESS and the FMP to continue with these trainings and to increase the number of providers trained by promotion.



Jacques Mathieu, Acting Director of the CDC, expressed the satisfaction of the CDC to have been able to support for 20 years, the FMP and the MSPP in various initiatives to strengthen the capacity of human resources for health.



Dr. Jean Guy Honore, Executive Director of CHARESS, spoke about the brain drain and hoped that all the actors concerned would come together, under the leadership of the Ministry "for better use and distribution of the human resources still present in the country". He announced that two other promotions had already started this specialized training.



The Dean of PMF, Dr. Bernard Pierre, expressed his gratitude to the American people for their investment in training young health professionals, first through USAID, through the reconstruction of the new Science Campus of Health, and then, through the CDC and its partner CHARESS, through this specialized program aimed at licensed nurses.



Sobreca Calixte, laureate of the "Yves Lambert" Promotion in tribute to the eminent infectious disease doctor who died prematurely in 2020, undertook on behalf of the entire promotion to put the knowledge acquired at the service of the country "in order to reduce morbidity and mortality due to infectious pathologies."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By William Schwartz | Published on 2022/09/10

Comedian Yoon Jin-young is best known for his work on variety shows. However, the actor surprised many with his appearance in "Hansan: Rising Dragon" where he played a very different role, as a commander close to the legendary general Yi Sun-shin. In a recent experience, Yoon Jin-young was happy about the historical war film's success- in part because this is an opening for him to take more serious acting roles going forward.

Advertisement

Yoon Jin-young insisted that numbers are numbers, and it was still an honor or him to be able to appear in the movie regardless of those. Yoon Jin-young said that he learned a lot about acting from his senior colleagues on the project, and that he approached "Hansan: Rising Dragon" as a possible learning experience. As a performer who has not typically worked in serious dramatic roles, Yoon Jin-young saw "Hansan: Rising Dragon" as an important first step.

Yoon Jin-young obtained the role of General Song via a competitive audition. The main descriptor for the character in the script was merely that he had high self-esteem. Director Kim Han-min selected Yoon Jin-young for the role in part because he thought Yoon Jin-young was brave for attempting to audition for the role at all, and that this was a good fit for the part. Yoon Jin-young described himself as holding the gratitude of a lifetie to Kim Han-min for giving him this opportunity.

Yoon Jin-young had to watch the movie three times to fully appreciate the work he did. The first time, Yoon Jin-young claimed to be so enthralled with the action he couldn't remember his own role. The second time, he was surprised upon finally recognizing himself. The overall experience was transformative for Yoon Jin-young in many ways. He received the role the day after learning his wife was pregnant, and she gave birth on the final day of filming.

Yoon Jin-young's co-star Park Hae-il, who was described by Yoon Jin-young in very positive terms as a brother gave Yoon Jin-young a present of congratulations in this regard- baby clothes. Though Park Hae-il said very little as he turned to look to the ocean, Yoon Jin-young called to him as general to offer thanks. An emotional Yoon Jin-young had failed to buy baby clothes while he was out about. "Hansan: Rising Dragon" was released in South Korean theaters this past July 27th.

Written by William Schwartz
Login or sign up to follow actresses, movies & dramas and get specific updates and news

Login Sign Up

 New Ad-free Subscriber Login

Email

Password

Password Username Your E-mail will only be used to retrieve a lost password.

Stay logged in

Help
Police invite all to 'National Night Out' Oct. 4

For the second consecutive year, the Hendersonville Police Department invites the community for National Night Out! 4-6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at 1300 Seventh Avenue East in the lot that was previously the home of Four Seasons Cinemas.

Building community is what the Hendersonville Police Department is all about, Hendersonville Police Chief Blair Myhand said. National Night Out is a great way for our Officers and staff to get to know the community and serve up a great evening of fun for the whole family.

Hendersonvilles free event will include emergency equipment displays from the Hendersonville Police Department and Hendersonville Fire Department plus trucks from the city Public Works and Water & Sewer departments. In addition to free hot dogs and cold treats, activities will include a kids obstacle course, music, foam axe throwing, dunk tank, face painting and the return of last years popular Ellaberry Farm llamas. New this year will be a donut eating contest where participants can go head-to-head with a local HPD police officer.

National Night Out is an annual community-building event that promotes police-community partnerships. For more information and updates, visit www.hvlnc.gov/NNO.
New bivalent vaccine now available by appointment at health department

Appointments for newly approved booster vaccinations at the Henderson County Health Department are now available online at https://www.hendersoncountync.gov/health/page/covid-19-vaccines, the health department announced last week. The vaccines will be administered at the Health Department, 1200 Spartanburg Highway, starting Monday, Sept. 12. Henderson County has announced

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Sept. 1 that people 12 and older can receive an updated booster to protect against the latest Covid-19 variants. The updated booster is referred to as a bivalent vaccine as it targets both the original coronavirus strain and the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which currently make up about 90 percent of Covid-19 cases in North Carolina.

The CDC has recommended the updated boosters to those 12 and older who completed their primary vaccine series or initial booster at least two months ago. Patients with questions or concerns should talk with their healthcare provider. Both Pfizer and Moderna boosters are available and either can be given. The health department will honor requests for brand-specific vaccine as supplies are available. Covid-19 vaccines are free to everyone, regardless of insurance or immigration status. Insured individuals are asked to bring their insurance cards to the clinic for billing purposes but there will be no out-of-pocket cost for the vaccine.



Vaccines remain available for an individuals initial primary series (first and second doses) as well as boosters for ages six months to 11 years old at the Health Department on a walk-in basis.
Brazos Electric Power Cooperative is expected within days to file a final plan that will map the Central Texas power suppliers road out of bankruptcy and toward financial stability, according to lawyers involved in the litigation.

The proposed plan reduces the amount that Waco-based electric co-op owes the Electric Reliability Council of Texas by hundreds of millions of dollars, requires Brazos to sell three of its power plants, creates a fund for low-income residents struggling with high electric bills and raises more than $1.5 billion in financing, according to court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston.

Brazos filed for Chapter 11 restructuring after ERCOT slapped the company with a $1.9 billion bill for electricity sold to Brazos during the winter storm of Feb. 2021, which knocked power plants offline and caused extended power outages across Texas.

We believe we have an agreement in principle with all the major stakeholders, said Lou Strubeck. the lawyer representing Brazos. There will be some final adjustments, but we believe we will have a plan in front of the judge next week for him to approve and will allow us to start moving forward.

U.S. Bankruptcy Chief Judge David Jones has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 13 to consider granting conditional approval of the tentative plan, which is called a disclosure statement.

Under the agreement as it stands, Brazos will pay ERCOT more than $1.1 billion immediately and an estimated $170 million in the future. In addition, ERCOT will get some of the proceeds from Brazos selling three of its power plants in 2023.

Lawyers involved in the bankruptcy say Brazos will not have to pay ERCOT about $500 million that the ERCOT billed the power supplier.

The agreement with ERCOT is unprecedented because it is the first time that ERCOT has done a settlement of this kind, Strubeck said. This is one of the most complex and challenging bankruptcies that I have ever handled.

The agreement provides that Brazos and some of its co-op members will raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion through securitizations, which would take place at the end of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.It also includes the creation of a $140 million hardship fund that Brazos customers living near the poverty level can access to help pay their electric bills  a measure suggested by Jones.

I want a resolution, the judge told lawyers at a hearing earlier this year, for the person that lives in a trailer in Central Texas and lives somehow on $1,800 a month that cant afford a doubling of their electric bill because that means they cant buy groceries on the last week of the month. Thats who we need to be working for.

Brazos blamed its bankruptcy on ERCOT for imposing a staggering rate of $9,000 per megawatt-hour  hundreds of times the normal rate  on electricity buyers during the storm.

ERCOT contends that price was justified, given the extraordinary market conditions created by the storm and, moreover, that it had no choice but to impose the high rate because it was ordered to do so by the Texas Public Utility Commission.

Most legal experts believed an agreement between Brazos and ERCOT was highly unlikely, as the parties were so far apart on their demands.

The Brazos bankruptcy has been costly. Since filing for Chapter 11 protection in March 2021, Brazos has paid the legal and financial advisors working on the restructuring more than $80 million.

In all, more than 150 lawyers from law firms  including Norton Rose Fulbright, OMelveny, Kirkland & Ellis, Munsch Hardt, Porter Hedges, Foley and Eversheds  have billed time on the matter. Their rates range from $400 to $1,700 an hour.

Two financial advisory firms, Berkeley Research Group and FTI Consulting, have hit Brazos with tabs that exceed $10 million each.

For a longer version of this article, visit TexasLawbook.net.
Karen Armstrong planned another deep dive into the spaces between the known and unknown with humankind and its host planet. Her career as an author has been defined by compressing infinite and unknowable subjects into page counts that were attainably readable.

Consider a moment: Some of Armstrongs works are long by the standards of 21st century attention spans. She is, after all, the author of A History of God, which covered an impossible-to-cover subject in a mere 460 pages. Epic novels are lauded for their importance more vaguely covering such subjects with more words. Still, Armstrong often goes long when writing about faith with results that have made her a best-selling author.

When Armstrong pitched the new Sacred Nature, her handlers encouraged her to follow a different path.

I chatted with my publisher and agent at the beginning of the pandemic, she says. A Zoom conversation. I told them I wanted to write a history of the way religions taught us about the natural world. I thought it was going to be another one of my big, fat books. They told me, Karen, this time, consider a short one

They told me people need to read this now. Do a long one later. They urged me to talk to people about changing the ways we think about nature.

More Information Karen Armstrong When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12 Where: Congregation Emanu El, 1500 Sunset Details: $45-$150 (includes a copy of "Sacred Nature"); progressiveforumhouston.org See More Collapse

Armstrong compressed centuries into a book that didnt top 200 pages. Its far from exhaustive, which isnt to say it is far from grand in its reach.

Restoring an 'ancient bond'

The subtitle to Armstrongs book further explains a title that says a lot on its own: Restoring Our Ancient Bond With the Natural World.

Sacred Nature serves as a democratization of sorts for various faith-based systems over thousands of years. While scientific study offers some insight into why things are the way they are  nature, people, people and nature  there remains ample opacity in our existence. Armstrong in her new book suggests some cultures had systems that modern culture might classify as quaint. But as we witness natural disaster after natural disaster, perhaps wed do well to engage less with the self and more with our epic surroundings.

There is no single easily-identified villain in Sacred Nature. The call, in movie cliche parlance, is coming from inside the house, so long as we agree that the house is the planet. And the killer is us.

That said, Descartes may need new media representation. Perhaps Newton, also, who is framed as a theologian rather than the scientist label our culture assigns him. In "Sacred Nature" philosophical concepts aren't necessarily charted as linear progress.

Armstrongs book is slim, not slight. It offers a polycontinental, multi-cultural look at the ways faith and space coexisted for centuries. Weve maintained the notion of gods, but kicked to the curb ideas of, say, rain gods, and while scientific study prompted some theological purges, Armstrong speaks to the value of such systems, which remain explainable . . . to a degree.

She presents in Sacred Nature ideas like the Greek kenosis and represents other faith-based systems that held a more reverent affinity for the earth before ecology was a term. The book admires a time before a shift from when the Big Question was Why are we here? to Why are we the way we are?

The former query centers the planet with us as its guests. The latter centers us as crucial to a planet that will exist long after it rids itself of us. Armstrongs book chooses not to delve into that inevitable void, but rather to gently encourage us to de-center ourselves and find a new humility with regard to the spaces we occupy.

We are miniscule creatures in the grander scheme of things, Armstrong says. Before going to bed, before going to sleep, its worth reminding ourselves how little we know.

In this sense, its a perfect book to emerge from a period of isolation and contemplation. A time, Armstrong says, we can recalibrate how weve made ourselves utterly unaware of the brokenness of this world.

On the subject of the pandemic, Armstrong says her visit to Houston this month for a conversation presented by the Progressive Forum about the book will be her first appearance since her book tours and speaking engagements shut down in 2020.

Looking upward

Two years into the pandemic I heard a sharp, unfamiliar skreeee from my home workspace. I walked to the back yard and sat. Nothing happened for a good 15 minutes, though I noticed none of the usual smaller birds were agitatedly fluttering about. The sound recurred and I traced it to a Coopers hawk some 30 feet away on a branch that hung over my neighbors yard.

Days later, I found myself feeling low, and I decided I wanted to sit on the patio and wait for this creature to return. The bird wasnt there, obviously, because bird observation is like gambling. But I was disheartened to see the branch upon which that hawk perched also was gone.

"Appreciate those moments," Armstrong says. "They become increasingly rare."

Armstrong says our efforts at ecological preservation are well-intentioned but also perhaps misguided. Its not about breast-beating or sorrow or contrition, she says. Thats all about ego, too.

She feels like our systems of behavior need to be reconfigured in a way that isnt about preserving the natural, per se, but rather treating it with the reverence we reserve for various man-made systems across centuries  to return a sacred and spiritual reverence to nature.

Turn off the phone

Armstrong uses an internationally familiar entity to illustrate her point for how we misguidedly represent entities across time.

When we see the Buddha, hes depicted as sitting calmly and inward-looking as though hes looking deeply into himself, she says. Hes not looking inside himself, hes sending his thoughts and heart out to every corner of the world.

She sees cultures across the world as having been constructed similarly: an absence of self in a grander environment. Some of those practices have come to be viewed as quaint and folksy. Armstrongs book suggests such communion with nature as crucial.

Armstrong remains a defender of faith despite having been a nun who endured physical and psychological abuse in her convent. She left that life behind not cynical about faith, but perhaps more committed to the breadth of faith.

Today she expresses concerns about people with whom she has interacted over the years, typically through her deep feeling for, and understanding and study of religion. She worries about friends in Pakistan, which is dealing with catastrophic flooding.

She sees climatological events causing different crises around the world. Yet hers is not a science vs. religion text, the ax-grinding of the faithful pushed away by abuse. Rather she hopes to restore a different sort of faith that some might view as antiquated.

Theres no good being worried or frightened, she says. Thats what paralyzes us to where we cant think properly. We know we have to change our behavior in some way. We cant go on burning fossil fuels as we have. There needs to be a radical change in our thinking and doing.

Armstrong clarifies that we dont need to get back to a century before technological advances. Rather, we need to look further behind us before the 16th century when Europe departed from the natural world and developed a more pragmatic and utilitarian view of nature.

Armstrong acknowledges advances in science and medicine. But nature, she believes, should not be seen as an adversary to be conquered.

Despite the brevity of her book, Armstrong pulls ideas from around the world. She believes wed all benefit from a Chinese practice of quiet sitting.

You dont have to take any yoga position, she says. Just sit comfortably and turn off your phone. Increasingly were seeing nature  these places of natural beauty  through our phones, taking one photo after another. Just 15 minutes a day, sit and listen to the sounds of nature. Look at the birds and trees and insects on the ground. Become aware of it. You dont have to say a prayer or anything. Just sit with nature. And be a part of it. Because we are a part of it.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Luxe laundry is one of the most searched terms on Pinterest. Houzzs 2022 Houzz & Home survey said spending on laundry renovations was up by about a third in 2021 over previous years.

Homeowners are taking the laundry room to new heights. But many take the in-home washer and dryer often take it for granted. We havent had the convenience all that long.

Indoor plumbing and power made electric washers and tumble dryers possible, and by 1937 they appeared on the market. Most people plopped these appliances in rooms that already had plumbing  usually the kitchen. Soon, the garage or the basement became the laundry zone in many homes in the North; the machines were noisy, so better to have them some distance from living spaces.

Larger homes and quieter appliances brought the laundry upstairs again for convenience. And now, with quiet, more compact and stylish machinery, laundries are in rooms throughout the home.

Sustainability concerns are also changing laundry spaces. Energy-saving features on the machinery are standard, and homeowners are asking for simple sinks for hand-washing garments, as well as racks and retractable clotheslines to air dry, designers say.

The spin on whats new in home laundry areas:

Space savers

Some major manufacturers now offer a washer/dryer combo unit that does everything in one machine, good news for apartment dwellers and others with limited space.

For separate machines, stackables tend to be more compact.

In a kitchen, side-by-side (laundry) appliances can be hidden underneath countertops to make use of every inch. In a closet or bath, stacked machines conserve space, says Pasadena, California, designer Jeanne Chung.

Other features might include ventless drying, offered by many brands.

Making it fun

Laundry rooms no longer need to be hidden.

Theyre another area to design and decorate, where people feel comfortable taking a risk with a bright, fun wallpaper, says Abby Gruman of Abby Leigh Designs in New York City.

Hillary Stamm of HMS Interior Design in El Segundo, California, agrees: This is a space you arent in for hours (lets hope!) so have some fun. A textured tile or an intricate design with a splash of color can work wonders here.

If your laundry room is in a separate spot that guests rarely see, theres an opportunity to really personalize it. Would you prefer a pristine oasis, with calming hues and accents, or an upbeat space with bright colors and lots of pattern?

Wallpaper is my go-to, says designer Maritza Capiro in Coral Gables, Florida. Its cost-effective and creates visual impact. In a laundry room, Ill use a vinyl wallpaper; its easy to clean, durable and flame-retardant.

Peel-and-stick wallpaper tiles are another DIY-friendly option, perhaps in faux stone, decorative patterns or nature prints.

For one recent project, Capiro tied in materials from other rooms. We selected marble subway tiles for the walls, as marble is in the bathrooms. Then we chose a durable white quartz countertop, which complements the tiles, she says.

Location, location

In most new construction, the laundry is on the master bedroom floor, says Gruman.

Another big trend is the double-stacked washer and dryer  two of each, next to each other. Instead of one, people want two, she says.

Capiro cites a client who is putting laundry rooms on both the first and second floors  one near the bedrooms and the other adjacent to the kitchen, with a big utility sink.

There are also stylish laundries in garages.

Selecting attractive cabinets, countertops and backsplashes elevates the look of the space, Capiro says.

Natural light is a bonus. But functional lighting fixtures can add design oomph. A hands-free motion-sensor switch also might come in handy for those times when your arms are full of clothes.

Storage and multi-tasking

Laundry rooms now are often multi-use spaces. Have enough shelving, and keep it organized. A junk drawer is recommended.

Laundry rooms often double as linen and utility closets, says Los Angeles designer Jessica Nicastro. She integrates ironing boards and energy-saving drying racks vertically into cabinetry.

Also on clients wish lists: plenty of counter space, storage, and zones for washing pets.

Im loving a laundry room that can double as a gift-wrapping center, or as a craft space, Stamm says.

Capiro is working on a laundry room that doubles as a workout room. Along with space for a stationary bike, therell be a TV and storage for holiday decorations.

Ready-made room

It can be daunting to shop for all the storage elements youll need if youre DIYing it. Some retailers offer component packages.

To name a few: MandiCasas Drop system includes base, column and hanging cabinets, racks, deep drawers, vanities and other elements, including some specifically for laundry: drying rods and a drop-down folding table. The modular collection is made of sustainably produced, wood-grained melamine.

The Container Stores White Elfa Laundry Solution includes epoxy-coated steel, ventilated shelves, melamine shelves, closet rod, utility hooks and easy-glide drawers. And Pottery Barns Aubrey Collection features open cabinetry, closet rails, rack and laundry cart.
ARVADA, Colo. (AP)  A police officer in the Colorado city of Arvada was killed during a shooting as officers were trying to break up a large family disturbance, the Arvada Police Department said Sunday.

The suspect and another person injured in the shooting early Sunday were hospitalized and expected to survive, police said.
The death of a 3-year-old boy has been deemed "suspicious" by Liberty County officials.

Around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, an emergency medical team was called to a home on County Road 3792 in north Liberty County with reports that a child was in distress and gagging, according to officials. The caller was the boyfriend of the child's mother, officials said.

Investigator Sean Mitchell said paramedics performed CPR on the child and brought him to Kingwood Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A final autopsy has not yet been performed as of Sunday, but LCSO investigators have begun interviews with family members, officials said.

megan.munce@chron.com
One man was killed early Sunday morning in a shooting at a west Houston apartment complex.

The shooting took place at 2851 Wallingford Drive, according to the Houston Police Department. Officers were dispatched around 12:45 a.m. and found one man shot dead in a bedroom, according to police.

Officials believe the victim was visiting a friend who lived at the apartment complex and that several people were inside the apartment when the fatal shooting occurred. HPD detectives have not yet determined a suspect or motive, though multiple witnesses from inside the apartment were interviewed about the shooting, according to officials.

The incident is being investigated by HPD's Homicide Division.

megan.munce@chron.com
A federal lawsuit has been filed against Harris County and the Harris County Sheriffs Office by the mother of a 98-pound special needs teen beaten to death in the Harris County jail in October 2021.

Fred Harris, 19, was killed by 240-pound, repeat violent offender Michael Paul Ownby, according to officials.

INVESTIGATION: How did this happen to my son?

Harris and Ownby were put in the same holding cell without appropriate oversight, according to the mothers legal complaint.

The complaint, filed by his mother, Dallas Garcia, alleges Harris County and the Harris County Sheriffs Office failed and refused to accommodate Harris' disability. It also claims they failed to provide protection, safe housing and safe movement in the jail.

Harris County knowingly created an extremely dangerous jail, family and civil rights lawyer Randall Kallinen said in a news release. The Harris County Jail is operated by the Harris County Sheriffs Office.

Garcia continues to suffer physical, mental and psychological damages.

Harris died in the county jail weeks after detention officers and deputies filed a federal class action lawsuit in September of 2021, saying they were understaffed to the point that unhygienic measures had to be taken because they couldnt get a bathroom break.

HARRIS COUNTY JAIL: Deputies file lawsuit over working conditions at jail

Additionally, a 2021 state inspection revealed Harris County Jail is understaffed, according to Kallinen's news release.

Harris was in the jail after being arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

No one was injured in the incident. According to the plaintiff's complaint, it is unlikely Harris would have been convicted. He had never been arrested before this incident.

He had spent years struggling with depression, anxiety and had threatened suicide. He had continuous incidents of running away from home.

Harris graduated from Stafford High School in 2020, and is said to have been very well liked by his peers, even being elected as homecoming royalty.

Dallas Garcia described her son as a sweet, outgoing boy who never met a stranger and had garnered the nickname Fearless Fred.

Ownby has been charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury.
Godofredo A. Vasquez, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

A 19-year-old was shot around 10 p.m. Saturday in northwest Houston after having an argument with three other teens about a cell phone, according to Houston police.

The victim was in an apartment at 6200 West Tidwell Road when one of the other three teens pulled out a gun and shot him an unknown number of times, according to the Houston Police Department. He was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Houston Chronicle

Police responded to two fatal shootings within blocks of each other in northeast Houston on Saturday night, officials said.

Around 8:30 p.m., officials arrived at the 3500 block of Liberty Road and found a woman in a car outside of a business, officials said. The woman had multiple gun shot wounds and was taken to the hospital, where she died of her injuries.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Roxanne Castillo knocked on a door not far from Booker T. Washington Sr. High School looking for a 19-year-old close to graduating - if he would just come back to school.

Castillo, an administrative assistant at Booker T., was one of the many Houston ISD staff members from 30-plus schools who volunteered for the school districts annual Grads Within Reach Walk Saturday morning, going door-to-door trying to reenroll students who havent yet shown up to campus this fall.

HISDs enrollment stands at 186,600 students  down significantly from the 210,000 enrolled in prepandemic times in 2019.

Educators expected the downward trend to continue in the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdowns that sent students to virtual school. Additionally, many of the students Castillo knows have more responsibilities than the average teenager, she said.

Some work to help support their families, others help take care of their younger siblings to take the load off their working parents. This is the case for the 19-year-old whose doorstep she was waiting on.

His parents treat him like an adult, Castillo said. He has a lot of freedom and independence but also a lot of responsibility.

She gave one more firm knock, and then left a sign hanging on his door knob, with information on how to reenroll.

This isnt uncommon. Sometimes volunteers arent able to catch people at home, the addresses arent up to date or the student moved in with a different relative.

Some groups had more luck. Carlos Phillips II, the principal of Booker T. Washington High School, was able to connect with all three families he was assigned to.

Were just there to have a conversation, let them know what classes the need to take and see if they need anything like a backpack, clothes or shoes, Phillips said. We want them to have what they need to be successful.

HISD teams reached roughly 55 teens on Saturday. The most recent statewide numbers provide a glimmer of hope of more students returning to school, showing a slight increase in enrollment. About 5.4 million students were enrolled in the 2021-2022 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency. Thats up roughly 1 percent from the previous year.

For most of the students, the staff members on the walk are familiar faces. Kimberly Grover and Maribel Cavazos are both clerks at Booker T. Washington and saw a couple names on their list that they recognized. They make sure keep snacks in their drawers for students who stop by the office.

We know the kids. We know them very well, Grover said. But sometimes we dont know theyre not here until we see them on the list.

The school districts efforts to track down missing students has extended well beyond the day of the event. Staffers have spent months doing outreach to students that have reenrolled in previous years, HISD Superintendent Millard House II said. He said when tracking down these students its of the utmost importance to listen to their stories with an empathetic ear.

One thing that is important is that we cant judge them, House said. We need to ensure that every scholar receives the appropriate support to remain in the walls of our buildings.
When the first of the Twin Towers fell, Kris Booker and her classmates at culinary school thought it was a freak accident. Their teachers shepherded them into an auditorium where they watched the news in horror as the second tower fell  realizing that it was not an accident, but an attack unfolding only a mile from their school in Lower Manhattan.

The explosion knocked out local cell towers so cell phones didnt work. Instead, they used landlines to call family members to tell them they were OK, then were told to go home. Booker stepped out onto the street under a thick black cloud of smoke rising from the explosion.

My first image of the devastation was just a wall of people coming up Broadway covered in ash and bleeding head to toe, just from all the debris falling, the now 51-year-old Booker, her voice cracking. The first act of service that I witnessed was the shop keepers up and down Broadway, who would hose down the sidewalks in the morning, they got out their hoses and they were hosing people off (of the debris and ash).

Even as she recounted the experience 21 years later and 1,600 miles away from Ground Zero, the memories still made her well up with tears as stood speaking to crowd gathered at the Houston National Cemetery on Saturday. About 1,400 volunteers participated in the 9/11 Day of Service event to clean up the veterans cemetery as a way of honoring service members in remembrance of the tragedy two decades ago.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Letter to the editor: I lost a friend on 9/11. We must never forget.

Although the terrifying scenes are still vivid in Bookers memory, so are the scenes of average citizens going out of their way to help one another after the attacks and the scenes of how the nation came together to rebuild.

I just recall how everyone was willing to serve. There wasnt a person in our country that was not affected by this tragedy whether you were in New York or not, added Booker, 51, in an interview after her speech. Coming together on this day is a great way to honor all of those first responders who gave everything because there was a need.

That spirit of service was reinvigorated Saturday as volunteers withstood 90-degree heat to scrub tombstones, clear out old flowers, collect trash, straighten headstones and repaint fencing in the Houston National Ceremony. The sprawling 419-acre cemetery in north Houston has more than 111,000 people from buried there, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website.

On HoustonChronicle.com: For Houston National Cemetery staff, its an honor to prepare for Memorial Day tributes

The cemetery partnered with JustServe, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and 911.org to organize the event in with participation by the City of Houston and the veterans nonprofit Carry the Load. This is the first year that the LDS church hosted a 9/11 Day of Service event at the cemetery, but after the resounding volunteer response, it probably wont be the last, said Elder Corey Cuvelier, a leader at the Houston LDS church.

Volunteer and Cypress resident Cynthia SanchezHidalgo, 45, recalled how stunned she was watching the towers fall on television that morning as she was getting ready for work 21 years ago. She had a friend whose fiance died in the terrorist attacks. Now she says volunteering is a way to heal and continue honoring lives lost.

She brought her 16-year-old daughter, Deya, and their friends Elisa and Natalie Martinez from their churchs youth group to serve on Saturday. Their hands were marked with bits of black paint as they brushed a fresh coat onto the cemeterys fence.

I hear about all the stories at school I feel bad for the families (who lost people), Deya said. Even though were just painting a fence; I feel like them seeing we were here would help them.

Indeed for first responders and veterans at the 9/11 Day of Service, seeing so many volunteers straightening out headstones with sticks and wiping soapy water over the dusty names etched in stone was a reminder that their acts of service havent been forgotten.

It feels good just being here, said Sgt. Joe Navarro with the U.S. Army National Guards Honor Guard program. Navarro and another National Guard member, Spc. Oscar Luna, performed a flag ceremony at the 9/11 Day of Service Event to honor the fallen first responders and veterans.

Navarro, who is almost 50, lives in Conroe but is originally from New York and was called out with the National Guard to assist first responders at Ground Zero the day after the attacks. The feeling of staring out over the scenes of chaos where two towers once stood still sticks with him. To this day he keeps an emergency bag in his car packed with supplies and a gas mask in case he finds himself responding to a disaster scene again.

Its one of the most tragic things weve seen in my lifetime. There were so many lives that were lost and people that were affected after the fact, and families who have to suffer each year remembering their loved ones are gone, said Navarro, pausing as he choked back tears. We can never forget what happened.
When she got engaged against her will at 14, Safinaz Arias life was no longer her own. The 28-year-old Houston mother said the physical and sexual abuse started early in her marriage to Ahmad Aria, an older businessman in Afghanistan.

Now Arias own 14-year-old daughter is in the hands of the same man, along with the couples two other children. Her husband, who lives in Miami, won custody of the three kids through a court order, despite years of being absent from their family.

From her new home in Houston, shes navigating a completely foreign family law system in a fight to get them back  but the odds are stacked against her. Ahmad Aria has hired one of Miamis top marriage and family attorneys to retain custody of the children, ages 14, 12 and 8.

AFGHANS IN HOUSTON: After Taliban takeover, Afghans face homesickness, challenges shaping new lives

Safinaz Aria hoped her life as a refugee would be easier, but the turmoil she endured, beginning within weeks of arriving in Houston, has been an unthinkable new trauma in an unfamiliar culture, language and setting. Her story lays bare the difficulties that immigrant survivors of domestic violence face while they navigate custody battles against their partners.

In a remote court hearing Thursday, a family court judge in Miami sided again with the childrens father, saying the court was right to order the children removed from their mother in Houston and brought to Florida, where they had already established residency.

Aria was shocked that this country would separate a loving mother from her three children and put them with their estranged father. She thought that in the United States, officials would believe her account of her husbands violence.

Dream of justice

I hoped that I would win the case, Aria said in Dari, through an interpreter, I believed that in America, people believe in justice  but I see something different than what I was expecting.

Shes a low-income woman who fled the Taliban, speaks limited English and has no connections in the U.S. Her husband has money, speaks English fluently and is well-established in the country.

BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE: Evacuated Afghans face epic hurdles to stay in U.S. legally

Theres only so many hearings that your lawyer can do (when you have) limited funds, said Maricarmen Garza, chief of programs at the Tahirih Justice Center, which serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence and persecution. She said that to get a fair shot at custody and have their abuse recognized by the court, survivors must have the financial resources to build their case.

It ends up that you are trying to fight this individual  a bully  in court with your hands tied behind your back, because if the resources are not there, how do you prove these things that are not happening out in public, that it takes real nuance to explain? she said.

Disparate access

In the Arias virtual custody hearing Thursday, these disparities were made clear.

While her husbands attorney has more than 30 years of experience, including work on the Supreme Court case that secured George W. Bushs presidency, Safinaz Arias attorney was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2019.

Ahmad Aria was able to clearly and confidently answer the courts questions in English. But when the judge and attorneys addressed Safinaz Aria, her responses didnt quite land. She spoke through a Farsi interpreter  not an Afghan Dari speaker  which made her testimony stilted, less personal and likely absent cultural nuance because there are pronunciation and vocabulary differences between Dari and Farsi.

Safinaz Aria also lacks the physical evidence of her alleged repeated domestic abuse  even her own government ID undermines her case. She said shes actually 28, not 31, like her ID says  her husband allegedly changed her official age from 15 to 18 so they could move to Dubai together when she was still a minor. (Many Afghans dont have official birth records because of ongoing violence and limited resources in the country to support a functioning birth registration system.)

If shed had the advantages of English fluency, records of violence, a veteran custody lawyer and perhaps a judge who understood the complications shed endured as a refugee, she might have a better shot at justice, experts say. They said little of her account of her marriage is surprising, considering the cultural context. And if her description of her husband is true, domestic violence experts say, its hard to imagine her children are safe under his watch.

Keeping silent

Like roughly one-third of Afghan girls, Safinaz Aria married Ahmad Aria as a minor. The abuse allegedly began after she got pregnant shortly after they married.

During their marriage, Safinaz Aria said, her husband subjected her to physical abuse at least 20 times. She said he slapped her, whipped her with a belt and held a gun to her head when her first daughter was an infant.

She said Ahmad would come and go as he pleased from the house in the United Arab Emirates and was absent for months at a time. She said he sent her pictures of his girlfriends while she raised their three children. She also said that when her son was 3 or 4, her husband slapped the boys face, telling him to be more manly.

LEFT BEHIND: Afghans face visa, logistical challenges as friends, family try to get them out

She said the only person she discussed the abuse with was her mother-in-law, who told her this was between husband and wife and not to get anyone else involved. She was afraid to report it to police, which makes sense in the context of the State Department finding that in the U.A.E.: The penal code allows men to use physical means, including violence, at their discretion against female and minor family members. The department said Emirati courts rarely side in favor of victims in domestic abuse and that officials sometimes shared a victims contact information with family members who were able to contact the victims abuser.

Safinaz Aria said that in 2015, her husband left for good  he returned to Afghanistan, then got a visa to go to the U.S., which he qualified for through his work with the U.S. government. To pay the bills in the U.A.E., she sold her jewelry and car  this is when his financial support of the family ended, she said.

She had to move back to her familys home in Kabul and she worked for her sisters company to make ends meet. Her husband didnt contact her directly, though he made it clear he wanted custody of the children. At one point, he even had someone offer her $1 million in exchange for full custody of the children. She declined.

In 2021, the situation in Kabul deteriorated. The family was evacuated from Afghanistan in August, likely with the help of her husbands connections in the U.S. military.

Like tens of thousands of Afghans, they were taken to a U.S. military base  Fort McCoy in Wisconsin  where families waited months for security and immigration screenings and eventual refugee resettlement services, which included placement in cities across the country.

Misplaced trust

Safinaz Aria says she erred when she agreed to leave the military base with her husband, whom she hadnt seen since her youngest daughter was just 1. He convinced them to leave the chaotic base and join him in Miami, where he had been living prior to their arrival.

But her husbands promise to support them was quickly rescinded, she said. Over breakfast, she said, her husband told their oldest daughter he could make her mother sleep in the streets if he wanted.

Then he told Safinaz Aria he was going to take care of their kids only, not her. She asked him why he bothered to take her from the military base, if he refused to take care of her. They argued. He came close and told her that if she left, it would be a disaster for her.

She took the kids to a hotel. Then he reported her to the police as missing. Officials went to the hotel and found the fearful family, included her crying daughter, and discovered the room had been paid for by her husband, Safinaz Aria said, so they were not missing.

Penniless, she decided to leave with help from her brother. She took the kids to a womens shelter and returned to Fort McCoy, where she lost contact with her husband. The family was eventually transferred to Houston and put in temporary housing.

Almost immediately after she arrived in Houston, she learned she was due in a Miami court for a custody hearing. Her husband  who hadnt lived with the children for seven years  said she kidnapped the kids. She showed up in virtual court without a lawyer and with a friend as her interpreter. She was confident that in the U.S., the government would not take away her children.

AFGHAN JUSTICE: Afghan judge who prosecuted Taliban joins Texas law schools as a research scholar

She was wrong.

She lost custody Dec. 8, and days later Harris County sheriffs deputies showed up at the apartment complex where she was living temporarily. Her kids begged the officers not to take them from their mother  a memory that brings Safinaz Aria to tears.

Her husband drove the kids from Houston to Miami, where theyve been living since. Safinaz Aria has been granted one visit during that time and since has been fighting for custody  without solid funds or English fluency. Shes working long hours driving for Uber to pay her Florida attorneys thousands of dollars each month while also learning English and adjusting to life in a new country. So far, her efforts to regain custody have been fruitless.

Since the judges ruling Thursday, her attorneys have advised her to move to Florida to be closer to the kids  which would isolate her from her small support network, which includes her brother and his family as well as her case manager and other staff at her refugee resettlement agency, Catholic Charities. Miami is more expensive and would be another adjustment for her  meanwhile, theres no guarantee she would be able to visit her children once she gets there.

But the fight has not ended for the young mother, who grew up alongside her children.

Im not giving up, she said resoundingly, after hearing from her attorneys she should move to Florida. I want to fight.

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Ahmad Rashad remembers playing with friends in the street when news spread of the attacks overseas. He was around 10 and a refugee in conservative Peshawar, Pakistan, when it happened. He overheard celebratory songs praising Osama bin Laden: The jihadis stuck it to the infidels.

But Rashads pro-democracy family was not among those celebrating, like many Afghans who fled the country during decades of conflict. His family had been refugees in Peshawar since he was a toddler. His father was a former government official and opposed jihadis and religious extremism.

CONTRIBUTING: Afghan refuges quickly make an impact on Houston economy

News that the U.S. would be invading Afghanistan stifled the excitement felt by some. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan sighed a breath of relief.

By December 2001, the U.S. had toppled the Taliban regime, paving the way for democracy, access to education and freedom of expression.

It was an era of optimism, said Sher Jan Ahmadzai, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Those who were forcefully pushed out of Afghanistan, they went back with happiness. His family had also been living as refugees in Pakistan.

When I went back to Kabul in 2002, I saw happiness on the face of everybody. No restrictions. No fear, said Ahmadzai, who went on to work for the Afghan government.

Within a year of the U.S. counterattack, Rashads family also returned to Afghanistan after a decade in Pakistan. He remembers eating candy and drinking the bottled water that Marines would hand out and attending a school built by Americans.

I pretty much grew up with Americans, said Rashad, who now lives in Houston. In a matter of years, he would be the one handing out candy, as he later took a job as an interpreter for the U.S. military.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: 6 year old boy found abandoned at Walmart

Afghan American entrepreneur Omer Yousafzai watched the attacks and aftermath unfold thousands of miles from home, inside the apartment he and his brother shared in Houston. On Sept. 11, 2001, Yousafzai had been living in the U.S. for only a few months. He was 24. He remembers not believing the horrific footage he saw on the news. He watched in shock and struggled to comprehend what was happening, since he was still learning English.

It was very painful to watch burning buildings, people, Yousafzai said. He still cant bring himself to watch through some of the footage from that day, showing people desperately jumping from the World Trade Center. Its an image he thinks about every year around this time.

He said he remembers talking to his mom back home, who was in tears over the human tragedy.

Yousafzai wanted to take action. He hoped to become a pilot for the military but couldnt because he wasnt a U.S. citizen at the time. Yousafzai came to Houston for law school, but after Sept. 11, applied for and was granted asylum.

Marie D. De Jesus, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Six years later, Yousafzai finally found his opportunity to serve the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. He worked for the military as a linguist and operations manager and hired many of the Afghan interpreters who today are in the U.S. under Special Immigrant Visas.

I went there to make sure that we recruit the right people to do the job that the U.S. went there for, said Yousafzai, who believed in the promise of a stable Afghan government.

I was hoping for a better alternative than what we had, even prior to (the) Taliban, he said.

EXIT: Local vet worries hasty Afghanistan exit could hurt military morale

He worked on military bases in Afghanistan from 2007 until 2012, where he faced life-threatening attacks.

I was literally 20 feet away from a suicide bomber that blew himself up, Yousafzai said. I collected body parts from my own office because the whole office collapsed.

The idea for his Houston restaurant, Afghan Village, was inspired by his time living on base. American service members loved the Afghan food that was sneaked onto base, so he decided to bring it to Texas.

Sitting at a table inside his restaurant, Yousafzai thinks back to the pain of Sept. 11 and how it changed Afghans, Americans and the world  in paradigm-shifting ways, but also small ones. Now, the common name Osama carries a negative connotation, thanks to the Saudi mastermind of the attacks. Yousafzai and his coworkers even call one of his employees named Osama by a different name, Mohammad, instead.

After this incident, this name became like a trademark for a terrorist, Yousafzai said.

For Rashad, the anniversary of the attacks made him reschedule his wifes C-section from Sept. 11 to Sept. 12.

When you have a Muslim name and you have a same birthday, it might (get them) in trouble. And people dont like it, Rashad said. He also decided not to teach them the Afghan language Pashto and steers them away from religion and politics.

His three kids were born in the U.S. and he admits they are spoiled  a worlds difference from his childhood as a refugee. He shows photos from his phone of them swimming and playing. Theyre all too young to learn about the Sept. 11 attacks for now. But in the future he said hell share his honest opinion.

I will tell my kids that the reason why it happened is because of religion, Rashad said. He emphasized that Sept. 11 is one example of suffering caused at the hands of religious extremism.

Marie D. De Jesus, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

A lot of people died  innocent people died who didnt deserve to die  but (Sept. 11) happened because of religion, he said.

Twenty years later, Afghanistan is once again in the hands of a hard-line Islamic government. Rashad and his family are safely living in Houston, but many of the Afghan refugees who had returned to their country after the Talibans defeat are now evacuees in U.S. military bases, fleeing back to Pakistan or trying to get to another third country.

Ahmadzai, the University of Nebraska professor, said while bin Ladens plan may have backfired, as it led to 20 years of U.S. presence in Afghanistan and a weakening of Islamic extremist ideology, the U.S. pulling out has ushered in a new era.

Recent incidents in Afghanistan gave another breath to the life of al-Qaida and other extremist groups. They finally found out, Oh yeah, we can defeat the United States, if we stay persistent and thats what they did, Ahmadzai said.

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com

twitter.com/eliztrovall
Patrick Semansky/AP

A Twitter account for U.S. Customs and Border Protection shared, and then deleted, right-wing posts from Stephen Miller, a former Trump administration policy adviser.

The "official Twitter account for U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations in the West Texas region" on Saturday retweeted two of Miller's tweets criticizing the media and President Joe Biden's immigration policy and claiming the government has ignored violent crime.
We started strong. Ann Richards inauguration as governor on Jan. 15, 1991, was magic for me  and for 10,000 other Texans who marched up Congress Avenue to the magnificent pink granite State Capitol building.

Ann looked fabulous in her white suit, with friends and family striding along with her. The day was cold and crisp but sunny and full of promise. There were a few glitches, of course, to which we should have paid more attention. Students at Texas Womans University had designed and made the beautiful white suit that Ann was wearing that day. But at the last minute it had to be refitted. The governors security detail insisted that she had to wear a bulletproof vest under it, so the jacket had to be enlarged and redone to accommodate the vest. That didnt dampen our excitement.

Remembering that day is more important than ever as we approach an election with Gov. Greg Abbott and his challenger, Beto ORourke, at the top of our ballots.

Texas has been the nations center of political and cultural extremism for so long that most Texans  and Texas watchers across the nation  dont know that this state had a 25-year era of modern progressive policies and rational leaders who could occasionally work together on a bipartisan basis.

From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, Texas had strong elected leaders who achieved significant reforms within our state government. Many powerful politicians actually responded to the day-to-day needs and hopes of ordinary citizens instead of only trying to energize their political base.

I dont want to diminish the fact that there was always conflict. The need for Ann to wear a bulletproof vest under her beautiful jacket indicated that there was an ominous undercurrent from the very beginning. The parties clashed repeatedly as the Republican Party continued to grow and gain strength. Change is always difficult. And although there were always significant differences of opinion and volatile arguments, the atmosphere was generally more collegial than it is now.

Responsible officeholders could sometimes work a deal on issues that had some general popularity among voters  and not just one faction or another. That kind of pragmatism is possible in Texas.

A New Texas

I was lucky enough to be active in that now-forgotten era when I ran Ann Richards winning campaign for governor in 1990 and then served as her chief of staff.

We brought in a talented staff of progressive experts who were knowledgeable in their respective fields. Ann presented the ideas we brought together as a blueprint for a New Texas. We immediately began appointing more women, Latinos and African Americans to positions of power within various state agencies as well as the states college and university systems. For the first time in history, a Texas governor began appointing openly gay men and women to major boards and commissions.

Under Anns direction, her appointees began to take decisive action within their respective agencies. Beginning early in Anns term, we were able to place a moratorium on new permits for commercial hazardous waste disposal until stronger environmental safeguards could be put into place. We initiated new air-quality rules for major industries. We diverted state and federal money into rural areas for water and sewage treatment services along the Texas-Mexico border, where some of the poorest people in America lived in Third World housing and health conditions.

Within progressive circles all over Texas, there was an outpouring of joy, hope and pride. An average of more than 7,000 letters a month flooded our office, which was more than the previous governor had received in an entire year. We created an Ombudsmans Office to help many of those letter writers, who believed that Ann could  and would  help them solve their various problems within the states massive bureaucracy.

Women and bipartisanship

With these flurries of appointments and policy initiatives that the governor could deal with through executive actions within many state agencies, we still had to deal with the volatility of the Legislature. We hired centrist Democratic legislator Jim Parker to handle our dealings with the Legislature.

Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of that first legislative session was the passage of legislation to force insurance regulators to protect consumers rather than only big insurance companies. It was one of those rare feats where all the players  industry and consumers  got something they wanted, but not all that they wanted. While Parker and our team did the heavy lifting on our legislative program, including getting new ethics and financial disclosure requirements for state officials, I was constantly working with our young staff to keep our focus on our key issues, rather than all the blue sky ventures that warmed our liberal hearts.

Democrats controlled the Legislature at the time but many of the Democrats were deeply conservative and, as we soon learned, heavily influenced by industry lobbyists upset with the changes Anns appointees had made. To get laws passed, we often had to work in a bipartisan manner.

As I recall, the moments of bipartisanship involved the women officeholders in each party who worked together to achieve something that mattered to each of them.

When Ann was state treasurer in the 1980s, she created a statewide advisory committee to use as a sounding board for the major changes and reforms she was instituting at the Treasury. She placed Kay Bailey Hutchison, then a young Republican state representative from Houston, on the committee. We met with her regularly. Kay was later elected state treasurer and of course became a U.S. senator. We always had a cordial relationship and I considered her a friend even though we rarely agreed on political or policy issues. The lines of communication were always open.

Bottom line  as far as my experience was concerned  bipartisanship most often occurred among women during that relatively progressive era from 1970 to 1995. Women helped each other because we were sharing similar experiences of being the first to achieve elective or appointive offices that could make a difference in peoples lives.

End of an era

We didnt know it at the time, but that election in 1990 was the peak event and culmination of the modern progressive era. Then a short four years later, when I presided over Anns crushing defeat, we began to realize that our loss was the beginning of the eras demise. So, Ive seen both the highs and lows of Texas politics.

No Democrat has been elected to the governors office since Ann Richards. Texas has descended into a bizarre kind of political extremism that was initially ushered into state government when genial, affable George W. Bush began the systematic demolition of all that progressives had struggled to achieve during their brief tenure in power. Subsequent, but less charming governors, Rick Perry and Greg Abbott, finished the job.

Texas today suffers under blighted, backward leadership that leaves the state at the bottom of most national rankings that focus on basic services people need to manage their lives: health insurance coverage, child protective services and more.

Its hard to have a positive vision of the future if all you see is corruption, voter suppression, white supremacists and homophobic activists banning books, and public officials at the highest levels who refuse to take meaningful action to deal responsibly with the horrors of mass school shootings and avoid accountability by covering up essential facts arising from the Uvalde tragedy.

Hairy-legged zoo girls

Women  and men  of my generation put our hearts and souls into the effort to elect to the governors office someone as dynamic and impactful as Ann Richards. Yet, most of the stories about the Ann Richards era are rarely placed within the historical context of the time.

In my memoir Hope and Hard Truth, I wanted to reveal how women who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s plunged full force into the messy muck of Texas politics in the 1970s and 1980s.

We were the first generation of Texas women to enter the political fray in a serious way since the suffrage movement won the right for women to vote in 1918 in Texas and 1919 nationwide. Although they endured ridicule, demeaning insults and angry opposition, they prevailed. We endured the same kinds of insults when we began to win our own victories. One old wag, who didnt like our objection to the way he had always conducted the states business, dubbed us the hairy-legged zoo girls.

Our lives were thus full of silly insults, layered on top of the intrigue, suspense, tension and risks that come with any serious political effort. But our lives were also full of joy, fascinating characters, exhilarating events, deep friendships, bold acts and satisfying deeds. For a long time, I loved it all.

We were involved in the important issues of our time. The irony today is that people of good will are still dealing with those issues: gun safety, civil rights and voter suppression, clean air and water needs, the well-being of Texas children, and most importantly for women who won some of those early battles, the right to control our own reproductive health and make good choices for our families and our futures.

None of this is easy. Still, I have hope.

One of the hard truths learned in the aftermath of my time in Texas politics is that anything that is done in the political world can be easily undone when you lose power. That is particularly true when there is a shift in resources from the most powerful to the most marginal people in our society. That is why authentic political struggles for human rights and humane policies are never ending. And that is where hope comes in. Hope provides the energy required to continue the struggle in dark times. But it requires a leap of imagination to see possibility for real change. If we can imagine a future that could be different or better, then our hope can propel us to do something about it.

Texas politics feels a bit different to me now for the first time in more than 30 years. Change is in the air. Hope is fueling new energy. But Im no longer foolish enough to make predictions. After all, Texas is still Texas. And real change has never come easily.

Mary Beth Rogers served as deputy treasurer of Texas under Ann Richards, later working as campaign manager for her 1990 gubernatorial bid and then chief of staff. She will discuss her book Hope and Hard Truth with Chronicle writer Joe Holley at Brazos Bookstore at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 20.
Ive been meaning to write this one for years. It was the potato chips that finally made me do it.

Not just any old Lays or Ruffles, mind you. No, Im talking about a new-to-me brand of chips (on its website, the Miami-based company says it has actually been around for 25 years) I recently saw at a checkout counter. Rap Snacks, they were called, available in such flavors as: Notorious B.I.G. Honey Jalapeo, Snoop Dogg O.G. Bar-B-Que Cheddar and Rick Ross Sweet Chili Lemon Pepper, each packaged with the rapper in question on the bag.

Which inspires me to finally ask a question Ive been meaning to ask for a long time. Dont you feel kind of silly now?

Meaning, all you folks who, 30 years ago, give or take, thought rap music was the end of the world. Were talking about a furor unlike anything wed seen since men with sledgehammers were smashing jukeboxes, trying to kill rock n roll in the 1950s. Rap, to hear some of you tell it, was a cultural apocalypse, and rappers, the most frightening men in America.

Snoop Dogg, then billed as Snoop Doggy Dogg, was on the cover of Newsweek giving the camera maximum attitude. The headline: When is Rap 2 Violent? These days, Martha Stewarts best friend is to be seen walking a mythic beach in TV commercials, handing out beer.

Then theres Ice Cube, who, as a member of NWA, drew a menacing rebuke from the FBI for a certain song that sharply critiqued policing in African-American neighborhoods. He has since become a movie star, playing a dad, a soldier and a barber shop owner, among many others.

Ice-T was boycotted and reviled over a speed-metal song called Cop Killer. He now shills for a breakfast cereal, an automobile warranty company and a laundry detergent, and has spent the last 22 years playing  wait for it  a cop on NBC.

So yes, the arc of their careers, the then-and-now snapshots, would seem to suggest some feeling silly is in order.

People tend to forget the power of American marketing to absorb and commodify that which once frightened and appalled. That amnesia notwithstanding, the process is not new. To the contrary, its one we saw with Elvis in the 50s, the Rolling Stones in the 60s, Alice Cooper in the 70s, Prince in the 80s. They were all scary once upon a time; all threatened the status quo. Now they dont. Now they are the stuff of nostalgia, museums and, in some cases, even scholarship.

The point is not that popular music ought not be criticized when it is violent, racist, misogynistic or otherwise troublesome. Rather, its that when said criticism takes on the tenor of fire alarms and air-raid sirens, when there is panic in the streets and a general sense that this song, this artist, this genre, represents a cultural Armageddon, a mortal threat requiring scary headlines or government intervention, it suggests the critics have forgotten how many times weve traveled this road and that a little perspective might be in order. Not to mention a little healthy respect for tomorrows ability to render todays fears silly and shrill.

It is, after all, each generations solemn duty to outrage the one that came before. And if you are a member of the one that came before, you would do well to recall how it was when you were the one doing the outraging. And to take solace in the fact that controversy inevitably becomes commodity.

Exhibit A: Snoop Dogg O.G. Bar-B-Que Cheddar. Because time happens to us all, nobody stays dangerous forever.

And marketing always has the last laugh.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.
As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content.

When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to.

After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS!

OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK

The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those.
Across China: Nutritious kindergarten breakfasts nourish life in northwestern Chinese villages

Xinhua) 15:34, September 11, 2022

LANZHOU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Vines laden with juicy tomatoes sway like red lanterns in the greenhouse. On the first day of the new school semester, He Fengxiang could be seen carefully picking the fruits from their branches and piling them in a basket.

"These tomatoes are specially planted for kindergarten kids," explained He, the 30-year-old farmer who cultivated the tomatoes in Linxia County of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province.

Last March, He's greenhouse in Xinfu Village was selected to be a food supplier for a preschool nutrition improvement pilot project jointly undertaken by China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The pilot project in Gansu, the third such project in China, serves eight kindergartens covering approximately 200 villages in Linxia County. In addition to free breakfasts for children, the project also provides a sales channel for local agricultural products.

All ingredients collected from local agricultural bases are sent to a company-run central kitchen before being processed into meals, said Zhu Shuping, who oversees the project in Linxia.

He Fengxiang was relocated to Xinfu Village four years ago, moving from an area 30 km away that had a high altitude and harsh conditions for farming. After working odd jobs for two years to support his family of six, He, like many other new settlers, started learning about crop plantation in greenhouses provided by the village.

Aided by the skills and techniques he learned from specialists through the pilot project, He has become a farmer famed in the village for the high yields, quality and rich variety of his crops.

He said that the project purchases fruits and vegetables at higher prices compared to the market. Feeling encouraged when he learned this, he rented more greenhouses from his neighbors to expand production.

A total of 98 households in Linxia have joined the project, each earning an extra income of more than 10,000 yuan per year (about 1,447.2 U.S. dollars), and over 2,100 children have benefited, Zhu said.

Seven-year-old Ma Qian, who just graduated from one of the eight designated kindergartens in Linxia, still misses the breakfast there. "We had so many choices of food and they tasted really good."

Ma Yumei, the principal of the kindergarten, said that each week's breakfast menu is posted on campus and parents are invited to take turns participating in discussions on the combinations of food. The kindergarten also provides courses on nutrition for students and their parents as part of the project.

"I used to cook simple food like steamed buns for my granddaughter for breakfast because I had to go out on the farm early in the morning. Now I feel relieved as she can have more nutritious food at her kindergarten," said local farmer Ma Ayisha.

One of He's children started kindergarten this semester and is also covered by the breakfast project. "It gives me so much comfort to know that my child can enjoy the vegetables I planted at kindergarten almost every day," he said.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print.

Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition.

If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.
RMV Announces Inspection Sticker Changes

BOSTON, Mass.  The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) has announced, effective November 1, 2022, motor vehicles passing required inspections will get a new sticker with the month the last sticker expired, valid for one year.

Any vehicle owner late in getting a vehicle inspected, beyond one year from the last inspection, will no longer get a sticker displaying the month the new inspection occurred. Vehicles with inspection stickers that expired last year will receive a January sticker of the current year the vehicle is being inspected, no matter the month the vehicle is inspected this year.

This change does not impact the requirements for newly purchased vehicles. All newly purchased vehicles must be inspected within seven days of the vehicle registration date and will receive a sticker of the month in which it was inspected and is valid for one year.

"Safety of the Commonwealths roadways is the most important reason for motor vehicle inspections. Vehicle inspections check tire treads, ensure all light signals are working and even check the front ball joints. It is the law that motor vehicles are inspected every year," said Registrar of Motor Vehicles Colleen Ogilvie. "Vehicle owners are required to have the inspection done one year from the month the last inspection was done. We are asking all vehicle owners to place safety first and make sure to check your inspection date, and dont be late.

"Light-duty cars and trucks are equipped with emission control systems that reduce pollution to protect public health and the environment. It is important that these systems are tested annually to ensure proper emissions controls," said Commissioner Martin Suuberg of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). "The change being implemented by the RMV will help ensure that all vehicles are inspected every year."

The penalty for driving vehicles with an expired sticker, or driving an uninspected vehicle, may result in a moving violation and lead to additional fines, or suspension if unpaid, and even a surchargeable incident which increases the vehicle owners insurance costs.

There is no change for owners who get their vehicles inspected on time or before the due date. Owners will continue to receive the sticker with the number of the month in which the vehicle was inspected.

In addition, starting October 1, 2022, in an effort to reduce paper waste in the environment, vehicle owners will no longer receive a printed inspection report when a vehicle passes inspection. Instead, owners can easily access and print a report by going online to Mass Vehicle Check or by using a cell phone and scanning the QR code on the poster displayed at the inspection site. If a vehicle fails the inspection, the owner will be provided with a printed vehicle inspection report by the inspection station.

The Massachusetts Vehicle Check, a joint effort between the MassDEP and the RMV, is the vehicle emissions testing and safety inspection program for the Commonwealth. Vehicle owners can get an inspection at any of the 1,800 licensed inspection stations in Massachusetts.

For more information, please visit: Vehicle inspections | Mass.gov.
Fundraising activities for childhood cancer include a photo shoot in the parking lot at Walmart on Saturday. PreviousNext

Pittsfield 'Dunks' for Childhood Cancer

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Signs of survivors, fighters, and fallen angels from childhood cancer lined the parking lot of Walmart as community members gathered to "dunk" their peers in an effort to raise funds to fight the illness.

Two local moms, Christen Simmons and Stephanie Maschino, whose lives were greatly affected by childhood cancer collaborated with local organizations to gather funds for their cause.

Saturday's event included a informational booths, music, food, children's activities and a chance to drop various civic leaders into a dunk tank for a good cause.

All donations are going to the pediatric oncology departments at the Dana-Farber Center and Bay State Medical to go toward childhood cancer research.

Maschino's son Tony died in 2016 from inoperable brainstem glioma and since then she has been working to continue the fight against the disease to help others afflicted.

"Sadly there isn't really a cure for childhood brain cancers at this time, for most of them at least. ... this isn't really for us, it's for everybody else. We're trying really hard to make it so that awareness and fundraising is improved," Maschino said.

Simmon's son Cam is a three-year survivor of cancer.

Last year the duo met in Park Square and held signs about childhood cancer to raise awareness and this year, they wanted to do something bigger. So they started contacting organizations to make the fundraiser possible.

"I should say hospices, the Pediatric Palliative Care Unit, they were incredible. They reached out to us and asked if they could help us. ... They know what they're doing when it comes to fundraising ... We've had a lot of support from them. And I think that without their brains, we probably wouldn't have been so successful," Simmons said.

The Pediatric Palliative Care Unit is one of eight programs in the state that through funding from the Department of Public Health works with children from birth to 22 years old with life-limiting illnesses.

"We have 40 children throughout the Berknhires that we currently have on service. We provide nursing case management, social work, art therapy, music therapy, massage therapy, spiritual counseling or spiritual counselors. ... funding and volunteer services," nurse case manager Simon Dembitzer said.

They also bring families together as a community, get the community involved, and get to know the program better, art therapist and mental health counselor Kate Cimini said.

There are not a lot of organizations in the Berkshires dedicated to cancer support for any age. One of the nonprofit organizations, Moments House, closed two years ago, a casualty of COVID-19, Simmons said.

Strong Little Souls Foundation was founded in 2014 by Madison Quinn when she was just 13 to help families affected by pediatric cancer.

"I'm here today at this dunk tank event to help raise awareness for childhood cancer during the month of September to go gold and to show support for my community," she said.

Strong Little Souls sends care packages, offer financial assistance, and grant wishes for children battling cancer.

"Childhood cancer is important for several reasons, one of which being currently only receives 4 percent of the nation's budget for cancer research," Quinn said.

"It's severely underfunded and it is not rare -- 275 kids will be diagnosed with cancer so it's very important to be out here to be doing what we are doing today to help spread awareness."

One of the fundraising opportunities offered doesn't even require donators to open their wallet.

Participants can take 60-second survey, each of which generates $2 in funds for childhood cancer by texting "CONTRIBUTE" to 90412 or by going here

Participants can complete 75 surveys through the end at the end of September to raise $150.

Quinn connected with Maschino and Simmons when their sons were diagnosed with cancer.

"They both have been great supporters, the Strong Little Souls have continued to help. They have both been great with spreading awareness and trying to increase funding. They're both great advocates for their boys and they're great voices for the child with cancer community," Quinn said.

Local community leaders including Dalton Police Chief Deanna Strout, Pittsfield High School resource Officer Jessica Godfroy, Pittsfield High School Dean of Students Lavante Wiggins, and many more were dunked during the fundraiser.

"We're happy to be here today. And this is a great cause. I think that most people until childhood cancer affects you, you don't really think too much about it," Godfroy said after being dunked for a half hour.

"And so it's nice to see the community come together and support the families that this terrible illness affects, and hopefully get more community members involved."
Veterans pay tribute to those lost during the Global War on Terror at Sunday's 21st anniversary services of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

21 Years Later, Veterans Mark 9/11 at Pittsfield Monument

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  On the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, local veterans gathered around the city's Iraq and Afghanistan War Memorial to honor the "true one percenters" who answered the call to fight for their country in a time of great need.

"Today, it's been 7,665 days since that terrible day," Mark Pompi, who served in the Army as a sergeant, first class, said to a crowd of around 50 community members and veterans.



"In direct relation to those attacks, these men and millions more answered the call and volunteered to fight back against terror. They were all Army, they were all volunteers, they all left behind family and friends to go forth into harm's way knowing the risks and accepting them anyway. The very true one percenters."



Retired Army Staff Sgt. Brian Willette, who is a National and State VFW sergeant at arms and a Purple Heart recipient, told the story of where he was on Sept. 11, 2001, and how it has impacted his family.



"We all remember where we were on that day, on that fateful day," he said.



Willette was at Fort Dix, N.J., training for a NATO peacekeeping mission and found out that his cousin was also at the base. He spent days trying to locate his family member and finally tracked him down just an hour before learning of the attacks.



"We agreed we would meet later that day by the PX to get a couple of beers," Willette said. "Needless to say, that moment did not happen. Within an hour the United States will be under attack."



He said he called his children and told them that the soldiers would "get the people who did this to us."



Willette never imagined that his children would be fighting the same war he did but, less than a decade later, his daughter was on her way to Iraq, his son was headed to Fort Benning, Ga., for training, and he was getting ready to go to Afghanistan.



"This was the life of military families throughout this war. It was continuous uncertainty and we didn't know who would be deploying next or where we will be going and we all wanted to serve and, ironically, my daughter was the first one it gets into combat action. Her base is attacked by a rocket in Baghdad on New Year's Eve 2009 into '10 and she called me up to tell me and I couldn't wait to get over there. Here's my daughter in combat and dad's not even over there yet," he said.



"So I deployed myself to Afghanistan and on Sept. 11, 2010, I was flying American flags to be given as souvenirs with plaques and what have you, we found out that would be commanding this truck on this mission that was coming up on the 13th, so it's out of that mission that our vehicle was struck by an IED. Our crew made it out OK, I'm grateful for that.

"It wrecked us up pretty good, but like I say we all made it home, and shortly thereafter, my son, Kevin, is coming to Afghanistan."



Willette said the reunion between him and his son as being like "the first day of kindergarten" except in a combat zone. His son was later wounded by a hand grenade and earned a bronze star with valor.



The memorial is located in the Veterans Memorial Park on South Street. It was dedicated two years ago on the 19th anniversary of 9/11 and honors five Berkshire County servicemen lost in the following wars: Sgt. 1st Class Daniel H. Petithory, 32, of Cheshire, Spc. Michael R. DeMarsico II, 20, of North Adams, and Spc. Mitchell K. Daehling, 24, of Dalton, all in Afghanistan; and Sgt. Glenn R. Allison, 24, of Pittsfield, and Chief Warrant Officer Stephen M. Wells, 29, of North Egremont, in Iraq.



The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon left nearly 3,000 people dead, thousands wounded and launched two of the nation's longest wars. The search for the terrorist organization behind the attacks, al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, led to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"In the ensuing months, we built a team of veteran volunteers to augment the deeds of the agency tasked with the mission, the Jewish Family Services of Western Mass and Berkshire County, and a host of faith-based groups around the county that stepped up to assist these refugees."



The veterans provided some muscle, logistics, and the experience of working with the Afghan peoples' customs and traditions and other organizations helped raise money for household items and things to ease their transitions.



"One of those families was moved into Pittsfield right in this neighborhood. Over the next few months, they settled in to start their new lives in the United States. I work in manufacturing in the county. I was scheduled to conduct an interview this past summer with an individual that from the looks of a very impressive resume was an Afghan national," Pompi explained.



"Unbeknownst to me, this individual was part of one of the families that we'd helped the transition. After a brief introduction, I let on that I was a team that worked to help settle them. It was a very emotional and proud moment. Yes, I heard that person and I can report that everything is going very well so as they say hope springs eternal."



VFW Post 448 Commander Arnold Perras, the emcee of the ceremony, put out a call for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Desert Storm veterans.



"As you witness here today, the veterans are still very active in our community but desperately need your help and new ideas to continue our programs and ceremonies," he said. "We are now offering a five-year free membership to Afghanistan Desert Storm veterans."

A recording of World War II veteran Anthony Pastore, who passed away last year, singing the national anthem opened the ceremony along with the posting of colors by the Pittsfield Fire Department Color Guards. The rifle salute was done by the Dalton American Legion Post 155.




iciHaiti - Politic : Meeting at the White House between Abinader and Kamala Harris, Haiti on the agenda





Dominican President Luis Abinader will be in Washington on September 14 where he will meet at the White House, the Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Harris.



This interview, which could last about four hours, from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., at the White House, is part of the continuation of the talks initiated on June 9 at the IX Summit of the Americas, in Los Angeles.



Abinader will take the opportunity to once again discuss the case of Haiti, recalling his position expressed at the 76th UN Assembly, in September 2021, and at the Summit of the Americas, in June 2022, that "the Dominican Republic would not carry the burden of the Haiti problem".



The latest event in relations between the DR and Haiti was Abinader's order to the immigration authorities to ban the entry into the DR of former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, as well as a dozen heads of criminal gangs which, according to the President, "constitute a threat to national security and the interests of the Republic..." https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37591-haiti-flash-former-pm-claude-joseph-and-12-gang-leaders-banned-from-entering-the-dominican-republic.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37602-haiti-politic-the-mayor-of-santiago-qualifies-claude-joseph-as-a-bandit.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37599-haiti-politic-the-official-bureau-of-former-pm-claude-joseph-reacts-strongly-to-the-dominican-decision.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37598-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37591-haiti-flash-former-pm-claude-joseph-and-12-gang-leaders-banned-from-entering-the-dominican-republic.html



S/ iciHaiti


















Imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb ... "I am going to assign to you -- determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules ... "

What's the catch? One catch -- just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with seven billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get. You could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the U.S. or in Bangladesh, etc.

You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world?

...

I call this the "Ovarian Lottery." My sisters didn't get the same ticket. Expectations for them were that they would marry well, or if they work, would work as a nurse, teacher, etc.
If you're the type of person who is prone to dropping their iPhone, you just got very good news. That is, if you subscribe to AppleCare+, anyway. That's because on Friday, Apple sent an email to its AppleCare+ customers announcing that the plan will now cover unlimited cases of accidental damage, up from two every 12 months.

AppleCare has long been one of the very best parts about owning any Apple device, not just an iPhone. I never buy "extended warranties" on anything, because they are almost never worth it. AppleCare, however, is different. The number of times I've walked into an Apple Store with a device that isn't working and had it repaired or replaced for free makes it well worth it.

In fact, my first iPhone was one that had a problem that the headphone jack would collect small amounts of debris that would make it think you had something plugged in. That meant that you'd try to use your iPhone, but the speaker wouldn't work since it was sending the signal through an imaginary pair of headphones.

It happened to me while I was at a conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was not a great time for my phone to stop working. I walked into an Apple Store, and within 10 minutes, I walked out with a replacement device. They didn't even bother to make me wait for a repair.

I've also had laptops fixed, including an infamous butterfly keyboard replacement. I currently have two brand new AirPods because of a known issue with a buzzing sound in the ear.

I'd like to think of myself as relatively tech-savvy. I'm someone who is usually able to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. I've even done repairs and upgrades on older PowerBook laptops, and once replaced a display on an iPhone 5S. Still, the experience of walking into any Apple Store and having them fix whatever is wrong is well worth the price of AppleCare.

AppleCare+ is even better because it goes beyond just additional warranty protection and covers accidental damage. It's basically an insurance policy against accidental damage. When you think about devices like an iPhone or an Apple Watch, I'm willing to bet that you're a lot more likely to break them because you drop it on the sidewalk than have something go wrong with it.

On an iPhone, AppleCare+ is a little over $150 a year if you pay for it monthly. If you use it only once, because you broke the display, you'd pay a $29 fee, making the total cost of that repair less than $200. If you walked into an Apple Store to have that same iPhone repaired without coverage, you'd pay at least $279.

You could, of course, do the repair yourself using Apple's new self-service repair program, but that would also cost you roughly the same amount for the parts and tool rental.

I think this is notable because it's not very often that companies make services like warranty care better. Most of the time, the companies come up with a way to explain why some level of reduced service is actually a benefit and better for everyone.

In Apple's case, this is actually the second time in two years that it has made AppleCare+ more valuable. In October of 2020, Apple changed the AppleCare+ terms to allow users two accidental damage incidents per year. Previously, it was only two incidents per the lifetime of your device.

Now you can break your iPhone an unlimited number of times, and AppleCare+ will cover it. By the way, the change applies to all AppleCare+ products--not just the iPhone. If you have AppleCare+ for a Mac, HomePod, iPad, Watch, or Apple TV, you're covered.

There are a few exceptions, of course. First, Apple says it won't cover "cosmetic damage not affecting the functionality of the Covered Equipment." That means if you scratch the corner of your display, but it still works, Apple isn't going to replace the entire display unless you're willing to pay for the repair.

Apple also says it doesn't cover any damage caused by "reckless, abusive, willful or intentional conduct, or any use of the Covered Equipment in a manner not normal or intended by Apple." It doesn't say how Apple intends for you to use your device, but I'm guessing it means that if you get a scratch on your iPhone that wouldn't otherwise be covered, so you decide to toss it under the back wheel of your Ford Explorer and back over it a few times, Apple isn't going to cover that.

The terms also say that Apple can cancel your coverage for fraud or misrepresentation, so if you show up looking for a new iPhone every few weeks, they're probably going to turn you away eventually. Nothing that is unlimted is truly unlimited, especially if you're pushing to figure out how unlimited it really is.
Earlier this year when Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited Tashkent for the meeting of foreign ministers of the states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), he pitched for Uzbekistans participation in the Chabahar port. His counterpart from Pakistan, on the other hand, pitched for the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

For landlocked countries of Central Asia, connectivity is the greatest priority, both in economic and strategic terms. For double landlocked countries like Uzbekistan, it assumes even greater salience. And the shortest route to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and to South Asia and further afield is through Af-Pak. That is why Central Asian countries have been expending special effort for integrating Afghanistan in their regional connectivity plans and by extension in their foreign policy. This policy has been followed regardless of the government in power in the war-torn country. In 2021 Uzbekistan organised a grand connectivity conference where President Ashraf Ghani was one of the participants, as well as then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who batted for the Central Asian countries too. And this year again it organised an international conference on Afghanistan, where the Taliban were the representatives, signaling Tashkents willingness to do business with whoever was in power.

Afghanistans geography was the prime reason for Central Asian countries decision to welcome the Taliban in Kabul a year ago, with the exception of Tajikistan. Afghanistans geostrategic location as the roundabout connecting South and Central Asia makes its territory a highly coveted transit route for landlocked states of Central Asia in order to access the markets and resources of South Asia and perhaps even further. Transit passage through Afghanistan provides the shortest route. To that end a number of mega regional projects like CASA 1000  the project for providing power from Central Asia to South Asia, and TAPI  the Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India gas pipeline was conceived with the active support and encouragement of major powers like the US.

The #SilkRoute in #China got bifurcated at Kashgar creating North and South routes ultimately meeting at Dunhuang (See the map below) This route gave birth to Central Asia, a logical unit on the physical map of Asia  On this route  Oasis, Kingdoms, Cities got established. pic.twitter.com/YghxbJpfoJ   (@Vyasonmukh) March 8, 2020

To that end Uzbekistan has been constructing the Termez  Mazar-i-Sharif  Kabul  Peshawar railway, and also teamed up with Iran to use the Chabahar Port. At the connectivity conference last year, Uzbekistan also became part of the South Asia- Central Asia QUAD along with the US, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for Regional Support for Afghanistan-Peace Process and Post Settlement, in principle to establish a new quadrilateral diplomatic platform focused on enhancing regional connectivity. To that end too Turkmenistan has been pursuing the TAPI pipeline which would take Turkmen gas to energy starved Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, while diversifying Turkmenistans export market, dependent almost entirely currently on China.

For this very reason in 2016 Turkmenistan opened a railway link to Afghanistan. On the Turkmen part the link terminated at the Ymamnazar customs control point where Turkmenistan has built an oil product terminal with an annual capacity of 540,000 tonnes, and on the Afghan side, the link went up to the Aqina dry port in the Faryab province. In January 2021 Afghanistan and Turkmenistan inaugurated three major energy projects aimed at bolstering bilateral and regional ties. One was a 153 km long power transmission line which was part of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) route project to export and import of electric power between the three countries. The second was a fiber optic project aimed at providing internet to users in Afghanistans Herat and surrounding provinces and the third was a rail link between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

In the same vein in March this year the Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid a state visit to Pakistan  his first ever visit to the country after taking charge in Tashkent in 2016. Both countries agreed to develop and expand their strategic collaboration in all sectors and to sign a strategic partnership treaty but at the heart of the meeting was trade and investment, and therefore connectivity. For Uzbekistans vast resources and search for markets from its landlocked geography, Pakistan provides the shortest route to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea and markets in Asia and Africa.

Nevertheless, the ongoing turmoil in the region has put a spanner in the plans of the landlocked Central Asian states. In Afghanistan, turmoil continues even after the Talibans takeover as seen in the spate of violence fomented both by the Taliban against its civilian population, as well as in the attacks by the ISIS-KP; and in Pakistan, particularly in its Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and Balochistan province through which all trade routes from Uzbekistan via Afghanistan have to transit and where the Gwadar port is located. Recently in August Reuters reported that the $1.2 billion Western backed CASA 1000 project  meant to connect Central Asia to South Asia through a power line, had been suspended in Afghanistan due to ongoing turmoil.

Though Af-Pak provides the shortest routes, geopolitical realities have forced these states to look elsewhere. And the most obvious transit points come through Iranian ports  in particular the Chabahar port which India is developing; and the multi-modal International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) which connects Russia through Irans Bandar Abbas port with India. On July 7th, 2022, Russian company RZD Logistics successfully completed its first transport of goods to India via the INSTC. This has further given a fillip to the landlocked Central Asian states that of the two routes, one via Afghanistan and the other via Iran, the latter is currently more feasible and sustainable given the relative stability of the latter. The importance of Chabahar where India is developing the Shahi Beheshti terminal can be gauged from the fact that it was exempted from the slew of sanctions that the Donald Trump administration had slapped on Iran. Initially important for Indias connectivity to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan, it has become an important gateway for India to access Central Asian markets and resources without transiting Pakistani territory, given Pakistans obduracy in refusing to grant India transit rights through its territory.

In 2021 External Affairs Minister pitched for connecting the INSTC to Chabahar port for obvious logistical soundness. He also proposed including Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in the INSTC to form its eastern corridor.

In 2020, Uzbekistan participated in the first trilateral working group together with India and Iran in discussing joint use of the Chabahar port. While simultaneously it has been backing routes through Pakistan, its more recent discussions with Indian deputy NSA Vikram Misri in Tashkent hinged on the sober realization that trade through Chabahar port was more realistic for the time being. In July India and Uzbekistan agreed to do a pilot container cargo shipment from Tashkent to India, using the multimodal route via Irans Chabahar Port. This was agreed at a meeting between Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Uzbekistans Deputy Prime Minister and minister of investment & foreign trade, Jamshid Khodjaev. Both India & Uzbekistan agreed that this new vista may unlock future possibilities of a Trans Caspian Multi Modal Transit Corridor between the Central Asia and South Asia regions, a ministry of ports, shipping, and waterways document said.

Similarly, Afghanistans other Central Asian neighbour Turkmenistan which has expended significant effort in cultivating relations with Afghanistan, now understands that joining the INSTC will serve it better. Also bordering Iran, Turkmenistan had not been part of the INSTC. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his 2015 visit to Ashkhabad had invited the gas rich but cash strapped country to join the INSTC. Last month in August, following an international conference on connectivity of landlocked countries in Turkmenistan, the country announced that it was going to join the India-Iran-Russia founded INSTC. Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov stated on August 19 that Today Turkmenistan began the process of joining this agreement at a briefing following the international conference of landlocked countries.

Ruskie BRI W zeszym tygodniu Rosja, Iran i Azerbejdzan podpisay

trojstronna umowe o uproszczeniu transportu adunkow miedzy tymi trzema krajami.

Posuniecie to miao w duzej mierze na celu wzmocnienie INSTC poprzez zmniejszenie formalnosci i biurokracji dla firm spedycyjnych pic.twitter.com/CVZIYwU1xd  Norra Kvill (@kot_b0t) September 4, 2022

Adding grist to the mill has been the Ukraine crisis and the sanctions slapped on Russia by the Western countries. Most Central Asian countries remain dependent on transit routes through the Russian Federation, and the Ukraine conflict has necessitated search for alternate routes. In the foreseeable future the usefulness of Chabahar and the INSTC will triumph over those of others.

Also Read: After Ukraine crisis, Central Asia takes control of its destiny

(Aditi Bhaduri is a columnist specializing in Eurasian geopolitics.Views expressed are personal and exclusive to India Narrative)
Advertisements

LIMASSOL, Cyprus, Sept. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- XM is beyond proud to announce that it has ranked second (2) in a list of Europe's top employers in 2022, in the 'Best Medium Workplaces' category, as awarded by the Great Place to Work Institute. To be recognised as a Great Place to Work by such a globally renowned institution is a true honour. It is proof of the company's commitment to creating a big, fair, and human workplace, as well as a company culture geared towards inclusivity. Furthermore, it reflects the growth and development of the FinTech industry in Cyprus, marking the first time a Cypriot company has achieved such a high ranking. For Maria Hadjipanteli, the company's Group Chief People & Culture Officer, this accolade is reflective of all the hard work that has been done to build a positive working environment: "Big. Fair. Human has always been at the core of our DNA as a company, and those values apply not only to the way we treat our clients, but also our employees. We appreciate that all the success XM has experienced over the last decade wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of our people, which is why we focus on fostering a positive workplace culture, so that they have the best environment not only to perform, but to grow and develop." Kyriakos Iacovides, General Manager of Great Place to Work Cyprus had this to say about XM's important achievement: "XM's exceptional distinction in being awarded second place on the list of Europe's Best Medium Workplaces in 2022 honours more than just the company, but Cyprus as a whole. By securing such a high ranking, XM represents the quality of the FinTech industry in Cyprus, on a Pan-European stage." XM has been a global leader in multi-asset online trading for over a decade and employs over 750 professionals, across countless disciplines, all over the world. To learn more about the company and the career opportunities on offer, visit https://www.xm.com/careers. Disclaimer: XM is a trading name of Trading Point of Financial Instruments Limited, registration number HE251334, with registered address at 12 Richard & Verengaria Street, Araouzos Castle Court, 3rd Floor, 3042 Limassol, Cyprus. Risk Warning: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74.89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Please consider our Risk Disclosure. Trading Point of Financial Instruments Limited provides investment and ancillary services to residents of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1895520/Trading_Point_XM.jpg
Communal clashes erupted during a Mahavir Akhara procession in Bihars Siwan district on Thursday, September 10, after which a minor, an 8-year-old boy and a 70-year-old man along with others were arrested by the police.

What happened

The members of the procession, which was passing by a mosque, comprised of saffron-clad men, who were reportedly armed with sticks and chanted communal slogans. This allegedly led to stone pelting in the Purani Bazar area of Barharia town.

Houses of Muslims were vandalized, shops were set on fire and looted by Sanghi mob. Sanghi goons can be seen in multiple videos but Bihar Police is taking unilateral action. It is going to be 48 hours till now 8 year old Rizwan and 70 year old Yasin have not been released. pic.twitter.com/mx5cM5AE23  Meer Faisal (@meerfaisal01) September 10, 2022





As per The Wire, a small shop was set on fire by the members of the rally. The videos doing the rounds on social media show Hindutva workers pelting stones and vandalising the houses of Muslims.

However, its not clear which right-wing organisations they belong to. According to reports, the 70-year-old man and the minor have not been released yet.

70-year-old man, 8-year-old boy in custody

According to a report by Maktoob media, Mohammad Yasin, 70, and his eight-year-old grandson Rizwan Qureshi were both taken into custody by the police, despite the familys insistence that they are both innocent. Yasin recently underwent two surgeries and also suffered from other health issues, the report said.

According to their family, they were booked for incitement of violence and kept in custody. Rizwans brother Azhar told Maktoob Media, My younger brother was kept in a private ward and my family was initially not allowed to meet him. When my mother saw him, he was handcuffed and scared. He was so terrified that he was unable to recognise his own mother. The child was just crying to go back home.

72 hours now since violence broke out in Siwan, Bihar. The 8 year old Rizwan has still not released by the Siwan police. I spoke to Rizwan's mother.



Watch full video on @MeezanMedia YouTube channel: https://t.co/LHSzZgJUOH pic.twitter.com/tGyY7r0xYv  Meer Faisal (@meerfaisal01) September 11, 2022

The report further said that they were produced in court allegedly with a rope tied around their waist. Rizwans family has presented the childs birth certificate but the police officials have been allegedly demanding money for his release. #ReleaseRizwan has been trending on Twitter ever since.

Speaking to The Wire, a resident said, On Thursday [September 8] evening, during the Asr prayers, a Mahavir Akhara rally passed by the mosque. The people were armed with sticks and chanting communal slurs. Some shops around the area were vandalised with lathis and the same happened with the mosque. After this, stone pelting ensued from both sides.

In Barhariya, Siwan, Bihar Police detained this 8-year-old child who went to offer Maghrib prayers yesterday, saying that this child was rioting. Hello @yadavtejashwi @NitishKumar your Police officials are also demanding money to release this child. Kindly look at this matter. pic.twitter.com/WFsoYsegyP  Meer Faisal (@meerfaisal01) September 9, 2022





He added, Essentially this is an administrative failure, the area has always been sensitive. The Mahavir Akhara took out a rally four days ago too, however, police were present at that time, so nothing like this happened. Moreover, some Muslims of the region have also asked the police to beef up security, since the area is communally sensitive. However, only two chowkidars and a junior police officer were assigned.

He further said that the police have arrested some innocent people, including those who were simply there to offer prayers.

Arrests & the FIR

According to the Times of India, the Siwan Police have lodged a first information report (FIR) against 35 people  25 Muslims and 10 Hindus, and arrested 20 people in connection with the incident.

An FIR has been registered under Indian Penal Code sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with a deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 188 (disobedience to order), 296 (disturbing religious assembly), 337 (causing hurt), 338 (causing grievous hurt), 435 (mischief with intent of damage), 427 (mischief with substance), 505 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 307 (attempt to murder), 353 (assault, use of criminal force) and section 120B (party to criminal conspiracy).

For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.
A police officer in Bihar's Nawada town put five juniors inside the lockup after he found their work dissatisfactory  something he has denied but a video is now viral.

Twitter

What happened

Superintendent of Police Gaurav Mangala was allegedly dissatisfied with the performance of the three assistant sub-inspectors and two sub-inspectors and hence, locked them up for two hours.

Security camera footage shows five cops  Sub-Inspectors Shatrughan Paswan and Ramrekha Singh; ASIs Santosh Paswan, Sanjay Singh and Rameshwar Uraon  inside the lockup at Nawada Nagar police station. They were let out after two hours, around midnight.



As per DNA, the SP, who heads the area police, when contacted by reporters, said it was "fake news", while senior officials did not comment on the matter despite several attempts to seek their reactions.





But sources said the SP had come to the police station around 9 pm on September 8 to review cases. He found negligence by some officers, at whom he got angry and ordered they be put in the lockup. The sources did not say what the negligence was. Nor has the SP said anything about it.



Bihar Police Association demands inquiry

The Bihar Police Association  a staff union that has district units  on Saturday demanded an inquiry against SP Mangla for the September 8 incident.

"We got the information soon after the incident from our Nawada branch and it is being discussed on WhatsApp groups of police personnel as well. Incidents like these are reminiscent of the colonial period. The incident is the first of its kind and could tarnish the image of Bihar Police. We demand a judicial probe and a thorough investigation of CCTV footage," association's president Mrityunjay Kumar Singh said.

nawada

"There are allegations that the SP is putting pressure on aggrieved persons to hush up the matter. Attempts may also be made to tamper with the CCTV footage. A probe should be initiated at the earliest and FIR should be lodged under sections of the IPC," the association demanded.

The Chief Secretary of Bihar, meanwhile, issued a directive to all senior officers "not to resort to extreme steps" in dealing with subordinates.



For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.


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
On 7th September 2014 morning, entire Kashmir was under deep waters. Houses were submerged, many had fallen on the ground, people were stuck inside their houses while many had rushed to safer places and many were reportedly missing.

Yawar Nazir

A few security men in uniform and NGOs could be seen travelling in boats carrying essential items for the people stuck inside their homes asking them for rescue and other necessary help.

No lessons learnt

Eight years have passed since the devastating flood hit the valley, it looks that no lessons have been learnt by the authorities till date.

On 5 September, the Jhelum River in Srinagar was reported to be flowing at 22.40 feet (6.83 m) which was 4.40 feet (1.34 m) above the danger mark and at 33 feet (10 m) at Sangam in Anantnag district above the danger mark.

Basit Zargar

The discharge rate in the river was recorded as 70,000 cusecs against the normal discharge of 25,000 cusecs. The Chenab River was also reported to flow above the danger mark by which hundreds of villages were affected in Pakistan. These rivers flooded into the streets of the entire valley causing heavy casualties and loss of property.

300 killed during flood

300 people have died and 25 suffered injuries in floods that battered the state in September 2014, the J&K government had said.

The government further said that apart from damage caused to 26,1361 structures, farm sector of 3.27 lakh hectares of agricultural land and 3.96 lakh hectares of horticulture land also suffered damage.

Yawar Nazir

According to the Home Ministry of India, 390 villages had completely submerged. In actual figures 2600 villages were reported to be affected in J&K, out of which 390 villages in Kashmir were completely submerged. 1225 villages were partially affected and 1000 villages were affected in Jammu division.

Situation is same

Mohd Aamin, a resident of Rajbagh area of Srinagar told Indiatimes that the situation continues to remain the same.

Drainage is still a casualty in Srinagar. We are confused that the government always keeps claiming to build the drainage system but on ground nothing such is visible. City turns into a cesspool within a few centimeters of rain and later it leads to the floods, he said.

BCCL

Few locals of Jawahar Nagar area of Srinagar questioned the government's much hyped dredging of River Jhelum.It looks like everyone has forgotten 2014's devastating floods as we cant see any dredging going on at the moment. We think that the government has forgotten to do so and they are only busy after swindling the money, they said.

Soon after the devastating floods, the central government sanctioned a plan for the comprehensive flood management of the Jhelum River and its tributaries. The project was funded through the Prime Ministers Development Package, and divided into two phases.

An amount of Rs 399 was sanctioned for the first phase, which is yet to be completed.

Urbanization is on a huge scale, sand mining is also there and we see the climatic changes which leads to the melting of glaciers and adding to the floods. Government needs to work on such elements to avoid more floods, said Bashir Ahmad Bhat, an RTI activist.

Recent flood threat

On June 22 this year, heavy rains over the past four days led to a rise in the level of most water bodies in Kashmir with the Jhelum River crossing the flood alarm mark at Sangam in Anantnag district.

The authorities moved people from low-lying areas to safer locations.

Basit Zargar

Heavy rainfall across Kashmir triggered flood concerns among the residents of the valley even as snowfall in higher reaches including the cave shrine of Amarnath has brought down the day temperature substantially, the officials had said.

Experts say

Dr M Sultan Bhat, Professor Geography and Disaster Management at Kashmir University said that a lot of measures need to be taken by the government to mitigate the flood hazard.

Important one is dredging of River Jhelum and small tributaries. The intake capacity of the river needs to be increased so that it can intake more quantity of water in it, he said.

Basit Zargar

Earlier, wetlands used to absorb a lot of water but now they too have been encroached. I think Wular lake also needs dredging as during 2014 floods it was also pushing back the water, he said.

A faculty member of Environment Science from Srinagar based college wishing not to be named said, The government needs to work on the issues like drainage, massive urbanization and encroachment of water bodies.

I believe that if these issues are not sorted out at the earliest, there is no doubt in it that the valley will witness another flood, Bhat said.

Official say

An official of Irrigation & Flood Control Department (I&FC) Kashmir said that the major aim in phase one of the flood management plan was to remove bottlenecks and obstructions in the flood spill channel.

BCCL

The dredging will be done in lower areas to increase the outflow and for which the government has approved an amount, he said.





For more on the news, sports, and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.


For some reason, there have been a lot of videos going viral where people can be seen fighting with each other or arguing. Now, another such video is going viral where two men can be seen in an aggressive fight in public.

Men beat each other with slippers

In the video, an elderly man and a middle-aged man can be seen beating each other with slippers. Both the men fight verbally and then start slapping each other. The old man takes out his slipper while the middle-aged man takes out his shoe from his foot. They both then aggressively beat each other up with their slippers.

Twitter

The fight gets more intense and they can be seen hurling abuses. This is when a third man finally intervenes and stops the fight between both men.

The video was shared on Twitter by a user named Tam Khan. The caption along with the video read, "Guns down, shoes up!"

Watch the video here:

Delivery drivers hit each other over food delivery orders

Public fights aren't new. In an incident outside a McDonald's in London, a group of delivery drivers clashed. They didn't just kick each other, they apparently even struck each other on the heads with their helmets.

Apparently, this could have been the unfortunate result of a possible scam. Police accounts wrote a couple of tweets explaining they were investigating the matter.

Due to recent events, our officers have been working side by side with @McDonalds Tooting, @Deliveroo, @ubereats_uk and @JustEatUK to tackle ASB outside McDonalds involving delivery drivers. Our officers have been engaging with numerous delivery drivers and tackling ASB issues. pic.twitter.com/VLrPeoDtIg  Tooting Police (@MPS_Tooting) July 13, 2022





For the latest trending stories, follow us on Telegram.
Unless you spent the better part of the last decade living under a rock, you will be familiar with the ominous "winter is coming" quote made famous by HBOs Game of Thrones. Who would have thought, three years after the show finished, that this quote would have eminent, real-world application?

Earlier this year, fossil fuel prices soared, with staggering profits being generated by major oil companies.

Theres regular talk of energy poverty in some of the most developed economies on the planet. Energy rationing is currently threatened across Europe, and this is all happening in summertime.

Putins decision to choke gas supplies to Russias European neighbours has brought about an immediate crisis.

What happens when gas demand jumps as boilers are switched back on? What kind of chaos will ensue if we encounter a particularly cold winter?

In response to Russian gas supply uncertainty, Europe is set to rely on alternative supplies of fossil fuels to fulfil short-term needs.

The problem with liquefied natural gas

For example, Germany is currently fast-tracking five floating LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminals this year in order to onboard the fuel from tanker ships into its gas pipeline.

LNG is almost identical to natural gas, but is refrigerated below -162C so that it can be transported as liquid in insulated tankers. This will offer an immediate alternative to Russian pipeline gas, with LNG shipping from places such as the US and Arabian Gulf.

But LNG remains on the wrong side of the carbon ledger and, adding insult to injury, the transportation of LNG adds carbon intensity due to the long distances travelled and the fuel oil needed for long periods of shipping.

What we can do

When it comes to our climate, its easy to be bewildered by the gap that exists between whats good for the planet and the short-term actions of national governments. Thankfully, however, there are immediate steps we can take at an individual business level that will mitigate the risk to our gas supply without simultaneously endangering the earth.

Businesses can reduce their energy demands by auditing their energy use and eliminating waste. We can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by ditching boilers and embracing renewable heat alternatives such as heat pumps. And finally, businesses can and should generate renewable electricity onsite via solar PV to protect themselves from price volatility.

At a macro level, it is, of course, not just the prioritisation of national governments that is to blame for climate change, but our longstanding global addiction to cheap energy, particularly when delivered by fossil fuels.

The lasting answer to Putins gas embargo is a fully-functioning green grid. There are three pillars of the energy transition.

This first is energy provisioning through a decarbonised grid. The second is using energy-efficient devices. The third is innovative energy conservation and recovery  all combining to offer a realistic model for a decarbonised future.

We need immediate, urgent, large-scale, transnational action. We need a plan extended across all five continents, led by and funded by the big economies, who frankly have been the biggest polluters.

In relation to Ireland, our performance to date has been lacklustre and disappointing.

Sure, there are encouraging signs of change. The SEAI, for example, has scaled up its resources in recent months and published the national heat study. But are we moving fast enough? No.

The threat posed by fossil fuels is banging down our doors, and we can no longer afford to ignore it. Definitive action is needed, and needed today.

Denis Collins is the CEO of climate technology company ActionZero
Philip King, 70, grew up in Glasheen, Cork city. In 1980, his band Scullion released their debut album, and his documentary series Bringing It All Back Home won an Emmy Award in 1991. In 2003, Other Voices, the music festival and TV series which he created in Dingle, was first broadcast on RTE television. Plans were recently announced for a version of the show to be recorded at UCC.

He lives on the Dingle Peninsula where he broadcasts South Wind Blows, his RTE Radio 1 show. Scullion will perform at The Everyman, Saturday, Sept 24 as part of Coughlans Live Music Fest '22, and they also play other dates around the country. See: www.scullion.com

Formed by Cork

The arc of my musical expedition around the world started in Cork. Much of what I respond to is shot through a Cork filter. Growing up in a city that has its own voice, accent and culture. A place that is 'idir eatarthu'  between worlds, between Irish and English. The country and the city are connected.

I think about Seamus Murphys Stone Mad, Frank O'Connor, Sean O Faolain, Sean O Riordain, Sean O Riada, the tradition of Cork tenors singing The Banks, that identifiable Cork way of singing that morphed into somebody like Sean O Se. On the other hand, you had Rory Gallagher.

Its a lilting, musical city, a melting pot of blues, traditional music, bluegrass music, The Lee Valley String Band. Those notes of music dropped into my ear are still rocking and rolling inside me.

Rory Gallagher

When you're 15 or 16 and you see somebody like Rory Gallagher with that level of vigorous passion, and you're in the City Hall or in the darkness in a club on Leitrim St. and you see this energy, this figure entirely dedicated to his craft, the effect is monumental. Rory displaced air when he played. He owned the room. His commitment to his art was profound.

This was the world where the guitar was a big deal. Rory was playing the Isle of Wight. He was from Cork and he always was coming home. Goin To My Hometown became an anthem for people like us.

Planxty

Planxty were undoubtedly significant and still continue to be a profound influence. Four characters of remarkable musical proficiency, talent and passion. I remember leaving the Phoenix bar and going to see Donovan playing in the City Hall in Cork. I couldn't give you a date. The support act was Planxty.

We all sat at the back of the hall. After Raggle Taggle Gypsy and Tabhair Dom Do Lamh, everybody put their hand up in the air and said, That's ours. It was a cathartic moment. We sensed that here was something that was ours at a time when we were beginning to throw off the shackles of a post-colonial society 50 years since independence. That was a coming of age for us.

Amy Winehouse

One of the greatest gigs I've seen in my life was Amy Winehouse stand on a little stage in St James Church in Dingle in 2006 and play those eight songs with a bass player, no drummer, and a guitar player. It was like going to heaven on the wings of song. She inhabited a song like nobody else I'd ever heard.

Micheal O Suilleabhain

Micheal O Suilleabhain was a gifted musician. I never forget the first time I heard him play. Walking down a stony corridor in UCC, I heard a piano in the Aula Max. He was playing Bean Dubh An Ghleanna. It was mesmerising. He was a musical innovator who had the imagination to take music out of the well of tradition which it came and make it new.

He also took what was an unwritten, orally transmitted music into the universities of both Cork and Limerick and gave it the status it deserved in the hallowed halls of academia. His work is profound and massively influential. He's sadly missed.

Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa

I like Frank Zappas unholiness: his ability to send something up. Particularly Lumpy Gravy, Were Only In It For The Money, Quit school, why fake it TV dinner by the pool. The way he lampooned the hippiness of San Francisco and Los Angeles, the place out of which he came. His relationship with the great Captain Beefheart as well. They ploughed a unique furrow.

He was a consummate guitar player, a great musician and a brilliant arranger. There was that sense of fun in him. He was able to hold people up to a very satirical view. I liked that because it was an antidote to some of the wholesomeness of the other music around at the time.

Ry Cooder

I remember seeing Ry Cooder in the National Stadium in Dublin. There was something about that gig. It was around the time of his Bop Till You Drop record. The power of him. Cooder live was mesmerising. He was clued into Irish traditional music. And here's a connection: Ry Cooder played with Captain Beefheart. He knew Frank Zappa.

He went on to develop his interest in the rootedness of American music and the two cultures out of which it came, which was the collision of African American culture and Appalachian music, which became country music.

Attack on Paris

There is a powerful French series of documentaries, Attack on Paris, on what happened at the Bataclan. First person witness statements of people who were there. Its simple in its construction and in its style, but is so powerful and heart-breaking on a personal level. I was moved to tears by it.

The Last Waltz

Its hard to beat Martin Scorseses The Last Waltz because it's live. It's real. It's flawed like the band were themselves, but they were the greatest band in the world at the time.

When you watch Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson do their thing at the Winterland, and Van Morrison walks out and sings Caravan (Turn up your radio), and Muddy Waters comes out and sings Manish Boy, Joni Mitchell is there in the shadows singing Coyote, it's truly wonderful. Its how to capture a film. Its stunning.

Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney and myself were good friends. With his poetry, where do you start? His language, his accent, his insightfulness. He had that ability to say something succinctly. Poetry is a help, he said, quoting George Seferis. His poem The Given Note was written about Port na bPucai, a tune that Liam O'Flynn used to play, which came from a body of water between Dunquin and the Great Blasket Island.

It's the note that is given. It is a gift. It is something that it is in all of our ownership. It's owned by us all, but it's owned by nobody. It passes on to the next generation. I love the way he used that phrase  the given note. Seamus Heaney is a consistent presence for me. I miss him.
The Irish relationship with alcohol is explored in The Dry, a wickedly dark, funny and revealing new series centred around one colourful Irish family.

The offbeat drama centres on Shiv (Roisin Gallagher), a returning emigrant whos back in Ireland from London, recently sober and taking it one day at a time.

But Shivs newfound and hard-won sobriety is about to meet some serious challenges. Members of her family have a relationship with the booze that could be characterised as messy at best, while her Mr Big - the guy from home that got away - loves nothing better than a smooth bottle of Barolo.

Hes played by actor Moe Dunford, who signed up after reading dramatist Nancy Harriss witty, pithy script: One of the most honest, truest pieces of writing Ive seen come out of Ireland.

Shiv and his character, Jack, have a history of getting amorous with a few glasses of wine and newly-returned Shiv is initially reluctant to tell him how shes changing her life.

Theres a Bonnie and Clyde element to them. They bring out a fire in one another, says the Waterford man.

They both sort of have this idea of freedom and fun. I like to look at it that thats what Shiv is looking for in a way, on her road to recovery or to find her true voice.

I love how the story deals with recovery and how you get to see the inner workings of AA and all of the truthfulness and reality that goes along with that. Just within the family dynamic how people can send up the silliness of the Irish, and the masks we wear and the what you mean youre not having a drink, sort of attitude at functions and funerals.

Nancy has made something really special. Paddy [Breathnach, director who previously worked with Dunford in the powerful movie Rosie] really looks at all of the characters as real human beings, really complex. And theres so many different things going on.

The Dry is one of two major series Dunford has been working on in recent times, of which more later. And it certainly feels that Irish storytellers and stories, following a sluggish start, are rapidly becoming among the leading forces worldwide in episodic television.

Moe Dunford in 'The Dry'.

Normal People was an intimate love story told in Irish accents and featuring those GAA shorts that became a phenomenon, with Kourtney Kardashian among its many famous fans.

Sharon Horgans Bad Sisters - featuring the exploits of another colourful family - is currently spearheading Apples streaming schedule. Bodkin, being shot on location around Union Hall in West Cork, is a darkly comedic tale of a group of podcasters investigating the disappearance of three strangers. The executive producers? None other than Barack and Michelle Obama.

Theres ample proof, as though it were needed, that international audiences want to see and hear stories told in our own voices.

Well, just look at the quality of shows, observes Dunford. I love Derry Girls. I love so much of the stuff thats come out of here and what they did with The Young Offenders. Youre dealing with an innately Irish story that can be relatable around the world.

The obvious thing is streaming wasnt so popular as it is now and movies were the place to go and see your quality drama or the characters you know and love. I think thats a lot to do with streaming and the times weve been living in, the times weve come through. Thats not to say he doesnt love the cinema experience, and like many of us, has spent his summer falling in love with a couple of movies - the biggest of blockbusters and a little Irish film that could go all the way to the Oscars.

In fact, after we speak he is heading off to his local cinema in Dungarvan for a repeat viewing of Tom Cruise working his movie magic in Top Gun: Maverick.

Im going in to see Top Gun again today for a second time because while its great to have our streaming experiences, I just think its like my first time watching Mad Max: Fury Road. I love to see practical effects on screen and how they did it for real. I literally was just like a kid beaming in the cinema watching it.

He has also joined the growing audience for Irelands nomination for Best International Feature at next years Oscars. An Cailin Ciuin (The Quiet Girl), a moving drama about one girls formative summer in 1980s Ireland, is described by the actor as: Profoundly beautiful - its just gorgeous. The low-budget movie proved to be a big hit with Irish audiences through the summer and is now finding an international fanbase.

Moe Dunford with Roisin Gallagher in 'The Dry'

Hes also excited at the prospect of seeing the forthcoming Irish-language movie, Roise & Frank, about a grieving widow who starts to believe a stray dog who has come into her life might be her husband reincarnated. It was shot down the road from his Dungarvan hometown in the Irish-speaking village of Ring.

Irish movies, movies shot in our native tongue, and the blockbusters, it gave me a lot of hope, says Dunford. It also made me want to speak more Irish - Id love to do a movie as Gaeilge and be able to do it, because these movies and watching them on the big screen, get us in touch with our roots and who we are and using our native language.

To see actors speak our language, its just wonderful. I do think [Irish] should stay alive, and thats why its so great to see it up there on the big screen.

Over the past decade, Dunford has built a career ever since his breakthrough performance in Irish indie, Patricks Day, in which he played a young man with mental health issues.

Following a four-year stint as Aethelwulf on hit series Vikings, he starred in several feature films including gritty prison drama, Michael Inside, the charming tale of an unlikely friendship that was Handsome Devil, murder mystery thriller The Dig and most recently in a new take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre released by Netflix.

The actor is glad to be back in his hometown having spent much of the summer shooting a major new TV series in Spain.

He joins a returning cast for season two of The Head, a crime thriller that has proven to be an international hit, aired in 90 countries.

Following the events of the first series, set on a glacial polar research station, season two is set on an ocean freight ship carrying out a high-stakes scientific mission.

It was a real adventure, he says of the three-month shoot, which also gave him an opportunity to work with Northern Irish actor John Lynch.

Season two is set on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Like Knives Out was inspired by Agatha Christie, this is like a mash up between Agatha Christie and John Carpenter. Its set on a scientific research station - its very 1980s inspired.

We were shooting on real ships and oil rigs. Being over there with the crew in Spain, it gave me the feeling of what Id hoped acting would be like when I was a kid.
Hundreds of people have gathered in Belfast to demand the scrapping of the British governments contentious plan to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Relatives of those killed during the conflict were among those who protested in heavy rain outside Belfast City Hall against the controversial legislation being put through Parliament.

Demonstrators marched from various parts of the city ahead of the event outside the landmark building in central Belfast.

People march through Belfast city centre during the Time for Truth rally (Liam McBurney/PA)

The majority of bereaved families in attendance lost loved ones in killings involving state forces.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill has already been through the House of Commons and is now set for consideration by the House of Lords.

It proposes a form of amnesty for perpetrators of Troubles crimes in exchange for co-operation with a new truth recovery body.

The Bill, if enacted, would also end inquests and civil proceedings related to the conflict.

The changes are opposed by political parties and victims groups in Northern Ireland, as well the Government.

Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle ONeill at Sundays rally (Liam McBurney/PA)

Sinn Fein MP John Finucane addressed the Time for Truth rally on Sunday afternoon while senior party figures, including vice president Michelle ONeill, watched on from the crowd.

Mr Finucane, whose solicitor father Pat was murdered by loyalists in 1989 in a killing linked to state agents, told the event the Bill is designed to cover up the Governments role in the conflict.

The new Prime Minister Liz Truss needs to hear that we will not allow our rights to be cherry picked or traded ever by a British government, he said.

She must bin this flawed legislation without delay.

This has and remains a long campaign and today is but another staging point.

But we are stronger when we stand together in solidarity. We are not giving up. We are not going away.

All the British Government can do is delay the truth. They can no longer deny responsibility and they can no longer deny rights and they will ultimately not be successful.

We should and I know we will take hope that the truth will out.

Natasha Butler, whose grandfather Paddy Butler was shot dead by soldiers in west Belfast in 1972, branded the legislation a slap in the face to victims.

Natasha Butler speaks during the Time for Truth rally at Belfast City Hall (Liam McBurney/PA)

Preliminary inquest proceedings into the deaths of Mr Butler and four others killed in the shootings in Springhill 50 years ago have recently commenced, with a full inquest due to be heard next February.

This Bill of shame will provide an amnesty for British state forces and deny our families basic legal rights to an inquest, an independent investigation and civil actions, Ms Butler said.

It is a slap in the face to victims as it will prioritise the demands of the British military lobby over the legal rights of victims of state violence.

The objective of the British governments Bill of shame is to cover up their dirty war in Ireland.

John Kelly, whose brother Michael was killed by paratroopers on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, told the rally the British establishment is scared of the truth.

They are trying to deny us justice because they are scared to face justice, he said.

Every human being on this planet is born equal and if the British governments Bill of shame is implemented, the victims of British army killings will be treated as less equal than others. This cannot be allowed.

We will stop this obnoxious Bill by whatever means possible. We must never give up. We must fight on. We will fight on and we will not go away until truth and justice are achieved.
The expansion follows Southern Cross Cable Networks (SX) activation of its Next submarine cable connecting Australia, New Zealand, the US, and Pacific Islands.

The Next submarine cable uses DigitalAsset Marine coverage on the shore-end network all the way from the cable landing station to the first repeater.

Since trialling the monitoring service back in 2019, weve been very impressed with the outcomes that the technology the FiberSense team delivers. Theyve added significant detection capabilities, deterrence benefits, and maintenance reductions, especially in the heavily trafficked zones where cables typically land, said Southern Cross director networks and vice president operations Dean Veverka.

A further compelling benefit is that we dont need to reserve a separate fibre path for the monitoring as the DigitalAsset Marine technology operates over an in-use fibre pair allowing us to utilise the full potential of the submarine cable for clients. The rest of the submarine sector looks closely at innovations that the Pacific based cable operators are adopting.

We are now monitoring over 450km of combined terrestrial and marine segments for SX in the Pacific region. We are grateful for the trust and confidence that they have shown in our market making services. Our growing customer base reflects the fact that DigitalAsset Marine is a game changer in meeting the challenges operators face to improve subsea cable resilience and related maintenance demands, said FiberSense founder and CEO Mark Englund.

Even when the marine cables are buried and out of sight, our technology reveals the location and nature of potentially damaging events from anchor drag, fishing net entanglement, rock fall and unauthorised tampering. Being able to see for the first time these types of events in real-time along the cable allows the cable operator to action mitigation strategies as well as attribution exactly when and where the risk is detected.

FiberSense can identify and pinpoint threats across the cable front haul section and in real-time. This enables a variety of response mechanisms from Automatic Identification System (AIS) messaging to coast guard intervention, and ship to shore radio.

Once activated, the FiberSense DigitalAsset Marine system detects and locates a vessel. An alarm is posted in real-time if any anchoring event or other aggression event is detected and several mitigation strategies are employed in order to avert a break.

In tandem with AIS integration, FiberSense can aid in assigning culpability, the benefit being that FiberSense still works even if AIS is deactivated.

FiberSense has developed a capability to detect when a section of cable is uncovered on the ocean floor or is suspended above the ocean floor and is strumming, in real-time by location to meter accuracy.

An exposure or strumming event makes the cable much more vulnerable to external damage or a cable fault.

In addition to protecting submarine telecommunications and power cable infrastructure, FiberSense can detect and classify earthquake and tsunami events.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 September 2022.
The Australian Parliament passed the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure Protection) Act 2022 earlier this year with mandatory periods for critical infrastructure cyber security incidents to be reported, but what does it mean for you in practice? CyberArk solutions engineering manager Andrew Slavkovic spoke to iTWire to explain.

This new mandate came into existence earlier this year, completing the final package of amendments to the existing Security of the Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cht) (SOCI Act). The Act is designed to improve the cyber security posture of Australias critical infrastructure assets and systems of national significance. It takes into consideration the changing threat landscape caused by several global events and accelerated digital transformation activities.

So what's this all about, Andrew?

Slavkovic (pictured) explains that the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) will play an expanded role within the Act by providing advice and guidance to infrastructure providers on how to best handle and respond to cyber incidents in the early stages. The new mandate is an opportunity to boost Australias collective cyber defences as ACSC will work to respond to develop an overall threat picture based on the incident reports it receives.

As set out in the Act, Critical Infrastructure owners and operators are required to report a cyber security incident to the ACSC within the mandated periods which correlates to the severity rating of a given cyber security incident.

When a threat to the critical infrastructure operator passes a predetermined threshold, the ACSC can use intervention powers, such as installing software that reports system information back to the agency or in serious cases taking over the incident response on behalf of the Agency.

What's "significant"?

Slavkovic further explains the Act provides guiding principles regarding what constitutes a significant or critical security incident. It is deliberately non-specific as the severity rating depends on the unique circumstances in which the industry operates and the risk countermeasures in place. This can only be accurately assessed by the operating entity who will then assign an appropriate rating.

An entity should consider the services being provided and the impact on confidentially, integrity and availability of essential services, as well as the nature and extent of the cyber security incident when determining this rating.

Some examples provided within the Act may be able to guide an entity to what significant incident types could be considered unauthorised access or successful ransomware. In the context of a ransomware attack, this would have to be successful to the point that it disrupted essential services, like powering your home.

What industries does the mandate relate to, and are other industries off the hook?

A significant change within the Act is the expanding scope of what sector is considered critical infrastructure. Previously, only four - electricity, gas, water and ports - were recognised, Slavkovic says.

With the increased interconnectivity driven by digital transformation initiatives and the current global cyber threat landscape, the Australian Government has expanded this definition to include an additional 11 sectors:

Financial Services and Markets

Communications

Data Processing and Storage

Defence Industry

Higher Education and Research

Energy

Food and Grocery

Health Care and Medical Sector

Space Technology

Transport

Water and Sewage

The Act also stresses that third-party suppliers which operate assets on behalf of an in-scope sector must also abide by the Act, such as an entity that may be storing or processing data on behalf of the primary sector.



Other industries are not legally bound by this Act but should follow the legislative obligations regarding cyber security incident reporting relevant to them.

It is always good practice to report security incidents to an organisations Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) as soon as possible after they occur or are discovered.

Lastly, if ever in doubt, any organisation can report a security incident and engage the ACSCs expertise for advice and guidance on dealing with an incident on the ACSC website.

So what happens if you don't report a breach? And will ACSC really know if you don't?

As of 8 July 2022, most Australian critical infrastructure assets are required to comply with the mandatory cyber incident reporting regime as contained in the Act.

Reports can be made through the ACSC "report a cyber security incident" form, or by telephone followed by a written report that follows the stated reporting timeframes given the incident severity.

If an incident is not reported and there is a disruption to essential services, ACSC will know very quickly since something like thousands of homes without power will make it evident that something happened.

Failure to comply with the reporting obligations may result in a penalty of $11,100 (50 penalty units) per breach, or $55,500 (250 penalty units) if the entity is a corporation  Home Affairs would determine this.

Ok, so how does the mandate place Australia concerning cyber breach reporting globally?

Australia has been referenced as leading in the way it manages cybersecurity holistically, and we are taking the right steps forward to be leading in line with other 5Eyes countries. Concerning cyber breach reporting, if we look at the US (which is often seen as the global benchmark), we notice a few similarities between their reporting requirements and ours in that owners and operators of critical infrastructure have an obligation to report certain cyber incidents to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) within 72 hours, and ransomware payments within 24 hours.

There is much discussion locally that our reporting timelines should mirror that of the US, specifically around 72 hours as opposed to 12 hours. These reporting timelines can then be consistent with the likes of 5Eyes reporting channels, which would also allow more organisations to focus on the response, rather than contacting ACSC almost immediately.

When it comes to specifically report any ransom payments made as a result of a ransomware attack, the US Act has a specific mandate that requires it to be reported to CISA no later than 24 hours after making the payment.

In Australia, several requirements must be met before a ransom payment is made, and officially the Australian Government does not advocate paying ransomware  although there are no general mandatory reporting obligations applicable to ransomware attacks under Australian law.

Is there still more the government or industry can or should be doing?

The Act is a great starting point and elevates Australias thinking to be in line with other mature markets such as the US.

The industry could certainly be playing a greater role by establishing consistent security frameworks and a closer working relationship with the Government, especially when it comes to evaluating the security posture of IT infrastructure, vendors and product solutions.

One such initiative Australia should look at leveraging - as the US already has - would be adopting mandates around providing a software bill of materials as part of securing the software supply chain for greater transparency.

What advice can you give companies on how they can identify, track, manage, and report on cybercrime? In essence  what can a regular old company do to ensure theyre on top of this?

Organisations will need to focus on ensuring they have a cyber security framework and robust Incident Response Plans (IRPs) in place.

Adopting a consistent best practice cyber security framework will help implement security controls, and guide the direction, and definition of the response preparedness, planning and execution by outlining all the stages and steps necessary when responding to an attack.

The IRPs will then provide the detail of how the framework will be implemented and ensure key responsibilities are clear for a given security event.

Some things to consider here are:

The use of automation to pull together events of interest (from multiple toolset sources) to provide the organisation with situational awareness regarding a potential event. Have an incident ticket created automatically off the predefined best practice categories with all relevant information appended and ready for triage and investigation. This will cut down on manual information gathering and aid in the reporting timelines to ACSC.

How can CyberArk aid companies in these challenges?

Securing identities is becoming the new security paradigm and it is universally recognised as a modern and effective security strategy. This is particularly true as critical infrastructure undergoes modernisation initiatives that look at taking advantage of migrating elements of services to the cloud.

The CyberArk Identity Security Platform can be mapped to organisations risk management process to help identify and manage their cybersecurity risks about identity and its capabilities cover each stage of the incident response framework to both defend against attacks as well as provide good practice hygiene tools for keeping the machine and human identities secure.

As the response to any cyberattack threat is time-sensitive, key capabilities must be in place to immediately detect and respond to suspicious actions by a given identity, take automated action to reduce the risk of eventuating and ensure an identity is restored to a known safe state.

Thank you, CyberArk solutions engineering manager Andrew Slavkovic, for making this so much clearer.
For many of us, the way we work is different to how people approached their career development a few years back, and micro-credentials provide great new ways to upskill, resell, or transform careers.

While our approach to career development has been evolving over time, the initial COVID lockdowns and then the mass transition to working from home has provided the perfect environment for people to transform their skills and careers.

And with this micro-credentials have gained prominence as people recognise their value.

iTWireTV spoke with Tony Maguire, the ANZ Regional Director for global learning company D2L, about what micro-credentials are, the benefits they offer, the pathways they provide, and many other fascinating aspects.

Tony explains the way micro-credentials offer vast, scalable, co-creation education and upskilling opportunities to all Australians, providing verifiable assurance of a persons ability to perform a task.

Watch our discussion here, and be sure to visit D2L to learn more about how employees and employers alike can benefit from micro-credentialing.
Aerospace company Bae Systems will launch its first multi-sensor satellite cluster into low Earth orbit in 2024 to deliver information and intelligence in real time to military customers.

Named Azalea, the group of satellites will deploy sensors to collect visual, radar, and radio frequency data to be analysed by on board machine learning on edge processors to deliver intelligence securely anywhere while still in orbit.

Azalea will also boost the UKs ability to understand the threats and hazards in, from and through space.

With its acquisition of In-Space Missions last year, Bae Systems is in the position to design, build, launch, and operate satellites.

It will borrow expertise from In-Space Mission to complement its existing technologies.

The Azalea cluster will deliver timely, actionable intelligence, essential for military operations and disaster response.

Comprising four satellites, the cluster is capable of gathering, analysing, and communicating Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), optical and RF signals.

Unlike conventional, single-purpose satellites, the cluster can be reconfigured while in orbit in the same way a smartphone installs a new app.

This feature ensures it can deliver future customer missions and expands the lifecycle of the satellites.

The program supports the UK Governments Defence Space Strategy, published earlier this year, which named Earth observation as a priority area to help protect and defend UK interests.

Bae Systems is working with Finnish firm Iceye to combine its own expertise in sensor technology with Iceyes advanced SAR technology to be included in the cluster.

SAR provides high-resolution imagery of the Earths surface in any weather conditionsday or night.

This persistent monitoring makes it easier to detect instant physical changes, such as the movement of hostile ships or aircraft or the location of people at risk during natural disasters, such as floods and forest fires.

Existing space-based sensors require multiple terabytes of data to be transferred to Earth before being processed and distributed.

The traditional transfer process can take many hours and is reliant on intermittent RF links and the availability of suitable ground stations.

The Azalea system saves time by combining and analysing data in space. It will be able to identify activities of interest and communicate with users on the ground within moments of detection  securely delivering assured data, in a useful timeframe, directly to the hands of decision makers.

The Azalea satellite cluster will process data in space to provide swathes of digital intelligence wherever its needed. We understand how important space-based intelligence is to every domain, whether thats informing strategic command, alerting an in-area warship, or providing real-time intelligence to forces on the ground, said Bae Systems group managing director of digital intelligence business Dave Armstrong.

"There is a clear advantage for governments and organisations to receive accurate information when they need it, regardless of weather conditions  this is what Iceye brings. By combining our SAR technology with the security expertise of Bae Systems and the other data sources in the cluster, we can help decision makers make the right choice at the right time, said Iceye CEO and co-founder Rafal Modrzewski.

Our technology will monitor adversaries, but will also provide substantial civil benefits by helping humanitarian response missions, said In-Space missions CEO and co-founder Doug Liddle.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 9 September 2022.
Get unlimited access to all content and features at ivpressonline.com with our Full Online Access Subscription. Read our E-Edition, the digital replica of the print newspaper online, access content in exclusive sections including Family, Teen, Business, Databases, Farm and more. This option does not include daily home delivery of the Imperial Valley Press newspaper. For home delivery service, please select Premium or Premium Plus.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
Electric pylons toppled, cables strewn across the ground; gutted houses and roads dotted with craters -- the village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Ukraine's bitter counter-offensive.

"It was frightening," said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev, recalling this week's battle when Ukrainian troops recaptured Grakove from the Russians.

"There were bombings and explosions everywhere."

Vasiliev stood in front of the local church, whose bell had been damaged by a projectile.

Some of the Russian soldiers "took phones, but I managed to keep mine by hiding it so I could communicate with my family," he said.

Ukrainians have announced significant territorial gains in the eastern Kharkiv region.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday 30 towns and cities had been recaptured there.

Among the debris scattered through Grakove -- and in front of houses still inhabited -- dogs and cats search for scraps of food.

Only about 30 of the village's 800 pre-war inhabitants remain.

The road leading to Grakove from Ukraine's second city Kharkiv, a regional hub, is lined with the skeletons of cars destroyed in explosions or crushed by tanks.

- 'I was scared' -

Disarmed mines are scattered around the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. A tow truck carries off a captured Russian military vehicle.

Travelling in the opposition direction are two armoured cars taking troops to the front. Artillery fire echoes in the distance.

In the village, police and a team from the Kharkiv region's prosecutors office exhume the bodies of two men aged in their thirties.

The officials here suspect a war crime: the remains show signs of torture and execution.

Village resident Sergiy Lutsay told AFP Russian soldiers had forced him to bury the bodies at gunpoint.

"They came to my house. I was with my 70-year-old father," he said.

"I was scared they would threaten him. They told me to come to dig a hole."

This, he said, was soon after the Russian invasion began on February 24.

An official from the prosecutors' office said the bodies would be sent for an medical examination to determine the cause of death.

- 'Evidence of atrocities' -

Sergiy Bolvinov, deputy chief of police for the Kharkiv region, said Lutsay had told them that the victims "had wounds on the back of the head and their ears had been cut off".

Lutsay did not confirm the details to journalists.

Ukraine has accused Russian forces of a string of war crimes in towns and villages outside Kyiv that its forces recaptured in March.

Ukraine reoccupied the territory when Moscow pulled back its forces after a failed bid to capture the capital at the start of the invasion.

"This is not the only evidence of atrocities committed by the Russians," said Bolvinov.

"There are two other sites like this one in the village. We will be investigating them."

Police warned journalists warned from straying off roads or investigating abandoned buildings because demining work was still under way.
Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, who is serving a life sentence for war crimes in The Hague, has been hospitalised in "poor health," his son told AFP.

In a brief telephone interview with AFP in Belgrade, Darko Mladic confirmed his statement to the local press that the former general had been hospitalised for a week.

He was first in a civilian hospital in The Hague, and since Thursday in the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) prison facility.

"He is in poor health. A team of doctors is ready here to go and see him, but we don't know yet if they will be allowed. We will ask permission for him to be examined by these doctors," Mladic told AFP.

Contacted by AFP in The Hague, the MICT said it "cannot comment on the health status of detainees as this information is confidential".

In June 2021, the MICT upheld a life sentence against Mladic for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.

He was found guilty of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.

Darko Mladic told several media outlets in Serbia and Bosnia that his father was suffering from "pneumonia, fluid accumulation in the lungs and heart failure".

"We don't know what caused the heart failure and whether Ratko may have suffered a minor heart attack. We have not received the results of tests," he told the Novosti daily.

Mladic was diagnosed with coronavirus in early August, but "without serious symptoms," the source said.

Darko Mladic said his father's health had "deteriorated dramatically" since May.

"He is in a difficult situation and it seems to me that his life is in danger. He cannot function independently and he needs a carer," he said.

Ratko Mladic has in the past suffered several strokes that have caused damage to his nervous system, according to Russian medical experts cited by his defence team during the trial in 2016.

His exact age is a matter of debate -- he is 79 or 80 years old, and claims to have been born on March 12, 1943.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:

Home Regional News East
As Britain mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Friday, a host of dominions, empires and former colonies marked the loss of a common figurehead and an irreplaceable link to a rapidly fading era.

Although she was 96, the Queens death came as an emotional shock from Africa to the Pacific.

Papua New Guineas mountains, valleys and coasts rose this morning to the news that our Queen has been put to rest by God, Prime Minister James Marape told his country.

She was the anchor of our Commonwealth and for PNG we affectionately call her Mama Queen,' he said, just one of dozens of emotional tributes pouring in from countries once colored pink on maps.

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had read about her monarchs poor health before she went to bed.

A police officer shone a flashlight into my room at around 10 to 5 this morning I knew immediately what that meant.

I am deeply saddened, she added, fondly recalling conversations about raising children in the public spotlight.

Across the Pacific in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Queen will remain forever an important part of his countrys history, but also offered personal stories that went beyond stuffy-sounding explanations.

She was one of my favorite people in the world, he said. Im going to miss those talks so much.

Most of Britains former colonies have changed drastically since a newly crowned Elizabeth Windsor ascended the throne in 1953.

At the time, Indias population was about 380 million  down from 1.4 billion today  British forces brutally suppressed Kenyas Mau Mau revolt, and New Zealand subject Edmund Hillary made the first successful ascent of Mount Everest with the long-unrecognized Nepalese Partner Tenzing Norgay.

For many, Elizabeth II represented one of the few remaining links to this fading era of empire, to the old country, to an intertwined history, or to the common victim of a gruesome world war.

Indias Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled that at her wedding, Elizabeth II showed him a handkerchief given to her by independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

I will always appreciate this gesture, he wrote on Twitter. She embodied dignity and decency in public life.

 Cannot be replaced 

The death of Elizabeth II inevitably raised the question of whether bonds forged in colonialism and sustained by the personal charisma of a petty monarch could endure.

The Queen has been a driving force in the Commonwealth, said Harsh V Pant, professor of international relations at Kings India Institute in London.

The bloc of 56 countries  most of which were former British colonies  spans Africa, Asia, America, Europe and the Pacific, and encompasses 15 realms where Elizabeth II was still head of state.

So what happens to this Commonwealth now? Will it survive the future? Pant asked.

In Sydney, Maya Munro, 20, said the Queen was both an incredible figurehead and a role model, particularly for women.

But like many young Australians, she envisions a very different role for the future of the monarchy.

I think the queen has been the monarchy for so long. And its brought her so much respect, history and honor, she said.

I think it just plays a different role in our lives these days. Perhaps we are moving away from the monarchy now.

Speaking in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, Warwick Murray, 50, said: Politicians come and go, but someone like Queen Elizabeth cannot be replaced.

The fact that she was above politics and really positive minded means I admire her a lot.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese  a self-confessed Republican  tried to deflect questions about the future head of state by declaring 10 days of mourning.

Instead, he paid tribute to Queen Elizabeths timeless grace and said her death was the end of an era.

A historic reign and long life devoted to duty, family, faith and service has come to an end, he said.

Today is an issue day, and an issue only, intended to pay tribute.

Even where the legacy of colonialism is still raw, leaders have focused on womens qualities rather than the baggage of their role.

The history of modern Nigeria will never be complete without a chapter about Queen Elizabeth II, a preeminent global figure and an outstanding leader, said President Muhammadu Buhari.

She has dedicated her life to making her nation, the Commonwealth and the world a better place.

The President of Zimbabwe, which withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003 after being suspended over human rights concerns and had decades of frosty relations with its former colonial master, offered his own condolences to the British public.
Britains Queen Elizabeth II embarks on her final journey on Sunday with thousands of her mourning subjects who are expected to line the path of her coffin from the Scottish retreat where she died.

The ceremonial departure of the Queens oak casket from Balmoral Castle to Edinburgh marks the beginning of an odyssey of national mourning, culminating in her state funeral in London on September 19.

Their journey begins a day after their son Charles III was officially proclaimed king, and after their feuding grandsons William and Harry and their wives Kate and Meghan reunited briefly for a tour.

A hearse carrying the coffin of Britains longest-serving monarch will make a six-hour journey through Scottish cities before arriving in Edinburgh, where it will rest for two days for people to pay tribute.

The King himself will then travel to Edinburgh for a prayer service on Monday before the body of the Queen, who died in Balmoral on Thursday aged 96, is flown to the capital on Tuesday.

She will then lie in state for four days at an event expected to draw at least a million people ahead of a funeral that is set to be watched worldwide and attracting scores of heads of state.

Were living in history right now, said Laura Burns, 49, who was planning on trying to see the Queens coffin pass by in Edinburgh after coming to the city because her son is starting at university.

Its a very respectful atmosphere, she told AFP.

 sign of unity 

While the accession of Charles has pushed Britain into what the newspapers have dubbed the new Carolean era, Britain and the royal family are still coming to terms with the end of the Elizabethan era.

Prince William broke his silence on Saturday with an emotional tribute to his beloved grannie.

She was by my side in my happiest moments. And she was by my side through the saddest days of my life, said William, who is now the Prince of Wales.

But the Queens death also brought a surprise show of unity from William, 40, and his younger brother Harry, 37, as they emerged with their wives to speak to well-wishers outside Windsor Castle, near London.

The sight of the two couples, who have barely seen each other since 2020, together  even as they split to speak and shake hands with different sides of the cheering crowd  is likely to spark rumors of a reconciliation.

The picture of the four royals was splashed across the front page of The Sun newspaper on Sunday with the headline All 4 One.

Senior royals, including the Queens children Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward, and their families also inspected flowers outside of Balmoral, where they have stayed since the Queens death.

The Queens coffin, draped with a Scottish Royal standard and a wreath of flowers, was kept in the Ballroom at Balmoral and is carried to her hearse by six of the estates game wardens.

 Many, many people 

The symbolism of the Queens final journey will be heavy for a nation that has strong royal connections  but where there is a strong Scottish independence movement aiming to break the centuries-old union with the UK.

The Cortege will depart at 10:00 (0900 GMT) and then meander through Aberdeen and Dundee before reaching Edinburgh at 16:00.

Special vantage points will be set up along the route, although mourners are asked not to throw flowers at the passing convoy.

We anticipate that many, many people will be interested in paying their respects, said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The Queens coffin is taken to Holyroodhouse Palace, the monarchs official residence in Scotland, where it will rest for a day.

King Charles and other royals will take part in a procession on Monday to take her coffin along Edinburghs Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral.

The following day the coffin was flown on a Royal Air Force jet to Northolt Airport near London and driven to Buckingham Palace. It will then be moved to Westminster Hall on Wednesday to lie in state.

King Charles will also visit Northern Ireland and Wales to demonstrate national unity, accompanied by British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was only appointed by the late Queen on Tuesday.

His popularity has rebounded since Dianas death in a car accident in 1997, but he ascends to the throne at a moment of great concern in Britain over the rising cost of living and international instability caused by the war in Ukraine.

 Inspirational Example 

Charles pledged at the formal Accession Council at St Jamess Palace on Saturday that he would seek to follow the inspiring example his mother set me during her lifelong ministry'.

The centuries-old tradition was televised live for the first time, with a trumpet fanfare and a court official wearing a plumed hat to proclaim him king from a palace balcony.

Thousands of people have gathered outside Buckingham Palace and other royal residences in recent days to lay flowers and condolences, or simply to witness the story of how it came about.

But officials expect far more people to pay their respects as the Queen lies across state ahead of the televised funeral service at Westminster Abbey.

The funeral of the Queen, who ascended the throne in 1952 aged just 25, will be attended by national leaders including US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and possibly Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

Her record 70 years on the throne has been a constant in what has been a turbulent time for Britain, from a world of post-war hardship and the loss of its empire to more recent traumas such as the coronavirus pandemic.
As Queen, Elizabeth IIs family life was anything but traditional  she was often away from home, busy with work and at times had complicated relationships with her four children.

She was 22 and still a princess when her eldest son and heir apparent, Charles, was born, and 24 when Princess Anne showed up.

But she sometimes left them for months to join or travel abroad with her husband Prince Philip, a naval officer stationed in Malta.

The young children stayed at home with their nannies and governesses, just as she had done as a child in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Charles nanny is very authoritative, said the new kings biographer, royal author Penny Junor.

Elizabeth was a young new mom and this very experienced nanny took over she waited half an hour at tea time or whatever for the nanny to bring Charles to her, she told AFP.

Im sure she loved her family. But I dont think she was demonstrative in her affection.

Old family photos and videos show Elizabeth smiling, posing with Charles in his stroller or, as a family, waving a rattle at Prince Andrew, who was born when Charles was 11 years old.

But theres little that seems to hide what appears to be a stiff formality.

 separated not indifferent 

When five-year-old Charles saw his parents for the first time in months after they returned from a month-long tour of the Commonwealth, she held out her hand.

In a later authorized biography, Charles said his mother was not indifferent but distant.

If he was a horse or a dog, they would have been a lot closer, Junor added of Charles, who was described as a sensitive and awkward child.

In contrast, Elizabeth, who is known for her love of horses and corgis, was closer to her daughter Anne, who developed into a skilled rider and allowed the couple to share their passion.

Even strict royal protocol did little to encourage closer bonds: the Queens children and grandchildren were required to bow or curtsey to her even behind closed doors.

Complicating matters further, Charles lifelong role as heir made his future entirely dependent on his mothers death.

Charles always adored his mother and put her on a little pedestal. Its not a mother-son relationship. Its more of a monarch subject, Junor said.

The Queen had a more relaxed relationship with Andrew and Edward, who were born at 33 and 37 respectively.

All four children were sent to boarding school at an early age.

 Separations and remarriages 

Family life provided the biggest shocks during her record-breaking reign.

In 1992, Anne divorced her husband Mark Phillips, Charles from Diana and Andrew from Sarah Ferguson.

Exacerbated by a major fire at her favorite home at Windsor Castle west of London, the Queen called the 12 months her annus horribilis.

After Dianas death in 1997, the Queen initially dismissed the idea of ??Charles marrying his longtime lover, Camilla Parker Bowles.

She did not attend her civil wedding in Windsor in 2005, but organized a reception at the castle.

When asked about Charles criticism of her mother, Anne said: I dont give any of us a second thought that she didnt take care of us like any other mother.

I just think its extraordinary that anyone could think that couldnt be true, she told the BBC.

 grandmother, great-grandmother 

Separations and divorces were not the end of family strife.

In 2019, Andrew  reportedly her favorite  was forced to step down from frontline royal duties because of his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The following year, grandson Harry and his wife Meghan left royal life and moved to the United States, from where they criticized the family and accused some members of racism.

Elizabeth only met the couples daughter, Lilibet, once. She was born in June 2021 and named after her childhood nickname.

As a grandmother of eight and with 12 great-grandchildren, the Queen loved family dinners and hosted annual Christmas parties at her Sandringham estate.

Even as she slowed down after a health issue in October 2021, she attended the christenings of two of her great-grandchildren in Windsor.

Grandson William, to whom she had been close after Dianas death, paid her a glowing tribute in a recent biography.

The Queens kindness and sense of humor, her innate sense of calm and perspective, and her love of family and home are all attributes I experience firsthand, he wrote.
K-dramas from the renowned Studio Dragon are often well-written, well-executed, and distributed to various local and international streaming platforms. It produced "Vincenzo," "Alchemy of Souls," and "Uncanny Counter," to name a few, which are all top-tier dramas that received success in Korea and abroad.

According to Forbes, Studio Dragon is where much of the Korean dramas' magic happens. As the company continues to produce high-quality content, more viewers entrust their viewing experience to the production company.

These 7 Studio Dragon-produced K-dramas are just some of the top-rated contents that scream perfection: from casting to performances to storyline to aesthetic and more!

'Crash Landing On You'

Top K-drama "Crash Landing On You" starred sought-after and real-life married couple Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin. Its international success was made possible thanks to its compelling story and excellent execution.

This series depicts the love story of a chaebol heiress who made an emergency landing in North Korea because of a paragliding accident, and a North Korean special officer who falls in love with her.

'Vincenzo'

Starring top-notch actor Song Joong Ki and promising actress Jeon Yeo Bin, this masterpiece made K-drama fans on the edge of their seats as soon as the series entered primetime at the beginning of 2021.

"Vincenzo" is a dark-comedy drama that tells the court adventures of Italian lawyer Hong Cha Young and mafia consigliere Vincenzo Cassano. They join forces to take down villains who cannot be punished by the law.

'It's Okay To Not Be Okay'

Joining the list is the healing-romance series "It's Okay To Not Be Okay," which stars Kim Soo Hyun, Seo Ye Ji, Oh Jung Se, and Park Gyu Young. Its high-profile cast members, heartwarming scenes, and relatable characters who suffer from different traumas immediately gained the viewers' attention.

It follows the extraordinary road to emotional healing that opens up for an antisocial children's book writer Ko Mun Young, and a selfless psych ward caretaker Moon Gang Tae, when they cross paths.

'Uncanny Counter'

"Uncanny Counter" is the only action-fantasy K-drama that made new history on the OCN channel!

After it broke rating records during its run, the program also gained a massive following from the global audience, making actors Jo Byeong Gyu and Kim Sejeong rise to fame.

In fact, "Uncanny Counter" is confirmed for a sequel, which is also composed of the original cast and might meet the viewers in 2023.

The exciting story of noodle shop employees by day and demon hunters by night. They are also known as the Counters, who use special abilities to chase down evil spirits that prey on humans.

'Mr. Queen'

With its 20 episodes released, there is no doubt that this historical-comedy drama, starring Shin Hye Sun and Kim Jung Hyun, was a hit. Though it received mixed reactions from viewers due to the historical distortion in some parts of the series, the production was able to fix it and still hit success in Korea and abroad.

"Mr. Queen" is about Queen Cheorin finding herself with the soul of a modern-day man, who works as a chef in the Blue House, inside her body, and King Cheoljong, who helps his people and strives to be a good king for his nation.

'Chicago Typewriter'

Dubbed as "underrated gem" by K-drama fans, this stars Yoo Ah In, Im Soo Jung, and Go Kyung Pyo.

"Chicago Typewriter" tells the story of a well-known writer Han Se Joo who has fallen into a slump. He meets ghostwriter Jin Oh, who hides behind his name, and writer Jeon Seol who was Se Joo's fan but turned back.

These three are entangled in a romantic-mystery and antique romance intermixed with an old mysterious typewriter.

'Alchemy of Souls'

"Alchemy of Souls," which is expected to return on screen for its Part 2 in December, made an incredible viewing experience for the fans. Apart from the cast and its unique story, the drama received praise for its competitive and advanced graphic effects.

Set in the background of an inexistent country, the soul of a powerful sorceress enters the body of a blind lady that twists not only her destiny but also the man from a prestigious clan who wants to change his fate.

Which other Studio Dragon-produced K-dramas are your favorites? Tell us in the comments!

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, follow and subscribe to KDramastars.

KDramastars owns this article.

Shai Collins wrote this.
With beauty and physique like Son Ye Jin, the actress could definitely rock any outfit, may it be casual or red carpet glam.

From playing the South Korean heiress Yoon Seri in "Crash Landing on You" strutting in designer pieces, to her classy charms in "Thirty-Nine" as she took the role of doctor Cha Mi Jo, the 40-year-old star indeed has one of the best style inspirations in K-drama.

With that, here are the 5 best Son Ye Jin's fashion styles that you can easily pull off.

Keeping it Simple

One of Son Ye Jin's fashion trademarks is sporting a simple yet elegant outfit.

In one of her latest Instagram posts, the actress stuns in a slip silk dress for an advertisement for the collagen drink, Nutriville.

The pistachio-colored dress complimented the Hallyu star's porcelain skin as she showed off her pre-pregnancy body.

Want to copy Son Ye Jin's fashion style on a budget? Check out this satin silk slip dress perfect for those date nights or capping the day with friends.

The Girl Boss

Her stunning style and popularity made Son Ye Jin one of Valentino's global ambassadors.

In March 2021, the Italian luxury fashion house officially introduced the "Crash Landing on You" star as their newest muse as the top star showcases fearlessness and independence.

Son Ye Jin joins rising Japanese model Koki and award-winning Chinese actress Guan Xiaotong as Valentino's newest global muses.

READ MORE: Son Ye Jin Debuts Stunning New Hairstyle Amid Pregnancy

As part of her collaboration with the Maison house, the 40-year-old star often dons various ensembles and accessories from Valentino.

One of her remarkable styles was for the brand's new collection where she showcased a black and white coat that delivers a girl boss vibe.

On top of it, she paired it with a classic Valentino black purse. As a substitute for Son Ye Jin's Valentino bag opted for this top-handle clutch bag. Small yet it can surely fit a lot of essentials like a phone, wallet, alcohol, and more.

Going for Bold Print

Although classic pieces are Son Ye Jin's fashion trademark, the Hallyu star and son-to-be mom are experimental when it comes to outfits.

In one of her collaborations with Valentino, the actress stuns in an animal print coat and matches it with a bold red lip.

You can copy her style with this leopard print coat with a belt to cinch the waist for added details.

Getting Casual with Kitty

Son Ye Jin's Instagram is not all about fashion, food, and her on-screen actiovities but she also shows off her white Maltese dog named Kitty.

The actress shared that her fur baby joined her in one of her shoots and wore a striking red puffer jacket.

Although she didn't mention the brand, you can steal her style by opting for this lightweight water resident red puffer jacket.

Summer Essential

Lastly, one of Son Ye Jin's stylish looks and definitely among the easiest to copy is her white flowy dress during her trip to Jeju.

The photo made headlines after she was rumored to be pregnant when she posted this in May.

Meanwhile, you can dress like Son Ye Jin by going for this square neck midi dress with puff sleeves perfect for summer getaways.

KDramastars owns this article

Written by Geca Wills
"Little Women" episode 3 takes Kim Go Eun, Nam Ji Hyun and Park Ji Hu in a wild tag with the most influential family in South Korea. Money and power also mess with the three sisters' relationship. Will the poor survive in the dog-eat-dog world?

'Little Women' Episode 3: Choi Do Il Makes A Deal With Oh In Joo

The brand new episode of "Little Women" begins with Oh In Joo (Kim Go Eun) composing herself after witnessing Director Shin Hyun Min's (Oh Jung Se) sudden demise.

At the hospital, Choi Do Il (Wi Ha Joon) arrives to comfort Oh In Joo. He then tells her that she needs to lie in order to save her from being the prime suspect in the late director's death.

He reveals that he knows she took the slush fund stolen by Jin Hwa Young (Choo Ja Hyun), and plans to put the blame on the dead director to help her escape the situation.

However, Oh In Joo has other plans. She visits Won Sang Woo (Lee Min Woo), the former CEO of her company, who also happens to be Park Jae Sang's (Uhm Ki Joon) brother-in-law.

Won Sang Woo urges Oh In Joo to take the money instead of returning it to the people behind the embezzlement. He also gives her the ledgers that were hidden in his room.

Unfortunately, Choi Do Il blows their cover. Oh In Joo finds herself in his car, and is told that the former CEO is only using her to avenge himself.

Choi Do Il proposes a deal: help each other out until the end and split the money for the both of them.

Oh In Hye Betrays Her Sisters

While Oh In Joo revels in her wealth, Oh In Hye (Park Ji Hu) thrives to fend for herself in the dog-eat-dog world.

In exchange for her perfect portraits for Park Hyo Rin (Jeon Chae Eun), Park Jae Sang's daughter, Oh In Hye is given a scholarship to study abroad.

At the celebratory party of the Parks, Oh In Kyung (Nam Ji Hyun) tries to break into the occasion and take her younger sister home, making a scene.

This strains their relationship, as she created havoc after being drunk. The Parks, who knew of Oh In Kyung as a prospective enemy, delights in the fact that she and Oh In Hye are related.

On the other hand, Oh In Joo meets up with Park Jae Sang's wife to return the money spent for Oh In Hye's Boston expenses.

Won Sang Ah (Uhm Ji Won) refuses to take the money and grows suspicious of how the former acquired the cash in such a short time. She also takes interest in Oh In Joo's velvet shoes, an expensive pair previously owned by Jin Hwa Young.

Oh In Kyung Meets Thief

After successfully getting leads of Kim Cheol Sung's (Cha Yong Hak) murder, Oh In Kyung feels much better about herself.

Her delight is short-lived as she comes home to a huge sum of money that was hidden in their plasticware, and confronts Oh In Joo about it.

Oh In Joo then admits that she has gotten the money from her dead friend, and she is adamant to use it for their family after suffering from abandonment, poverty and loss.

It is revealed that the three Oh sisters have another sibling who wasn't able to make it and died prematurely.

Oh In Kyung then threatens to turn her in to the police, but Oh In Joo tells her that she's not scared. Instead, she goes to their aunt's house and asks for help to get her an apartment without suspicion.

At the end of the episode, Park Jae Sang witnesses Oh In Hye trying to steal a doll from their house.

He then asks if she is willing to change her life at the expense of her beloved. Park Jae Sang takes Oh In Hye's silence as an affirmation.

KDramastars owns this article.

Written by Elijah Mully.
There was plenty to see and experience Saturday at Kenoshas lakefront, from Lego streetcars to giant pumpkins and other fall fun.

Kenoshas annual Streetcar Day event featured streetcars to climb in and explore, booths with buttons, bags and other Kenosha Streetcar Society regalia, a photo booth, face painting and informational videos about the street cars.

Everybodys got a little different interest, said Bradley Preston, chairman of the Kenosha Streetcar Society. Some of the guys want to talk about the maintenance album (and) the history of how they got here.

The streetcar event started when a group of people approached Preston about touring the facility.

We basically had a couple of dozen people who wanted to come and I said, Well, why dont you all come on this particular Saturday, Preston said. Then one of the business groups got involved and I thought we ought to make it something bigger.

Lego display

Some people just want to get in there and see the Lego display, which is just fabulous, Preston said. Theyve been here almost every year weve done this open house here.

Since then, numerous people have come to see the trolleys and Legos, which were added roughly seven years ago.

We store it built in our basements and we bring it out to shows, said John Wolfe, a member of the Kenosha Lego Users Group. We set up in just an hour.

Wolfe, along with other group members, said the enjoyment of Legos, especially by viewers of their work, is multi-generational.

Giant pumpkins

The Kenosha Fall Fest, which has been held for 10 years, has featured a pumpkin weigh-off, run by the Wisconsin Giant Pumpkin Growers Association, for the last six years. Jim Ford, president of the association, thought of the idea after noticing the park while working on a job in a nearby building.

I looked at this area and Im like, This is a good place, Ford said. So I went up to the mayors office, I pitched my idea, and obviously they bought it. They had their fall festival going, so we piggyback off of that.

Ford is a seasoned giant pumpkin grower, as hes been growing them for 20 years. He said the camaraderie and the competitive nature of the contest draws growers to enter and compete.

I believe it helps to have a personality disorder to grow these things, Ford said.

Although many competitors have been growing large pumpkins for years, some attended the event as first-time growers.

Ian Anderson, of Sauk City, said he started growing his pumpkin in April because he was bored. He has grown other plants and vegetables, such as tomatoes and basil, but had never grown a giant pumpkin before.

Its like a full time job, Anderson said. If you forget about it for like two days, its a five day catch up.

Jaxon Morehouse, the youngest competitor at age 12, was competing for the second year in a row. Morehouse was given seeds by Ford, and started growing his pumpkin in May.

I went over to his house and he showed me his patch, Morehouse said. And so he gave me a couple of seeds and I started growing.

Weighing the winners

To weigh each pumpkin, a forklift has to lift each from a palette they are resting on, and carry them to the scale in front of the fountain. In that process, the bottom of the pumpkin is examined for holes or signs of rotting, as either factor could disqualify it from competition.

There was also a squash entered to be weighed in the competition. For a squash to qualify, it must not be red or orange in color.

Last years winning pumpkin, and state record holder, came in at 2,002 pounds, grown by Caleb Jacobus of Soldiers Grove.

Winner of the top prize will take home $1,500 and a plaque. Ribbons and prize money also will be awarded to runners-up.

Its a lot of work more work than you think, Ford said.  To get a giant pumpkin (to weight) 500 pounds with the right seeds (and) with the right genetics is relatively easy, but to get him over 1,500 pounds or 2,000 pounds, he needs to be babied every day.

Final results of the competition were not available by press time Saturday.
On Sept. 20, residents living within the boundaries of the Kenosha Unified School District community will be called to perform the important task of supporting our public schools at the Annual Meeting of Electors.

The Center on Education Policy, in its report, Why We Still Need Public Schools, stated, From the early days of the nation, public education has played a vital role in American democratic society. In addition to preparing young people for productive work and fulfilling lives, public education has also been expected to accomplish certain collective missions aimed at promoting the common good. These include, among others, preparing youth to become responsible citizens, forging a common culture from a nation of immigrants, and reducing inequalities in American society.

As our country now faces serious issues including economic fluctuation, labor shortages, and threats to our very democracy, it is crucial that all of our children receive an education rich in factual material and practice in critical thinking to prepare them for their roles in addressing those issues. Public schools, when adequately resourced, are well positioned to combat the dangers of disinformation and restore our country to a position of respect and honor in the world.

In 2017, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos formed a bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding to lift up the funding needs of Wisconsin public schools. They reviewed the National Conference of State Legislatures report No Time to Lose: How to Build a World-Class Education System State by State, which stated that The U.S. workforce, widely acknowledged to be the best educated in the world half a century ago, is now among the least well-educated in the world, according to recent studiesWe have the ability to turn things around. Much higher-performing, yet less-developed countries  such as Poland and Singapore  have made significant progress developing their education systems in just a decade or two because they felt a strong sense of urgency.

Even prior to the pandemic, educators were leaving the profession at an alarming rate. There has been a historic divestment in public school education from which school districts have not recovered, and it is no coincidence that student outcomes have declined as we have seen funding decline. We still have a long way to go before we see our public schools fully restored and operating at a non-deficit level. One time federal pandemic funding has been allocated, but instead of receiving the sustained funding necessary to restore their global status, our public schools are now under attack. Last year, a small group of KUSD residents took advantage of low turnout at the Annual Meeting of the Electors and voted with the intent of denying our schools necessary resources. This year, we can count on this same group to attempt to rob our students of opportunities and their freedom to learn.

When we support and value our public schools, our whole community benefits. We will not allow a small number of electors to speak for us, the majority of community members who support public schools. Were coming together to ensure that our schools are funded adequately and equitably, so all students can have access to a great public school education.

Our students and public schools thrive when they are lifted up and supported by their community. We are calling on our KUSD community to be champions for public education. Join us at the Annual Meeting of the Electors on Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m., at Indian Trail High School & Academy at 6800 60th St. to vote (simple majority) on the 2022-23 KUSD budget, the tax levy and school board member stipends.
I read with interest the articles written by Jim Kreuser and Gabe Nudo relative to Governor Evers response to the riots in Kenosha during August of 2020. The difference between their perspectives is striking.

The riot concerned me. I have family members and good friends that are Kenosha police officers and I support law enforcement. Therefore, on Monday morning, Aug. 24, (9-10 a.m.) I called Senator Wirchs office to get insight on actions being taken.

I was informed that the guard had already been activated and that troops were being sent to Kenosha. Additionally, guards from other areas/states were also coming to support Kenosha and local authorities.

All activities were coordinated by Evers. He called Major General Paul Knapp at 3 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 24. The guard was activated at 3:09 a.m.

My own experiences lend some perspective on the process and actions needed to activate the guard. I was in the Wisconsin Army National Guard for six years (1965-1971). During that tenure we were activated five times to control riots/skirmishes: Milwaukee twice, Madison twice, Lake Geneva once. I was notified at work or home to report to the armory.

All troops need to be notified, gather essentials at home, report to armory and load all gear. There is much activity, logistics and travel involved.

I found Jim Kreusers article to be accurate, professional and well written. His timelines were factual. His conclusions agree with those of Sheriff Beth, Mayor Antaramian and General Knapp.

Gabe Nudos article was nothing more than emotional, political rhetoric.

Evers acted appropriately, quickly and fulfilled all requests submitted by Kenoshas sheriff and mayor. A job well done.

Dave Willems, Kenosha
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Interview: Afghan expert says fighting terrorism a tool for U.S. to implement hegemony

Xinhua) 15:35, September 11, 2022

KABUL, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Fighting terrorism has been a tool used by the United States to strengthen its hegemony, an Afghan scholar has told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

"The United Sates' definition of terrorism depends on Washington's interests. The U.S. has been using terrorism as a tool to invade and defeat free nations to ensure its interests," said Najibullah Jami, Afghan political expert and a Kabul University professor.

In the wake of the terror attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States accused the al-Qaida network of organizing the deadly attacks and led a military coalition to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban government, which allegedly sheltered the then leader of the terror network Osama Bin Laden.

In late August 2021, the U.S. forces conducted a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan with a military defeat, leaving the war-torn country in extreme poverty and deep pains. Public data showed that more than 50,000 Afghan civilians and nearly 70,000 Afghan security personnel reportedly had been killed during the two-decade-long U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.

Jami said America's "anti-terrorism" war has reportedly caused the number of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan to exceed 20 today.

"Americans invaded Afghanistan with slogans to fight terror, check drug production and trafficking and rebuild the country but the claims have proved counter-productive as drug production and trafficking has increased manifold and the war-torn country has also been suffering from extreme poverty," the analyst said.

Giving examples of the destructive role of Washington's military intervention under the pretext of fighting terrorism in certain countries, the expert said, "The outcome of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria and in Libya is clear to everyone."

"We Afghans have no tangible economic development from the presence of U.S. military or economic prosperity over the past 20 years. We import our electricity from Tajikistan, we don't have enough food. Even in Kabul we don't have clean drinking water," he said.

According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction set up by the U.S. Congress, annual per capita income in the Asian country declined from 650 U.S. dollars in 2012 to 500 dollars in 2020.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
Posted by Joey on at 04:33 PM CST

Welcome back! Check out the new Lucasfilm trailers and updates from the D23 Expo, happening right now.Via StarWars.com Our favorite clan of two will return! The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau, executive producer Dave Filoni, star Pedro Pascal, and more talked about the Disney+ series, premiering a teaser trailer for the long-awaited Season 3, premiering in 2023. This is very similar to the trailer shown atFollowing a special in-room recap video and chat about the series,star Diego Luna revealed a new trailer for the highly-anticipated show, arriving September 21 on Disney+ with a three-episode premiere.Announced atAnaheim 2022,is a six-part animated short series coming to Disney+. Dave Filoni confirmed at D23 that the series will arrive October 26, 2022, and debuted its first trailer, featuring looks at young Ahsoka Tano, an early Qui-Gon Jinn tale, and more.Clone Force 99 is back. Executive producer Dave Filoni confirmed that the second season of the animated series will arrive, with a two-episode premiere on Disney+.Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau treated fans in attendance to select early, in-production images from, the upcoming Disney+ series starring Rosario Dawson as the wandering former Jedi.is set to arrive in 2023.Currently in production,will center around a group of children lost in space, and be set in the New Republic timeframe. Creators Jon Watts and Chris Ford joined Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni to present an in-room only first look at star Jude Law in the show  and also welcomed the actor onstage.The cast of, including the titular wizard himself, Warwick Davis, gathered for a discussion about the fresh new take in the upcoming Disney+ series, with some significant reveals. Davis and company debuted the official poster and trailer  and in a surprise that delighted those in attendance, the legendary Christian Slater joined the panel, confirming his participation inGrab your fedora and whip. The fifth Indiana Jones film arrives June 30, 2023, exclusively in theaters, and director James Mangold was joined by stars Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge to debut an in-room only sizzle reel.Have you been waiting with anticipation for these new Lucasfilm projects? Which one are you looking forward to the most? Let us know in the forums!

Check out Rebelscum.com merch!Be sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms:
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
A newly established restaurant is now open during weekday hours, after only being open on the weekends during the past few months.

Guac Star, 120 Broad St. in Lake Geneva, now is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday.

The restaurants bar area first opened during the weekends in May, and the restaurant area began opening on the weekends in July.

The full opening of the restaurant was delayed because of supply chain and staffing issues.

Kevin Singh, co-owner of Guac Star, said he is pleased that his restaurant is now open during the weekdays after several months of planning.

Singh purchased the 120 Broad St. location from former Wicked Poke Hut owners Karen Schultz and Joshua Bernicchi late last year.

Now, we got the whole system in place. Everything is running smoothly now, Singh said. Mondays, I need a day off. Tuesdays, thats when I receive new inventory.

Guac Star offers made-to-order tacos, burritos, quesadillas, churros, and chips and salsa.

Singh recently added a cheese curd taco to the menu.

Its a good vegetarian item, Singh said. Were in Wisconsin, so why not? Its a tortilla with cheese curds and a choice of toppings lettuce, tomatoes, pico, salsa whatever you like on them. Its delicious.

Guac Star also includes a bar area that features frozen wine cocktails, margaritas, pina coladas, mojitos, beer and wine.

Members of the Lake Geneva City Council unanimously approved a fermented malt beverage Class B liquor license and a wine Class C liquor license for the restaurant, Jan. 10.

I want to keep it simple and inviting for everybody, Singh said. The bar area has neutral colors to keep it simple. I want to keep the menu simple with tacos, burritos and quesadillas.

Representatives from Visit Lake Geneva hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Guac Star, Sept. 1.

Stephanie Klett, president and CEO of Visit Lake Geneva, said she is pleased that Guac Star is now open for weekday business, as it will provide another dining option in the City of Lake Geneva.

Im super excited, Klett said. Kevin is awesome.
Dear W.C.,

I am 19 and I am leaving soon for college. I am very worried about how my mother will get by without me here. I have worked so hard for this opportunity but now I am feeling guilty that I will no longer be here to help. I have several scholarships and will be using a student loan to pay for my own education. It has always been a dream of mine to become a teacher and my mom is encouraging me to follow my dreams and not make the same mistakes she made in life.

She had me when she was very young and never went to college. My father has not been any part of my life. My mom got married 10 years ago to a terrible man and had my two sisters. She is divorced from my stepfather now as he was an alcoholic, unemployed and verbally abusive to everyone. My sisters are only 10 and 8 years old and I have been watching them so my mom could go to work at night cleaning offices. She will have to change jobs now that I am leaving because I will not be here to provide childcare. I help with the rent, and I buy food when I notice there is not enough. My mom never asks for this, but I know she appreciates it. I know her car needs some work, but she cannot afford that either. Would it be possible for you to call me so we can talk about how we can help my mom?

Dear Readers,

While most young adults are anxious to leave for college, this young woman was apprehensive about leaving her mother and siblings to struggle in poverty. She has a good and caring heart and should become a wonderful teacher someday. I felt moved to help her make that dream come true without the constant worry about how her family was getting by while she was away at college.

The daughter had provided me with her phone number, so she was the first person I contacted. She began to cry when she realized it was The Time is Now to Help calling about helping her mother. She said, I have been so worried about my mom and sisters. I was almost thinking of not going. I reassured her that this would not be necessary. We together would work on a solution to get her mothers budget back on track.

We spoke for a while and the daughter filled me in on additional details, including her mothers new job she would begin in several weeks and one of her sisters having an emergency dental visit that put them even further behind. She said, Make sure you ask my mom about that because Im not sure how much she will tell you. She is very proud. I told her I too grew up with a proud mother but that is not always the best for the children. There had been many times I went hungry or did without because no one knew we were suffering due to poverty.

We ended our call, and I made my next call to the mother. The mother answered immediately and once I told her who I was she asked, You are the man my daughter wrote a letter to? I confirmed who I was, and we began a long conversation. I made sure I asked detailed questions when the mother seemed to be making light of her daughters concerns. I told her about my own mother and how many times I went hungry due to her pride. This seemed to reach her as she began to cry saying, I tried to hide how bad things were from my oldest daughter, but she always knew when I was struggling to keep up. I didnt want us to be her responsibility. She needs to go to college and follow her dreams.

I told the mother that we would work on a plan together, so her daughter did not have to feel like she had to worry or help support her mother and siblings. We began to go over her budget and this time the mother did not make light of their financial situation.

After a thorough review I was relieved to see that with the mothers new job beginning soon and a generous sign-on bonus, going forward she would be able to support herself and the two youngest children. We would pay her overdue rent and utilities that were caused when she had to use those funds to pay the dentist for the two teeth filled for the middle daughter. We also would have her car repaired to ensure she had safe transportation to and from her new job. We would provide grocery gift cards to help in the short term with their food insecurity. We also provided gift cards for school supplies and shoes.

When I went over the list of assistance the mother again burst into tears, asking, How can I thank you? I answered, Just promise me that if you ever need help again, you will ask. Do not wait until your daughters are going hungry or you are risking losing your home or transportation. Dont be too proud to ask for help. Through her tears she made that promise.

Thank You and God Bless You for making our assistance possible.

Health & Happiness, Love & GOD Bless Everyone, Sal

Please Help: There are many coming to us in desperation. Our good fellow creations need our compassion. Together we make a big difference. Make checks payable to: The Time Is Now to Help, P.O. Box 1, Lake Geneva, WI 53147. The Time Is Now to Help is a federally recognized 5013 charitable organization licensed in the states of Wisconsin and Illinois. You will receive a tax deductible, itemized thank you receipt showing how your donation provided assistance for the poverty stricken. Please visit our website for more information or to make a donation: www.timeisnowtohelp.org

A Very Special Thank You: Jeff Martin, Lake Geneva Area Realty, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Schuberth, Kunes Country Auto Group, Martin Group, John Stensland and family, Paul Ziegler, Ziegler Charitable Foundation, Hometown Auto Exchange, United Way of Walworth County, Kathleen and Brian Hurdis Charitable Fund, Leroy and Barbara Madsen, Dan Duesterbeck, Mike Duesterbeck, James and Shari Loback, Ellen Flanagan, James and Constance Van Patten, Aileen Hodges, Doris Wiechmann, Beth and Jody Rendall, Gerald and Marilyn Wilkin, Shawn and Donna McLafferty, Donald and Anne Ogne, Stephen and Lois McPartlin, all of our anonymous donors and ALL of you who support The Time Is Now to Help donation boxes. Anyone who would like a Time Is Now donation box in your business, please call (262) 249-7000.

Memorials: The following donations were made in memory of Daryl Peck: Peggy Cardiff, Wayne and Carol Amborn, Lorna Klein and Dirk Daniels. Prayer Chain: The power of prayer and positive thoughts comes from the true healer, our Lord answering our prayers.

Please pray for healing for the following people: Brian, Talyn, Mike, Sylvia, Richard, Jennifer, Jayden, Maria C., Alex, Lily, Kaitlyn, Sheila, Rhonda, Deda Lee, Betty, Marilyn, Helen, Dennis, Mary, Joseph, Jordan, Jean, Tom L., Dr. Peter, Alyce, Matthew, Pam E., Jenene B., John S., Patricia H., Darlene, Ron K., Marian K., Judy, Wendy, Eric, Anthony, Mary, Charlie, Tom P., Christina, Billy, Mike, Cheryl, and Ellie.
Srinagar, Sep 11 (PTI) Police in Srinagar on Sunday advised residents to take precautions and stay indoors after a wild bear and its cub were seen roaming in the city, officials said here.

The bears were first spotted in Rajbagh and then in Lal Mandi, where they reportedly injured a person, the officials said.

Also Read | Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao to Soon Launch National Party.

Efforts to trap the bears are underway but the forest department personnel haven't been able to locate them yet, they said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Gurugram, September 11: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would probe Sonali Phogat's death if the family is not satisfied with the Goa police's investigation.

While talking to mediapersons in Haryana, Khattar said, "We had asked for a CBI probe in writing but they've stated that first Goa would complete their own investigation and if the family is not satisfied with it, the investigation will be handed over to CBI."

Earlier today, a Khap Mahapanchayat was held in Hisar demanding a CBI inquiry into the death of Sonal Phogat.Amid the ongoing stir in Sonali Phogat's death case, the police on Friday confirmed that the profile was being reviewed at senior levels and had said that a charge sheet will be filed on objective grounds.

"It is being reviewed at senior levels. We're confident of filing a charge sheet on objective grounds after remand. Will ensure nothing is left out of the investigation," North Goa SP Shobit Saxena had said. Sonali Phogat Murder Case: Supreme Court Stays Demolition of Curlies Restaurant in Goa, Where BJP Leader Was Drugged.

He further stressed that the police of the western state has a zero-tolerance policy against illicit activities."Goa police has zero tolerance towards illicit drug-related activities, had record seizures of illegal drugs in past few years. Action to be taken against those who supply, consume, stock or allow their premises to be used for drug consumption," he had added.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had stayed the demolition of Curlies restaurant in Goa soon after its demolition began on Friday on the subject to the condition that no commercial activities will take place there.This was the same restaurant in Goa where actor and BJP leader Sonali Phogat was allegedly drugged and was later declared dead.

The demolition action against the restaurant began after its owner failed to get any respite from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). On Thursday, NGT had upheld the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority's previous order to demolish the shack. The actor was pronounced dead on August 23 at the St Anthony Hospital in Anjuna, North Goa.A heavy police force has been deployed outside the Curlies restaurant.

"We are providing police protection for the demolition. As per the order, it is being demolished," DYSP Jivba Dalvi had said. Expressing dissatisfaction over the probe by the Goa Police into the death case of Sonali Phogat, her family will approach the Goa High Court demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter.

Sonali Phogat's family had met Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in connection with the case and had demanded a CBI probe. The Chief Minister had assured of the CBI investigation.However, being dissatisfied with the ongoing investigation, the family decided to go to Goa High Court with their demand.

Speaking to ANI, Vikas Singh, Sonali Phogat's nephew, who is also an advocate in his family said that they have written to Chief Justice of India UU Lalit for a CBI inquiry, and will approach the Goa High Court with a writ petition by Friday if they are not satisfied with the answer of the top court.

Earlier, Goa Police had said that Sonali Phogat was forcibly drugged by her two associates who were arrested after being named as accused in the case.

Haryana Police detained a man after the family accused him of taking a laptop and mobile from the farmhouse of the deceased BJP leader. Sonali Phogat Murder Case: Supreme Court Stays Demolition of Curlies Restaurant in Goa.

Haryana Police has recovered the items following which the questioning is underway. Sonali Phogat who rose to fame with her TikTok videos contested the 2019 Haryana election as a BJP candidate but lost to then Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi (he has since joined the BJP). She also appeared in the reality show Bigg Boss in 2020.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Nashik, Sep 11 (PTI) Bharatiya Janata Party's Maharashtra unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday said that "clock", which is Nationalist Congress Party's poll symbol, will stop working in Baramati in the 2024 general elections as his party would wrest the seat.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

He also said that NCP chief Sharad Pawar has not done any favour by carrying out the development of Baramati, his hometown, as it was his "duty" to do so since he got elected from there for decades.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

"Baramati constituency is in Maharashtra. Therefore, like other seats, the BJP has focused its attention there. I will visit Braramati every three months now. In 2024, the 'clock' will stop in Baramati for sure. We have won Amethi, now we can win Baramati," Bawankule said during an interaction with editors and selected journalists here.

"If Sharad Pawar has carried out development in Baramati, he has not done any favours. If he was elected from there for 40 years, it was his duty to develop the constituency," he added.

Baramati in Pune district has been the stronghold of Sharad Pawar who had represented the constituency multiple times, including his days in the Indian National Congress. His daughter Supriya Sule is the sitting MP and nephew Ajit Pawar is the MLA.

The BJP has launched a campaign to boost the party's base in more than 140 Lok Sabha constituencies across the country including Baramati and 15 other seats in Maharashtra.

During his Baramati tour last week, the state BJP chief had said that his party and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena combine will win the constituency in the 2024 elections along with more than 45 out of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra.

Bawankule denied that senior Congress leader and former state chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was in touch with the BJP.

"Prithviraj Chavan is not getting the right treatment in his party. As he has spoken against some wrong things in his party, he has been made to sit in the fourth-fifth row even in the state legislature.

"This kind of treatment given to a former chief minister is not right. This does not happen in BJP. However, as Chavan is unhappy and he has criticised his party, it does not mean that he is in contact with the BJP," Bawankule said.

Later in the day, Bawankule said during a programme that Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis should lead the state as the chief minister in future.

"In future, Fadnavis should lead as the chief minister of the state...Fadnavis is a loyal and able activist (of the party). We should salute his leadership and therefore, he should lead the state in future," he said during the programme.

He was replying to a remark made earlier by NCP office-bearer Gajanan Shelar that Bawankule should lead the state as the chief minister.

(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], September 11 (ANI): Maneka Gambhir, the sister-in-law of Trinamool Congress national general secretary and party MP Abhishek Banerjee, was stopped at Kolkata airport and not allowed to take her flight to Bangkok by Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials on Saturday night.

Gambhir was sent back to home with a summon to join the investigation on Monday, sources told ANI.

Also Read | Thane: Five Booked in Dombivili for Cheating Online Service Providers of More Than Rs 2.6 Lakh Through Fake Aadhaar Cards.

This is the third summon by ED issued to Gambhir.

Earlier she challenged the ED to summon in Calcutta High Court and was allowed to appear at ED's office at the Central Government Office (CGO) at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata, instead of appearing in New Delhi.

Also Read | UP Shocker: Man Bludgeons Wife to Death With Frying Pan for Refusing To Cook in Noida, Held.

On Saturday when Gambhir reached Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata to catch a flight to Bangkok but on reaching the immigration counter, she was stopped and escorted to another room.

Immigration officials informed to ED officials about her, as a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against Ganbhir by the federal probe agency. ED officials denied giving her permission to travel to Bangkok. She was handed over a summon by Assistant Enforcement Officer to appear before him on Monday. After that Gambhir left for her residence.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) originally took over the investigation of the coal smuggling case by registering a case in November 2020. Later, the ED was roped in the investigation process to probe the money laundering angle. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Indore, Sep 11 (PTI) A fire broke out on the fourth floor of the Indore Development Authority's (IDA) building situated on Racecourse Road on Sunday night, police said.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

No casualties are reported, an official said, adding that details are awaited.

MG road police station in charge Kamlesh Sharma told PTI the blaze erupted at the New India Assurance Company's office on the fourth floor of the IDA building around 7.30 PM.

Two fire tenders rushed to the spot and fire-fighting operations are going on, Sharma said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Jowai (Meghalaya) [India], September 11 (ANI): Four out of six criminals who recently escaped from the Jowai jail in Meghalaya, were lynched to death by a mob at Shangpung village in West Jaintia Hills district on Sunday.

"The bodies will be taken to hospital and after that, identification of the bodies will come to know," the Meghalaya DGP LP Bishnoi said.

Also Read | Redmi 6A Smartphone Exploded Near Her Face While Sleeping, Claims YouTuber MD Talk YT, Xiaomi Probing Incident.

Earlier on Saturday, six prisoners escaped from Jowai district jail after overpowering the jail staff.

"The criminals who escaped from the jail are- I Love You Talang, Ramesh Dkhar, Marsanki Tariang, Rikmenlang Lamare, Shidorki Dkhar and Lodestar Tang," DGP Bishnoi said.

Also Read | Rajasthan Rains: 7 Killed, 4 Injured in Lightning Strikes in Jhalawar, Udaipur Districts.

Ramesh Dkhar was arrested along with I Love You Talang in a twin murder case.

More details are awaited. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Baramulla (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], September 11 (ANI): Former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday said that he will announce a new party in ten days.

Addressing a meeting in Baramulla, Azad said, "We will announce a new party in ten days".

Also Read | Chhattisgarh: Man Shaves Beard After 21 Years Following Announcement of Manendragarh-Chirmiri-Bharatpur as New District (Watch Video).

Earlier, Azad, in his first public meeting in Jammu after quitting Congress, had announced to launch of his own political outfit that will focus on the restoration of full statehood.

"I've not decided upon a name for my party yet. The people of J-K will decide the name and the flag for the party. I'll give a Hindustani name to my party that everyone can understand," he said at the rally after breaking away from his five-decade-long association with the grand old party.

Also Read | Queen Elizabeth II Dies: Royal Beekeeper Informs Bees at Buckingham Palace of Queen's Demise, Says "Queen Is Dead, but Don't You Go'.

"My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile," he added then.

Azad said that the first unit of his political outfit would be formed in Jammu and Kashmir in view of impending assembly polls.

"My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile," he added.

He lashed out at Congress and said that people are trying to defame us (me and my supporters who left the party) but their reach is limited to computer tweets.

Criticising the party, Azad said, "Congress was made by us by our blood, not by computers, not by Twitter. People are trying to defame us but their reach is limited to computers and tweets. That is the reason Congress is nowhere to be seen on the ground."

The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister held his first public meeting at Sainik Colony in Jammu.

"I thank everyone who supported me through their resignations, WhatsApp messages and other mediums from across the country since I resigned from the party. I have served the Congress party holding every position for last 53 years, but never received this much of love even when I am not on any position," Azad said.

Taking a jibe at Congress, Azad said that people from Congress now go to jail in buses, call DGP or Commissioners, get their names written, and leave within an hour. This is the reason Congress has been unable to grow.

Azad resigned from the all-party post last week. Notably, he has been Chief Minister of J-K from 2005 to 2008.

In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, he had targeted party leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, over the way the party has been run in the past nearly nine years.

In the hard-hitting five-page letter, Azad had claimed that a coterie runs the party while Sonia Gandhi was just "a nominal head" and all the major decisions were taken by "Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs".

Azad had said he was submitting his resignation with "great regret and an extremely leaden heart" and severing his 50-year association with the Congress. He was earlier Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

Recounting his long association with the Congress, Azad had said the situation in the party has reached a point of "no return."

While Azad took potshots at Sonia Gandhi in the letter, his sharpest attack was on Rahul Gandhi and he described the Wayand MP as a "non-serious individual" and "immature". (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Mumbai, Sep 11 (PTI) Six Sudanese nationals were arrested for trying to smuggle 12 kg gold worth Rs 5.4 crore following their arrival at the international airport here, an official said on Sunday.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

The incident occurred on Saturday, he said.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

The air intelligence unit (AIU) of Mumbai Customs, led by deputy commissioner Manudev Jain, seized the gold from a group of Sudanese passengers, who arrived at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in an Emirates flight from Dubai on Saturday, the official said.

"The accused gathered and attempted to clear the smuggled gold by creating a ruckus to distract the AIU officers. However, the officers in a well-coordinated operation recovered 12 gold bars weighing one kg each that were concealed in a specially-designed belt worn by one of the Sudanese passengers," he said.

Five other Sudanese, who were hostile and aggressive to divert the attention of AIU officers, were arrested along with the one carrying the gold, the official said.

Six other Sudanese passengers, who added to the commotion by constantly resisting the checking procedure, were sent to their country of origin with a permanent ban from entering India, he said.

The six arrested accused have been booked under relevant sections of the Customs Act and produced in a court, which remanded them in 14-day judicial custody, the official added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kangra, September 11: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jairam Thakur on Sunday launched multiple developmental projects worth Rs 148.68 crores in the Sulah assembly constituency of the Kangra district.

The developmental projects include Rs 16.80 crore double lane bridge over Neugal khud on Bairghatta- Duhak road, Rs 10.07 crore lift water supply scheme for Kona Pihadi, Duhak Dhaniyara, Bhedi Paprola, Dali Bhalunder and Lahdu Sadda villages under Palampur tehsil, Rs 4.25 crore flow irrigation scheme Bada Beas.

He also performed the foundation laying ceremony of Pharmacy College Sulah to be constructed at a cost of Rs 70 crore and the ITI building at Kouna. Addressing on the occasion, the Chief Minister exuded confidence in retaining power in the upcoming assembly polls scheduled this year.

"The present government would retain power and start its succeeding term in the state, on the basis of record developmental works done during its five years term," he said. "Despite the challenges of COVID pandemic, the state had progressed in all developmental sectors and ensured the welfare of all sections of society," the Chief Minister added. Himachal Pradesh to Get Special Status Under Centre's Guidance, Says Anurag Thakur.

Paying gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre Government for according in principle sanction to set up Bulk Drug Pharma Park in district Una, with an investment of Rs 1,200 crore, Chief Minister said it would go a long way for not only generating the employment avenues to the youths of state but also strengthening the economy.

Terming the global investors meet as a key factor for transforming the state into an investor-friendly hub, he said that this meet had attracted investment to the tune of Rs 96,721 crore so far.

"First groundbreaking ceremony was organized amounting to Rs 13,488 crore whereas second groundbreaking ceremony figured at Rs 28,197 crore," he added. Thakur said that under the leadership of PM Modi, the state was heading towards progress and prosperity.

"Medical Device Park is also being set up at Nalagarh with an investment of over Rs 349 crore. This Park would generate more than 10 thousand job opportunities," he said. Chief Minister said, at the time of the formation of Himachal Pradesh, there were only four districts whereas today it has 12 districts.

"In 1948, the per capita income in the state was only Rs 240 which had now increased to Rs 2,01,873 and the literacy rate of the state had gone up to 83 per cent which was 4.8 per cent in 1948. There were only 228 km roads in the State in 1948, whereas today the road network of nearly 40,000 km is connecting even far-flung areas of the state," he said.

He said that HIMCARE, Sahara Yojna, Mukhya Mantri Grihini Suvidha Yojna and Shagun Yojna had provided relief to the needy and poor. "50 per cent concession had been provided to women passengers in HRTC buses and 125 units free power was also being provided to the domestic consumers. More than 14 lakhs such consumers have benefitted as they had to pay nothing for domestic power consumption," he said.

"Water supply tariff has also been waived off in rural areas. Under the social security pension schemes, over 3 lakhs new pension cases were sanctioned by the state government. The state government has provided the benefit of pensions to 7,20,514 beneficiaries by spending Rs 3,052 crore," Thakur added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Raipur (Chhattisgarh) [India], September 11 (ANI): Hitting out at BJP chief JP Nadda for levelling allegations of killings of 71 tribals in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday alleged that "it is possible that he(Nadda) is making conspiracy of such an incident to occur and if there is a conspiracy being hatched then he should disclose beforehand."

Reacting to Nadda's claim that 71 tribals have been killed in Chhattisgarh, the Chief Minister said, "I haven't heard of it or it is possible that he(Nadda) is making conspiracy of such an incident to occur and if there is a conspiracy being hatched then he should disclose beforehand - maybe this is in his mind? He has no match in conspiracy theories anyway. No such incidents happened in Chhattisgarh. During his reign, villagers, political leaders and youth died, so he is an expert in telling white lies, and should apologize to the people of Chhattisgarh and tribals. Whatever incident he was narrating, did not occur. How could he speak such a big lie?"

Also Read | West Bengal Shocker: Engineering Students Body With Throat Slit Found in Birbhum; One Arrested.

Further countering the allegation of the BJP chief that since the Congress came to power in the state there has been no development but "only corruption is taking place", Bhagel said, "Former CM Raman Singh and Rajesh Munat are symbols of corruption They have been taking commissions for skywalk project. The government wants to demolish the skywalk."

He said that BJP promised farmers to give Rs 300 bonus during its tenure but it was not given to them as all the money went into skywalk.

Also Read | West Bengal: ED Officials Recover Rs 17.32 Crore From Kolkata Businessman's Residence, Accused Aamir Khan Goes Untraceable.

Highlighting the work of his government in the state, the Chief Minister said, "Now in our government, we have waived farmers' loans and providing MSP proving the benefit of Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana, Rajiv Gandhi Bhoomihin Krishi Majdoor Nyay Yojana and Godhan Nyaya Yojana. We are also buying minor forest produce at MSP so that money goes to the common people. Whether he is a tribal or farmer, labourer or scheduled tribe, money is going into everyone's pocket. They can't stand this. The people who are calling the such thing "revdi" then the one who waived off the loans of 10 people worth Rs 10 lakh crore is "rabri"," he said while apparently attacking the BJP ruled Centre.

Baghel also announced to start the Chief Minister's Govansh Mobile Medical Scheme.

"The way we started Urban Slum Health Scheme in cities and Haat Bazaar clinic scheme in villages, in the same way, we will be bringing a Govansh Mobile Medical Scheme. Under the scheme, the mobile medical unit will go door-to-door to treat animals," he said.

The Chief Minister said that the arrangements will be made available whether it is a cow, a buffalo or a goat.

"Several times animals met with accidents that happened because of speeding vehicles. These animals will also be treated under this scheme. Like people call for 112 in the same way we will arrange something so that the team reaches them," he added.

Addressing a convention of booth-level party workers in Chhattisgarh's capital Raipur, Nadda claimed that 71 tribals were killed in Chhattisgarh two days ago.

"71 of our tribal brothers were killed here and Bhupesh Baghel ji was clapping with Rahul Gandhi in Kerala," Nadda said.

Nadda arrived in Raipur on Friday morning. He was welcomed by BJP leaders and workers at the airport. Further, he held a roadshow with party leaders and workers.

Nadda's visit also comes at a time when political activity across the country is increasing.

The Congress continued its 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', led by party MP Rahul Gandhi.

A 3,500-km march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir will be undertaken by Rahul Gandhi which will be completed in 150 days and cover as many as 12 states.

After reaching Kerala on September 11, the Yatra will traverse through the state for the next 18 days, reaching Karnataka on September 30. It will be in Karnataka for 21 days before moving north. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Hyderabad, Sep 11 (PTI) Ending speculations, Telangana Rashtra Samithi President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday said he would launch a national party following more discussions with a cross-section of society.

Seeking to provide a national alternative to the dominant BJP and the Congress party, that is attempting at a bounce back, the TRS said it would reach a consensus on "alternative national agenda," by continuing discussions with various stakeholders.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

Rao made it clear that the launch of the party and formulation of policies would follow extended discussions with intellectuals, economists and experts from various fields.

Earlier in the day, former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy called on Rao and discussions were on the contours of the proposed outfit.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

The move takes forward Rao's "BJP-mukt Bharat" (BJP-free India) pitch and follows deliberations with several leaders belonging to parties other than the BJP and Congress.

An official release from Rao's office said that discussions preceded with a cross-section of society similar to initiatives ahead of the launch of the movement to seek a separate state of Telangana and such deliberations would continue.

"Very soon, the formation of a national party and formulation of its policies will take place," the release said.

Kumaraswamy welcomed KCR's proposed national party and hoped that the Telangana Chief Minister would play a key role in the country's politics, it further said.

'Bharat Rashtriya Samiti' (BRS), 'Ujwal Bharat Party' and 'Naya Bharat Party' were among the names that reportedly cropped up recently in the TRS circles for the proposed national outfit. However, there was no official confirmation.

Rao, who has been blaming the saffron party's government at the Centre for the "ills" plaguing the country, has been batting for a vibrant role for Telangana in national politics.

The BJP in Telangana has been working aggressively to take on the ruling TRS and the saffron party emerged as a force to reckon with in Hyderabad municipal polls. It also managed to win two Assembly bypolls (including Huzurabad) while the TRS won the other two. The BJP leaders have also been touring Telangana vigorously.

The TRS, in its Foundation Day event in April this year, adopted a resolution that the party should play "the key role in national politics" in the wider interest of the country as the BJP is exploiting "communal sentiments" for its political convenience.

Rao has in recent past met several non-BJP and non-Congress opposition leaders, including Nitish Kumar, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Hemant Soren.

During such discussions, topics like BJP's alleged anti-people policies and bringing about a "qualitative change in the country" came up.

Recently the presidents of TRS district units called on Rao, also known as KCR, and nudged him to take the "national politics plunge" to put an end to BJP's "anti-people rule" at the Centre.

Kumaraswamy, in a tweet, said KCR expressed the need to build a "parallel political front" vis-a-vis national political parties.

The JD(S) leader assured to stand with him and wished good luck to the new front.

"Elderly Statesman Sri KCR said that he will take a plunge into national politics around 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections and before Vijayadashami festival," he said in another tweet.

Kumaraswamy and Rao discussed the development of Telangana and the role of regional parties in national politics. Also, the deliberation was on the key role that KCR should play in national politics in the present situation, the release from Rao's office said.

The JD(S) leader said the country urgently needed a senior leader like Rao, considering the "space for an alternative" in the current national politics, according to the release.

KCR apprised Kumaraswamy that there is "increasing pressure" on him to enter national politics and lead the country like he did for Telangana.

Both the leaders opined that the people have formed an opinion that the Congress is not a strong alternative to the BJP. The public have lost faith in the leadership of the grand old party, the release stated.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Hyderabad, Sep 11 (PTI) Former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday met his Telangana counterpart and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao here amid speculation on the latter launching a national party.

Also Read | 7th Pay Commission Latest News: DA Hike Announcement For Central Govt Employees Likely on This Date.

Both the leaders had a luncheon meeting at KCR's official residence Pragathi Bhavan, official sources said.

Also Read | Earthquake in Papua New Guinea: 3 Dead After 7.6 Quake Hits Remote Part of PNG.

Kumaraswamy and Rao discussed the development of Telangana, the role of regional parties in national politics, the key role that KCR should play in the national politics in the present situation and other national political issues, an official release said.

The JD(S) leader met TRS working president and Minister KT Rama Rao.

During the meeting, we discussed issues related to Karnataka & Telangana States besides key national issues. I am overwhelmed by the hospitality & camaraderie extended by KTR, Kumaraswamy tweeted.

Rao, who recently met his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar in Patna, called for a "BJP-mukt Bharat", (BJP-free India) blaming the saffron party's government at the Centre for the many ills plaguing the country. In his recent public meetings, he has spoken about Telangana playing a vibrant role in national politics.

In May, Rao had called on JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister HD Devegowda at his residence in Bengaluru and held discussions on various issues.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Puducherry [India], September 11 (ANI): Chief Justice of India, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit expressed hope that judicial posts will be adorned by a large number of women very soon.

Lalit was addressing a function of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Dr Ambedkar Government Law College in Puducherry on Saturday.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

The CJI Lalit said, "Five states, including Orissa, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, already have more women at the induction level in the judiciary."

Giving an example, he said 129 out of 180 judges in Rajasthan at induction-level are women, and in Odisha and Jharkhand the number is huge.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

During his address, he also referred to the appeal of Lieutenant Governor Tamilisai Sundarraj in which he had said that women should come forward in large numbers to study law and also demand more women judges.

"I consider the Supreme Court the mother of the country and I always believed in it. You learn a lot from the institution," the CJI said.

Talking about his family background, he said that he was the only judge in his family who was practising law, but his future family members were also practising the profession.

"I learned Sanskrit from my grandfather and wrote Shubhashital and Sanskrit. My grandfather role in my life is tremendous," he further said.

He also said that Law Colleges should teach adjudicatory functions to their students because it will train them to enter into Judiciary at the earliest.

Earlier Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari, Chief Justice of Madras High Court said that seven Puducherry Law College alumni are presently working in Madras High Court as Judges.

Supreme Court Judges V. Ramasubramanian, M. M. Sundaresh, Madras High court judges, and judges from various Courts, Lt. Governor of Puducherry Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan, and Chief Minister N. Rangasamy and his ministers were present at the function.

Notably, Lalit was sworn in as 49th Chief Justice of India on August 27. Justice Lalit will have a brief tenure of 74 days as the head of India's judiciary and would demit office on 8 November.

Justice Lalit will be the second CJI who was directly elevated to the Supreme Court bench from the Bar. Justice SM Sikri became the 13th CJI in January 1971 and was the first lawyer to be promoted directly to the top court bench in March 1964. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Sheopur, (Madhya Pradesh) [India], September 11 (ANI): Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav and Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar visited Kuno National Park on Sunday to inspect the area where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit and reintroduce cheetahs on September 17.

Also Read | 1,200 Gifts Received by PM Narendra Modi to Be Auctioned From September 17, Proceeds to Go for Namami Ganga Project.

Speaking to ANI at Kuno National Park, Bhupendra Yadav said, "The day is marked as the martyrdom of the forest personnel. Many people are engaged in forest protection and work across the country despite facing many challenges in adverse conditions. In order to increase work efficiency, we have also been working and a committee was constituted by the ministry also."

Yadav further told ANI that cheetahs are returning to the country on September 17. Cheetahs to Arrive in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park from Namibia on September 17; Shivraj Singh Chouhan Inspects Site Ahead Of PM Modi's Visit

"This is the first of its kind project in the world where wild cheetahs are being re-introduced. The project will go on for 5 years. PM Modi would grace the occasion of re-introduction and we are very thankful to Prime Minister for accepting our invitation," Yadav said.

Appreciating Shivraj Singh Chouhan, he said that the state government has co-operated with the Centre for completing this project.

"When scientists came here from South Africa and from Namibia, they got full cooperation and support from the Government of Madhya Pradesh to conduct scientific investigations" Union minister added.

Speaking on the same, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that September 17 is going to be a historic day for the state.

"Cheetah which had gone extinct not just from India but from the Asian continent is being re-introduced in presence of PM Modi. Cheetahs are being transported from Africa," CM Chouhan said.

Under the ambitious project of the Indian government - Project Cheetah - the reintroduction of wild species particularly cheetah is being undertaken as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines.

Project Cheetah is an ambitious project undertaken by the government which aims to re-establish the species in its historical range in the country.

India has a long history of wildlife conservation. One of the most successful wildlife conservation ventures 'Project Tiger' which was initiated way back in 1972, has not only contributed to the conservation of tigers but also to the entire ecosystem.

In continuation, the reintroduction of the cheetah which we have lost recently is one step ahead and a milestone in the history of wildlife conservation in India. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Mumbai, Sep 11 (PTI) A 58-year-old self-styled godman was arrested on Sunday for allegedly raping a woman from the time she was a minor, a Mumbai police official said.

Also Read | Haryana Shocker: Man Allegedly Robs His Own Parents in Haryana, Missing With Wife; Father Lodges Complaint.

The family of the victim had come in contact with Suresh Kumar Ravindra Narayan Awasthi after being told about his "divine" powers by some acquaintances, the Versova police station official said.

Also Read | Indian Air Force Carries Out Post Midnight Mission To Evacuate Injured BSF Jawan From Krishnanagar in Nadia.

"On the pretext of rituals, he raped the victim several times since 2019 (when she was a minor), clicked objectionable photographs of her and continued to sexually attack her by threatening to upload these pictures on the internet," he said.

After she recently told her parents about her ordeal, the family approached police. he said.

Awasthi, an information technology professional, was arrested on Sunday for rape and other offences under Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act provisions, the official said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Mumbai, Sep 11 (PTI) Mumbai Police have arrested a 28-year-old school peon on charges of sexually harassing and stalking a minor student in the school premises in south Mumbai, an official said on Sunday.

Also Read | The #Karnataka Police Have Arrested Four Nomads and Seized 1,132 Star #turtles in the   Latest Tweet by IANS India.

The offence came to light after the 15-year-old girl's parents observed changes in her behaviour and contacted the convent where she studied, he said.

On September 5, the peon found the girl alone and allegedly touched her inappropriately. Since then, the accused had stopped reporting to the school, located in Gamdevi area, the official said.

Also Read | MCA Crackdown on Chinese Shell Companies in India, SFIO Arrests Mastermind Mr Dortse.

The school subsequently submitted a complaint at Gamdevi police station, he said.

The peon allegedly harassed the student multiple times in the school premises. The accused had also made a video call on the girl's mobile number, the official said.

An FIR was registered against the accused on Friday under Indian Penal Code Sections 354-A (sexual harassment) and 354-D (stalking), and relevant provisions of the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Information Technology Act, he said.

The police subsequently launched a manhunt and with the help of technical inputs, they nabbed the accused from Virar in neighbouring Palghar district on Friday, the official said.

The accused was later produced before a court which remanded him in police custody till September 14, he said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, Sep 11 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tributes to Vinoba Bhave, an ardent Gandhian who had launched the Bhoodan movement, on his birth anniversary.

His life was a manifestation of Gandhian principles, Modi tweeted.

Also Read | UP Shocker: Man Cuts Off Friend's Genitals After He Threatens to Share Their Intimate Videos Online in Bareilly.

The prime minister also recalled the "special connection" September 11 has with Swami Vivekananda, noting that the renowned spiritual figure had delivered his famous speech in Chicago on this day in 1893.

Sharing the speech on Twitter, Modi said, "It was on this day in 1893 that he delivered one of his most outstanding speeches in Chicago. His address gave the world a glimpse of India's culture and ethos."

Also Read | Queen Elizabeth II Dies: India Mourns Royal Queen's Demise, National Flags Fly at Half-Mast (See Pics).

The speech at the World's Parliament of Religions is celebrated for Swami Vivekananda's impressive articulation of India's cultural ethos and its ancient values while underlining its philosophical acceptance of the truth guiding every religion.

Paying tributes to Bhave, who was born in 1895, Modi said, "His life was a manifestation of Gandhian principles. He was passionate about social empowerment and gave the clarion call of 'Jai Jagat.' We are inspired by his ideals and are committed to realising his dreams for our nation."

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], September 11 (ANI): The Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra continued on day 5 as it started its Kerala leg, which would last 19 days, on Sunday.

Rahul Gandhi who is leading the march, early this morning halted at a tea shop in Kunnathuvila near Udayankulamgara on the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari National Highway.

Also Read | Ludhiana Shocker: Woman, Lover Murder Her Husband, Try To Pass It Off As Cardiac Arrest; Booked.

Gandhi stopped at the shop while he was taking a break. The owner of the shop Stanly was pleasantly surprised to see the Congress leader stepping into his shop.

Stanly said that he had heard of the passing of the foot march through his shop's route, however, it was beyond his expectation that Gandhi would stop at his shop for snacks.

Also Read | Ghulam Nabi Azad Says He Does Not Promise Restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in His New Political Agenda.

Narrating the incident, the owner of the shop told ANI, "I was quite surprised when a VIP guest entered my shop and had tea and snacks. I heard that Rahul Gandhi's yatra was passing through this way. But it was quite unexpected for me that Rahul visited my shop. I was also waiting in the shop watching the padayatra."

He was happy about the gesture by Gandhi after the Congress leader asked him for a picture while leaving the shop.

"Five minutes before Rahul Gandhi reached here, a man came and told us that Rahul Gandhi would come here to have tea and asked me to clean the table. He entered the shop and his security blocked the road. Rahul Gandhi had tea, snacks, biscuits and banana. He asked for an extra tea. I was alone in the shop. After having tea, he invited me to take photos. I called my wife too," he said.

He said that he was elated after Gandhi asked to take pictures and said that it was for the first time that a leader had visited his shop.

"He was very happy and took photos with me. This is the first time that a great leader visited my shop. It was unexpected," he said.

The Congress leaders reached Parassala, a small town located near the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The 3,500-km march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir will be completed in 150 days and cover as many as 12 states.

From Kerala, the Yatra will traverse through the state for the next 18 days, reaching Karnataka on September 30. It will be in Karnataka for 21 days before moving north. The Padyatra (march) will cover a distance of 25 km every day.

According to Congress, the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' is being held to combat the divisive politics of the BJP-led Centre and to awaken the people of the country to the dangers of economic inequalities, social polarisation and political centralisation. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Mumbai, Sep 11 (PTI) Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray has dared the rebel MLAs who have joined the faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to resign and face elections.

Also Read | Delhi Police Van Rams Into Scooty, Injures Two Women; Victim Accuse Police of Destroying Evidence.

Speaking at an event, the Worli MLA hinted that housing, quality education, healthcare, roads, and public transport will be the "focus areas" of Shiv Sena in the upcoming elections to the Mumbai civic body.

Also Read | Rename Rajasthan as Kartavyasthan: Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor on Renaming Rajpath as Kartavya Path.

Why did you backstab us when we gave you everything and why have you not resigned yet to face elections as it happens in a democracy, the former state minister asked while speaking at the CNN-News18 Town Hall on Saturday night.

Aaditya dismissed claims by the dissidents that he and his father Uddhav Thackeray, who was the chief minister in the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi government, remained inaccessible. He also denied that Shiv Sena's succession plan was meant to favour him.

I have always been around. I was allotted the portfolios (Environment and Tourism) that no one opts for otherwise. But when you have ambitions and pressure that can't be spoken of, you jump the ship, he said.

The rebellion by Shinde and 39 of the 55 MLAs of Shiv Sena led to the collapse of the tripartite MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray in June this year.

They (rebels) shifted the goalpost left, right and centre. They blamed our allies (NCP and Congress) for ruining their political fortunes. They spoke about Hindutva.... Tomorrow they may blame me for wearing a blue shirt every single day, Aaditya said.

He challenged the Shinde camp and the Bharatiya Janat Party (BJP), which is part of the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government, to face elections immediately.

Let's face the BMC election now, no problem. Resign and face elections. We will accept the public mandate. Mumbaikars know what we have done for the city during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

The BJP has launched an aggressive campaign for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Council (BMC) elections against the Shiv Sena, which has been ruling the civic body for over two decades.

Listing the works done by the then Uddhav Thackeray government, Aaditya said: The Hindmata region and Gandhi market area in Mumbai did not flood this year (in monsoon) due to the rainwater harvesting and percolation pits created by us. This is a proud moment for the BMC as well.

He said Mumbai's progress rate must not be compared with Shanghai or Singapore.

Speaking about the main issues in Mumbai, he said,  Cities are growth centres and it is up to us to promote the ease of living and define what urbanism is. I think our main focus areas would be housing, quality education, healthcare, roads and public transport.

Aaditya also spoke about how Shiv Sena tackled civic issues when in power.

I used to hold meetings every week with 16 different agencies for the betterment of schools, parks, and the coastal road. In my opinion, either make a single authority for Mumbai or simply just get together and take swift action, he added.

Speaking about Shiv Sena's opposition to the construction of the metro car shed in Mumbai's green lung Aarey Colony, Aaditya said the issue is not just about a particular land or trees.

"It is a living, breathing forest. We only stopped the work at Aarey. There are some faults with that line. Rs 10,000 crore escalation in cost was assessed before December 2019 (the MVA government came to power in November 2019)," he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had alleged the previous MVA government's move to stop work at the Aarey Colony had led to the escalation of cost.

Reversing the previous government's decision to shift the metro car shed to suburban Kanjurmarg and restoring it to the Aarey Colony was one of the first decisions taken by the new government.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) [India], September 11 (ANI): Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will hold its meeting today in Ayodhya to discuss the progress of the construction of the Ram Temple.

The meeting will be held at the Circuit House. Eleven members of Ram Janmabhoomi Trust reached Ayodhya for the meeting. Nipendra Mishra, chairman of the building construction committee, will also attend the meeting of the trust.

Also Read | Ludhiana Shocker: Woman, Lover Murder Her Husband, Try To Pass It Off As Cardiac Arrest; Booked.

Before the meeting, the officials of the trust conducted site inspection in the Ram Janmabhoomi complex.

According to sources, the process of construction of Ram Lalla's temple and the account of income expenditure will be presented in the meeting. Trust's general secretary Champat Rai, member Anil Mishra, Mahant Dinendra Das, Raja Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, Kameshwar Chaupal and treasurer of the trust Govind Dev Giri, reached Ayodhya.

Also Read | Ghulam Nabi Azad Says He Does Not Promise Restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in His New Political Agenda.

Sources said the progress of temple construction will be sent to the Prime Minister's Office. Ex-officio members of the trust will also attend the meeting. Mahant Nritya Gopal Das including K Parasaran and others will attend the meeting virtually.

The meeting of the Building Construction Committee is held every month.

According to the Trust, which is in charge of the construction of the temple, the sanctum sanctorum is expected to be completed by December 2023.

The foundation stone for the construction of Ram Temple's 'Garbha Griha' or the sanctum sanctorum of the temple was laid by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in June this year.

The construction of the temple of Lord Ram in Ayodhya is going on at a fast pace. On August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the construction of the Ram temple and since then the construction work of the temple is going on.The five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi (now retired) had on November 9, 2019, unanimously delivered its verdict that the land in Ayodhya where Babri Masjid once stood, belongs to Ram Lalla. (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], September 11 (ANI): A Swiggy deliveryman was killed when a minor driving an MG Hector SUV hit his bike at Desh Bandhu Gupta Road on Friday night. Police have apprehended the minor.

According to Delhi Police, after the incident, the boy and his friend, who is a foreign national allegedly left the car on the spot and fled. The accused is a Class 11 student.

Also Read | Delhi Police Van Rams Into Scooty, Injures Two Women; Victim Accuse Police of Destroying Evidence.

The deceased has been identified as Rahul Kumar from Gole Market, who was working with Swiggy. He was travelling with his cousin and was on his way to meet his friends.

Police said they received a PCR call about the accident around 1.20 am. The victim and his cousin were shifted to RML hospital for treatment, where Rahul Kumar succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Also Read | Rename Rajasthan as Kartavyasthan: Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor on Renaming Rajpath as Kartavya Path.

Police initially filed a case under IPC sections 279 and 337. During the investigation, police gathered details of the car from the transport department and went to the owner's home where the juvenile was apprehended today. IPC Section 304 A (causing death by negligence) has been added to the existing FIR.

Police said, the accused and his friend were returning from Connaught Place, where they had dinner and allegedly hit the victim's bike. The deceased's cousin Pawan Kumar, who was riding pillion sustained minor injuries.

The accused's father is a real estate baron who was arrested a few months ago in a multi-crore scam. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, Sep 11 (PTI) A real-time monitoring dashboard of the Union health ministry to track government schemes and infrastructure projects among other things has caught the attention of various ministries which are now seeking to adopt it for their own operations.

A brainchild of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the dashboard was started to ensure transparency, accountability and provide better governance, official sources said.

Also Read | MCA Crackdown on Chinese Shell Companies in India, SFIO Arrests Mastermind Mr Dortse.

It is being implemented by the Ministry of Health for real-time monitoring of government schemes pertaining to the ministry, ongoing infrastructure projects, parliamentary matters, letters, pendency of files, data and vacancies among others.

Each and every grievance is classified and tagged with work allocation of the ministry and has to be disposed of by the officer concerned in a given time-frame, the sources told PTI.

Also Read | UP Govt To Conduct Survey of Private Madrassas; Proprietors Fear Repercussions and Bulldozer Action.

The analysis of grievances also helps the Ministry in taking policy decisions, they stated.

With the help of it, officials also track upcoming bills. It has been in use since September 2021.

"There are 15 modules including grievances and tracking of disposal time by key officials, periodical reviewing of all institutes, schemes and programmes.

There is media monitoring, tracking of vacancies in different institutes under the ministry, analysis of health infrastructure, demographics, health outcomes, service delivery on a single platform and pendency and disposal time of files on the portal, an official explained.

The core feature of this dashboard is that the data from all 15 modules is integrated and linked with various schemes and programmes and institutes falling under the ambit of the health ministry which enables a 360 degree view which further helps in prompt decision making, the official added.

"Decisions and directions given by the Ministry to officials during meetings are timely uploaded on the dashboard for future monitoring and time-bound action," he said.

Besides, it also covers the schemes and programmes under the Department of Health Research.

A report is submitted to the Union Health Minister each Monday so that he can personally monitor all developments.

Senior officials can get updates about the various tasks, letters and meetings on a single click and this is also being reflected.

The dashboard is also being used for real-time monitoring of the Janaushadhi scheme which includes sales, inventory, performance of kendras and trend analysis.

It is also being used for monitoring fertilizer stock, production, sales and demand across the country.

"The health ministry is getting requests from several ministries and the team is working on scaling up the portal to integrate all other central ministries," the sources added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Washington, Sep 11 (AP) President Joe Biden has formally accepted an invitation to attend the state funeral service for Queen Elizabeth II.

The White House said Sunday that the president will be accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden. The service will be held on Sept. 19.

Also Read | King Charles III Officially Proclaimed Australia's Head of State.

Earlier in the day, Biden remembered the words of comfort that the late monarch had provided to the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks more than two decades ago.

Grief is the price we pay for love, said Biden, quoting part of the Queen's message to America during remarks on the 21st anniversary of the attacks.

Also Read | Afghanistan: Tank Trailer Overturns on Highway in Zabul, Blockade Prompts Dozens of Vehicles to Remain Stranded.

Speaking at a commemoration at the Pentagon, Biden said the queen's words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago but the weight of loss also remains heavy.

On this day, the price feels so great, Biden said.

-

KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

 Queen Elizabeth II loved corgis breed from childhood

 Former British colonies conflicted over Queen Elizabeth II

 Queen Elizabeth II's coffin begins journey through Scotland

 What's next for the UK as Queen Elizabeth II laid to rest

 King Charles III is officially proclaimed monarch in London

 What will happen to all the currencies that feature the queen?

 Explainer: The formal rules around Charles' accession

 Mourners in the street: Sincere grief flows out across Britain

 Will Charles be loved by his subjects, like his mother was?

___

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

Doncaster: British horse racing has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II as the late monarch's favorite sport returned after a pause following her death.

Two minutes of silence were held at Doncaster on Sunday.

A video was then played on the big screens of the queen at various races through the years, along with some of her greatest triumphs as a racehorse owner.

Horse racing was the big sporting fascination of the queen, who became one of the biggest faces of the sport both in Britain and globally and had more than 1,800 winners.

No one person ever has, or ever will, do so much for so long for horse racing, than did her majesty the queen, narrator Brough Scott, a former jockey turned TV presenter, said during the video.

The sport worldwide will forever be in her debt.

It was followed by a long ovation from the jockeys and officials who lined up for the tribute ceremony.

____

London: A young Bosnian girl is remembering Queen Elizabeth II for her love of dogs and her kindness.

Asya Isovic, 12, says she will never forget the day she found a letter waiting for her at home in Sarajevo that was sent on the queen's behalf.

Isovic had made a card decorated with a drawing of a Queen's Guard with three corgi dogs and mailed it to the Queen along with some poems and a couple of more things.

She did not expect a reply, but one signed by the queen's lady-in-waiting had arrived.

The letter said the Queen was touched by your thoughtfulness and really appreciates the time and care taken to create your card and gifts.

Isovic said she hoped the royal family will find a way to cope with the loss. She also hoped that King Charles III will take care of the (late Queen's) corgis.

-

London: King Charles III's son William, the new Prince of Wales, has told the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, he will serve the country with humility and great respect.

William was given the title when his father, the previous Prince of Wales, ascended to the throne following the death Thursday of Queen Elizabeth II.

William told Drakeford that he and his wife Catherine have a deep affection for Wales, having made their first family home in Anglesey, including during the earliest months of Prince George's life.

He said the couple would travel to Wales very soon and want to do their part to support the aspirations of the Welsh people and to shine a spotlight on both the challenges and opportunities in front of them. (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
V HF, UHF and Microwave Record Table - the latest table of records is available from the VHF SA Record page. Click here to get a copy. Compiled and updated by Paul, ZS6NK - Send your record claim to zssixnk@gmail.com

Focus on VHF and Above 28 August 2022

Audio Version

This week at the Wednesday evening Google Meet meeting, Andre V51LZ, Kobus ZS3JPY and myself were online and we again had some interesting discussions around the tropoducting along the West Coast from 22 to 24 August. On Monday evening 22 August with the West Coast net there were some good contacts on 145.500 MHz FM, although the conditions were changing quite a lot. And then as Kobus puts it the fun started, Garry ZD7GWM let Kobus know that he was hearing the West Coast, but unfortunately they could not hear him.

Here is a recording made by Kobus ZS3JPY of Garry on 145.500 MHz FM. You will hear that the signal is reasonably distorted as well.

ZD7GWM_ZS3JPY_20220822.mp3

On the digital modes signals were enormous between Andre V51LZ in Oranjemund and Kobus ZS3JPY in Kleinsee. +14 to +19 dB on FT8 as reported by Andre. Andre also managed a FT8 contact with Sybrand ZS1SJ in Gordons Bay. Well done guys.

V51LZ_FT8.jpg

Kobus told me that on a previous occasion the FT8 signals were as much as 30 dB between himself and Andre. That is incredible.

On both Sunday 21 and Monday 22 August Garry ZD7GWM on St Helena also received the FT8 signals from Kobus ZS3JPY and Andre V51LZ, but again no one received Garry.

ZD7GWM_FT8_20220821.jpeg

The AIS station north of Andre in Oranjemund also showed some exceptional reports of shipping covering an area of over 38000 km2.

AIS_Station_Kerbehuk.jpeg

What was interesting is the variability of the tropoducting conditions and looking at the AIS data there seems to be a large variance in the ships being received between the various stations monitoring AIS data. What is also interesting is that certain stations appear to have better performance in certain directions which is strange as they all use vertical omnidirectional antennas. The location of the station and the height above sea level also plays a major role.

Thank you Andre and Kobus for the information that you sent me.

This forum is the place to discuss those interesting signals and decodes that you come across and make them known to a wider audience. Come and join the interesting discussions.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination Meeting

Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

This coming week the 3rd African Preparatory Meeting (APM23-3 ) leading up to the World Radio Conference in 2023 of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) will take place from 29 August to 2 September. As you all know there are some very important items on the agenda for WRC-23 that affect our hobby, especially in the VHF and above bands. The APM23-3 meeting is a hybrid meeting taking place in Lusaka, Zambia, and Brian ZS6YZ will be attending the meeting virtually to monitor the proceedings and provide feedback to the IARU concerning any possible positions that the African Member States may take regarding the items of importance to Amateur Radio. The IARU only has monitor status at these meetings and all issues and representations needs to be made through the Telecommunications bodies, regulators and forums of the individual member states. While we have good representation in South Africa, the representation in the rest of Africa is poor.

That is all the VHF and above news that we have for this week.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ

Focus on VHF and Above 21 August 2022

Audio Version

I have previously spoken about the ICOM SHF Project  Super High Frequency Band Challenge. The prototype was showcased at the Dayton Hamvention in Ohio, USA in May 2022. This project has now been given a product number and it has an option to go to 10 GHz as well.

ICOM announced the new IC-905 VHF/UHF/Microwave transceiver at the Tokyo Ham Fair which is taking place this weekend 20-21 August.

ICOM_IC905.jpg

This multi-mode transceiver covers the 144, 430, 1240, 2400 and 5600 MHz bands and has an optional module CX-10G for the 10 GHz band.

In addition it provides support for ATV operation as well.

The ICOM promotional video was released at 01:10 UTC on Saturday, 20 August.Watch (English Subtitles) Icom New Product Introduction Video on Youtube

https://youtu.be/kzGQWmTKNzc



More information can be found on the Icom UK website

https://icomuk.co.uk/Icom-IC-905-VHF-UHF-SHF-Transceiver-Announced-at-Tokyo-Hamfair-2022/2/3250/ and pre-release information can be found at https://icomuk.co.uk/files/icom/PDF/newsFile/IC-905_leaflet_at_Ham_Fair_2022.pdf

Or just search for youtube icom ic-905 in your favourite web browser to get more information.

This certainly looks like it will be a very nice multi-mode radio for amateurs to get active on the VHF and above bands.

This week Kobus ZS3JPY, Andre V51LZ, Cor ZS6CR, Danie ZR6AGB and myself were on Google Meet on Wednesday and there were again interesting discussions around unexpected signals being received and decoded. An example this week was the reception of LoRa433 signals received from the Fossasat satellites. In this case the signal was received by four amateur stations from a satellite that was around 8 100 km away and below the horizon for South Africa. How is it possible?

Fossasat_decodes.jpeg

Other discussions were about so called false decodes in the digital modes and whether or not they are actually false decodes or actually genuine signals received due to some unexpected propagation phenomenon. Cor also discussed that there were settings that one could do to minimise the possibility of false decodes. He had found a lot of discussions regarding this in the EME forums.

Time was also spent discussing on interesting AIS decode that was being received over 4000 km away in Sicily from an AIS beacon in the Gulf of Guinea at 0 S and 0E. Andre V51LZ was going to see if he could find more information about this beacon.

AIS_Decode.jpeg

The AIS system is an automatic tracking system that uses transceivers on ships broadcasting in the 160 MHz marine band and is intended, primarily, for maritime safety to allow ships to view marine traffic in their area and to be seen by that traffic. There are systems that make use of VHF and Satellite to pass their information back to receiving stations. What is interesting is that firstly the antennas on the ships and base stations on land are all vertically polarised and secondly AIS data is also plotted on the dxmaps.com website by amateurs to give indications of tropoducting opportunities. Every ship in the sea that has a VHF AIS system is a potential beacon that can be used to get an indication of tropo conditions along the coast.





This is also the intention of the SARL Beacon project where we are trying to get beacons up and running at various locations around the country that are automatically monitored and that can be used to better understand VHF propagation inland as well. We actually have too few members working on the project and an enormous task is on the shoulders of a few amateurs.

The consensus amongst the Wednesday evening group is that these strange occurrences and decodes should not just be discounted and needs to be studied to try and understand the WHY and HOW it is possible that these signals are received. It makes one realise that there is a lot more happening in the upper atmosphere than we think and that we actually know very little about propagation in the VHF and above bands.

This forum is the place to discuss those interesting signals and decodes that you come across and make them known to a wider audience. Come and join the interesting discussions.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

This past week, Johan V51JH has again been pointing his antenna towards Cape Town transmitting a FT8 signal. I am not aware on any reception reports.

Kobus ZS3JPY also gave me the heads up that there may be good tropoducting along the coast this coming week with conditions peaking on Tuesday afternoon.

Hepburn_Chart 1800UTC23August2022.jpeg

That is all the VHF and above news that we have for this week.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 14 August 2022

Audio Version

Last week I mentioned the contact that Janre ZS6SI made from Kranskop in Limpopo. Janre has also made a 44 km CW contact with Michael ZS6MSW on 2m. This time he was here in Pretoria. As Janre says on a WhatsApp post  2m CW and SSB is blowing my mind. This was 44 km over the mountains on 5 W. Well done Janre.

Yes, one must not under estimate the distances that can be achieved with VHF and UHF especially if one uses modes, other than just FM.

Venturing higher into the microwave bands a very nice contact has been made in Europe on 10 GHz between the Canary Islands and Portugal.

Miguel CT1BYM says on the website of the Portuguese Broadcasters Network REP In the evening of 30 of July, the QSO was done between EB8BRZ at grid IL28ha and CT1BYM at grid IM57pc. This was my first ever QSO done at 10 GHz between EA8 and CT, using tropospheric propagation with a distance around 1187 km. It was also a first for Cecilio, EB8BRZ.

A beacon was installed on my balcony, direction EA8, with 2W and a 10dBi horn, transmitting CW and Opera. The beacon runs 247, helping identifying the possible QSO window. Beacon runs at 10368.825MHz and is TCXO disciplined.

10GHz_Beacon.png

The beacon signal was received at EB8BRZ at 19:34 UTC, so we decided to go to SSB immediately.



At Cecilio EB8BRZ, the working conditions were a 60 cm Procom prime focus dish, 2W, and an IC-705 for IF.

144MHz_IF.png

60cm_Procom_prime_focus_dish.png

At CT1BYM QTH, the working conditions were a 60 cm offset Kathrein dish, 3W, GPSDO and an IC-910H with OCXO.

60cm_offset_Kathrein_dish.png

At 8:06 UTC signals peaked at 9+10dB, excellent conditions! We will test a lot more things next days, including monitoring the Opera mode from the beacon, tracking tropo conditions.



Im assuming the time should have been 20:06 UTC and not 8:06.

Thank you Miguel CT1BYM for this report.

This week Kobus ZS3JPY, Attie ZS3AD, Andre V51LZ, Tom ZS1TA and myself were on the Wednesday VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination meeting. We had some very interesting discussions around tropoducting and some of the interesting observations regarding the AIS signals received from the various AIS monitoring stations and how the height above sea level affected the direction and range of the signals detected by the different receivers.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet.VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

This past week, Johan V51JH has been pointing his antenna towards Cape Town transmitting a FT8 signal.

I found the following on Southgate Amateur Radio News about the new revamped ARRL Laboratory.

ARRL has unveiled its new Radio Laboratory, W1HQ. In a new YouTube video, Jherica Goodgame, KI5HTA, a summer intern at ARRL Headquarters, tours viewers through the station.

"The ARRL Radio Lab is an innovative test space designed to reshape the way we imagine and build a ham radio shack," said Goodgame. The station is intended to inspire members to build, organize, and equip their own stations in innovative ways. "From a decluttered workspace and a digital user interface, to being able to remote into the equipment from anywhere, W1HQ is a step towards the future of amateur radio stations," Goodgame added.

The station includes a new tower and antennas atop the main administrative building at ARRL Headquarters in Newington, Connecticut. Inside the station, three operating positions provide an interface to rack-mounted and computer-controlled transceivers, amplifiers, antenna switches, and rotators.

Goodgame explained that the Radio Lab will also support equipment testing and QST Product Review. "An extension of product reviews in the future will be to take that piece of gear that we're testing, put it on this test bench, and see how it integrates with a station that's already under full automation and control," she said.



The video is published on ARRL's YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/68BJxGHg74Y.

Wow, what a state of the art radio room. My radio room has a long way to go.

That is all the VHF and above news that we have for this week.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 7 August 2022

Audio Version

It is really nice to see the younger radio amateurs experiencing the hobby and especially the VHF and above bands. Janre ZS6SI a relatively new amateur has been playing on VHF and UHF for a short while with a modest set up of a Yaesu FT817 and an AMSAT SA dual band Yagi. On Saturday morning Janre climbed Kranskop near his home town of Modimolle or Nylstroom for the guys who are not familiar with Modimolle and made some nice 2m and 70cm contacts.

Kranskop.jpeg

Kranskop is in grid KG45gg. Here is a 70cm contact Janre made with Koos ZS6KSG at KG33wu, a distance of just over 170 km.

Janre ZS6SI Kranskop

ZS6SI_ZS6KSG_70cm Contact.mp4

Earlier in the week when Janre was testing his set up from Groenkloof in Pretoria where he lives while studying at the University of Pretoria and made his first SSB contacts with John ZS6JGL and Carl ZS6CBQ he made the comment Die VHF gogga het sopas gebyt Well done Janre, great to see the enthusiasm for VHF and above amongst the younger amateurs and it just shows what can be done with a QRP radio and a good antenna on the VHF and above bands.

This week only Kobus ZS3JPY and myself were on the Wednesday VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination meeting. Loadshedding seemed to have made it difficult for some of the guys who are usually in the discussions.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

Johan V51JH still has his horizontal antenna pointed towards Krugersdorp and transmitting a FT8 signal. No signals have been heard lately in either Gauteng or Secunda, but that does not mean that it will not happen.

Carl ZS6CBQ posted an interesting Hepburn chart for Thursday morning 0600 UTC.

ZS6CBQ_Hepburn_Chart_.0600UTC220804.jpeg

The chart shows a patch of tropoducting situated over an area north of Kuruman in the Northern Cape. These types of atmospheric anomalies needs to be investigated further and exploited where possible.

Looking ahead Kobus ZS3JPY posted a Hepburn chart of the South Atlantic for Monday evening 1800 UTC showing some possibly good tropoducting between the West Coast of South Africa and Namibia and the East Coast of Brazil.

Hepburn_Chart_South_Atlantic_1800UTC_220808.jpeg

Kobus says this is the best forecast that has been seen since 2016.



Hepburn_Chart_South_Atlantic_2100UTC_161005.jpeg

Thanks for that heads up Kobus. I am sure that there will be many antennas pointing across the South Atlantic this coming week.

That is all the VHF and above news that we have for this week.

Apologies for another short program.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 31 July 2022

Audio version

Johan V51JH is back from holiday and has his station transmitting throughout the day on 50W and in the evenings when he is at home he increases the power to 600W. There have been a number of amateurs listening out for the signals and exploring Aircraft Scatter to better understand how signals can be reflected off the passing aircraft.

While no reception reports have been received this past week, there continues to be some interesting discussions around long distance communications on the Wednesday meetings and it also dominated part of the VHF Work Group meeting on Thursday as well.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

Some feedback from VHF Work Group meeting held on Thursday which primarily focus on the SARL Beacon project. The MoU for the Karoo beacon site has been signed and will be returned to us shortly. The land owner has asked that we continue in the mean time with the project. A target date for installation of the Karoo beacon has been set for the end of February 2023. Once Len ZS3LEN goes back to site then he will draw up a site plan that the working group will use for planning the improvements such as fencing and additional solar resources that needs to be installed. Cor ZS6CR has made good progress with the documentation for the telemetry and control of the beacon and has already got a basic system that he is testing. Work is progressing on looking at what antennas should be used for the Karoo Beacon.

The work group will also be placing some priority on getting the QRP-Labs U3S beacons on the air. All three beacons are fully operational and just require amplifiers to be built for them. The plan is to place one of the beacons on the Bethlehem test site as well.

Cor ZS6CR sent me some information that surfaced at a recent Club meeting in Secunda that a certain home-automation-ready PIR motion sensor operating on 433 MHz may be interfering across the 70cm band.

Club members will investigate the extent of this interference and provide feedback.

There is a 433 MHz license free segment in the middle of the amateur 70 cm band, but we should not see interference from devices operating in this license free segment. With the growth of IoT or Internet of Things there are a lot of devices operating on 433 MHz like remote control power sockets, PIR, door sensors and much more so one can expect that some devices may generate spurious signals outside of the license free segment.

Are there any other amateurs who have or has experienced interference from devices operating in this 433 MHz license free band? Please let us know at vhfnews@sarl.org.za so that notes can be compared and more information can be gathered in order to report the problem to ICASA for further investigation.





This past week a number of amateurs have been making contact with the ISS. The downlink frequency is 145.800 MHz and the uplink frequency is 145.200 MHz. You can get information about the passes using software like Gpredict that runs on most platforms. Gpredict can be downloaded from http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/

Gpredict.jpeg

Bernie ZS4TX will be conducting a 2M EME DXpedition to Angola from 12-16 August 2022. Bernie will be using the callsign D2TX. Bernie says on the D2TX page on QRZ.com that the expedition includes a 10 day ~6000km road trip crossing the Namibia, Botswana and Angola borders. As far as can be determined, this will be the first time that D2 is active on 2M EME or EME on any band. Bernie also mentions that he will also be on HF [CW] 40M and up, 100W only. Good luck Bernie, safe travels and hopefully there will be many EME contacts for D2TX.

That is all the VHF and above news that we have for this week.

Apologies for a rather short program. There has been relatively little activity on the VHF and above bands that has come to my attention.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 24 July 2022

Audio version

The Wednesday evening VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination meeting continues to bring up some very interesting discussions around the topic.



On Sunday last week Carl ZS6CBQ sent me a lengthy WhatsApp message about discussions that he and Dick ZS6BUN had about the decode that Cor ZS6CR picked up on 8 July at 14:08 UTC. They feel that it was Aircraft Scatter that resulted in the decode. This was discussed at length on the group discussion held on Wednesday evening as well, and it is definitely something to explore further.



Carl says I went and looked on Flight Radar history and at that time Flight DAL200 from Atlanta was exactly in place over Botswana flying at 12 000 meters. Last Friday 15 July I was watching on Flight Radar and was surprised to see that different flights cross over this spot more or less at the same time at different heights. There were 4 planes, 3 big Airbus 380's, the one from Atlanta DAL200, ETH846 to Addis Ababa, SAA 2968 and a smaller 737 to Windhoek.

Flight _Radar_15_July_2022.jpeg

Carl says that he and Cor ZS6CR were monitoring 144.174 MHz at that time but did not get any decodes but unfortunately Johan V51JH had switched off on his side.

Carl goes on to say this spot is just south west of Gabarone where overseas flights from America to Johannesburg and Cape town to Europe crosses at the same time on Friday afternoons. I watched again on 15 July but it was not the same. It seems that more flights are coming in on Fridays. Then you also have the afternoon flights of SAA to Windhoek and Walvisbay.

This spot will only effect Div 6 stations in Gauteng and a section of east of Gauteng. There is not a another spot where aircraft paths cross like this. All the flights between Cape Town and Johannesburg are in straight lines North and South.

On Friday afternoon 22 July flight DAL200 was late and flying more north, but it's path was crossed by the Cape to Addis Ababa flight ETH846 and it was more north than normal as well. So the planes are most of the time exactly at the same spot every week, but it can change.

While writing this weeks program on Saturday at around 10:00 UTC there were again three flights crossing at that same point.

Flight_Radar_Screenshot_from _2022-07-23_11-56-53.png



Concerning the modes to use with Aircraft Scatter, Carl says I found that FT4 is a faster and better mode to use on longer distances with Aircraft Scatter, and would suggest the following:

1. That we use FT4 mode.

2. Station from V51 TX 2nd and Stations from Div 6 TX 1st.

We can try more Aircraft Scatter between all the provinces during peak flight hours in the mornings, evenings and weekends, and I suggest Div's 1,2,3 and V51 TX 2nd with Div's 4,5,6 TX 1st all on FT4.

Carl says that inland lots of QSO's can be made with Aircraft Scatter and that he uses it often between Krugersdorp and Bethlehem, Krugersdorp and Bloemfontein as well as Krugersdorp and the Northern Cape. Carl recommends that to be able to use Aircraft Scatter to our advantage we need to use FLIGHTRADAR24 which is an Android App and can be used via a web browser as well https://www.flightradar24.com/.

Thanks Carl for these interesting insights regarding aircraft scatter.

Let us talk a little about the history of Aircraft Scatter.

The first radio-based detection of aircraft was accomplished by L. A. Hyland of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in June 1930 using a 33 MHz CW signal. The detection was accidental, as Hyland was working on ground-based direction finding equipment at a military airport and astutely noted that the received direction-finding signal increased when aircraft passed through the direction-finding beam.

The history of amateur use of Aircraft Scatter goes back at least to 1967. In August 1967 Henry Root, W1QNG, wrote a two-page article for the Technical Correspondence section of QST discussing the theory of Aircraft Scatter, with the title Using Aircraft Reflections in V.H.F. Communications.

When an aircraft crosses the path of a radio signal, the aircraft will cause the signal to scatter in all directions. Backscatter is primarily what is used in radar systems that track aircraft in the sky. Here transmitter and receiver are normally co-located. The signal will also be reflected in the forward direction and be received by another station in a different location. This is known as bi-static radar. It stands to reason that the amount of signal reflected is very small and there are equations available that can be used to calculate the path losses and expected level of the received signal. There is also some magic that happens when the aircraft flies directly in the path between the two stations. This magic manifests itself as signal enhancement, sometimes as much as 20 to 30 dB or more. As a result of this, Aircraft Scatter propagation is sometimes referred to as Aircraft Enhancement.

There are a number of factors that affect the possible contact via Aircraft Scatter. The speed at which the aircraft is flying. Whether the aircraft flies in the path between the two stations or crosses the path. The size of the aircraft also affects the amount of signal that is scattered and of course the number of aircraft in the sky.

Aircraft Scatter is more popular in areas where the airspace is busy as in Europe or the US. Here is Southern Africa there are considerably less aircraft in the sky, although there are times when the airways are busy for instance in the early morning or late afternoon with aircraft landing and taking off from OR Tambo or Lanseria airports.

There is a wealth of information available as well as software that can assist you to explore this interesting VHF and above mode. Take a look at the website of Roger, W3SZ at http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz/AircraftScatter.htm.

You can also find AirScout software written by Frank, DL2ALF. You can also find a host of articles on aircraft enhancement on the website of David, VK3HZ at http://www.vk3hz.net/ae.htm.

Tom ZS1TA also gave feedback about discussions he has been having with the clever guys out there as he puts it, regarding the short bursts of FT8 tones that he has been receiving from the station of Johan V51JH. Tom says that the consensus is that it may well be Meteor Scatter that resulted in the bursts of FT8 tones that he received. There are continuously meteors entering the earths atmosphere and burning up, not only when the well known meteor shower events take place. Tom also says that he had good Meteor Scatter activity throughout the day as documented in the recent article in Radio ZS when he was in Paternoster.

This is true and I have spoken about the Snowtel network in the US that uses Meteor Scatter to transmit accumulated snow levels from monitoring stations in the mountainous regions back to a receiving station. It is something Nigel ZS6RN and myself have also discussed at length in the past.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

This is a fascinating hobby of ours and there is so much that we can discover and learn more about and these Wednesday evening discussions are fantastic for exchanging ideas and experiences. Thank you for everyone who has joined and shared their ideas and experiences so far. There are a number of us who eagerly listen and learn and look forward to the next weeks discussion.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 17 July 2022

Audio version

On Wednesday evening a small group of VHF enthusiasts met to discuss and share some ideas regarding 2m propagation experimentation. We had a fruitful discussion and went away with some ideas on a way forward for now. We also decided to review the different digital modes and see which would perhaps be better suited for VHF propagation testing. Johan V51JH will also be away on a much deserved break and will be back at his QTH in Swakopmund again in the last week of July and then he will again be running his station continuously for propagation testing. The group also decided to establish another WhatsApp group specific for 2 m propagation experimentation to allow for quick communications amongst the group.

The next meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

Anyone is welcome to join in.

Tom ZS1TA sent an email on Friday morning detailing his experience monitoring the signal that Johan Z51JH has been transmitting this past week with his antenna pointed towards Cape Town.

Tom says Was able to monitor Johans FT8 transmission for virtually 12 hours straight yesterday, Thursday. The load shedding schedule was once at 6am and again at 10pm, allowing most of the day uninterrupted.

No decodes were recorded, however as during the day before I periodically received short pieces of the FT8 tone. Mostly about half a second and absolutely clear in the speaker. The tone was pure and without distortion.

I do not believe these were MS reflections due to their clarity and no evidence of Doppler or frequency shift. They were always on Johans frequency and in the second period as he transmitted.There was no tropo-ducting evidence on Thursday and no AIS activity recorded so assume it was some sort of direct propagation.

Tom also sent some photos of the short bursts of FT8 tones that he received.

Tom mentioned that it takes some work for try and receive these tones especially competing with local QRM that he experiences at his QTH in Cape Town.

This is what makes propagation experiments so interesting and yes, it is time consuming, but being able to coax the signal out of the noise is what makes it great. Again, it takes RF to be transmitted and listeners to know where and what is being transmitted to patiently look for that signal.

I have found a very good RSGB presentation on VHF Propagation. This video is a good introduction for the new amateurs who want to start exploring the world above 30 MHz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yo4IFn6AAY

In fact the RSGB has a whole range of excellent videos on their YouTube channel if you use the search term VHF once you are on their YouTube channel. They are well worth watching.

https ://www.youtube.com/user/TheRSGB/search?query=vhf

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 10 July 2022

Audio version

On Friday afternoon Cor ZS6CR posted a photo of a FT8 decode that his system received from the station of Johan V51JH in Swakopmund on the VHF UHF SHF Amateur Radio Whats App group.

Johan had left his radio calling CQ on 50 W when he left for work in the morning. Another interesting fact is that Johans 2m Yagi antenna is pointing to Cape Town as he has a problem with his rotator. Cor had his 2m Yagi pointing in the direction of Carl ZS6CBQ as they had made contact on Wednesday evening on 2m. Cor had also left his radio monitoring the frequency on FT8. Johan V51JH is in approximately the same direction and at a distance of 1545 km from Cors QTH.

The big question?

The big question is why and how Cor was able to receive this signal. As Cor said to me on Saturday morning during a telephone call that his phone did not stop ringing the previous night with guys looking for more details to try and understand the why and how. One view which seems to be the most plausible is that it may have been Sporadic-E propagation. We know for sure that it is not tropo or tropoducting as the conditions are not right at the moment even though there was tropoducting along the West Coast on Friday evening and it most probably was not Meteor Scatter either.

We will never really know the how or why here, but what is important is that we realise that if there is no one transmitting and no one receiving on a given frequency then the likely hood of a contact will not exist. This stresses again the importance of the SARL beacon project that is currently on the go.



It will still be a while before the beacon will go live in the Karoo, but in the mean time there are other ways to test long distance propagation, but it requires RF to be transmitted 24/7 on the one side and dedicated monitoring 24/7 on the other side. We have all the tools available to us, we just need to use them.

So how do we go about with a coordinated effort to achieve this?

After discussions between Cor and myself on Saturday morning we decided to throw it out to the greater VHF/UHF group out there. We have dedicated VHF/UHF enthusiasts across the both South Africa and Namibia from Swakopmund, down the West Coast to Cape Town, along the South and East Coast as well as internally in divisions 4 and 6. The suggestion is to come together weekly on an evening and exchange ideas how this can be achieved. Our suggestion is that those interested in exploring these long distance communications possibilities get together on Google Meet on a Wednesday evening at 20:00 SAST. Who ever is interested and available is free to join the group discussion.

The first meeting will be this coming Wednesday at 20:00 on Google Meet.

VHF/UHF Long Distance Coordination

Wednesday, 13 July  20:00  21:00

Google Meet joining info





Video call link: https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

We will meet every Wednesday at the same time on the same link and hopefully over time more folk will join the discussion which will lead to more coordinated RF in the air and more coordinated monitoring for these RF signals. See you on Wednesday at 20:00 on https://meet.google.com/wzd-pqoa-uav

I found another podcast by Onno VK6FLAB that caught my attention and also provides some very interesting information about the Amateur Radio Digital Communications Foundation.

Listen to Onno VK6FLAB - If you had money, what would your amateur adventure look like?

VK6FLAB_If_you_had_money.mp3

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 26 June 2022

Audio Version

I have mentioned the issue between the RNSS and amateur radio on 23cm recently, but I want to provide some more feedback as this is important to us amateurs as the 23 cm band is one of the busiest bands where a lot of new activity is taking place on, especially in Europe.

The C5 committee met on Thursday 23 June 2022 for a hybrid meeting. Approximately half of the delegates were present in Friedrichshafen while the other half of the group were present via Zoom.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ attended the meeting on behalf of the SARL.

The meeting kicked off at 09:00 and the first topic on the agenda was Spectrum Matters with most of the morning dedicated to feedback and discussions on the WRC23 agenda item 9.1.b which is about the coexistence between the Radio Navigation Satellite Services (RNSS) who are primary users and the Amateur and Amateur Satellite Services who are secondary users on the band.

Barry Lewis G4SJH, who is the IARU global lead on this agenda item gave a presentation and feedback regarding the work done and the studies undertaken so far.

The greatest challenge is that both the RNSS services and the Amateur services are co-frequency across the whole band.

Zooming into the band we see the following picture showing the IARU band plans superimposed on the RNSS systems.

Challenges that exist for the amateur services are the following:

 Amateur operations are co-frequency almost everywhere in the band.

 Amateur station operators do not know where or when an RNSS user is active.

 An RNSS user will most likely be unaware that interference is occurring.

 New High Accuracy services under development with commercial ambitions.

 Widespread deployment of RNSS receivers.

 As secondary users, amateurs may not cause interference to primary users.

 There are two highly publicised incidences of interference.

Two technical studies have been conducted.

One study made use of propagation model predictions to estimate the distance over which harmful interference could be caused to an RNSS receiver.

The other study made measurement programmes to assess the impact of various amateur radio application emissions on the RNSS receivers.

The results of these two studies are in the process of being documented and studied along with the two documented cases of interference that happened in Germany where an ATV signal was received by a GALILEO control centre and in Italy (Varese) where a FM repeater interfered with receivers in the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Ispra.

A couple of points to bear in mind.

1. The removal of the amateur allocation is out of the scope of resolution for WRC23 as the resolutions clearly states

resolves to invite the ITU Radiocommunication Sector

1. to perform a detailed review of the different systems and applications used in the amateur service and amateur-satellite service allocations in the frequency band 1 240-1 300 MHz;





2. taking into account the results of the above review, to study possible technical and operational measures to ensure the protection of RNSS (space-to-Earth) receivers from the amateur and amateur-satellite services in the frequency band 1 240-1 300 MHz, without considering the removal of these amateur and amateur-satellite service allocations,

2. There will be constraints to parts of the band for amateurs as the studies have shown that there are two elements that minimise the risk of interference:

Frequency separation. The further the amateur transmission is from the centre of the RNSS band the lower the risk of interference. Power level restrictions. The lower the power of an amateur transmission the lower the risk of interference.

An ITU-R Recommendation is under development in ITU-R WP5A which deals with amateur related work with the intent to provide guidance for administrations on constraints required on amateur service operation to protect the RNSS primary allocation. It is still too early to determine exactly what these constraints may be, if any, as there are various proposals on the table that are in discussions and have not yet been agreed upon.

IARU will continue to

 Minimise the constraints on the amateur services as far as possible.

 Retain the ability for as many of todays applications to be able to continue as possible.

 Narrowband telegraphy and telephony and digital modes

 Wideband ATV (Digital)

 Work towards minimum disruption to narrow band activities.

 Maintain cross-region harmonisation of the narrowband section.

 Engagement will continue up to and including the WRC23 itself.

The recommendation from the C5 committee is for the amateur community to sit tight and wait for the outcome of the next meeting of ITU-R WP5A to see what the stance of the RNSS will be.

Thanks to Barry G4SJH, who leads a team of competent radio amateurs from all three regions who are representing the interests of amateur radio in the various study groups for WRC23 Agenda Item 9.1.b.

Sylvain F4GKR, the IARU R1 President spoke about the good working relationship that the IARU has in Europe with the authorities and the RNSS community and are working with them to find amicable solution. Amateur radio is well represented in a number of the member states in Region 1 which also has the highest voting power as there are more countries within Region 1 than in the rest of the regions. The IARU requests that amateur radio member societies develop a good working relationship with the Regional Telecommunications Organisations, Regulators and Communications authorities in their respective countries to make representations on the importance of amateur radio and to help influence their voting at the World Radio Conferences in favour of amateur radio.

On Saturday afternoon just after lunch, I received a message to join an IARU meeting that was in progress. Of course I joined and it was a feedback session about the IARU Shaping the Future project that was given by Sylvain F4GKR. I have heard about the project and the following folk from the SARL are involved Hans ZS6AKV, Nico ZS6QL, Dennis ZS4BS and Rassie ZS1YT. The competition that was mentioned in the SARL news where the team lead by Guy ZS6GUY is one of the finalists, is part of this Shaping the Future project.



I believe that this is a great initiative being driven forward by the IARU, who of course are made up of member societies like the SARL who in turn are made up of members like you and I, so this is a project that is run by us, the radio amateurs. We are very privileged to have all the valuable frequencies that we have at no extra cost other than our license fees. Here is an opportunity to get involved and to give back to the hobby to ensure that it stays relevant and can continue to attract new radio amateurs in the future. From the information provided there is going to be some very exiting projects to get involved in. For more information take a look at the IARU Shaping the Future web pages at https://www.iaru-r1.org/stf/.

I found the feedback very interesting and the excitement and enthusiasm of our IARU President Sylvain F4GKRI, inspiring.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.



Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 19 June 2022

Audio version

A couple of weeks ago I became aware of a problem that need not have been a problem if the band plan was followed. This week I want to talk about band plans, why we have them, why it is important to keep to them as well as keep up with the changes to the band plans.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) (iaru.org) which was founded in 1925 represents the interests of amateur radio world wide. It has 160 member societies covering most territories.

IARU World-map.jpg

Countries with IARU Member Societies shown in yellow

In South Africa, the member society is the South African Radio League (SARL).

Apart from advocacy at the ITUs rule making World Radio Conferences, the IARU also establishes voluntary band plans for amateur use. These band plans normally extend across an ITU region. South Africa would therefore adhere to Region 1 band plans.

These band plans are carefully formulated to take all interests of amateurs into account, and represent a compromise that hurts everyone equally. The considerations that went into making the band plan may not be obvious to you, and you may cause unanticipated interference if you decide to act contrary to the band plan.

The bands allocated to amateurs are divided into segments for different uses according to the band plan. Typically each band has different segments set aside for CW, digital modes and phone. Some frequencies may be reserved for beacons, on which no other stations should transmit. Others may be reserved for particular purposes, such as satellite use or inter-continental DX. Although in most cases it is not a legal requirement to observe the band plans, courtesy to other operators should be sufficient reason to do so.

In South Africa we have some additional bands allocated for our use that are not allocated in the rest of the region. An example of this the 8m band or the frequencies between 40.675 MHz  40.685 MHz which has been allocated for amateur use for the study of propagation.

These band plans are not cast in stone and do change and keep up with the developing technologies and ensures that there are frequencies allocated to allow for development of the hobby. With this in mind it is important to keep track of what the latest band plan is. For a full list of the current band plans for South Africa go to http://www.sarl.org.za/public/licences/bandplan.asp

Should there be any doubt or questions, please do not just do your own thing. Rather ask and get a recommendation from the folk who do keep abreast with changes. If you have a query, you are more than welcome to send an email to vhfnews@sarl.org.za and your question will either be answered or referred to the right person who can advise.

We all know that there is very little equipment available on the microwave bands and mostly we need to homebrew our own equipment. For the first time one of the big three amateur radio manufacturers are venturing above 23 cm.

ICOM is busy working on a radio for the SHF bands. This project has been on the go for a while already and they decided to debut the SHF-P1 Project Concept Model at Dayton Hamvention 2022. ICOM has documented two technical challenges to be solved.

When trying to operate in the SHF band, cable loss will be the biggest bottleneck. For example, in the 5.6 GHz band, if a 30 meter long, 15 mm diameter high quality coaxial cable is used to connect between the antenna and transceiver, the cable loss will be 7.2 dB (at 5.6 GHz) and a 2 watt output from a transceiver will be reduced to 380 mW output from the antenna.

Another challenge in the SHF band is the ultimate frequency stability requirement. For example, the IC-9700s frequency stability is about 0.5 ppm, but 0.5 ppm stability in the 5.6 GHz band means a 2800 Hz deviation. It is completely outside of the IF filter and cannot be demodulated in the SSB and CW modes. In other words, the practical frequency stability for SSB and CW mode in the 5.6 GHz band is about 0.01 ppm or less. This is an extremely difficult level to achieve with an OCXO (Oven Controlled-crystal Oscillator).

So to solve the first challenge, long coax cables are not to be used.

The project team considered several ways to solve the cable loss issue. As a result, they decided to configure the RF module by directly placing it under the antenna and control it with a separate controller.

A LAN cable is used to connect the controller to the RF module. By using this kind of cabling set up, only a small length of a coaxial cable (about 30-40 cm) is required between the RF module and the antenna. Thus, only minimal loss occurs. For example, even if the controller and RF unit are separated by 30 meters, the loss from coaxial cable is still minimized, due to the short coaxial cable length.

When installing the RF module directly under the antenna, the issue of how to supply DC power arises. ICOM decided to adopt PoE (Power over Ethernet) technology that supplies power over a LAN cable. Since Ethernet twisted pair wiring is limited to 100 meters, it is possible to install the RF module at a location 100 meters away from your shack where the controller can also be.

By adopting PoE technology, the connection can be made with a single cable, and the RF module can be installed more freely. Moreover, the PoE technology makes it possible to supply power with low power loss. Normally, if the power cable is extended to 20 meters, the voltage drop will be too large for a 10 watt transceiver, and it will not operate properly. With PoE technology, DC power loss can be reduced by raising the voltage and reducing the current, so it is possible to supply stable power, even if the cable is long.

What about the second challenge, frequency accuracy and stability?

Even with a high-performance OCXO, frequency gradually changes due to temperature and aging. The annual deviation will be 0.3 ppm and 1.5 ppm in 10 years. At 5.6 GHz, the deviation will be as much as 8.4 kHz in 10 years. To solve this problem, they have adopted a method that uses a high-precision 1 Pulse-per-second (1PPS) clock signal from a GNSS (GPS) receiver to enable advanced frequency management. By synchronizing with this reference signal, the OCXO frequency can be compensated with high accuracy.

The SHF band has many challenges, such as cable loss and frequency stability, so there are high hurdles for developing an SHF band transceiver. By clearing these issues, ICOM will continue to develop further, so that more amateur radio operators can challenge SHF band operation and discover its enjoyment and potential.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 12 June 2022

Audio version

Last week I reported about the coexistence between RNSS and Amateur Radio in the 23 cm band.

In the last 2 weeks I have been thinking about this 23 cm challenge and information that I have come across has me thinking about the problem from a different angle.

Dennis ZS4BS sent me a photo mentioning a strange signal that was received by the Australian Parkes Observatory that peaked my interest to dig deeper. It goes about scientists at the Parkes Observatory in Australia and how they were for many years stumped by a strange signal that they received from outer space, only to discover that the signal was being emitted by the stations microwave oven every time it was prematurely opened. This is an interesting story and you can read more about it on the web.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/microwave-ovens-posing-as-astronomical-objects

I also came across a story on Southgate Amateur Radio News about a Noise

Cancellation video.

http://southgatearc.org/news/2022/may/noise-cancellation-part-1.htm#.YpsuoHWemUk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ybIoIhwgBQ

In this video what caught my interest was the fact that Michael WU2D was monitoring the noise in his shack with an old valve Knight-Kit "Star Roamer" Receiver and switched off his Watkins Johnson digital transceiver and the noise reduced. Amazing how even the relatively well built amateur transceiver can also be a source of noise. Admittedly it was an older generation transceiver.

This got me thinking how much noise there is on the 23 cm band and how susceptible are the RNSS or GPS receivers, which are quite sensitive, to the rising noise floor.

I would like to hear from the guys who are active on 23 cm how they experience noise floor within the built up areas and the rural areas.

I would like to congratulate Tom ZR6TG for his initiative to encourage more amateurs to get active with satellites which at the same time encourages activity on the VHF and Above bands.

Every month there is a challenge to be done to encourage amateurs to get active with Satellites. In May the challenge was to decode satellite telemetry data. In June the challenge is to receive data from the QO-100 Satellite. Tom writes on the website hamsatsa.co.za

For our new competition we are focusing on the Oscar 100 Satellite, more specifically the reception side of it. Amsat-DL has recently been experimenting with a Multimedia Beacon on the narrowband transponder. The multimedia beacon is part of the High Speed modem designed by Kurt Moraw (DJ0ABR). The high speed modem includes various modes of sending files, pictures and even do digital voice modes using FreeDV. Its a very exciting project and our competition involves getting an Oscar 100 station going and decoding the Multimedia Beacon.

Tom has also started an initiative specifically for satellite work called Satellite Manual https://www.satellitemanual.com/index.htm

Most of us know that there is a lot of information all over the internet about various aspects of our exciting hobby and part of our challenge is to collate this information so that we can use it when we do our own experiments and projects.

Tom says in his introduction While access to amateur radio satellites have been around for many years many hams are still unsure on how to get on the air and use these satellites. Im still very much a newbie when it comes to amateur radio but I have a strong interest in playing with these satellites. This manual is a compilation of my own notes and information in the hope that it might be helpful for other hams to get on the air with satellites. This manual is still very much a work in progress and will be updated over time, but the idea is to focus more on the practical side of setting up your own station rather than going to deep into the theory.

Well done Tom.

The current challenge has spurred me to take a fresh look at my own QO-100 project that was shelved because I was chasing my own tail. I am now proud to say that I have the re-purposed DSTV dish set up and aligned and Im able to receive the satellite. I have progressed from a simple RTL-SDR to a Pluto SDR and from Windows based software to Linux based software which runs much more efficiently on the old laptop that I use in the shack. Next up will be getting software running on a Raspberry Pi before tackling the transmission side of things. This is all plug and play up until now as I am still recovering from an eye operation and I cannot yet see well enough to perform micro surgery with my soldering iron.

I would like to encourage more amateurs to step out of their comfort zones on HF and brave the exciting world of VHF and above.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 5 June 2022

Audio recording

Kobus ZS3JPY alerted me to a post by Phil FR5DN from Reunion Island on the Earth Moon Earth (EME) Radio Communications Facebook Group. Phil says that this was his first reception on 10 GHz EME with a 80 cm TV offset dish, a TV LNB, a KR-400/KR-500 rotator, vertical polarisation and a simple SDR dongle. He received SP6JLW on CW on the centre of the band, and OZ1LPR a bit higher up. There was Libration spreading, but a good copy on headset. Phil goes on to say that he is amazed at the performance of such a small dish for almost a 800,000 km path.

Well done Phil. Phil used similar equipment that can be used to receive the QO-100 satellite as well.

I have spent a large part of this week monitoring the Fourth SADC Preparatory Meeting for WRC-23. Just a week ago Hans ZS6AKV and myself sat in the 5th Meeting of the Technical National Preparatory Working Group 2023. Hans is the Rapporteur for Chapter 5 which covers Amateur Radio at the National Preparatory Working Group. So why is this important?

There is a Resolution 774 of WRC19 that resolves to invite the ITU Radiocommunication Sector to perform a detailed review of the different systems and applications used in the amateur service and amateur-satellite service allocations in the frequency band 1 240-1 300 MHz; taking into account the results of the above review, to study possible technical and operational measures to ensure the protection of RNSS (space-to-Earth) receivers from the amateur and amateur-satellite services in the frequency band 1 240-1 300 MHz, without considering the removal of these amateur and amateur-satellite service allocations, and instructs the Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau to include the results of these studies in his Report to WRC-23 for the purpose of considering appropriate actions in response to the resolution.

This is Agenda Item 9.1 topic b for WRC23.

Prior to WRC19 there were two documented cases where radio amateurs caused interference to a RNSS receiver or as we know it a GPS receiver. Both incidents were in Europe. This resolution is as a result of this.

There are ongoing studies in progress at the moment and it basically goes around the coexistence between the Radio Navigation Systems Services who are the primary users and the Amateur Radio and Amateur Radio Satellite Service who are secondary users.

Work continues to develop the coexistence studies between the amateur services in the 23cm band and the radio-navigation satellite services (RNSS) operating across the band. New studies were submitted by France, China and the Russian Federation.

The scale of the problem for the amateur services is becoming clear. For example, the studies predict that even a 10W 23cm band station could cause interference to RNSS receivers at up to 30km on the antenna main beam heading. Although the level of amateur activity and the density of users is quite low (compared to other more popular bands) the issue remains that from a regulatory perspective the amateur services are required to not cause harmful interference to RNSS services.

The IARU summary report on the WP4C meeting can be found at

https://www.iaru.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IARU-Report-from-WP4C_May-2022.docx

Due to the ongoing studies there has not been any positions identified yet, but it is being closely monitored.

There is strong Amateur Radio representation at all levels of government, sub-regional and regional telecommunications authorities with myself and Hans representing the SARL and the amateur community locally, I monitor the SADC meetings and myself and Tafa 6W1KI from Senegal monitor the ATU meetings on behalf of the IARU. We provide the IARU with a report regarding the position that the sub-regional and regional groups are taking regarding the issues that may have impact on Amateur Radio and our frequency allocations. While we are not allowed to provide inputs at the sub-regional and regional levels, we do lobby our local Department of Communications and Digital Technologies with whom we have a good working relationship. It is of utmost importance that we as radio amateurs keep abreast with international developments and do our best to ensure that we can continue to participate in this wonderful hobby of ours.

Last week we discussed the importance of timing in digital modes. Let us now look at the other important factor with regards to digital modes and that is frequency accuracy which is the DF parameter you see on the digital modes screen.

Most operators are used to using digital modes on HF on the FT8 or JT65a mode, because on HF you can clearly see the signal on the waterfall. You just click on it and the audio is on frequency.

But when we start moving to VHF and up the situation around frequency accuracy becomes a major factor. The reason is that you now work with signals that are almost not visible on the waterfall at all. You have to adjust your receive decode window to a very wide span and have to use a lot of computer processing getting a signal out of the noise.

Most digital modes cannot decode at all when the frequency is out of its normal specification of 200-300 Hz.

A lot of amateurs will say my radio is spot on frequency but sitting on the receiving side and hearing the actual signal and not being able to decode it can be frustrating for most VHF operators doing digital modes.

So what do I do to make sure I am on the same frequency as the transmitting station?

In the software there are codes built into most of the modes to overcome this problem to make sure both stations are listening to the exact same frequency. Let us have a look at JT65, QRA64 and JT4 digital modes. These modes work very nicely.

When the QSO starts, in the first line you type in @800 or @1000 or @1250. It is your decision which audio frequency to use. The other station must just know what frequency you are using for calibration. Now because it is a single tone frequency it is easier to see on the waterfall and audible on the ear.

You now tune to the correct frequency by turning the dial on your radio to see the exact frequency on your screen. As long as you are within 200 Hz you are will be able to decode the signal, but it is better to get within 100 Hz as the modulated RF signals tend to distort drastically under certain path conditions in the VHF and above bands. There can be up to 200 Hz DF which is the difference frequency between the transmitting and receiving stations some times under worst conditions during a QSO.

The frequency error that exists on our hardware is still there and the error is especially noticeable when using digital modes and as one goes up in frequency the error increases. Those playing in the microwave bands or with QO-100 will have first hand experience of being way off frequency and the nightmare of trying to tune to the correct desired frequency.

What we need to resolve this problem is a GPSDO or GPS Disciplined Oscillator. Some GPSDO devices are designed to put out a 10 MHz reference signal which is fine for test equipment, but does not really help us as our radios invariably will not have a 10 MHz reference oscillator, but one at another frequency and each model and manufacturer uses a different frequency.

There are however GPSDO available that you can program to a frequency that you desire, like the Leo Bodnar Precision GPS Reference Clock. This will however set you back at least 150 GBP (Approx R3,000.00) excluding shipping and fees.

Leo_BodnerGPS-CLOCK.png

http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=107&products_id=234

There is also a mini version available that is also much cheaper at around 86 GBP (Approx R1,700.00) excluding shipping and fees.

https://www.sdr-kits.net/GPS-Disciplined-Reference-Oscillator-for-DG8SAQ-VNWA

Another solution is to use a RF Zero which will set you back around 400 DKK (Approx R910.00) also excluding shipping and fees. There are options that you may want to add such as filters and attenuators as well which will of course increase the price and you will need to also provide a box for it to live in.

https://www.rfzero.net/shop/

Of course you would also need to figure out how you are going to connect the GPSDO to your radio, but that is normally not a big challenge.

A lot of the amateurs participating in the HamSCI activities also add GPSDO to their HF radios in order to more accurately measure the shift of the 10 MHz time signals that are being monitored.

What interesting project have you been working on or what exciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ

Focus on VHF and Above 22 May 2022

Audio Version

This week there are two entries of remarkable 40 MHz contacts on the website of John EI7GL.

The first one was on 16 May when there was a 40 MHz contact between S50B in Slovenia and PY2XB in Brazil (approx 10 000 km) and LU5FF in Argentina (Approx 11 300 km).

The second one on 18 May was between WM2XEJ and CE3SOC in Chile, a distance of 7562 km.

On Wednesday morning 18 May Bernie ZS4TX worked Yuri UT1FG/MM 2M FSK441 in JG36pi, ~1970km. Bernie says that they tried later in the day when Yuri was around 2024 km away but only partial decodes were received at both ends.

On Thursday evening at 20:07 UTC Fred PY7ZZ completed a 6m FT8 contact with Barrie ZD7MY on St Helena Island.

The SARL VHF/UHF Digital contest has also been on this weekend and looking at the 46 Long Distance VHF/UHF WhatsApp group, there has been at lot of activity being reported.

This week we are going to talk a little about low cost hardware that a beginner can play with on VHF and Above.

In the early days most radio amateurs built their own AM transmitters and some even tried their hand at building communication receivers. When the solid state era arrived the Japanese shrunk all mode transmitters and receivers into a single unit and called it transceivers, all based on transistors and chips, which made it difficult for amateurs to emulate so it became far easier to purchase the finished professional version.

Lets face it, Amateur Radio equipment is very expensive, especially for the beginner who has just obtained a license. Multi-mode transceivers for the VHF and above bands have also become scarce.

We also sit with the situation that the older transceivers were not designed with the modern digital modes in mind. The design and specification of the reference oscillators were great for wider bandwidth voice modes, but are too unstable for the current digital modes and of course the higher you go up in frequency the more critical this becomes as well. The other problem is when that older multi-mode transceivers built in the 80s or 90s goes faulty, then you will be very lucky if you can find any components to fix the radio with.

So what are the alternatives today for the new radio amateur who simply cannot afford modern day multi-mode transceiver that costs the price of a small car?

I believe the answer is to home-brew your own transmitters and receivers.

With modules around like GPS disciplined oscillators, SDR transmitters and receivers, single board computers and free software you can go a long way. Add to this a power amplifier and some decent antennas and you can easily put out tens of Watts of power.

You can start with a SDR receiver dongle, like the RTL-SDR V3 receiver that operates from 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz and costs around R550 locally or even the lower cost RTL2832U FC0013B SDR receivers with a frequency range of 22 MHz to 1.1 GHz and costs around R320.

Add to the hardware some home built antennas and some freely available software and you are on your way to building a receiving station for the HF and VHF and Above bands, depending on the SDR receiver that you have purchased. There are of course more expensive SDR receivers and even SDR transceivers that are available, but they may become out of the reach of the beginner, depending on what your budget may be.

Believe me there is such a lot of things that you can do with a SDR receiver.

How about a low cost transmitter? Well that is also possible using a program on github written by F5OEO. The program is rpitx and according to github can transmit any frequency between 5 kHz and 1500 MHz? Yes, you guessed it, rpitx is a utility that runs on any Raspberry Pi model. Again according to the authors github page rpitx can run on the model B, B+, PI2, PI3B, PI3B+, PIZero or PiZerow. It is of course low power and requires the necessary low pass filters because the GPIO pin that you control has a square wave output and you need to filter out the harmonics.

Yes, it is true, you can turn a Raspberry Pi into a transmitter. I have twice seen a demo being done by Anton, ZR6AIC where he demonstrated using SDR receiver connected to a Raspberry Pi and then using software like GNUradio that received a signal on 70cm and re-transmitted the audio on 2m.

Go and have a look at the blogspot of Anton ZR6AIC http://zr6aic.blogspot.com/ and have a look at some of the stuff he is playing with. Look at the satellite transponder he is working on.

You can also spend some more and get a higher performance Lime or Pluto SDR which also has a greater frequency range.

With this type of SDR you can easily build your own QO-100 satellite station or a 70 MHz to 6 GHz transceiver. Go and look at the Langstone transceiver at https://g1lps.com/langstone-tranceiver-vhf-ghz/ or https://wiki.microwavers.org.uk/Langstone_Project for more information.

You can even venture into Digital Amateur TV and build yourself a Portsdown 4 DATV system. Take a look at https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Portsdown_4

So, the possibilities are endless.

What interesting project have you been working on or what eciting contact have you made on the VHF and above bands?

Please send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.
Los Angeles [US], September 11 (ANI): Assessing the impact of the foundational changes and structural transformation that has happened in the last few years, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimated that India in 2047 will be a USD 35-45 Trillion economy, taking the country into the league of developed nations, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said on Sunday.

India as an economy in 2047 can be seen as a powerhouse driving global growth, Goyal said as he invited the business community of Southern California to invest in India.

Also Read | Pakistan: Farmers Protest Blocked Quetta-Karachi National Highway, Destroy Tomatoes Imported From Iran (Watch Video).

"Accessing the impact of the foundational changes and the structural transformation that has happened in the last few years, preparing India to rapidly grow. CII estimates India in 2047 to be a 35-45 trillion economy, taking us into the league of developed nations, a prosperous country, a country that cares for every single citizen of the country," Goyal said while addressing the business community of Southern California.

Goyal said, "We are proud to be the mother of all democracies. We are proud to have a vibrant judiciary, rule of law, robust media, and transparent government systems. India as an economy in 2047 can be seen as a powerhouse driving global growth."

Also Read | US Announces USD 40 Million Agricultural Aid to Crisis-Hit Sri Lanka.

"I can see an economy which at least on a business and social case, a 30 trillion USD economy, possibly as, CII estimated recently. Working on the foundation that has been prepared over the last few years," he said.

Union Minister invited the business community of Southern California to invest in India calling it a golden period and the next 25 years of amritKaal as a crucial time for the country.

"As we embark on our journey towards making India a developed nation, it is an important time for us to reflect on where we see India in the next 25 years," he said.

Goyal went on to say that the next 25 years of Amrit Kaal, as articulated by PM Modi, are going to define India's growth story.

India has the advantage of demographic dividend. Our youth, the aspirational people that we have in India is the biggest opportunity & each one of them is connected to the world with access to the Internet.

"This is a golden time to invest in India. I invite you all to be a part of India's journey towards becoming a developed nation. I urge you all to resolve to gift Made in India products, to gift handlooms, handicrafts, khadi made by the artisans of India," Goyal said calling the business community to be a part of the nation's journey towards being a developed country.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal is on a six-day visit to San Francisco and Los Angeles to attend the first Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) ministerial meeting.

The IPEF ministerial summit in Los Angeles concluded on Friday with a consensus from the partner countries on ministerial statements for each of the four IPEF pillars: Trade; Supply Chains; Clean Economy; and Fair Economy.

"Fruitful discussions had been held over the course of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Ministerial meeting to bring together a group of like-minded, rules-based, transparent countries with a shared interest in an open Indo-Pacific region," said Goyal after concluding the meeting.

Secretary of Commerce Gina M Raimondo and United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai hosted counterparts from the 13 Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) partner countries - representing over 40 per cent of the global economy - at the first official in-person Ministerial meeting.

IPEF, a group of 13 countries, is a multilateral economic framework. Since its launch in May launch, IPEF countries have engaged in intensive discussions to scope out each pillar of the Framework.

The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) was launched jointly by the USA and other partner countries of the Indo-Pacific region on May 23, 2022, in Tokyo.

India joined the IPEF and Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the launch event along with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and other leaders from partner countries. Previously, virtual Ministerial Meetings were held immediately after the launch on May 23 and thereafter from July 26-27, 2022.

India is committed to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific Region and would work towards deepening economic cooperation among partners for the growth and prosperity of the region.

The framework is inclusive and allows flexibility to partner countries to associate with pillars based on their respective priorities, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Beijing, September 11: India has issued a detailed advisory related to studying at Chinese medical schools as thousands of enrolled students continue to remain stuck at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 23,000 Indian students enrolled in various Chinese universities have been affected by the Chinese visa ban. Queen Elizabeth II Death: Longest Serving British Monarch Leaves Behind Assets Worth $88 Billion.

"Embassy of India in Beijing has been receiving several queries from prospective Indian students and their parents with respect to seeking admission for undergraduate clinical medicine programme in China," the embassy said in a statement on September 8.

China in July said that the country has made progress on facilitating the return of Indian students and is working in tandem with relevant departments to see that the first batch of Indian students can come back to study in China at the earliest. Earthquake: Powerful Quake of 6.2 Magnitude Jolts Western Indonesia, No Casualty Reported.

The Indian Embassy also shared the link to a study conducted by the National Board of Examination to highlight that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in the FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it.

"The study shows that only 6387 out of 40,417 students, who appeared in FMG Examination from 2015 to 2021 have cleared it. Here, the pass percentage of Indian students who have studied clinical medicine programme in China in that period in these 45 universities was only 16 per cent," it statement further added.

Indian students pursuing medicine from Chinese Universities are unable to return to China to attend classes due to COVID-19-induced restrictions.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting also stressed the need for expediting the process of return of Indian students to China to attend classes at an early date.

In order to facilitate the return of Indian students, Jaishankar met with Wang Yi on March 25. Earlier in April, the Chinese side had expressed its willingness to consider facilitating the return of Indian students to China on a need-assessed basis, said the Indian Embassy in China.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
London, Sep 11 (PTI) Queen Elizabeth II's love for India and the Commonwealth, shared by her son and successor King Charles III, were the recurring themes as Indian-origin members of Parliament, peers and diaspora groups paid tribute to the late monarch.

In special sittings of the Houses of Parliament over the past few days following the news of the Queen's death at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, MPs and peers reflected upon personal memories and also the connect the late monarch had with India and its over 1.2 million strong diaspora.

Also Read | UN Chief Antonio Guterres Warns World of Climate Change, Says Never Seen Climate Carnage on the Scale of the Floods in Pakistan.

Most of the tributes ended with the words, God save the King as parliamentarians stressed that the new monarch would continue the legacy of his late mother and build on the UK's bonds with India and the wider Commonwealth.

It was palpable how connected she felt to India and the wider subcontinent, which makes up almost 75 per cent of the 2.5 billion people across the Commonwealth, Lord Jitesh Gadhia said in the House of Lords.

Also Read | Queen Elizabeth II Funeral: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe to Attend Queens Funeral in Britain.

These sentiments are mirrored in reverse, exemplified by the day of state mourning that has been declared by the Government of India for Sunday As chair of the British Asian Trust, founded by His Majesty King Charles III some 15 years ago, I know that our new monarch shares the same priorities as his mother for the Commonwealth, and maintains a deep and abiding connectivity with all the countries of South Asia, he said.

Lord Raj Loomba recalled how King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, quoted the Vedas and expressed thanks to India for its civilising influence on Britain during a British Indian Golden Jubilee banquet in London back in 1997.

I know that the Queen's love for India and for the Commonwealth was fully shared by her eldest son, King Charles III, and that he will seek to build on that legacy, he said.

In her tribute, Baroness Usha Prashar used the words of Rabindranath Tagore to say that we should not say in grief that she is no more but say in thankfulness that she was.

The genuineness with which Her Majesty related to the leaders of the Commonwealth, even in the face of the most extraordinary challenges, such as apartheid, speaks volumes about the success of the Commonwealth under her leadership, she said.

Fellow peer Baroness Sandy Verma echoed many of the others' sentiments as she recalled the late Queen as someone who knew how to put people at ease "straight away".

One of my community leaders asked me to end by saying Shanti, shanti, shanti'. In Hindi that means Peace, peace, peace'. May Her Majesty the Queen rest in peace, she concluded.

Among the MPs, Cabinet Minister and COP26 President Alok Sharma focussed on the late monarch and her successor's influence in the sphere of climate action.

Through my work over the past few years on the COP26 agenda, I have had the privilege of supporting the work of King Charles' sustainable markets initiative. He is a great man, and he will be a great monarch, with the same instinctive understanding of his people and what matters to them as his mother, said the Agra-born minister.

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel recalled the affection and warmth of the Queen's visit to her constituency of Witham in Essex soon after she became MP.

In the years ahead, while the face on our notes, coins and stamps will of course change, Her late Majesty will always occupy a special and affectionate place in the heart of this nation. God rest her soul, and God save the King, said Patel.

In the hours since the news of the 96-year-old late monarch's death broke, temples and gurdwaras around the UK have organised special prayers in her memory and in support of her successor King Charles III.

Her Majesty was respected and admired not only in the United Kingdom, but across the world. She was an inspirational monarch, who personified the values of service and public duty, guiding the United Kingdom and Commonwealth with dignity, courage and selfless dedication for 70 years, reads a letter by His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj, the spiritual head of BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha and the famous Neasden Temple in London  where Charles has made several visits as Prince of Wales.

I shall keep you and your family in my prayers to all our Hindu deities and sages, to bless you with solace, strength and unity during this period of unspeakable grief and sorrow, the letter reads.

Lord Indrajit Singh, the director of the UK's Network of Sikh Organisations, said in a tribute on behalf of the Sikh community that the Queen's death marks a moment of great sorrow and reflection.

I recall the privilege of accompanying Her Majesty during her first visit to a gurdwara in Leicester in 2002. It was during her Golden Jubilee celebrations that she made clear that she was the sovereign for all her people, and that our different religions show that God's love extends in equal measure to the whole of humanity, he said.

Other diaspora organisations such as the British Indian think tank, 1928 Institute, spoke of a sombre cloud over the British Indian community with the Queen passing away and various groups have taken to social media to express their condolences to the royal family.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Los Angeles, Sep 11 (PTI) The commerce ministry is in the process of studying in greater detail the report on its restructuring and there is a plan to set up a trade promotion body, Union minister Piyush Goyal said on Sunday.

The ministry is working to redesign the Department of Commerce as India is targeting exports of goods and services to USD 2 trillion by 2030.

Also Read | Queen Elizabeth II Death: Longest Serving British Monarch Leaves Behind Assets Worth $88 Billion.

The restructuring rests on pillars like increasing India's share in global trade, assuming leadership roles in multilateral organisations, creating 100 Indian brands as global champions, and setting up economic zones in India to strengthen the manufacturing base and attract greater investments.

"We are in the process in the commerce ministry to redesign the structure of the ministry. And one of the ideas before us is to set up a trade promotion body, similar to Invest India, which will promote trade from India, for India," he told reporters here.

Also Read | Earthquake: Powerful Quake of 6.2 Magnitude Jolts Western Indonesia, No Casualty Reported.

Invest India, under the ministry, is an agency which facilitates investments into the country.

He added that the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), which currently looks after exports, import related issues, will have certain other roles more like a facilitation unit and trade promotion body will focus on promotion.

"Ideally, we would like to pattern it (trade promotion body) on the lines of Invest India with a flavour of independence, autonomy and like a private sector organisation so that it can genuinely work in close partnership with business and industry worldwide," Goyal said.

Last month the minister released the 'Department of Commerce Restructuring Dossier' in New Delhi.

"We have just received a report suggesting the new form of the ministry. And we now go through the process of studying the report in great detail and coming up with the overall plan for restructuring and rewriting the way commerce ministry functions," he said.

The 14 volumes of the report has defined the role of each section within the department and lays down the expected outcomes and key performance indicators.

When asked about the new foreign trade policy, Goyal said that the ministry is working on the contours of the policy.

The existing policy (2015-20) will end on September 30. The new policy is expected to be released before that.

In the policy, the government announces support measures for both goods and services exporters.

During April-August 2022-23, exports registered a growth of 17.12 per cent to USD 192.59 billion. Imports during the five-month period of this fiscal grew by 45.64 per cent to USD 317.81 billion, according to a preliminary data of the ministry.

Trade deficit widened to USD 125.22 billion in April-August this fiscal as against USD 53.78 billion in the same period last year.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Colombo, Sept 11 (PTI) A visiting US diplomat on Sunday said Washington is ready to assist Sri Lanka with its debt restructuring process and reiterated that all the island nation's creditors, including China must cooperate in this endeavour.

Earlier this month, Sri Lanka secured a staff-level agreement for a USD 2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), even as the country has an arduous task to restructure its debt with its creditors.

Also Read | Afghanistan: Tank Trailer Overturns on Highway in Zabul, Blockade Prompts Dozens of Vehicles to Remain Stranded.

All the Sri Lankan creditors, including China, have to agree to restructure their existing loans to the island nation before the IMF starts disbursing the loan.

It is imperative that all of Sri Lanka's creditors, notably the People's Republic of China, cooperates in this process openly. When debt becomes unsustainable, as it has become in Sri Lanka, this cooperation could mean the difference between life or death, prosperity or poverty," USAID Administrator Samantha Power said while addressing the press.

Also Read | UN Chief Antonio Guterres Warns World of Climate Change, Says Never Seen Climate Carnage on the Scale of the Floods in Pakistan.

It is estimated that Sri Lanka owes debt payments of USD 2 billion this year to China, one of Sri Lanka's biggest creditors.

Overall, China's loans and investments in Sri Lanka were estimated to be more than USD 8 billion in the last few years.

But Beijing has not made a public commitment for debt relief assistance to Colombo so far.

China's willingness to provide debt relief to Sri Lanka will be vital to accelerate the debt restructuring.

Meanwhile, Power said Washington wants the US-Sri Lanka relationship to becoming a strictly trade-related relationship, and not an aid-related relationship.

"We want to use our resources to unlock the potential that we know is there, without strings attached. And we think this is a really important moment in Sri Lanka for that same mindset of standing with our friends, no strings attached, and in the interest of economic independence and economic stability for this country," she added.

During her two-day visit to the country, Power announced USD 60 million in aid to Sri Lanka, which includes a USD 40 million to buy fertilisers and other key agricultural inputs in time for the next cultivation season.

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million, plunged into a political crisis in July, after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country following a popular public uprising against his government for mismanaging the economy.

Rajapaksa was replaced by his ally Ranil Wickremesinghe.

In mid-April, Sri Lanka declared its international debt default due to the forex crisis.

The country owes USD 51 billion in foreign debt, of which USD 28 billion must be paid by 2027.

There have been street protests in Sri Lanka against the government since early April due to its mishandling of the economic crisis.

A crippling shortage of foreign reserves has led to long queues for fuel, cooking gas, and other essentials while power cuts and soaring food prices have heaped misery on the people.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kabul [Afghanistan], September 11 (ANI): Taliban crashed a Blackhawk chopper in Afghanistan's Kabul on Saturday afternoon during a training exercise, leaving three people dead, said the Taliban's Ministry of Defence in a statement.

The Blackhawk chopper reportedly crashed inside a military training base in Kabul, which not only caused casualties but also injured two, Khaama Press reported.

Also Read | Pakistan: Hindu Temple Becomes Refuge for Flood-Hit Muslim Families in Balochistan.

the Taliban also took control of some US-made aircraft after they seized the country last year in August.

The incident was later confirmed by the Taliban's Ministry of Defence as the outfit gave it a name of technical error.

Also Read | WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Says One Person Still Dying Every 44 Seconds Due to COVID-19 Globally.

As per Khaama Press, the press release published by the Ministry of Defense confirmed the death of 3 people including 2 pilots and the injury of another 2 individuals.

This comes as several Afghanistan National Security Defense Forces (ANSDF) choppers remained in the hands of the Taliban while most of them were flown to neighbouring countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last year as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

Moreover, the Taliban also took control of some US-made aircraft after they seized the country last year in August.

On August 15th 2021, Afghanistan's republic administration collapsed after the former president of the country Mohammad Ashraf Ghani fled to the UAE.

Notably, Washington stopped flying in hard currency, paralyzing Afghanistan's banking system and froze USD 7 billion in Afghan assets in the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Earlier, in the month of June, the Taliban official Amir Khan Muttaqi, along with his delegation, left for Qatar to discuss with the US officials the release of withheld Afghan assets.

After the Taliban seized the nation by force last year, the US froze Afghan reserves. The militants-turned-politicians are currently working to restore the nation's economy which has been ravaged by sanctions imposed and isolation.US President Joe Biden decided to split USD 7 billion of the frozen Afghan assets to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Afghanistan is currently grappling with a serious humanitarian crisis according to international assessments with more than 23 million in need of assistance. Although the fighting in the country has ended, serious human rights violations continue unabated, especially against women, children and minorities. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kabul [Afghanistan], September 11 (ANI): The Taliban announced that they are negotiating with the United Arab Emirates over airspace control in Afghanistan.

The Taliban administration on Saturday announced they would sign the third and final major contract for running Afghanistan's airports with the United Arab Emirates' GAAC Holding, according to sources, reported The Khaama Press.

Also Read | Afghanistan: Tank Trailer Overturns on Highway in Zabul, Blockade Prompts Dozens of Vehicles to Remain Stranded.

The contract would run for 10 years, Ghulam Jelani Popal, deputy head of Afghanistan's Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, told reporters at a press conference in Kabul, UK-based media reported.

He added that the group had already signed contracts with UAE state-linked GAAC over ground services and security.

Also Read | UN Chief Antonio Guterres Warns World of Climate Change, Says Never Seen Climate Carnage on the Scale of the Floods in Pakistan.

The agreements would help the Taliban ease their isolation from the outside world, with no foreign country formally recognizing their government and strict enforcement of sanctions hampering the economy, reported The Khaama Press.

Ibrahim Moarafi, the General Manager and Regional Director of GAAC, told reporters in Kabul that it would encourage major international airlines to return to Afghanistan.

"We believe this is a significant development," he said, as quoted by UK-based media. "We also believe this is a significant development as it will bring economic benefits in job creation."

The Taliban, whose government remains in international isolation without formal recognition, have courted regional powers, including Qatar and Turkey, to operate Kabul airport, landlocked Afghanistan's main air link with the world, and others.

After months of back-and-forth talks, and at one point raising the possibility of a joint UAE-Turkey-Qatar to deal with the Taliban in recent months decided to hand operations in their entirety to the UAE, sources had told Reuters in July, reported The Khaama Press.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Traders' Council in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) welcomed the deals, saying the contract with the UAE's GAAC company to provide air services is crucial for strengthening relations between Kabul and Abu Dhabi.

Haji Obaidullah Sadarkhail, the head of the council, says that this contract will also solve the problem of issuing UAE visas to Afghan citizens and businesspeople, reported The Khaama Press.

"With the signing of this contract, foreign flights to Afghanistan will begin, including international flights, and as a result, relations between Afghanistan and other United Arab Emirates will improve," Sadarkhail said, as Tolo News quoted.

According to figures provided by the council, three hundred Afghan businesspeople are currently operating in the United Arab Emirates, and this contract will facilitate their travel.

"This contract is almost USD 400 million in value. With the help of this contract, both our youth and technical and professional employees will have jobs. Trade and investment between Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates will rise as a result of this agreement," said Jamal Nasir Ebadi, a trader.

In accordance with this contract, in addition to improving the capacity of the Kabul airport staff, the GAAC company will buy the tools required for aircraft guidance.

The Taliban have said that in recent months use of Afghan airspace by international aircraft has been down by 80 per cent and it has impacted the earnings of the Afghan government, reported local media.

In twenty-four hours, sixty to seventy planes pass through the country's airspace, and Afghanistan earns USD 700 of each aircraft passing through the country's airspace, reported Tolo News citing Officials from Afghanistan's Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (MTCA).

Notably, Afghanistan has six air corridors that connect South Asia to Central Asia. (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, September 11: A man, who kidnapped a four-year-old girl, was arrested, and the victim was rescued from his possession within 24 hours by the Outer District Police. A senior police official said that the accused was identified Sunil alias Bhura. He kidnapped the girl as he had no children.

The official said that on September 9 at around 5 p.m. they got a call regarding the kidnapping of a girl. A complaint in this regard was later on lodged with Raj Park Police Station. The official said that they lodged an FIR and formed a team to look into the matter.

"We scanned a number of CCTV footages and in one of the footages a man could be seen taking away a girl. With the help of local intelligence, the man was identified as Sunil alias Bhura who lived in Bagpat district of UP. We sent a team to his village and found that the accused had abandoned in Rogarh area and had fled," the police said. The police team rescued the girl from a nearby ares of a police station in Bagpat. Later on, the accused was also held from his native place. Ludhiana Shocker: Woman, Lover Murder Her Husband, Try To Pass It Off As Cardiac Arrest; Booked.

"The accused is a divorcee and a drunkard. He kidnapped the girl as he has no children. He wanted to raise her as his own. But he got scared and had abandoned her on the way," the official said. The girl was handed over to her family and the accused was lodged in judicial custody.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 11, 2022 07:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Began my visit to Saudi Arabia with an interaction with our community. Appreciated contribution of our Diaspora in facing national challenges. Spoke to them about our countrys resilience during time of Covid & national transformation that is underway in India: EAM S Jaishankar pic.twitter.com/jQGrOqUvsg ANI (@ANI) September 10, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
Indian Army chief General Manoj Pande today flew in an Indian Air Force Apache attack helicopter in the Ladakh sector. He was familiarised with the flying characteristics of the platform and briefed about its capabilities and roles: Indian Army pic.twitter.com/uRdm3TxfAO ANI (@ANI) September 11, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01d0498)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0235600)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f01d0498)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0235600)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f00ab0a8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0235600)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0235600)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e7523d70)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f00a6cf0)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f00a6cf0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and Union Forest Minister Bhupendra Yadav on Sunday inspected the Kuno National Park ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit where cheetah will be re-introduced on September 17. They will be released into specially built enclosures on the same day by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, state forest minister Vijay Shah said on Saturday.

Check Tweet:

MP | September 17 to be a historic day for state. Cheetah which had gone extinct not just from India but from the Asian continent is being re-introduced in presence of PM Modi. Cheetahs are being transported from Africa: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan pic.twitter.com/IOnfVRQ9mI  ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) September 11, 2022

Kuno, MP | Visuals from inside the Kuno National Park where Cheetahs will be re-introduced on September 17. PM Modi will be present at the Park on the day of the re-introduction. https://t.co/MzywIrARsR pic.twitter.com/brzlqYNvR0  ANI (@ANI) September 11, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
Police arrested 5 workers of Uddhav Thackeray faction after a clash broke out between workers of the Eknath Shinde faction and Uddhav Thackeray faction over a social media post, in the Dadar area. Case registered against more than 30 people: Mumbai Police ANI (@ANI) September 11, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
The Chief of #SouthKorea's main opposition Democratic Party (DP) expressed regret on Sunday over #NorthKorea's declaration of a nuclear weapons state and vowed bipartisan efforts for peace on the Korean Peninsula. pic.twitter.com/Ex8w2MHKAz IANS (@ians_india) September 11, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
The #Karnataka Police have arrested four nomads and seized 1,132 star #turtles in the state capital, which were brought for sale in the limits of RMC Yard police station, police said on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/I1C4jz8Gvf IANS (@ians_india) September 11, 2022

(SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
The Government's Housing for All plan is working for Laois in the past year according the the housing Minister Darragh OBrien.

A statement from his Department said a range of measures delivered in plans first year, including investment in social housing; measures aimed at addressing viability and activating the delivery of new homes; additional supports for renters; measures to enhance construction sector; planning and land management reforms; Measures aimed at bringing vacant and derelict homes back into use also introduced.

It said that one year on from its introduction, the Government has marked the first 12 months of the Governments ambitious Housing for All plan, citing the progress made in delivering housing for Laois.

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh OBrien TD, has visited Laois during the past 12 months to inspect projects under construction. He commented a year into delivery.

When we launched Housing for All our aim was that everyone should have access to a home to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high standard and in the right place. We backed that with a guaranteed over 4 billion a year in housing investment and a series of actions to deliver 300,000 new homes by 2030, including 90,000 social homes and 54,000 affordable homes. While theres a lot of work still to do, we can see already, after the first 12 months that the plan is working in Laois and across the country, he said in a statment.

His Department outlined measures and impacts in Laois arising from Housing for All are:

377 new homes built in Laois in the 12 months to end of June 2022

Commencement Notices for 570 homes were received in Laois in the 12 months to the end of July 2022 (a 25.6% increase on the previous 12 months)

Planning permissions for 671 homes in Laois to the end of Q1 2022

Approval for six new posts in Laois County Council for local authority housing delivery

Introduction of exemption from planning permission requirements for converting vacant Laois pubs into homes. The existing exemptions to converting vacant commercial premises into homes in Laois have been extended. Between 2018 and 2021, 30 residential units were provided in Laois through 14 notifications of exempted developments.

In 2021, the Government provided 33.95m in total funding to Laois County Council for housing, a 44% increase on 2020.

In 2021, 168 new social homes were delivered.

There was a 51% reduction in the number of households on the social housing waiting list in Laois at the end of 2021 compared to the first annual assessment conducted in September 2016.

A new expanded Local authority Home Loan

Launch of the First Home Scheme

Significant funding made available by Government to assist local authority affordable housing delivery, for purchase and rent, through the Affordable Housing Fund

A revised cap on any rent increase and legislation on tenancies of unlimited duration

Homes ring-fenced for individual buyers through planning changes, with 62 homes ring-fenced in County Laois between May 2021 and mid-May 2022

Introduction of a Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant (through Croi Conaithe (Towns) Fund) to incentivise the refurbishment of vacant homes in Laois

Fair Deal Scheme reforms and Town Centre First policy to reduce vacancy

New National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability

Reformed planning process for large-scale developments in Laois and elsewhere  greater certainty, clarity and public participation

Tax to activate vacant land zoned for housing, commencing in 2024.

Measures to increase construction sector capacity in Laois, including greater investment to increase the availability of apprenticeships and training, international recruitment initiatives and the new 'Future Building' initiative to spearhead activation and recruitment for the sector

A number of significant measures to accelerate research and innovation in the sector, including Enterprise Ireland's new Built to Innovate Fund, a 5m investment for the establishment of a new Construction Technology Centre, and the turning the sod on a new Modern Methods of Construction Demonstration Park.

A new design manual and streamlined processes for the procurement of social housing for Laois County Council

The Minister of State for Planning and Local Government, Peter Burke TD, commenting on the role of local authorities in delivering housing in Laois.

Laois County Council is playing a central role in delivering housing in the county. Over the past 12 months the Government has provided resources and funding to the council to help it deliver for people in Laois. Ive recently issued guidelines to Laois County Council on the making of their county development plan to ensure it takes into account projected housing need so that sufficient new homes can be built in key areas of housing demand. We have also streamlined the processes for the procurement of social housing, he said.

The Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan TD, commented on progress made in putting sustainability at the heart of housing.

Compact growth has to be at the heart of housing provision and planning. Higher population densities will have upshots such as minimal transport demand and shorter travel distances. Since Housing for All was launched, we have made progress in developing legislation to introduce Land Value Sharing and a new concept, Urban Development Zones. These are key reforms in land management and planning, which will result in compact growth and curbs on land speculation, he said.
A man who drunkenly drove a truck on the motorway as gardai pursued him for ten kilometres was disqualified from driving for three years.

Florin Stefan, 31, of no fixed abode, admitted to the offence at a sitting of Portlaoise District Court.

Garda Sergeant JJ Kirby said gardai had observed a red Scania articulated lorry swerving across both lanes at Junction 15 on the M7 at 10.30pm on May 8 last.

The driver failed to stop for 10 kilomtres and later gave an alcohol reading of 257mgs blood which carries a three year disqualification. He has no previous convictions, Sgt Kirby said.

Solicitor Barry Fitzgerald said his client has difficulty with alcohol. The defendants new employer appeared in court and said he had since given the man a job on a farm and provided him with accommodation.

I employed him on the condition that there is no alcohol, he explained.

He said he brought him into town for food and provisions, although he acknowledged that one day he got away and bought alcohol.

He said the man is a good worker but he doesnt drive.

I am 100% sure that he hasnt had any in four or five weeks, he remarked.

He said the man needs to get home to his own country to see his family.

Judge Michelle Finan said everyone has a problem with alcohol, everyone in the world. She warned the defendant not to drink and said: You are very lucky that this man here came to court for you.

Disqualifying the man for three years, Judge Finan said if you drive again with that disqualification it is very, very likely you will go to prison. She also ordered him to pay 100 to the court poor box.
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.

Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.

If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .

Support our mission and join our community now.
The Hooves4Hospice fundraising project has warmly welcomed the announcement that government funding of 20 million is to be provided to enable Midland Regional Hospice to proceed.

The hospice will be located on the campus of the Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore and has been the subject of a fundraising campaign organised in the midlands by Hooves4Hospice.

Pat Lalor is the fundraising project chairperson.

We are delighted that after two and a half years of fundraising and promoting, with others, the case for a Regional Hospice

in the Midlands, our goal has been achieved. We exhort the HSE to proceed to prioritise the design and construction of the hospice project so that the hospice aspect of end of life care in the Midlands can be introduced as soon as possible.

 We are pleased that the size of the hospice is to be increased from 16 to 20 beds. We, and others, have favoured the higher number of beds now proposed," he said.

Farmers, in particular those from Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath, have been central to the Hooves4Hospice campaign through the sale of cattle.

 The farmers who responded to our appeal to donate and rear animals and donate the proceeds to Hooves4Hospice are deserving of our deepest appreciation and gratitude for their great generosity. In addition to farmers from the four midland counties, there are farmers from all four provinces participating in our project, which has also attracted generous sponsorship and financial support, from business, community groups and individuals, from all parts of Ireland," he said.

The Taoiseach Micheal Martin announce the funding for the project on a visit to Offaly. Mr Lalor thanked him for the pledge.

I was pleased to have been able to thank An Taoiseach personally, on the day the funding was announced, for recognising the urgent need for a Regional Hospice in the Midlands and for approving the government funding required," he said.

He also thanked others for backing the campaign.

We are most grateful to the print and broadcast media for their support of our project since it was launched in January 2020. We are also grateful to the Minister for Health and the public representatives who supported our project," he said.

However, Mr Lalor added that the project is not over the line yet.

There is much that remains to be done to complete the work of Hooves4Hospice. In that regard we still need some more farmers willing to donate and/ or rear an animal. As a result of the announcement of government funding, we approach that task with renewed confidence and enthusiasm," he said.
You spend your entire working life accumulating what you hope will be a sufficient Pension Fund for your retirement, for many people it may be your biggest financial asset, possibly worth more than your house or any other savings you may have, and it may be crucial in helping to provide for your family, and perhaps your spouses own retirement.



For this reason, its perfectly natural that you might ask yourself the question What happens to my pension when I die?

Unfortunately, like most things to do with pensions, there is no simple, straightforward answer, its complicated and the answer depends on a number of factors, such as, did you die before retirement? After retirement? Does the pension relate to your current employment or previous employment? Pensions can also be unusual in how they are treated for the purpose of Inheritance. Particular attention should also be given to the treatment of post-retirement assets in this regard.



In this article I will touch on what might happen to your pension benefits when you die in a number of different circumstances.

Firstly, lets look at what happens if you die before retirement, before youve had a chance to access your Pension benefits. There are many different types of Pension contracts in Ireland, Occupational Pensions, PRSAs, Personal Pensions, Buy-out Bonds etc, each of these pension types have different rules as to how the benefits are paid in the event of the death of the member.



If you are a member of a Pension scheme through your employer (an occupational Pension), and you die while you are still working, this is called Death in Service, in this case your estate will be entitled to a surrender value of your pension, which means the value of all contributions made into the policy by both you and also your employer.



There are rules, however, as to how this would be paid out. Your estate can receive a Tax-free lump sum of up to 4 times your salary + the value of any contributions you have made. If the total value of the pension exceeds this figure, then the remainder would then be invested in an Approved Retirement Fund ARF), this is a welcome change which was introduced in the Finance Bill 2021, before that you would have had to buy an Annuity with the balance of the fund. You also need to watch out for the small print, some pension schemes for example, wont give your estate back employer contributions if you die within 2 years of joining the scheme.



If you have a private pension on the other hand, such as PRSA or Personal pension the treatment on death is very different to that of Occupational Pensions, for these types of policies the entire value of the Pension pot would be paid as a Tax-free Lump Sum into your estate.



Up to now we have looked at what happens if you die pre-retirement but in reality, its much more likely that people will die post-retirement, after they have taken a Tax-free Lump sum and invested the balance of their Pension in an Approved Retirement Fund (ARF). An ARF is quite unusual in that it is not treated the same as other assets for inheritance Tax purposes.

On your death, if you are married your ARF will pass to your spouse, it will then become an ARF in his/her name and the same ARF drawdown rules and taxes will apply.



However, if youre Single or if your spouse has pre-deceased, you then your ARF may be passed on to your children. The age of your children will determine how the ARF is treated for Tax, if the children are Under 21 then the ARF will be liable for Inheritance Tax at 33% and normal rules apply, however, if the children are over the age of 21, they will pay income tax at a rate of 30% instead of Inheritance Tax at a rate of 33%. Also, receiving the ARF from a parent wont impact their Group A Lifetime inheritance tax threshold (currently 335,000).



A much small number of people may have chosen to purchase an Annuity at Retirement rather than an ARF. Unfortunately, on death, an annuity will die with you and the payments will stop unless you have added extra features such as a spouses pension or you die within the Guaranteed Period which is usually up to 5 years.



In summary, your Pension is most likely one of your most valuable assets and will form a substantial part of your estate when you die. You should always seek independent professional advice in this area.

Barry Kerr CFP is Founder & Managing Director of Wealthwise Financial Planning who are based in Carrick on Shannon and Galway. All details and views contained within this article are for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice. Wealthwise Financial Planning makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness or suitability of any information and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or any losses arising from its use. Wealthwise Financial Ltd T/A Wealthwise Financial Planning is Regulated by the central Bank of Ireland #CI6614
Nathalie, 59, a caregiver at the geriatric unit of the GHR of Mulhouse and South Alsace, makes the bed of a resident on July 18, 2022. She has been working in the department for 15 years. DELPHINE BLAST POUR  LE MONDE 

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was much talk of invisible workers. The term referred to a broad set of activities, lowly valued in wage and symbolic terms, despite their now obvious social importance. In addition to underpaid jobs in health care or personal assistance, it also referred to unpaid domestic work, performed daily in the home. What decades of feminist struggles had fought to do, Covid seemed on the verge of accomplishing: Invisible labor was entering the public debate.

The term came into circulation in the 1970s. The International Women's Year decreed by the UN in 1975 marked a first turning point. That year, an international conference held in Mexico City launched a reflection on housework and childcare. It was no longer a question of thinking about the occupations of mothers in the manner of the domestic economy treatises of the 19th century. While seeking to rationalize the running of households, they saw in it essentially the proof of maternal love. One could then deny the nature of this work while recognizing the crucial role of the family in ensuring the reproduction of the workforce.

In contrast to these approaches, the focus then turned to the inclusion of unpaid work in national accounts. In 1981, the Institut national de la statistique et des etudes economiques (French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) estimated that domestic work occupied 48 billion annual hours, compared to 41 billion for paid professional work. In 2009, the Stiglitz Report estimated home production at 35% of France's gross domestic product. Globally, the amount of unpaid work done by women was estimated by Oxfam in 2020 to be 12.5 billion daily hours, with an annual value of 10.8 trillion dollars (more than 9.55 trillion euros), the equivalent of the work done by 1.5 billion people working eight hours a day for a year.

Statistical visibility is not just a symbolic issue. In her 2019 book Invisible Women, British feminist Caroline Criado-Perez denounced the cognitive biases that have contributed to the creation of a male world. Whether statistical models or big data, the information that would allow women to be taken into account has sometimes been non-existent, sometimes inoperative when it comes to making health or safety standards that guide public policies. This is what sociologist Jerome Denis called the "invisible work of data."

We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback

No status or rights

After 1990, the expression invisible labor took on new meanings. In a context of triumphant neoliberalism, the working class was no longer fashionable. The realities of work were disappearing from cinema and literature, at the same time as they were obscured by an increasingly abstract science of economics and by a political philosophy less and less inclined, as with John Rawls, to observe social realities. The economist Pierre-Yves Gomez (Le Travail invisible. Enquete sur une disparition, "Invisible Work: Investigation into a Disappearance") made the connection with the financialization of the economy by American pension funds. In order to better monitor the work done within companies as well as public organizations, and to maximize profits, new accounting tools were introduced. However, these tools have only allowed us to see the objective product of work. They have ignored the "living work" that builds the worker's individual and collective identity.

You have 30.96% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
A YOUNG couple stranded in Spain don't know where they will be sleeping this Sunday night due to the Aer Lingus "system outage".

Katie Glavin, from Anglesboro, and Ben Hurley, Mitchelstown, both aged 26, flew out to Malaga for their first sun holiday together on Saturday, September 3.

They were due to return home yesterday (Saturday afternoon) leaving Malaga Airport at 4.30pm for the three hour flight to Cork.

"It was a two hour delay announced at first, and after seeing the news stories, we were worried," said Katie, a news reporter with the Avondhu newspaper.

"But it said Spain and Portugal were not affected so we were hopeful. Then another two hour delay was announced and we started checking Twitter and Flight Radar for anything."



Katie told Limerick Live this Sunday morning that they were given 15 flight vouchers but the people handing them out had "no information at all".

"No reps came up to speak to us when it was cancelled. There was a huge group of people all waiting on the flight and no one to tell us what to do or where to go



"We had to go to the luggage belt and collect our bags off a belt for an incoming Ryanair flight then go back to the departures desk for a bus to a hotel for the night with no information on when we can go home," said Katie.

She said they were put up in a hotel last night, arriving around 11pm.

"We got 'picnic bags' with a sandwich, water and some other things," she said.

Katie and Ben, a care assistant, have now been put on a flight on Monday with a long stopover in Heathrow - see picture below.

"They've put us on this flight tomorrow but we have nowhere to stay tonight. It's awful. Still stuck in Malaga with no communication from Aer Lingus," said Katie, who is over an hour on the phone trying to get through to Aer Lingus.

"I'm onto my travel agent at the minute and she's not meant to be working weekends but she's contacting me and trying to get something sorted. I know it's not her or the companies fault, but the absolute disregard from Aer Lingus is horrible," said Katie.

In a statement on their website, Aer Lingus said they "sincerely apologise to customers for the severe disruption caused on Saturday, September 10 by the unavailability of key systems for check-in, boarding and our website".

"This system outage was caused by a break in connectivity in services from a UK network provider. The break in connectivity has now been restored and we are taking steps to bring all of our systems back online," it reads.

Aer Lingus had to cancel 51 flights on Saturday, mainly to and from Dublin / European & UK destinations. Aer Lingus is operating the majority of its transatlantic services from Dublin, albeit with delays and reduced passenger numbers in some instances due to security restrictions applying as a result of the systems outage.

Transatlantic services from Shannon operated as normal on Saturday. Aer Lingus Regional (operated by Emerald Airlines) are also planning to operate remaining services on Saturday, albeit with delays.

"Any customer impacted by Saturday's disruptions will be able apply for a refund or change their travel plans, free of charge through aerlingus.com, our call centres and our social media channels. As systems have now been restored we are contacting customers directly in order to re-accommodate them as efficiently as possible.

"We have made additional customer service agents available to deal with high call volumes - please bear with us as we try to service all customer queries. We will also share information regarding customers' rights and the airlines' obligations under Regulation (EC) 261/2004.

"Aer Lingus advises customers that its operations for Sunday, September 11 are planned to operate as normal. Customers are advised to come to the airports at the normal time for their scheduled flight," concludes the statement.
A MOYROSS monk bravely broke up a fight after a man was being punched and kicked on the ground.

Video footage of the incident which took place on Saturday in Moyross has been widely shared on social media.

In the clip, two males can be seen fighting on a green area before one is knocked down and onto the road. There are a number of onlookers and many shouts of "Fair go".

While on the ground the prone man is punched and kicked until the monk steps in. The member of the Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR) ushers the aggressor away. In a sign of the respect that the monks are held in Moyross, the assailant immediately complies.

Limerick Live has contacted St Patrick's Friary in Delmege Park, Moyross, regarding the incident.

Following a query to the Garda Press Office, a spokesperson said: "There are no reported incidents matching the given description recorded on our system at this time."

A relatively new order, the 'Monks of Moyross' as they are colloquially known, swapped the tough streets of the Bronx in New York City to set up a mission in the housing estate in 2007.

It was the former Bishop of Limerick Dr Donal Murrays relationship with one of the founders of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, the late Fr Benedict Joseph Groeschel which helped bring the order to Limerick  in doing so, creating their first mission outside of America and Britain.

They have been welcomed with open arms in Moyross and Limerick as a whole.
OSCAR winner Russell Crowe has confirmed last month's exclusive story that he is to shoot scenes from new film The Popes Exorcist in County Limerick.

Limerick Live reported that a set has been prepared in front of Dromore Caste in the parish of Kildimo-Pallaskenry. The Gothic Revival style country house, built between 1866-1867, has previously been used as a location for Neil Jordans film High Spirits.

The 58-year-old is starring in the film based on real-life figure Fr Gabriele Amorth, a priest who acted as chief exorcist of the Vatican and who performed more than 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime.

Discussing the movie, Russell Crowe, the final guest on Friday's Late Late Show, said: "Later this week actually we shift down to Limerick, Richard Harris home town." "Your old friend," interjected Ryan Tubridy

"Im looking forward to popping into Charlie St George's and having a quiet Guinness," said Russell.

"Research?" asked a laughing Ryan.

"It's actually getting on the sauce in Limerick!" said Russell, who struck up a deep friendship with one of Limericks most famous sons Richard Harris on the set of Gladiator.

Following Richard Harris death in 2002, the New-Zealand-born actor fulfilled a promise to his great friend to watch a rugby match in Ireland and he visited a number of watering holes in Limerick city, including Charlie St George's.

Former Limerick Leader editor Eugene Phelan met Russell Crowe on that visit in 2002.

Minister of State Niall Collins said it is a great boost for West Limerick that "such a stunning location overlooking the Shannon Estuary is going to be the site for a major film shoot and brought to a worldwide audience".

Mr Collins added: "It is another opportunity to showcase the film industry in Limerick on an international stage coming off the back of the continuing success of Troy Studios.

The minister said the Hollywood actor will get a warm Limerick welcome.

"Following the recent JP McManus Pro-Am we are used to many high profile celebrities coming to the region and this is another one, said Mr Collins.
MUMBAI : Yes Bank Ltd is hoping to receive approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the next two months for its proposed stake sale to infuse 8,898 crore, said chief executive Prashant Kumar.

The regulators approval is the only one pending as the banks board and shareholders have voted in favour of the stake sale, Kumar said in an interview.

RBI never gives you a timeline (on approvals), but definitely, as a regulator, they have to do their due diligence processes, which they are doing. It should happen in a month or two," said Kumar.

On 24 August, shareholders approved the fundraising proposal at an extraordinary general meeting. On 29 July, the bank said its board approved the fundraising by selling shares and warrants to private equity investors Carlyle Group and Advent International. These investments would give Carlyle and Advent as much as 10% each in the bank once the warrants are converted into shares. Under RBI regulations, any stake sale over 4.99% in a private bank to an investor requires regulatory approval.

The capital raise, among the largest by a domestic private lender, will enable Yes Bank to enhance its capital ratios by more than 400 basis points and put it among the banks with one of the highest capital ratios. Yes Banks total capital adequacy ratio stood at 17.7% as on 30 June.

With capital in sight, the bank plans to grow faster than the industry. After several quarters of lull, bank credit growth has picked up pace, aided by an ever-growing demand for retail loans and supported by a fledgling corporate credit demand.

As a result, outstanding non-food bank credit stood at 124.3 trillion as on 26 August, up 15.9% from the same period last year, showed data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

For the last two years, on loans as well as deposits, we have been growing more than the market rate, and that is why our market share has improved. We would continue to grow at a higher pace than the industry," said Kumar, adding that the bank would not be overly aggressive.

Suppose the industry is growing at 20% in credit, at most you can grow at 25% or 30%; but if you are growing at 40-45%, it would mean taking a very high risk. We would be growing, but cautiously. We would continue to gain market share on both loans and deposits, but gradually," he said.

Asked about the banks strategy in regrowing its corporate loan book, Kumar said Yes Bank has not stopped corporate lending and just has a greater focus on retail and small business loans.

In fact, retail loans constituted 62% of the loan book at the end of the June quarter, up from 47% in the same period last year.

If you see, our total corporate book has shrunk because there were some prepayments owing to the liquidity situation. Some prepayments were also triggered by the bank as we were not comfortable," said Kumar.

The bank is growing in all segments, but definitely there are more opportunities in retail and the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) space.

As a strategy, our corporate loan growth would be granular, and we are not going to write 4,000-5,000 crore cheques. If it is a very good credit (AA or AA rated), then we would put in about 500-1,000 crore," he said.
Carla Generaal used to spend 15 minutes in the shower, slowly raising the temperature as the minutes passed. Her boyfriend, who takes one-and-a-half-minute cold showers, couldnt fathom how she could be so wasteful. He bought her a five-minute sand-filled timer.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Sunday gave his nod to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged irregularities in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses procurement scam, according to news agency ANI.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took a dig at Delhi over the CBI probe into this case, saying that "the national capital needs more educated LG".

"LG is facing many serious allegations of corruption. To divert attention, he is making such inquiries. All inquiries so far have yielded no results. After making frivolous complaints against three ministers (CM, Dy CM, and Health Min), he has now made a complaint against the fourth minister. He should first respond to the allegations of corruption against him," the AAP said in an official statement.

Saxena has approved the proposal to forward a complaint to the federal agency about the alleged irregularities in the procurement of 1,000 low-floor buses by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). The complaint was registered by the Chief Secretary of Delhi Transport Corporation on June 9.

The complaint stated that the appointment of Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot as the Chairman of the Committee for tendering and procurement of buses by DTC was made in a "pre-mediated manner".

"Irregularities in the bid of July 2019 for procurement of 1000 low floor BS-IV and BS-VI buses and a bid of March 2020 for purchase and annual maintenance contract of low floor BS-VI buses," it further read, as quoted by ANI.

On June 11, the complaint was then forwarded to the Chief Secretary for eliciting comments from the concerned departments of the Government of N.C.T of Delhi (GNCTD) and recommending the way forward.

After a detailed examination of the documents by DTC, various irregularities were found in the tendering and procurement of buses.

Another irregularity that was found was that M/s TATA Motors Ltd made a bid for 600 buses only. At the same time, JBM made a bid for 1000 buses (400 BS-IV and 600 BS-VI) at a rate higher than Tata Motors. In effect, JBM became the single bidder and therefore, the tender should have been rejected and a fresh tender should have been called by the Tender Committee.

On the basis of these findings, Chief Secretary recommended referring the matter to CBI, which was approved by the LG.





(With ANI inputs)
















Bombay High Court has said that the Maharashtra government should seriously implement its policy to promote the Marathi language. The court was directing the state government to hold the public prosecutor recruitment exam in Marathi also, according to news agency PTI.

A bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and R N Laddha on September 7 passed the order on a petition filed by one Pratap Jadhav, who sought that the exam should be conducted in Marathi also instead of only English.

"I also studied in the Marathi language since school. The proceedings before the courts of Judicial Magistrate First Class and Civil Judge Junior Division are normally conducted in the Marathi language. Marathi is the state's local language," Jadhav, the petitioner said as quoted by PTI.

In its order, the Bombay High Court said that the state government ought to have been serious on the issue.

The court said, "The Maharashtra government cannot say that the exams of the magistrates and civil judges can be conducted in the Marathi language. The same facility would not be provided for the examination of the Public Prosecutor. In fact, it is the general stand of the government to promote the local language (Marathi)."

It further added that the high court may not fathom the stand of the state government in this matter.

It stated that the examination is scheduled to take place on September 11, 2022, hence, it may not be possible to pass an order for this year's exam.

"The Maharashtra government shall ensure that the next examination for public prosecutors is conducted in English as well as the Marathi language. The order will help in implementing the state government's policy of promoting Marathi which is its language," the court said.

Meanwhile, Additional Government Pleader Molina Thakur told the high court that a total of 7,700 candidates are appearing for the examination for the posts of public prosecutors this year.

(With PTI inputs)

C
Reeling under extreme flood situations and incessant rainfall, Karnataka released around 1,24,740 cusecs of water from the Sonna barrage to the Bheema river on Sunday.

The released water may help in controlling the flood-like situation in parts of Karnataka after it received heavy rainfall in the Kalaburagi area, as well as in neighbouring Maharashtra. The inflow of the Sonna barrage is estimated to be around 1,22,634 cusecs.

#WATCH | Karnataka: Ganagapur Bridge in Kalaburagi inundated after Sonna Barrage released 1,24,740 cusecs of water to Bhima River, earlier today pic.twitter.com/LUGVqY9rt0  ANI (@ANI) September 11, 2022

Several bridges were inundated and water streams were swollen after the water was released to Bheema river. People had to face difficulties in travelling and crossing rivers and streams due as they were gushing with water due to rainfall and release of water by the state.

Excessive rainfall in the state came into the limelight when India's silicon valley was nearly shut down due to severe water logging. Bengaluru received heavy rainfall for more than weeks. That's why extreme water logging led to traffic jams and disruptions in the lives of people in several parts of Bengaluru.

Also Read: Gadkari holds meeting with Karnataka CM

Earlier last week, Images of IT professionals in Bengaluru resorting to tractors to reach their workplace took the internet by storm.

Several big IT offices and other places were completely submerged in water due to excessive flooding. Situated near HAL Airport, Yemalur was completely submerged in water after heavy rainfall in the city.

Responding to the sharp criticism of the government due to the water logging in a metro city like Bengaluru, Karnataka CM Basavraj Bommai assured the people of actions and making up for an estimated loss of 225 crore due to rain and waterlogging in Bengaluru. Shrugging off his responsibility for the devastation of flood in Karnataka, CM Basavraj Bommai accused the previous Congress government of the state's unpreparedness against rainfall.

The announcement came after the IT companies asked the Chief Minister to solve the outer ring road issue.

Apart from the severe flooding faced by the city this month, Bengaluru faced heavy floods in July also. The situation got so worse that rescue missions and relief work had to be carried out. To deal with the financial loss due to rain, the Karnataka government had to seek financial assistance from the Centre.

It is worth noting that the state will witness the beginning of its ten-day long monsoon session of the Karnataka Legislature on Monday. The extreme flooding in Bengaluru as well as in other parts of the state will be a major issue for the opposition to target the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government in the session.

(With reports from ANI)
Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party will continue fighting 'democratically, constitutionally and politically' for the restoration of Article 370, which was abrogated by the Centre three years ago, said Omar Abdullah as quoted by news agency PTI.

The former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir said that his party, which has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the decision announced by the Central government on August 5, 2019, to abrogate Article 370, has a strong case.

"We (NC) are not misleading people or not even taking the law into our hands for the restoration of Article 370. We will continue to fight democratically, constitutionally, and politically to bring it back. It is our right," Abdullah said.

He further said, "I will not give up on Article 370. We have faith in the Supreme Court but our only request is that it should at least listen to us. We believe our case is strong. The top court is taking time. I think they also know that this case is strong."

The NC leader stated that the government cannot be expected to restore Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 as it took it away in the first place, as per PTI reports.

He said he would have felt uneasy had the Supreme Court acted swiftly on a batch of petitions related to the issue, considering that the government of India wants it to be decided soon.

"We are not demanding it from the central government, rather the one who had taken it away from the people of Jammu and Kashmir should return it to us. Very few political parties had supported us on the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status. So, I do not expect that if any other party was in power at the Centre, it will restore it," he added.

The NC leader said that it is a political fight and they will surely win it and restore the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

(With PTI inputs)
Prime Minister Modi is slated to fly to Samarkand in Uzbekistan for a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with regional political, security and economic issues on the agenda.

PM Modi will participate in a meeting of the Council of the Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The meeting, which will be held on September 15 and 16, 2022, will be the 22nd meeting of the Council.

According to a press release by the Ministry of External Affairs, the SCO Summit will be attended by leaders of SCO Member States, Observer States, Secretary General of the SCO, Executive Director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), President of Turkmenistan and other invited guests."

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation began as a grouping of the Russian Federation, Central Asian republics and China in the late 1990s as a mechanism to build trust in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The Organisation as it stands today was founded in 2001 and India joined the grouping in 2017.

During the upcoming Summit, the leaders are expected to review the organizations activities over the past two decades and discuss the state and prospects of multilateral cooperation in the future. Topical issues of regional and global importance are also expected to be discussed at the meeting." the MEA statement reads.

According to the Dushanbe declaration of 2021, the SCO stands for principles of mutual respect for independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, equality and mutual benefit, peaceful settlement of possible disputes through dialogue and mutual consultation, non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of military force or threat of force, rejection of unilateral military superiority in adjoining areas."

The SCO facilitates high level political dialogues and also maintains an expansive security agenda that focuses on combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, separatism, extremism, illicit trafficking in drugs, weapons, ammunition and explosives, cross-border organized crime, ensuring international information security, strengthening border security, joint efforts to combat illegal migration and human trafficking, money laundering, economic crimes and corruption", reads the Dushanbe Declaration.
Click here to read the full article.

Few nations in the world have developed such a spread of film commissions as Spain, a country forged out of its regions, whose governments have energetically bought in to the benefits of foreign and local shoots.

As the country moves ever more onto the big-shoot locations industry radar, the Spain Film Commission is experiencing rapid growth of its nationwide network as well as helping to drive the ambitious Spain AVS Hub plan.

Following the March 2021 announcement by the central government of the launch of the Spain AVS Hub plan  with a 1.6 billion ($1.6 billion) budget  a royal decree in October granted $5 million in direct support to the SFC for actions eligible for subsidies from 2022-24.

Created in 2001, SFC covers almost the entire country, and its members integrate a network with a uniform management model, respecting their partners independence and territorial scope.

SFC has evolved from a wasted vector of the audiovisual economy to a competitive production driver, which generates industry employment and image, says SFC president Carlos Rosado.

With the arrival of the AVS Hub Plan, for the first time ever, the Spanish government identified the audiovisual industry as a strategic sector and gave it financial endowment, Rosado says.

SFCs key plans encompass five highly interrelated projects: The creation of a social network focused on Spanish talent; the strengthening of the SFCs territorial network (known as Spain Film Friendly Land); the launch of a film transmedia platform; the promotion of the country as an international destination for filming (the Shooting in Spain initiative); and the creation of pilot schemes for 3D models of outstanding monuments, buildings and spaces (the Virtual Locations program).

The five points are going to be decisive for the future of the [production] industry in Spain, Rosado says.

One of the objectives of the Spain Film Talent Network is the search for a common point of reference with domestic stars inside and outside the country. For that, the Spanish film commissioner has called for a whos who guide of the local industry.

In collaboration with strategy consultants Olsberg SPI, the SFC is preparing a conference at the San Sebastian Intl. Film Festival in order to discuss, with Mexico and Brazil, the need to establish a stable talent relationship corridor.

The push to strengthen SFCs territorial network under the Spain Friendly Land program has had instant success. The SFC is already represented in all Spanish regions except Murcia. The autonomous city of Melilla may join in October.

SFC is setting up a technical analysis discussion forum to determine how to deal with virtual locations at Terrassas Parc Audiovisual de Catalunya.

It also participates as a partner in the Spain Audiovisual Bureau, a groundbreaking initiative launched in early May to promote Spain as an international destination for shoots and audiovisual investment, run by ICEX Spain Trade & Investment  the countrys export and inward investment board.

Another of the biggest recent moves by SFC has been a Fam Trip  organized in partnership with ICEX-Invest in Spain  in which some 50 representatives of member companies of the MPA and other high-profile American film-TV platforms and companies were invited in May to visit Spain. Now, SFC is hoping to also attract shoots from India and Australia.

Moreover, Rosado has designed a strategy to convert the SFC into a state entity, which requires some legal adjustments, in line with Film France, the British Film Commission and the California Film Commission. The plan is to transform the SFC into a hyper-specialized entity, working closely with regional and local administrations.

SFC is a success story that is missing the last stretch: governmental institutional status, Rosado says.

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Click here to read the full article.

Olivia Colman, who portrayed Queen Elizabeth II for two seasons of Netflixs royal sensation The Crown, is still processing the loss and legacy of the British monarch. The queens death was announced on Thursday, the same day as the start of the Toronto International Film Festival.

I wouldnt know where to begin with that, she told Variety at the Variety Studio presented by Kings Hawaiian at the Toronto International Film Festival. She made a promise as a young woman and she absolutely kept it with such dignity. Were all incredibly impressed by what she did.

Colman, who touched down in Canada to promote Empire of Light, a romantic drama from director Sam Mendes, also praised King Charles IIIs first address to the nation. In his speech, he paid tribute to his mother and vowed to serve with loyalty, respect and love.

From a British point of view, he did it so beautifully, Colman said, in reference to the Kings televised address to the nation. He did it about love, tolerance and gentleness, and that is what she always wanted and shes done.

She continued, From the outside world looking at Great Britain, at the moment, weve got some comedy going on at one side  politics  and something so dignified. I felt proud to be British. I think hes going to do a good job.

And though The Crown paused filming in the wake of the Queens death, Colman is eager to pass the scepter to another legendary British thespian, Imelda Staunton. Did she offer any advice to the Vera Drake actor?

No! Who gives Imelda Staunton advice? She will be incredible, Colman said with a laugh. I cant wait to watch her.

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Click here to read the full article.

Steven Spielbergs The Fabelmans earned a roaring standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, as the crowd of movie lovers cheered loudly for the Oscar-winning auteur as he made his first appearance at the gathering.

Im really glad we came to Toronto, a visibly moved Spielberg said after taking the stage as the credits rolled.

The director said he was inspired by the COVID pandemic to tell his most personal story yet, a look at his early filmmaking efforts, his childhood in Arizona and Northern California, and the dissolution of his family.

As things got worse and worse, I felt that if I was going to leave anything behind, what was the thing that I really need to resolve and unpack about my mom, my dad, Spielberg said.

However, he reassured the crowd at TIFF that despite having made peace with his past, The Fabelmans will not serve as his farewell to movies.

This is not because Im going to retire and this is my swan song, he said. Dont believe any of that.

The film started about 15 minutes late, a small miracle given the crush of audience members waiting outside the Princess of Wales theater, because the premiere of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery had bled into the launch of The Fabelmans. Spielberg was introduced by TIFF creative director Cameron Bailey, who said he was awestruck to be introducing the legend (TIFF competed with the Venice and Telluride film festivals to land Spielbergs latest). Bailey recalled being 12 years old and falling in love with film thanks to work from Spielberg.

The directors autobiographical drama stars Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Gabriel LaBelle as Sam Fabelman, Spielbergs screen surrogate.

Ahead of the screening, the Jurassic Park director estimated that in his 34-film career, The Fabelmans is his first ever to officially play in the selection of a film festival, forgetting apparently that Bridge of Spies premiered at the New York Film Festival just a few years back. The experience of making this film seemed to cut deeper.

This film is, for me, a way of bringing my mom and my dad back, said Spielberg, who dedicated the movie to his mother, Leah. The directors three sisters  Anne, Nancy and Sue  were all in the audience at The Fabelmans premiere.

Breakout moments during the screening included thunderous applause for 87-year-old Judd Hirsch. Playing a great uncle to Sam, Hirsch delivers an unforgettable monologue about the toll an artist pays when it comes to honoring his family. Williams also got big reactions for her tender and generous portrayal of Sams mother, a woman with an artistic soul who also struggles with depression.

Bailey returned to host a Q&A following the screening, cutting off a standing ovation at two minutes to get to questions.

The official synopsis for the movie from TIFF reads: The Fabelmans is a coming-of-age story about a young mans discovery of a shattering family secret and an exploration of the power of movies to help us see the truth about each other and ourselves. The film is based on Spielbergs own childhood, with Williams and Dano starring as variations of the filmmakers parents. Spielberg co-wrote the script with his Lincoln, Munich and West Side Story screenwriter Tony Kushner.

Its funny, its sad, its kind of everything, Williams told Variety about the project earlier this year. Its the muchness of life. Were trying to reflect all of that.

My phone beeped, and I had a message that Steven wanted to talk to me, Williams added of landing the role based on Spielbergs mother. I couldnt comprehend that he might want to work with me. I thought he had a question or something. Then he got on the Zoom and told me that he wanted me to play this person, his mama.

And Williams is right because the finished product is a two-and-a-half hour look at the forces that shaped Spielberg, transforming him into one of our preeminent myth makers. Movies are dreams, Williams character tells Sammy at one point during the movie, and from Jaws to E.T., no one has been more adept at spinning fantasies out of celluloid than Spielberg.

The Fabelmans ensemble cast also includes Jeannie Berlin, Julia Butters, Robin Bartlett, Keeley Karsten, and, in a cameo that will not be spoiled here, David Lynch. The film is produced by Kristie Macosko Krieger, Spielberg and Kushner

The Fablemans is backed by Universal Pictures, which is set to release the film in theaters Nov. 11.

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Webb County Commissioners Court and Laredo City Council will both be hosting public hearings Monday for each of their tax revenue increases.

The countys hearing will be held at 9 a.m. at the county courthouse on 1000 Houston St., and the city will host its at 5:30 p.m. at the city council chambers at city hall.

Per Webb County, the proposed tax rate of $0.390000 per $100 value for tax year 2022 and is estimated to generate an additional $109,934,445, or 25.91% more in revenue since the 2021 tax rate. The tax revenue will be for the General Fund and Debt Service.

Furthermore, the 2022 tax year will also include a $0.347121 per $100 value in the General Fund Maintenance and Operation, $0.028204 per $100 in the General Fund- Debt Service Bond, $0.014122 for Road and Bridge fund M&O, and a $0.000553 for Road and Bridge- Debt Service- Bond.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote on the tax rate on Monday, but if they do not vote, the county will need to issue out a new date, time and place for the new vote.

The city's public hearing for the adoption of the new tax rate will be held Monday evening, but residents should note that the final vote will take place on Sept. 19 at 5:30 p.m. at the city hall council chambers. Residents will be allowed to go through the city website to sign up for citizen comments, either in person or through writing.

The proposed tax rate of the 2022 tax year is $0.570000 per $100 that will be for the general fund and debt service. The city stated in the agenda that the rate includes $0.449396 per $100 value for Maintenance and Operation and $0.120604 per $100 value for Interest and Sinking Fund of the Debt Service, and it is estimated to generate a tax levy of $105,637,719.
Gov. Greg Abbott received the Broadband Trailblazer Award earlier this week in downtown Laredo at the offices of MileOne. It was touted as the first award of its kind as it is led by various technology companies such as AT&T and Texas Broadband Now in recognition of the governor's commitment to ensuring every Texan has access to high-speed, reliable internet.

The award was bestowed to Abbott as he made broadband access an emergency item for the 87th Legislative Session, where the he signed several broadband-related bills into law last year  including House Bill 5, which expands access to broadband internet across Texas by requiring the Broadband Development Council to develop a statewide broadband plan for guiding short- and long-term goals for robust broadband infrastructure throughout Texas.

Abbott provided a small conference and several remarks highlighting how Texas is expanding broadband access and how it can positively impact businesses and people across the entire state. The award was provided to the governor as it was stated that during his administration the first broadband office  Broadband Development Office  and the first long-term broadband plan in the state were implemented in efforts to close the digital divide by dedicating the necessary resources to accomplish such goals.

For the governor, working with rural co-operatives that aim to help in the expansion of broadband interconnectivity is his main priority, as he states that rural areas are obviously underserved when it comes to broadband. Abbott said offices like MileOne are allowing for such interconnectivity to grow even further and allow new businesses to begin.

Laredo and places like these represent the future of business, Abbott said. MileOne incubates the businesses of tomorrow as dreamers, doers and trendsetters have created more than 100 new businesses here in the Laredo area, and they use technologies like lighting fast broadband from AT&T to literally change the world.

Abbott called broadband a tool that is essential in today's world, as it is important for businesses to use it to compete against one another. Its also essential for businesses to be able to reach their customers or stay connected with their supplies. He also called it essential for education  whether at the elementary level or university level  and called it important for health care and mental care services.

Members of MileOne and the Laredo Economic Development Corporation were at the award ceremony. The governor touted the LEDC and MileOne for their continued efforts to make economic development the main priority of them and bring more businesses while also focusing on how broadband networks and their expansion is something needed to interconnect more businesses together.

One thing that Texas does extraordinary well is economic development, and we work with local economic development corporations like the one in Laredo," Abbott said. I was here last year working with them for the grand opening of Mission Produce, and we are working with them on projects right now as we speak to make the greater Laredo area continues to grow and expand its economy."

After the press conference, several MileOne officials and several other businesses were allowed some time to meet with the governor and his team. One of these individuals was MileOne Program Director Cesar G. Hernandez, who stated that the meeting was very productive.

He also wanted to visit with small businesses and entrepreneurs and to hear their stories about to see how they are doing and how they utilize the MileOne program, Hernandez said. As an innovation hub and a program that utilizes high-speed internet to be able to conduct business and the members take advantage of what we offer here, it was important for him to come here and get a sense of how we really use that broadband interconnectivity initiative and see how expanding that broadband interconnectivity in our community would make it a lot better for our small business owners and entrepreneurs to be able to run their businesses.

Laredo Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Gene Lindgren was also in attendance at the meeting and stated that he was glad the governor visited their downtown offices. He said they were able to show what they can do when a business center opens and helps entrepreneurs get a kick start in their ventures.

We were honored that the governor came to Laredo for this event and humbled that our beautiful downtown facility MileOne was the chosen venue, Lindgren said. MileOne provides co-working, incubator and launchpad programs helping both local and international entrepreneurs launch and expand their businesses, and several have already graduated and opened their own brick-and-mortar sites, many in downtown and inner-city. Laredo is somewhat underserved with high-speed internet access for a number of reasons, and the programs outlined in todays announcement are certainly welcomed.

Hernandez states that visits like these to MileOne are extremely beneficial as it showcases what the center has to offer and how it is trying to make the local economy thrive.

Visits like these are extremely important as it allows us to showcase our entrepreneurial community here in Laredo, Hernandez said. With Texas being No. 1 in the country of economic development, the city being also a major frontrunner with economic development in the state is important that the governor sees the drive that these small business owners and how they are the lifeblood of what makes the economy move, and when people come and invest in Texas2, they see that they can do this to both the corporate and small business level.

According to Hernandez, the visit was planned for the last couple of weeks but stated that they were asked by the governors office to keep it to themselves. He states that the governors office did not want to alert the media beforehand, as they would take care of press releases and live feed from the press conference.

Abbott touted how the state of Texas continues to be ranked as No. 1 by CEOs to do business in the state.

"Too many Texans have gone without broadband access, so to fix that I made it an emergency item last session, Abbott said. No matter what corner of Texas you live in, you will have access to fast and reliable internet so students can learn, businesses can thrive and you can visit a doctor from the comfort of your home. The future of business is online, and in Texas we are bringing the future to everyone."
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.
If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option.
A mother has told of how she is too afraid to come into Longford town anymore after falling victim to a violent assault while eight months pregnant with her fourth child.

Lynn Egar revealed her horror at the ordeal she suffered at the hands of her assailants John Kelly, 4 Cluain Ard, Ardnacassa, Co Longford and fellow co-accused Frances OBrien, of the same address following an incident at the Checkout Shop, Ardnacassa Avenue, Longford on September 3 2019.

Ms Egar took to the stand after Mr Kelly pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause serious harm to her during the incident.

John and Frances had been into me prior to this (incident) and were always asking how my pregnancy was going and how my children were, so they knew exactly who they were dealing with, she said.

Ms Egar, who suffered injuries to her back and has only in recent weeks been able to carry her newborn baby in her arms, said she remained fearful for her own safety after the threat to her life was made by Mr Kelly.

Yes, she replied, fighting back tears when asked by Judge Seamus Hughes if she was still anxious as to the alleged threat posed by her aggressor.

These people have their teams. Who else is out there because they didnt get what they wanted out of me.

I dont come near Longford. Look at the levels of criminality in Longford, not just here but countrywide.

Everything is not going to be okay. These people should not be free.

The court heard how Ms Egar had been working behind the counter of the small grocery store when Ms OBrien entered the store to try and procure a loan from the owner of the business.

When that overture was declined, prosecuting Sergeant Paddy McGirl said the episode suddenly turned violent.

It was alleged Mr Kelly, who had been waiting outside as the incident unfolded then approached the door of the shop as Ms Egar attempted to lock it and contact the Gardai.

At that juncture, Sgt McGirl claimed Mr Kelly delivered an ominous threat, telling her: If our children are taken into care because of you I will be back to kill you and if I am not back to kill you, somebody else will.

Ms OBrien has since been sentenced to three years in prison at Longford Circuit Court after Judge Hughes refused jurisdiction on the case, deeming it too severe to be heard at District Court level.

Ms Egar said in the months following the incident she had been receiving physiotherapy at Mullingars Midland Regional Hospital but was forced into postponing those sessions for the time being due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

I would still be in a considerable amount of pain, she said.

I was literally only able to carry around my baby for the last two months as I wasnt able to do it before then.

She said her level of empathy for either of the accused was negligible owing to the fact the pair were fully aware she was just weeks away from giving birth.

They were out to get me, so who is behind John and who is out to get me? Ms Egar asked.

My question is who is next?

Judge Hughes noted how Ms Egar was on a waiting list for counselling, saying the practice was one she could benefit from in her long term recovery.

Under questioning from his solicitor John Quinn, Mr Kelly, who was wearing a face mask throughout proceedings vowed to withdraw the threat made to Ms Egar.

I didnt want to go anywhere near the shop, he said, adding he was under the influence of tablets at the time.

He said his own 82 year-old father frequented the shop regularly, something Ms Egar raised in response as she claimed it was not the first time he had mistreated someone.

Mr Kelly replied, saying he was not in the right frame of mind at the time of the incident and had since broken up with Ms OBrien, citing how the pair were just not good together

I am ashamed and on my kids life I wont interfere with that woman, he told the court.

Ms Egar, however, questioned the sincerity behind Mr Kellys level of remorse as she stared across the courtroom at him.

How many times have you had to stand in court and had to apologise to a victim and when is your apology actually going to mean something? Ms Egars added.

Judge Hughes said he too could understand the dubious stance adopted by Ms Egar as she listened to Mr Kellys apology.

I hear it every day of the week, said the judge.

I am sorry judge and then they are back before me.

Judge Hughes implored Mr Kelly to recognise the deep effect the incident has inflicted on Ms Egar, adding the court needed to reflect the severity of the crime committed with an appropriate sentence attached.

He also urged him to keep his word in not attempting to approach or contact Ms Egar or run the risk of attracting a very long (prison) sentence if found to be in breach of those terms.

In mitigation, Mr Quinn said despite the injuries caused to Ms Egar, his client had no part in inflicting them.

Judge Hughes, nonetheless, said given the trauma and physical ailments exacted on Ms Egar, he sentenced Mr Kelly to ten months in prison.

Mr Quinn asked the court to fix recognisances in the event of an appeal, something Judge Hughes took a dim view of.

Looking down at Mr Quinn, Judge Hughes said he would arrange a taxi to the circuit court himself and allow his circuit court colleague Judge Keenan Johnston, who only months earlier had issued a three year sentence to Mr Kellys co-accused, to adjudicate on the case.
Brendan Gleeson has called on coffee lovers in Longford to get brewing in a bid to raise 1.5million for life-affirming Hospice services across Ireland.

The Hollywood star recently kick-started the Bewleys Big Coffee Morning Social for Hospice which has raised over 41.5 million since its inception and this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.

He joined Hospice hosts and volunteers at the iconic Bewleys cafe on Grafton Street, urging hosts to get creative with their coffee morning social and organise an event on Thursday, September 22.

While your illness has defined you as a patient, hospice care looks beyond your illness and sees you as a whole person - with wishes, goals, hobbies and interests, said the legendary actor, whose late parents were cared for in St Francis Hospice in Dublin.

Gleeson, 67, whose latest film, The Banshees of Inisherin, is due out in October, insisted patients are so well looked after, allowing them to live as full and independent lives as possible, for as long as possible. It takes great courage for patients and families to avail of hospice services to ensure that their loved ones needs are met at this important time in their lives. In my experience, hospice care is life affirming and enriching.

This year we really want to see people in Longford get creative with their events and coffee creations and take time together with loved ones to help make this the best year yet.

Together for Hospice, The National Hospice Movement represents 26 Hospice and specialist palliative home care providers supporting patients and their families nationwide. Funds raised locally stay local and go back into each local hospice service, helping to pay for medical and general staff, palliative care beds, home care visits, specialist equipment and new hospice builds. Communities right across Longford are urged to simply gather a group on Thursday, September 22, and do coffee your way, to help raise much needed funds to support the work of Longford Hospice Homecare.

Dan Rooney, Chairperson of Longford Hospice, said, We are delighted Bewleys Big Coffee Morning Social for Hospice is back for another year raising funds in support of Hospice in-patient and community services around Ireland. The ongoing support for this campaign over the last 30 years is a testament to the generosity of our coffee morning hosts, donors, ambassadors, and our long-time sponsor Bewleys. The funds raised each year by the Irish public ensure we continue to provide vital support to individual patients and their families every day.

Jason Doyle, Managing Director at Bewleys Ireland & UK, described the 30-year partnership with Hospice as very special. After a difficult couple of years for fundraising, we hope people across Ireland will dig deep and make this a landmark year for the Bewley's Big Coffee Morning Social for Hospice, he said. At the heart of our business is a commitment to care for people and communities, so we urge everyone to host a coffee morning social to help support the incredible work Hospice carries out every day.

* Register to host a coffee morning on Thursday, September 22, or on a date that suits you, at: www.hospicecoffeemorning.ie or Callsave 0818 995 996. Hosts are provided with a free Coffee Morning Pack containing Bewleys coffee, posters and invitations.
Turn2Me, a national mental health charity has launched two support groups, on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 6pm, for teenagers starting or going back to secondary school, and for young people going to college for the first time.



The charity reported a spike in young people using its website experiencing anxiety as they prepared for school and college. The charity stated that higher levels of anxiety are natural and should be expected starting or returning to school, and that students feeling nervous should use its free mental health services including its Thought Catcher online mood diary, which runs everyday from 2pm until 8pm, and its free support groups run by mental health professionals.

Back to school & what that means support group on Wednesdays @ 6pm

Turn2Mes Back to school support group for secondary school students will run on Wednesdays at 6pm.

If the thought of school makes you stressed, anxious, feeling a little worried, this support group is for you. Suzanne Ennis, Clinical Manager at Turn2Me, said, We will help you find ways to manage that sick feeling and learn the tools you need to get through it.

Here, you can be honest and be yourself without any fear of being judged. Groups are 100% anonymous and confidential, youll be able to speak to similar people in the chat function who understand you and what youre going through. Register now on Turn2Me.ie

College, the great unknown! support group on Thursdays @ 6pm

Turn2Mes Preparing for college support group for college students will run on Thursdays at 6pm.

Waiting on CAO results, repeat exam results, and preparing for the next academic year is upon us. Suzanne Ennis said, For so many, its unfamiliar and nerve-wrecking.



Starting college means a new timetable, new campus, new classmates, new cities, and new homes for some - a lot of unknowns. Being apprehensive, anxious, worried, or stressed is normal.

This support group will be attended by like-minded students, experiencing the same challenges and obstacles, lets navigate them together!



This support group will give young people the tools and support to help them with the transition. Register now on Turn2Me.ie

Turn2Me is encouraging young people to sign up to their free mental health services on Turn2Me.ie
This week sees the official launch of this years Great Pink Run with Glanbia. The now global event, which has seen participants from 36 countries take part to date, returns in a physical and a virtual sense this year  allowing participants to take part either by participating in their own local communities by walking, running or jogging 10k or 5k any time between October 9 and 16, or alternatively for those who prefer the fun of a live group event, they can attend either of the large-scale physical Great Pink Run events taking place in Dublin on Sunday 9th October, or in Kilkenny on Sunday, October 16.



As an indication of the sheer scale of this event, to date, almost 70,000 people have taken part in the Great Pink Run since 2011, raising over 5.4 million to support pioneering research across Ireland  ultimately aimed at developing new and more effective targeted therapies for patients diagnosed with breast cancer.

The Great Pink Run event is entirely inclusive, aimed at casual strollers, keen walkers, joggers and seasoned runners alike and is open to all age groups, families, friends and solo participants, who have the option of running, jogging, walking, wheeling, or even scooting either a 10k or a 5k either at one of the live events or in their own neighbourhood.



Registrations for the event are open on www.greatpinkrun.ie



Aisling Hurley, CEO of Breast Cancer Ireland speaking at the launch today, said, we are thrilled to be in a position this year to host our first ever hybrid version of the Great Pink Run  essentially giving participants even more ways to take part in what is our biggest annual fundraiser of the year.

The funds raised will be channeled directly into two specific areas of need this year  firstly continued investment into research regarding metastatic disease progression, an ever-challenging area in need of support and secondly, investment in driving progression and speed of scientific discovery from research settings into clinical trials.



This allows us to help develop newer, more effective targeted therapies into the future  thus helping to fulfil our ultimate goal of transforming breast cancer into a treatable illness that can be maintained long term.



Metastatic disease progression is still the most challenging and whilst advances are being made in relation to new clinical trial drugs, helping to treat the spread to some major organs, the brain is still the most puzzling. Therefore, we need to continuously invest in order to identify ways of preventing this sometimes-fatal diagnosis. This is precisely where the funding from this years Great Pink Run event will go  so we are urging people to register soon and help us to raise as much as possible in funding to this end!



Aisling added, We are incredibly fortunate and hugely appreciative to have the sterling ongoing support of our loyal sponsors, Glanbia, UPMC, and Cornmarket and to welcome on board a brand-new sponsor this year in the form of Goodbody and Today FM as Official Broadcast Media Partner. These sponsors, not only help us offset our event costs, so that all funds raised go directly into research and awareness programmes, but also by engaging with their extensive employee base and stakeholders, and have helped us to grow the event into the highly successful global initiative that it is today.

Over the next six weeks, several well-known faces will be joining the pink tribe encouraging people to register including Ray Foley, Today FM Presenter, Bobby Kerr, Entrepreneur, Broadcaster and Newstalk Presenter, Kieran Cuddihy, Newstalk Presenter, Virgin Media presenter Kamal Ibrahim, along with Elaine Crowley and Lorraine Keane, Broadcaster and TV Presenter, both of whom are long standing Breast Cancer Ireland Ambassadors, along with former Irish international rugby player Shane Byrne, FM104s Crossy (Thomas Crosse) Athlete Grace Lynch, Social Influencer & TV personality James Patrice, his mother Veronica Butler (Fron), and TV Presenter and personality, Nadine Reid amongst others. In the lead up to, and during the live events in October, they will join the many thousands who have been impacted by the disease in this country as they pound the pavements and parks of Ireland, and overseas, in support of the cause.



Participation in the Great Pink Run event is easy  simply register to take part at www.greatpinkrun.ie, gather your tribe by encouraging your friends and family to do the same, then attend either of the live events* in Dublin or Kilkenny or alternatively do your individual or group run, walk, scoot, wheel or cycle in your own community during the week of the national event (9th-16th October 2022)  and be sure to share your photos, and videos across social media using hashtags #greatpinkrun, #GPR2022 or #gatheryourtribe

Follow ongoing event updates on Instagram @Greatpinkrun and @BreastCancerIreland or on Twitter @BreastCancerIre

*10k event in Dublin starts at 1pm, 5k event starts at 2pm on October 9

*10k event in Kilkenny starts at 12 noon, 5k event starts at 12.45pm on October 16
The death of Elizabeth II came as a shock to some on Thursday evening, and has sent a number of people in the United Kingdom into mourning. The death of the Queen has also, though, prompted questions around the monarchy as a whole.

One of the controversies surrounding the family to be discussed is that surrounding a diamond of over 500 carats, named the Great Star of Africa, which has been in the family's possession since 1905.

In 1995, Elizabeth II and her husband travelled to South Africa for an official visit, where she hadn't been since 1947 accompanying her father.

On that 1947 visit, George VI had to speak with a leader of the Azania tribe, as he was then King of South Africa before its 1961 independence, and the tribe's leader demanded the return of the diamond.

The Great Star of Africa

The 516-carat diamond has been in the possession of the Royal Family for a long time. We have to go back to January 25, 1905.

On that date, the world's largest rough diamond was found. It was named Cullinan in honour of Thomas Cullinan - president of Premier Mine, who mined it.

In 1907, a military figure Luis Botha petitioned that the diamond was bought for 150,000 pounds, and then gifted it to Edward VII on his birthday, which outraged many South Africans.

The Royal Family initially refused the offer, but Winston Churchill as deputy minister accepted it and had it sent to Britain. Edward VII had it carved and polished.

It was split into two parts, which were then turned into nine smaller pieces in total. The two biggest belong to the crown, and the other seven were Elizabeth II's and she wore them as part of necklaces, rings, and other accessories.

After South Africa's independence, they tried to claim back things that were theirs. Many see this as an example of the abuse of British colonisation.
There will be a huge fight in the UFC in either December or January, with Gilbert Burns confirming that he has a verbal agreement to battle Jorge Masvidal.

The bout will take place in either Las Vegas or Brazil, but the UFC have been very proactive in getting this fight agreed for the near future.

"I spoke with Sean Shelby and they said that's a fight they want, you know, and I said, for sure, there's no plan B," Burns told TMZ Sports.

"UFC just gonna figure out Pay-Per-View in December or Pay-Per-View in January, but the fight is verbally accepted from him and me.

"I'm just waiting confirm if it's gonna be December 10 in Vegas or if he has the balls to go to Brazil, UFC Rio, January 21."

Masvidal, at 37 years old, is nearing the end of his professional career and he hasn't actually fought since March of 2022, when he was the loser on a decision against Colby Covington.
Siemens has been awarded a contract to upgrade the power distribution management system and establish an advanced metering infrastructure for Alexandria Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).



As subsidiary of the state-owned utility Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC), AEDC is responsible for the distribution network of Alexandria Governorate, the second most populated governorate in Egypt.



AEDC serves customers in Alexandria, a city with about five million inhabitants. Implementing state-of-the-art software solutions and automation devices will help AEDC to increase efficiency and reliability of the electricity supply, while reducing electricity distribution losses.



This project funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has a value of about EUR50 million.



During the upcoming 30 months, Siemens will be implementing an ADMS control centre for the West Alexandria region and a control centre to supervise all distribution control centres in Alexandria.



In addition, 300,000 smart meters will be supplied, including the necessary hardware and software to establish an advanced metering infrastructure. The implementation of the advanced software solutions for distribution grids, and the rollout of hundreds of thousands of intelligent field devices will help Alexandria Electricity Distribution Company to increase operational and network efficiency, reduce network loads and losses, and take efficient countermeasures before critical situations arise. Following the partnership agreement signed with ESRI in July 2022, Siemens will also be delivering ESRIs Geographical Information System (GIS) within the scope of the project.



We are very proud to be awarded a new contract to modernize the electrical grid, because it reconfirms Siemens commitment to deliver world-class technology to Egypt, said Mostafa El-Bagoury, Siemens Egypt CEO.



We are also happy to work again with JICA in Egypt. This project truly signifies what Siemens stands for: providing technology with a purpose. With the rollout of hundreds of thousands of intelligent field devices and advanced software applications, we will help the operators to efficiently manage their networks and proactively guide them before and during critical situations.



We are very pleased that our customer has chosen Siemens to upgrade the distribution grid in Alexandria with software, said Sabine Erlinghagen, CEO of Grid Software at Siemens.



Our software helps informed decision-making and operational optimization to effectively reduce the cost of the distribution grid. By visualizing the processes of the distribution grid at all times, our customers are able to control a wide range of grid assets, and take action to prevent critical situations before they happen.



Between 2015 and 2021, around 28.5 GW of generation capacity was added to the Egyptian power grid, enabling the country to become a power surplus nation. Egypt has also increased its share of renewable energy resources (primarily wind and solar) over the years. The development of the power grid needs to keep pace with the installation of new power generation assets. For the distribution grid, it is important to increase efficiency of the network and to reduce power losses.  TradeArabia News Service
The Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt sci-fi blockbuster film Brahmastra has broken another record of sorts.

It's already been talked about a lot about how the movie has the best special effects so far used in the country for a Bollywood film.

 Dharma Productions

However, that's not it!



According to an Oscar-Winning graphics firm, the movie has used more VFX shots than the 2019 superhit Marvel's Avengers: Endgame film.

 Marvel Studios

According to Namit Malhotra, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Prime Focus, an Oscar-winning graphics firm, the Ayan Mukerji directorial has 4,500 VFX shots, more than the Avengers movie starring Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans.



"In comparison to Avengers: End Game's 2,400 VFX shots, Brahmstra Part 1: Shiva boasts over 4500 VFX shots, making it a potential record holder for the most visual effects in any film globally. The VFX of this movie is set to land the audience in an immersive experience, the creative and technical teams across London, North America, and India worked in synergy. (sic)" said Namit, while speaking to ETimes.

The movie is reported to be living up to the standards set around it, with people really liking it in theatres.

Brahmastra a had a thunderous opening in cinemas on Friday, with the movie earning around Rs 35-36 crore despite being released on a non-holiday.

Source: India Times
Mubadala Investment Company and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), one of the largest listed integrated utilities companies in the region, signed agreements to invest in the privatisation of two gas-fired power generation plants in the Talimarjan power complex in Uzbekistan.

The binding agreements will see Mubadala and TAQA each acquire a 40% stake in two gas-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 1.6 gigawatts (GW) and the assumption of associated operations and maintenance activities.

The Talimarjan Issiqlik Elektr Stansiyasi JSC (TIES) will retain the remaining 20% stake in each plant.

In the presence of Eng Suhail Mohamed AlMazrouei, Minister of Energy & Infrastructure of the UAE, and Jamshid Khodjaev, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, and Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the agreements were signed by Khaled Abdulla Al Qubaisi, Chief Executive Officer, Real Estate & Infrastructure at Mubadala, Jasim Husain Thabet, TAQAs Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, and Jamshid Khodjaev, Deputy Prime-Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade and Yusupov Olim, General Director of Talimarjan TPP.

The transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent, including obtaining any applicable regulatory or other approvals. Completion of this transaction is expected to occur during the second half of 2023.

Eng AlMazrouei commented: The United Arab Emirates continues to be a leader in providing secure and sustainable energy across the world and is actively investing in markets where it can leverage its expertise to create value for all stakeholders. The strategic partnership between the Government of Uzbekistan, TAQA and Mubadala will serve as a vehicle for collaboration for both countries and will create a path for future growth and investment opportunities. I would like to congratulate all parties involved in this milestone agreement.

Khaled Abdulla Al Qubaisi, Chief Executive Officer, Real Estate and Infrastructure Investments at Mubadala, said: As a global and responsible investor, Mubadala is focused on supporting energy transition across the world. We are confident our partnership will contribute to Uzbekistans greater energy stability while preparing for a low carbon future. We look forward to working with TAQA, the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade and JSC Thermal Power Plants to advance the countrys energy ambitions.

Farid Al Awlaqi, Executive Director of Generation at TAQA Group, commented: This major investment in a new country is an important step forward in the delivery of the 15GW of new international capacity we announced as part of TAQAs 2030 growth strategy. Investment alongside Mubadala in these power plants means we will become a major generator in Uzbekistan. The deal also significantly expands our operation and maintenance activity, another key part of our strategy. Once the deal is complete, we will bring experience and expertise from our generation fleet around the world to help deliver the best possible performance from these plants.

Now more than ever the health, wealth and success of every nation depends on reliable, efficient supplies of electricity and we are determined to play our part in providing that in Uzbekistan as we do in every country where TAQA operates.

The agreements follow the 2020 agreement with Uzbekistans Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, and JSC Thermal Power Plants of the Republic of Uzbekistan (JSC) relating to the proposed acquisition, development and operation of the Talimarjan Power Complex.  TradeArabia News Service
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)  Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire's former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Beyond official condolences praising the queens longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her fathers death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queens reign, and well into Britains harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

Movement permit, the document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugos grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

Most of our grandparents were oppressed, Mugo tweeted hours after the queens death Thursday. I cannot mourn.

But Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queen's rule before becoming the country's first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries, Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in, said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

Elizabeths reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the regions borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gazas Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to correct British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen's perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was held by many as bearing responsibility for the islands tragedies.

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in todays world, because we are the worlds largest democratic country, said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

In Kenyas capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion with a lot of bitterness and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was a very young lady then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time, Kahindi said.

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering spiritual connection in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia," he said.

The queens dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: Shes seen more as the mother of the world.

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

You have contradictory consciousness, said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this years visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialisms implications, Thame said  during the visit, William expressed his profound sorrow for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn't surprising since she was presented by the British as this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us, but young people aren't awed by the royal family.

The only thing I noted about the queens passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery, Spence said. She shouldve apologized.

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP stories on Queen Elizabeth IIs death and other stories about the British monarchy at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
A Midland native was recently recognized by a Michigan education non-profit as its best online teacher.

Oxford resident and Midland native Maria Wolbert was named Michigan Virtuals 2022 Online Teacher of the Year at the end of August, an award given to an online instructor who has demonstrated excellence in the classroom and positively impacted students. This award cements her continuation a a family legacy of education.

Since the inception of the awards in 2009, Michigan Virtual President and CEO Jamey Fitzpatrick has honored 16 teachers with the distinction of the nonprofit's Online Teacher of the Year.

Given the increasing importance of online education, Wolberts experience and technical background allow her to always be thinking about ways to improve the virtual learning environment, Fitzpatrick said. From Marias nomination letters, it was clear she seeks to create an innovative learning environment that aligns with Michigan Virtuals mission. She is most deserving of the Online Teacher of the Year Award.

Wolbert, who has been with Michigan Virtual since 2018 and teaches web development, business, IT, careers, and study skills, received several letters of support. Among them, Wolbert was praised as an engaged advocate for her students by Kevin Santer, a lead CTE instructor, who went on to share how she spends an extraordinary amount of time meeting with students, providing detailed feedback on assignments and developing rich supporting resources.

Her father, Midland resident Pete Conarty, said Wolbert grew up in Midland and is a graduate of Midland High School. Conarty used to be a teacher himself, along with Wolbert's sister Suzanne.

"(She) followed in the lineup of several teachers in the family," Conarty said. "It is wonderful and (I am) very proud of her."

Wolbert taught across many school districts and grades levels, first beginning her career in 1986. She received her Bachelor of Science in education from Central Michigan and her masters degree in career and technical education from Wayne State University. Wolbert has been a member of numerous professional organizations, most recently serving as president of the K9 Stray Rescue League. She received Michigan Virtuals Commitment Award in 2018.

To be selected for the Teacher of the Year distinction, key criteria include a positive impact on students, continuous improvement of practice, and a vision for the future of online education. This distinguished award was created to set a bar for excellence and recognize the incredible teachers in the digital learning community.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

VATICAN CITY (AP)  Pope Francis on Sunday asked for prayers to accompany him this week on what he calls his pilgrimage of peace in Kazakhstan for a meeting of religious leaders.

In remarks to the public in St. Peters Square, Francis noted that on Tuesday he begins a three-day visit to that central Asian country to participate in a gathering of heads of world and traditional religions.

It will be an occasion to meet so many religious representatives and to dialogue as brothers, animated by the common desire for peace, the peace for which our world is thirsting, Francis said.

"I ask everyone to accompany with prayer this pilgrimage of peace,'' the pontiff said.

He had been hoping to meet during his trip with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who has sought to justify Russias invasion of Ukraine on spiritual and ideological grounds in a metaphysical battle with the West.

But earlier this summer, Kirill bowed out of the interfaith gathering.

Francis had the first-ever encounter between a pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch in 2016. Plans for a second encounter earlier this year were postponed over the diplomatic fallout of the war in Ukraine.

After Francis cited his pilgrimage, he urged continued prayers for the Ukrainian people, so that the Lord gives them comfort and hope. He said that a Polish cardinal who serves as his official almsgiver is currently in Ukraine, to visit various communities and give concrete testimony of the closeness of the pope and the Catholic church.
NEW YORK (AP)  Waterfalls cascaded down the marble walls of the imposing early 20th-century Beaux-Arts building where Proenza Schouler showed its latest collection at New York Fashion Week.

To be clear, the water wasn't actually wet, but rendered in video installations. Still, the soothing waterfalls set a strong sense of mood for the clothes on display in Friday's runway show  particularly the cascading ruffles gracing a number of the ensembles, either spilling down the back of a dress or dripping down a long sleeve.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

As the war in Ukraine marked 200 days on Sunday, the country has reclaimed broad swaths of the south and east in a long-anticipated counteroffensive that has dealt a heavy blow to Russia.

The counterattack began in the final days of August and at first focused on the southern region of Kherson, which was swept by Russian forces in the opening days of the invasion. But just as Moscow redirected attention and troops there, Ukraine launched another, highly effective offensive in the northeast, near Kharkiv.

Facing the prospect of a large group of its forces becoming surrounded, Moscow pulled back its troops from Kharkiv in a dramatic shift in the state of play that posed the biggest challenge to the Kremlin since it launched the invasion Feb. 24.

The Ukrainian army has taken advantage of the relocation of the bulk of the Russian forces to the south and is trying to direct the course of the war, excelling in maneuver and showing great ingenuity, said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert with the Razumkov Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank. Ukraine's quick gains, he added, are important both for seizing initiative and raising troops spirit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the military in a video address Saturday night, saying it has reclaimed about 2,000 square kilometers (over 770 square miles) of territory so far this month. He also taunted Moscow over its withdrawal, saying the Russian army was demonstrating the best it can do  showing its back and they made a good choice to run.

The Russian military debacle has provoked outrage among Russian military bloggers and patriotic commentators, who chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine. Even Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called mistakes that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.

Both sides have suffered heavy losses in Europe's largest conflict since World War II. Ukraines military chief said last month that nearly 9,000 of its soldiers have been killed in action. And while Moscow hasn't reported its own losses since March, Western estimates put the toll as high as 25,000 dead, with the wounded, captured and deserters bringing the overall Russian losses to more than 80,000.

Ukraine has sought to mobilize the population to reach an active military of 1 million people, while Russia, in contrast, has continued to rely on a limited contingent of volunteers for fear that a mass mobilization could fuel discontent and upset internal stability.

As the war slogs on, a growing flow of Western weapons over the summer is playing a key role in the counteroffensive, helping Ukraine significantly boost its precision strike capability.

Since the counteroffensive began, Ukraine said, its forces have reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region.

In the Kherson region, troops sought to drive Russian forces from their foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper River, a potential vantage point for a push deeper into Ukraine by Moscow.

The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces had also left several settlements in the region but did not identify the towns.

The city of Kherson, an economic hub at the confluence of the Dnieper and the Black Sea with a prewar population of about 300,000, was the first major population center to fall in the war.

Russian forces also have made inroads into the Zaporizhzhia region farther north, where they seized Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The last of its six reactors was shut down Sunday after operating in a risky island mode" for several days to generate electricity for the plant's crucial cooling systems after one of the power lines was restored.

Moscow has installed puppet administrations in occupied areas, introduced its currency, handed out Russian passports and prepared for local plebiscites to pave the way for annexation. But the counteroffensive has derailed those plans, with a top Moscow-backed official in Kherson saying the vote there needs to be put off.

The counterattack followed methodical strikes on Russian infrastructure and supply lines. Ukrainian forces have used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to pound the two bridges on the Dnieper, forcing Russian troops in the Kherson region to rely on pontoon crossings that also have faced daily strikes.

Last month, a series of explosions also hit airbases and a munitions depot in Crimea, underlining the vulnerability of the peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014 and has been crucial for its southern operations. Ukrainian authorities initially refrained from claiming responsibility, but the country's military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyy, acknowledged in recent days that his forces hit them with rockets.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Kyiv has used the tactics of methodically exhausting the Russian army, weakening it and depriving it of a possibility to regularly beef up its forces.

Unlike in the south, where Ukraine's counteroffensive proceeded more slowly on the barren steppes of Kherson that left troops vulnerable to Russian artillery, the Kharkiv region's forests offered natural cover that allowed for lightning-fast surprise attacks from multiple directions.

Swiftness and surprise have become key components of the Ukrainian army action in the Kharkiv region after Russian forces deployed there had been relocated to the south, Zhdanov said.

Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Virginia-based think tank CNA, said the counteroffensive has proven a very significant victory for Ukraine."

Russian forces appear to have been spread thinly, and military leadership unprepared despite earlier evidence of Ukrainian buildup, Kofman wrote. I think its fair to assess that Russia was caught by surprise with little in the way of reserves locally available.

After capturing the town of Balakliia, about 55 kilometers (about 34 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces quickly pressed their offensive farther east to Kupiansk, a rail hub vital for sustaining Russian operations in the region.

They claimed control of the strategic city Saturday, cutting supply lines to a big group of Russian forces around Izyum to the south. To prevent their complete encirclement, Moscow ordered the hasty retreat, claiming they were relocating to focus on the neighboring Donetsk region.

Zhdanov noted that a successful counteroffensive is key to persuading allies to further increase supplies of weapons to Ukraine, something that was discussed Thursday at a NATO meeting in Germany.

The events in the south and in the Kharkiv region must show to the West that the Ukrainian military knows how to handle the weapons and needs to develop their success, Zhdanov said.

___

Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv contributed.
Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia have officially commenced a strategic partnership, expanding the networks, lounges and loyalty programs of both airlines, bringing substantial benefits and new destinations to travellers.



Announced in May 2022, the partnership opens seamless travel to over 150 destinations across the extensive Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia networks, creating a new gateway of seamless travel between Australia, the Middle-East, Europe and Africa, including to popular destinations such as London, Paris, Rome and Athens.



Flights can already be booked on each airlines websites, for travel effective September 12, 2022.



Members of Privilege Club will be able to earn Avios and QPoints on flights operated by Virgin Australia, and Velocity Frequent Flyer members can now earn Velocity Points and Status Credits for flights operated by Qatar Airways. Reward seats are also now available to book on eligible services operated by both airlines. From 12 September, eligible members of both loyalty programs will also receive additional tier benefits, including priority check-in, priority boarding, and lounge access irrespective of their class of travel.



The strategic partnership is set to provide a critical trade and tourism boost for Australia and Qatar, while opening a world of new travel opportunities for both airlines customers.



To commemorate the start of the partnership, Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways held a launch event at Brisbane Airport, featuring dancers representing various countries that can be accessed on the Qatar Airways and Virgin Australia networks.



Special promotions for Privilege Club and Velocity Members

Privilege Club members will earn double Avios when they book and fly on any Virgin Australia flight until 6 December 2022. Similarly, Velocity members will enjoy a special offer with discounted fares for any booking made on Qatar Airways' website between 7 September and 12 October 2022 for travel until 31 March 2023 (block out periods apply). Three lucky Velocity Frequent Flyer members will also win 1 million Points each by flying on Qatar Airways before 31 December 2022.



Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said: Unlike other airlines, we were determined to keep flying to and from Australia during Covid, get desperate people home and keep businesses connected to the world, now we have strengthened our presence even more in cooperation with our good friends at Virgin Australia.



This partnership will also allow Qatar Airways Privilege Club members to earn and redeem Avios when flying on Virgin Australia. Passengers will benefit from the award-winning facilities of our hub at Hamad International Airport, recently voted the Worlds Best Airport for two consecutive years, to create a comfortable journey. It also opens up Australia to our passengers flying in on Qatar Airways flights, after such a long, difficult time."



Virgin Australia Group Chief Executive Officer, Jayne Hrdlicka, said: Today is an incredibly exciting day for Virgin Australia and our loyal Velocity Frequent Flyer members with Qatar Airways officially joining the Virgin Australia family.



We are continuing to deliver on our promise to grow our international network, and from today, our guests will have direct access to over 150 destinations worldwide on the Qatar Airways' network, including more access to the Middle East, Europe and Africa than we have ever offered in the history of our airline.



For our more than 10.8 million Velocity members, theyll now be able to earn and redeem Velocity Points to over 500 destinations globally when travelling with Virgin Australia, Qatar Airways and our long list of renowned international airline partners. Eligible Velocity members will also receive a host of premium benefits when travelling with Qatar Airways, including access to lounge and priority check-in and boarding.



The partnership will also allow Virgin Australia to show our famous hospitality and all the incredible scenery and unique experiences we have in Australia when Qatar Airways customers and Privilege Club members fly on our network, Hrdlicka added.



Business travel offering to launch soon

Coming soon, Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways will launch a market leading proposition for business travellers, providing more choice and value for business flyers travelling between Australia, the Middle East and Europe.  TradeArabia News Service
At Bishops Orchards Farm Market & Winery in Guilford, preparation for the 2022 apple picking season had its fair share of obstacles.

Over the past few months, the orchard has faced Connecticut severe drought conditions, federal calls for limited water usage and now, heavy post-Labor Day rainfall.

To adapt, Bishops Orchard owners irrigated water from nearby ponds and paid significantly more for labor and fertilizer, Sarah DellaVentura, co-owner of the orchard, said. The last time she saw conditions this dry was in the 1990s.

We havent had anything like this since back then. This [year] has been extremely painful, she said.

Apple orchards and pumpkin patches are opening up across the state for autumn 2022. And due to the summer weather conditions, apples and other fall crops will be smaller and more scarce, Bryan Hurlburt, the commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Agriculture, said. He said the state does not have specific numbers on the yield losses.

On the upside, apples, pears and peaches will be sweeter because the sugar will be more concentrated due to the lack moisture, he said.

There are challenges, but there are also certainly opportunities. And, we want to make sure that everybody's aware that there's still fruit out there, and there are still opportunities out there. And they should still go out there and visit a local orchard, he said.

Nicole Funaro / Hearst Connecticut Media Group

Mitchell DeFazio, co-owner of DeFazio Orchard and Greenhouses, said his pumpkins and fruit are smaller because the dehydrated trees couldnt hold the weight of the crops.

We're starting to see a lot of fruit drop, he said. Everything was smaller than it should have been and there were lot of yellow leaves here and there. Apples not so much, but with the peaches you can just tell everything was stressed out.

The burst of rain from this past week could exacerbate those struggles for orchard owners. The summer drought, similar to the one in 2020, caused soils to dry up and harden, hindering its ability to absorb heavy rains and causing flooding in some parts of the state.

"When you're getting two to four inches of rain all dumped all at one time, it is not helpful to us. Especially when the ground is still dried out because of the drought. Because the rain doesn't have anywhere to really to permeate through because everything is so dry," DellaVentura said.

Shuresh Ghimire, an extension educator and vegetable specialist at University of Connecticut, said sudden heavy rain can lead fall vegetables like pumpkins and butternut squash to crack because theyve been building up sugar concentration over the summer due to lack of moisture.

It can happen on fruit crops as well. So, that could be a potential problem moving forward because we had so much drought most of the growing season and now we received good amount of rain, which is good for the most part, but for those higher content fruit, it may lead to fruit cracking," he said.

But for owners who didnt receive as much rain, the showers provided some relief.

John Lyman, executive vice president of Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, said the rain filled nearby ponds the orchard uses for irrigation, which were running low in July, and has supplied them with plenty of groundwater heading into the fall.

I think things will kind of perk up. I'm looking forward to a really nice fall and having a lot of people come out and enjoy the orchard, he said.

Lyman said while the input costs this summer were higher and the crops weigh less, the year was more successful than in 2021 when the rain washed out his crops.

When you have a really wet season, it's really hard because you can't take the water away. The roots need to breathe and with too much water they suffocate. So there was there was a lot of failures with vegetables. So pumpkins were definitely impacted last year. This year, theyre looking better despite the dry weather," he said.

Connecticut experienced its third-rainiest July in 2021 with more than nine inches of rain, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This year, the state had its 10th-driest July on record with two inches of rain.

Last year, everything was underwater. In the year before that, everything was dry the bone and this year, we're back to dry as a bone. Now we're underwater again, Defazio said.

Ghimire believes these extreme weather events will become the new normal for the state due to climate change and will create more challenges for farmers running fall activities. He said some farmers have turned to increasing soil organic matter to hold more water and growing crops covered in semi-controlled environments to adapt.

We can expect to see more and more extreme weather moving forward. So some level of drought, some level of flooding, is just going to be a fact of farming moving forward. So farmers need to be prepared to deal with those extreme weather events, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture designated New London and Windham Counties as primary natural disaster areas due to drought, and farmers in those countries are eligible for federal economic disaster loans. Hurlburt said later this year, the state plans to roll out a multi-million dollar program to help farmers adapt to extreme weather events.

I think has been the year to demonstrate what [farmers] going to be facing," he said.

DellaVentura said like every year, the orchard has overcome the volatile weather and is ready to give customers a fulfilling autumn experience.

Such is the life of farming, its the industry were in. Weather always plays a factor.. we're used to it and everything that we go through, we kind of take with a grain of salt and we learn from the experiences...and how we can maintain the crop through something like this, she said.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A second trial to determine how much Alex Jones owes in defamation damages over the false conspiracy theories he spread about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is set to begin in Waterbury on Tuesday.

Behind the lawsuit are eight families whose loved ones were killed in the shooting, as well as an FBI agent who responded to the massacre. They successfully sued Jones for defamation after he called the shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six educators staged, synthetic, manufactured, a giant hoax and completely fake with actors.

With more families involved, this trial could be double the length of a similar trial in Texas, where the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis were awarded about $49 million in defamation damages from Jones.

These are the families and other key people to know before the trial begins in Superior Court in Waterbury.

Daughter of Dawn Hochsprung

Hailed as a hero, Dawn Hochsprung was the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School who was killed when she confronted the gunman in the hallway on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012.

Her daughter, Erica Lafferty, is the lead plaintiff in the case. She has used her advocacy and her writing to honor and remember her mother.

In November 2016, she published an op-ed in USA Today calling on Donald Trump to denounce Alex Jones and other Sandy Hook truthers. The article prompted Jones Infowars to broadcast a five-minute rant defending Jones and attacking Lafferty, according to a complaint filed in May 2018.

Hochsprung was among the Sandy Hook educators to posthumously receive the Citizens Honor Medal, the highest award to a civilian from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Parents of Dylan Hockley

Nicole and Ian Hockley are the mother and father of Dylan Hockley, a 6-year-old who was killed in the massacre

After the shooting, the parents started Dylans Wings of Change, a nonprofit first founded to support children with autism and related conditions. The organization got its name from Dylan, who loved to flap his arms like a butterfly. The nonprofit has since expanded its mission, creating a youth-led social and emotional learning program for all children. In 2020, Dylans Wings of Change partnered with The Friendship Journey from Florida to create a social program for people with disabilities that grew into an eight-week summer experience.

Nicole Hockley and the father of another victim also formed the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise, which aims to protect children from gun violence.

Nicole Hockley has said that she is frequently harassed on Twitter by followers of Alex Jones.

Parents of Daniel Barden

Seven-year-old Daniel Barden was one of the first graders killed in the shooting. His parents, Jacqueline and Mark Barden, are among the plaintiffs in the case.

The family formed the What Would Daniel Do movement to honor his memory and spread his message of kindness, compassion, selflessness, gratitude and appreciation for life.

Mark Barden is also the co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise, with the mother of Dylan Hockley.

Parents of Ben Wheeler

David and Francine Wheeler are the parents of Benjamin Wheeler, a 6-year-old killed in the tragedy.

After their sons death, they formed Bens Lighthouse, a nonprofit that seeks to foster all childrens potential to build a more compassionate and connected world, while paying tribute to their sons love of lighthouses.

Less than two years after the shooting, the couple had another child, Matthew Bennett Wheeler. They have another son, Nate, who is Bens older brother.

Parents of Avielle Richman

Jennifer Hensel and Jeremy Richman, parents of 6-year Avielle Richman, are named as plaintiffs in the case. Their daughter is remembered as a Harry Potter fan who loved horses.

Her parents teamed up with scientists and medical researchers to form The Avielle Foundation to study brain health and the roots of violence. That mission continues through the Avielle Initiative, which is part of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The couple had two other children, Imogen Joy and Owen, after their daughters death.

Jeremy Richman died by suicide in March 2019. His wife said at the time that he succumbed to the grief that he could not escape.

Family of Victoria Leigh Soto

Several family members of Victoria Leigh Soto, a 27-year-old teacher from Stratford who was killed in the shooting, are named as plaintiffs.

This includes her brother Carlos Soto, her mother Donna Soto, and her sisters Jillian Soto and Carlee Soto-Parisi.

Victoria Soto has been called a hero for hiding her students in closets and cabinets, telling the gunman that they were in gym class. A school in Stratford, the Victoria Soto School, was named after her. Soto was among the Sandy Hook educators to posthumously receive the Citizens Honor Medal, the highest award to a civilian from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

The Vicki Soto Memorial Fund supports teacher-led initiatives, literacy programs, student and youth organizations, and future teachers through scholarships.

Her family sought to trademark her name due in part to hoaxers who created fake accounts to spread conspiracy theories about the shooting.

William Aldenberg

In addition to the families, FBI agent William Aldenberg has sued Jones. He was a first responder to the shooting and was depicted in iconic photographs and video footage from the day.

He has been antagonized by some of the defendants and their followers, who claim that he is a crisis actor, states the complaint filed in May 2018.

Outside of the massacre, Aldenberg was among the FBI special agents in 2014 to receive the Financial Fraud and Public Corruption Unit Award for investigating a scheme to direct illegal contributions into the campaign of a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Alex Jones

Described by his own legal team as the Coca-Cola of the conspiracy theory community, Alex Jones owns and runs the platform Infowars, where he profilerated myths about the Sandy Hook shooting.

His and his employees comments about Sandy Hook came to a head in 2018 when families sued him for defamation in several separate lawsuits. Judges in Connecticut and Texas issued default judgements against Jones last year in all the suits.

The first trial for one of these suits was held in July and August in Texas, with another trial also planned in Texas sometime after the Connecticut one.

Jones and his companys net worth is estimated to be as high as $270 million, according to an expert who testified at the first Texas trial.

Judge Barbara Bellis

Overseeing the trial in Waterbury is Judge Barbara Bellis, who ruled in November 2021 that Jones lost the defamation lawsuit by default. He and his legal team had failed to abide by the discovery process.

Bellis has shown little patience for any antics from Jones and his legal team. For example, she issued an escalating fine of $25,000 a day earlier this year when he failed to appear for his deposition in Connecticut. She is considering disciplining his lawyers for apparently sharing private medical records of Sandy Hook families that were protected by a court order.

A Superior Court judge since June 2003, Bellis has experience serving as a judge in civil matters and complex litigation. She started a new role as chief administrative judge of civil matters on Sept. 6.

CORRECTION: An original version of this article incorrectly described the mission of Dylans Wings of Change. The nonprofit was first founded to support children with autism and related conditions, but has since expanded its mission, creating a youth-led social and emotional learning program for all children and later a social program for people with disabilities that grew into an eight-week summer experience.
The U.S. Coast Guard received the first call about a deadly boat crash off the Florida Keys about 20 minutes after the tragedy, according to a timeline released by the agency.

The vessel struck a channel marker, killing Miami-Dade County high school senior Luciana "Lucy" Fernandez and sending 14 people into the water.

Fernandez's friend Katerina Sofia Puig, 17, remains in the hospital fighting for her life. Two other girls, Coco Aguilar and Isabella Rodriguez, both 17, were also seriously injured and hospitalized. Four other people, including the boat's operator, George Pino, 51, his wife, Cecilia, 48, and 18-year-old daughter, Cecilia Lianne, suffered less serious injuries.

The delay between the crash time and the Coast Guard alert could stem from how people called for help, according to the timeline and accompanying statements released Wednesday from the federal maritime rescue and law enforcement service.

The agency said witnesses who responded to the crash called 911 on their cellphones instead of using marine VHF radio channel 16  the international channel for boats in distress, which goes directly to the Coast Guard and other boaters in the area who are listening to the frequency.

According to an accident report released Tuesday by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the lead agency investigating the crash, the 29-foot Robalo center console hit the Intracoastal Waterway Marker 15 around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

The Coast Guard received the call that the vessel was capsized and people were in the water in a shallow area of Biscayne Bay off northern Key Largo at 6:50 p.m.

The call did not go directly to the Coast Guard. It was relayed "through a 911 dial system because the initial call was made via cellphone," the agency said in the timeline.

The Coast Guard urges boaters to have a marine radio on their vessels and to use VHF channel 16 to call for help whenever they are in distress or danger at sea.

"It's the most reliable means of communication on the water," said Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Office Nicole Groll. "We tell people cellphones are not always reliable. When underway, your radio will always work."

Crew based at Coast Guard Sector Key West, more than 120 miles away, dispatched a patrol boat from Station Islamorada  the service's closest base to the crash scene, but still more than 30 miles away  minutes after receiving the call.

Meanwhile, a civilian boater rescued three people from the water at 7 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. Other boaters in the area responded and continued to pluck survivors from the water.

A Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue helicopter airlifted one person who was in critical condition at 7:17 p.m., the Coast Guard timeline stated.

The Coast Guard boat sent from Station Islamorada arrived at the scene at 7:48 p.m., the agency said.

"They recovered two additional people from the vessel and transferred them to [medics] at Ocean Reef at 8 p.m. local," the Coast Guard said in its statement. By the end of the night, three other people, including Lucy Fernandez, were airlifted from the crash site.

Pino had taken his passengers to Elliott Key from Ocean Reef earlier in the day for a birthday celebration during the Labor Day weekend. They were headed back to Ocean Reef when he plowed his boat into the green Intracoastal Waterway Marker 15, which is the last marker in the channel through a shallow area of the bay called Cutter Bank.

Sources close to some of the people on the boat said a larger vessel that left the area may have contributed to the crash, either because of its wake, or because it got too close to Pino's boat. Miami Herald news partner CBS Miami reported that Pino told rescuers that after that boat passed, "he turned to check and make sure all of the girls were OK and that's when he hit the channel marker."

FWC investigators declined to comment on possible causes of the accident while the agency investigates.
How to use the mindat.org media viewer

Click/touch this help panel to close it.

Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image)

Controls - all media types

Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device.

Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen.

< and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys.

< and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys.

> in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys.

? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key.

Other keyboard shortcuts:

1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons

Scalebar

If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular.

Controls - Video

Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key.

Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation)

Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys.

The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types.

The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control.

Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images

If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways:

- without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method

- with stereoscope

- with anaglyph glasses.

- on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system)

For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D

To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them.

Controls - photo comparison mode

If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu.

Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder.

Summary of all keyboard shortcuts
Lydia Forson, a Ghanaian actress and social critic has slammed Europeans who claim that the English language is the most important tool for African survival.

An English journalist and social activist with a Twitter handle, Keean Bexte, recently claimed that Africans were stealing their English language and labelled Africans as "ingrates."

Quit appropriating our language, you ingrate, Keean Bexte arrogantly wrote.

Miss Forson responded by telling him that the language was imposed on Africans, not stolen from them, as he incorrectly claimed.

Your language was imposed on us, not appropriated. Yall always expose yourself whenever you get the slightest chance, always, the actress wrote.

The outspoken actress went on to remind him that the English language is not a yardstick for measuring one's intelligence or even a benefit of colonialism.

English isnt a measure of intelligence, it just gives us the ability to communicate with others who speak same.

It isnt a benefit of colonization; they didnt gift us language to make us better, if anything it was to their benefit if we spoke their language, she fumes.
Leadership and representatives of the Ghanaian community in the Netherlands, put their concerns before His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of the Republic of Ghana during a meeting held in Den Hague on 4th September 2022.

The meeting was part of the working visit of the President to Netherlands, where he participated in the GCA Africa Adaptation Summit in Rotterdam on 5th September, 2022 and also held bilateral meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on 7th September, 2022.

Also in attendance at the meeting were members of the Presidential delegation. They are Hon. Dr Kwaku Afriyie - Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovations, Hon Thomas Mbomba - Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Fawaz Aliu - Deputy Chief of Staff, H.E. Michael Ofori-Atta - Ambassador at-Large, H.E. Francis Danti Kotia - Ambassador of Ghana to the Netherlands, Ambassador Perpetua Dufu, Coordinating Director for Multilateral Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mrs. Matilda Alomatu Osei-Agyeman  Director of Europe Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Integration.

The rest are Mr. Mohammed Habib Idris - Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Ghana in The Hague, Mr. J. B. Dery-Kpebesani - Head of Consular Affairs at the Embassy of Ghana in The Hague, Mrs. Monica Boham - Deputy Director at Multilateral Relations Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mrs. Mayfair Adomako-Mensah - Minister Counsellor at the Embassy of Ghana in The Hague, Mr. Abdul-Kadri Alhassan - First Secretary at the Embassy of Ghana in The Hague, and other staff members of the Embassy.

The Ghanaian Community congratulated the President on his ascendancy to the high office as the President of the Republic of Ghana for the second time and expressed their appreciation for making time off his busy schedule to meet with them.

The leadership of the Ghanaian community living in the Netherlands however made some demands. Some of the concerns included the high cost of renunciation of Ghanaian nationality for obtaining Dutch nationality. On dual citizenship the leadership requested that Ghana should engage the Dutch government to enable Ghanaians retain their nationality when acquiring the Dutch nationality as applicable to citizens of some countries resident in the Netherlands.

The leadership also requested that the Ghana Card should be made available to Ghanaians in the Diaspora.

Furthermore, the leadership requested for the implementation of the ROPA law to make it possible for Ghanaians in the Diaspora to vote.

Also, the group requested that the President looks into the issue of seizure and auction of cars and goods by the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.

Lastly, the group appealed to the President to move the Embassy of Ghana to the capital, Amsterdam since majority of Ghanaians in the Netherlands were living in that area.

On the issue of the dual citizenship His Excellency stated that laws of Ghana allow for dual citizenship but indicated that government will take up the matter with the Dutch authorities to find the way forward.

As regards to the issue of Ghana Card, the President disclosed that about 17 million Ghanaians have so far been issued with the cards. He added that, the NIA was working on a pilot program to capture the details of all Ghanaians in the diaspora and would soon commence the process of capturing the details of Ghanaians abroad.

On the issue of the seizure of goods at the port, the President indicated government was addressing the problems in the sector as witnessed by recent changes made at the institutions in question to curb some of the issues stated earlier.

On the request to relocate the Embassy, the President explained that Embassies are located at the seat of government and therefore since The Hague remains as such, the embassy could not be moved. He however indicated government could consider the possibility of establishing consulate in Amsterdam.
Policy analyst, Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbey has questioned government's legal basis for the imposition of the deadline on SIM re-registration exercise.

Ghanaians with non-registered SIM cards have experienced restrictions in the use of their SIM cards from this week as part of punitive measures announced by the National Communications Authority (NCA).

The move, some stakeholders have argued as an infringement on the rights of Ghanaians.

Already, hundreds of customers massed up at the premises of the three major telecom companies to express worry over the punitive actions taken against them by the government.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbey reacting to the action by the government said the sanctions have no grounds in law.

The NIA says it has no deadline and that the Ghana card issuance is a continuous project admitting that more than a million and half people have their details taken but their cards are yet to be retrieved. So really, what is the basis and under what law. Are we asked to register SIM cards and more importantly, punitive measures are being imposed. But before a punitive measure is imposed there must be a law prescribing the basis of breach for punishment, he said.

Mobile Network Operators began imposing some punitive actions on unregistered SIM cards following a directive from the NCA to compel persons who have the Ghana cards but have still not registered their SIM cards to do so.

Already, a pressure group, the People's Project has sued the NCA and the Attorney-General (A-G) over the ongoing SIM card re-registration exercise.

The group is asking the Supreme Court to declare the deadline for registration and the associated punitive measures for non-registration null and void.

It argues that the punitive measures are unconstitutional.

The suit follows the NCA's announcement that unregistered sim cards will be blocked.

Member of the Communications Committee of Parliament, Sam George has also commenced the collation of data to file a class action suit against NCA over the sim card re-registration exercise.

By Citi Newsroom
People from all walks of life, including some traditional leaders from the Volta Region, Togo and Benin, have converged at the Ho Jubilee Park to climax this years Te Za (Yam Festival) of the Asogli State.

Also in attendance were religious leaders, business entities, and cultural troops, including the Ho Zibo group, to join in the celebration, amidst rich cultural displays and traditional performances.

Some diplomats and political leaders, including Former President John Dramani Mahama, are expected to grace the occasion.

The Ghana News Agency observed an array of traditional regalia worn by the chiefs and people to showcase their rich culture.

Mr Bright Agyare, a native from Ho Bankoe, interacting with the GNA, expressed optimism that the festival would unite the people.

The Asogli Yam Festival is celebrated annually by the chiefs (Togbewo, Mamawo) and the people of Asogli State every September to thank God, the gods and ancestors for a bumper harvest, good health and prosperity.

It is marked on the theme: Lets Eschew Greed, Unite for Peace, Development and Prosperity, to promote the development of the Asogli State and the Volta Region in general.

The festival commenced on August 6, with hiking on the Adaklu Mountain and clean-up exercise in all Asogli divisions.

This was preceded by the hailing of the new yam (Teyuyru) to welcome the arrival of the yam and purification rites, which were held at Akoefe Avenui.

GNA
10.09.2022 LISTEN

The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA), a civil society organisation has commended government for refusing approval to some directors of Cassius Mining Limited for various crimes.

It also lauded the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources for their directive to the Registrar-General's Department to take action against the directors.

This was in a statement signed by the Executive Director of NORPRA, Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Saturday.

It said a letter from the Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to the Registrar-General and copied to NORPRA following its petition for the State to investigate the mining company, requested that action be taken against Cassius Mining Limited.

The letter partly stated that; in view of the conviction of Anthony Upul Samantha and Radwin Elhassan they are barred from being directors in Cassius Mining Company by virtue of Section 177 of Act 992, the statement said.

It stated that the petition was equally presented to the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources and the Minister of the Interior and that NORPRA was glad to see a letter from the Minerals Commission under the instruction of the Minister responsible for Mines addressed to Cassius Mining Limited to refuse their request.

The letter stated: we regret to inform you that the Hon. Minister responsible for Mines has considered your request but is unable to approve it because of following reason(s);

1) You concealed and or suppressed the fact that Messrs Anthony Upul Samantha and Radwin Elhassan, Listed as directors and shareholders of Cassius Mining Limited, (the Company) in the company's incorporation documents submitted in support of the application for PL have been convicted for various offences in Australia and thus not qualified to have been named directors of the company under the companies legislation of Ghana at the time of applying for the PL.

2) The company would not have been legally established with the above officers being part of its promoters and subsequently part of its directors if they had fully disclosed their criminal past prior to applying for the PL.

3) The suppression of the foregoing vitiating material facts, clearly known to the Company, at the time of applying for the PL, meant the Company's application for the PL and for extension of same, contained a statement which was misleading or false in relation to the legal capacity of the said directors and same is a breach of Regulation 107 (1) (b) of the Minerals and Mining (Licensing) Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2176.)

The statement said NORPRA therefore considered it heart-warming and appropriate to recognize, appreciate and commend the ministries for their high level of responsiveness.

It stated that the NORPRA had conducted a study on Beneficial Ownership Disclosure and Integrity Screening of Mining Companies in Ghana and found that, Ghana, having signed onto the Open Governance Partnership (OGP) in 2014 needed to strengthen its Beneficial Ownership Disclosure regime and Due Diligence system to be able to effectively identify and keep high-risk companies out of the country and ensuring that only honest and responsible mining companies with a strong business integrity track-record were granted mineral rights.

NORPRA is a civil society organisation with a vision of a Society without poverty, inequalities, injustice and insecurity and is into research, public policy advocacy in the areas of natural resource governance, agriculture, water and sanitation and empowerment of young people, women and persons with disability for poverty eradication and sustainable equitable development.

GNA
The Small Scale Miners Association says Chinese national, Aisha Huang took advantage of the weak leadership system of the country to return to her illegal mining business.

Aisha Huang, the 'galamsey queen' who was deported in 2018 was re-arrested in Ghana for engaging in illegal mining and slapped with two charges: mining without licence, engaging in the sale and purchase of minerals without a valid licence.

Spokesperson of the Small Scale Miners Association, Francis Opoku reacting to the matter on the Citi TV's news analysis programme, The Big Issue said:

Aisha Huang is a powerful person in the country. We have allowed her to be powerful because she knew the key to get to leadership to have her way. So she took advantage of our weak system  the fact our politicians and leadership are so vulnerable and easily grease their palm and get your way. It is not only her.

Aisha Huangs deportation was criticised as many felt she should have been prosecuted instead.

Reports indicate that she returned to Ghana from a neighbouring country through a land border.

She also has a Ghana Card with the name, Huang En. The Attorney General plans to initiate prosecution against the suspect.

Most of the Chinese have this mindset that Ghanaians put their selfish interest ahead of patriotic interest. So that's how she took advantage of this and adopted that stately to get away with those supposed to enforce the law, Francis Opoku added.

The Media Coalition against Galamsey for instance is calling for the prosecution of persons who assisted Aisha Huang, to return to the country.

The Convener of the Coalition, Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, believes that political and non-political figures are likely to be complicit in her return and subsequent engagement in illegal mining.

Dr. Ashigbey believes a detailed probe into the matter is critical to the fight against illegal mining.

Aisha Huang is not coming alone. There are very powerful people who will be aiding her to come, and it is important that we find out the people behind her return.

By Citi Newsroom
Qatar Airways QVerse, a novel virtual reality (VR) experience for visitors to the airlines website, has been declared a winner in the FTE Airline Pioneer Awards category at the recent Future Travel Experience Global 2022 Awards ceremony.



The experience allows users to virtually tour and navigate different aspects of the travel experience  including the Premium check-in area at Hamad International Airport and Qatar Airways' cabin interiors  by using their own personal electronic devices.



Meanwhile, the 3D metahuman cabin crew offers an interactive customer experience through engagement with the user, presenting the unique features in both the carriers Business and Economy Class cabins.



Meanwhile, iGA Istanbul Airport secured an FTE Airport Pioneer Award for its artificial intelligence and metaverse exploration efforts. Aiming to transform the time spent at Istanbul Airport, iGA introduced a new service featuring Augmented Reality (AR) technology, providing passengers with information about the airports retail outlets by accompanying them around the International Terminal shopping area.



The AR technology allows users to see objects virtually and in 3D providing an interactive real-world environment. The airport is also tapping into the metaverse by creating a metaverse environment, which is a replica of its Youth Lounge.



Other FTE Award winners:



 Miami International Airport (MIA) was recognised in the FTE Airport Pioneer Awards category for its efforts to implement biometric boarding at more than 130 gates throughout the airport.

 Edmonton International Airport (EIA) was awarded for its recent partnership with ZeroAvia to develop the hydrogen infrastructure required for delivering zero-emission flights and decarbonising ground operations.

 Delta Air Lines grabbed an FTE Airline Pioneer Awards trophy for its PARALLEL REALITY experience, which recently launched for departing and connecting Delta customers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

 Air Europa was recognised for becoming the first airline to adopt blockchain technology for inventory management and distribution.

 ThorDrive was named the winner of the inaugural FTE Startup Idol Award, delivered with the official support of JetBlue Technology Ventures.

 IDEMIA won the Best Exhibitor Presence Award, in recognition of the companys impressive showcase and activities at FTE Global.  TradeArabia News Service
Former President John Dramani Mahama Saturday assured the people of the Volta Region of the best development under the next National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.

He said the region had great potentials in agribusiness and tourism and that the NDC administration would harness those potentials to optimise development.

Volta deserves all it can get from an NDC administration and just as we have done before, we shall do it again for our beloved Region. I am personally committed to the development of the Volta Region, he said.

Mr Mahama was addressing the chiefs and people of the Asogli State at the grand durbar of this years 'Te Za' (Yam Festival) in Ho.

It was on the theme: Let's Eschew Greed, Unite for Peace, Development, and Prosperity.

Mr Mahama lamented delays in the completion of projects his government initiated and promised to complete and operationalise same should the NDC assume power on January 7, 2025.

He said the Ho Airport was a project he was proud to have undertaken during his tenure and but for that infrastructure he would not have made it to the grand durbar in time as he was engaged in an equally important meeting in Accra.

'People are criticising the reason underpinning the construction of the Ho Airport. But I am unwavering in the reason that underpin that infrastructure.

The Volta Region was the best for the project just as it would have been for Wa or Takoradi, he said.

Mr Mahama expressed appreciation to the chiefs and people for their continuous support to the NDC over the years.

He was full of praise for Togbe Afede XIV, the Paramount Chief of the Asogli State, for his boldness at fighting corruption, describing him as One traditional leader, who stands by the truth no matter who gets angry.

You are a man of principle and conviction, we all admire you. Do not change, be yourself.

Togbe Afede, on his part, said this year's festival was extraordinary, with new features such as youth empowerment, anti-corruption, and summit of traditional leaders.

He said the nation had missed the dream of the self-rule of the founding fathers, and fallen to the rungs of high living cost, joblessness, and all forms of retrogression.

Togbe Afede blamed the challenges on greed and corruption and expressed the hope that the theme of the festival would help redirect thoughts towards nation building.

The nation's leadership must not solely focus on winning and retaining power, but seek to secure the development aspirations of the people, he said.

Mr Mahama was accompanied by his wife, Lordina, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the NDC, Julius Debrah, former Chief of Staff, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP for North Tongu, some regional and constituency executives, and a host of NDC bigwigs.

Also in attendance were some diplomats including Madam Selma Ashipala-Musavy, Namibian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Sugangh Rajaram, the India High Commissioner, chief executives of corporate organisations, and a delegation of chiefs from Notsie, Togo, led by Togbega Dzidzorli X, among others.

Some activities recorded during this year's s festival included health walk, sports, clean-up exercise, mountain hiking, hailing of the new yam, and purification rites.

GNA
11.09.2022 LISTEN

Fellow Ghanaians, the latest comments made by the IMF Boss on the state of the Ghanaian economy expectedly steered a beehive of pandemonium and controversy triggering unnecessary social media spam.

There are those who think the comments by the IMF Boss are unfortunate considering the excruciating economic conditions the good people of Ghana have been subjected to by the government. However, I believe madam Kristalina Georgieva may not have malevolent motives for making those comments that seem to purge the government of blame for our economic quagmire. Instead, its to shield the government and Ghana at large from the social chaos and economic turbulence Sri Lanka went through couple of months ago.

Well, let's travel down memory lane to establish this fact. Not far away. Just Ghanas last IMF program.

In April 2015, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a three-year arrangement for Ghana government with a total amount of 918 million dollars under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) to support the medium-term economic program of Ghana.

At the close of the Executive Board's discussion, Mr. Min Zhu, then Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair had this to say: "After two decades of strong and broadly inclusive growth, large fiscal and external imbalances in recent years have led to a growth slowdown and are putting Ghanas medium-term prospects at risk. Public debt has risen at an unsustainable pace and the external position has weakened considerably. The government has embarked on a fiscal consolidation path since 2013, but policy slippages, exogenous shocks, and rising interest costs have undermined these efforts. Acute electricity shortages are also constraining economic activity."

This was the statement by the IMF in 2015 under His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama. And according to them, factors that militated against the progress and growth of the economy of Ghana at the time were public debt rising at an unsustainable pace, exogenous shocks, and ALSO DumSor (power shortages).

Note that, the conjunctive "also" here means that the other factors were more severe and devastating. Which means, with only the power outages as the problem, Ghana's economy could survive. But the Ebola outbreak, and dwindled oil and gold prices globally, were the major exogenous shocks that crippled the Ghanaian economy.

Furthermore, among other things, the objectives of the program, according to Mr. Min Zhu, were to achieve "a sizeable and frontloaded fiscal adjustment while protecting priority spending, strengthen monetary policy by eliminating fiscal dominance, rebuild external buffers, and safeguard financial sector stability."

"Achieving key fiscal objectives, the IMF continued, will require STRICT CONTAINMENT OF EXPENDITURE, in particular of the wage bill and subsidies."

This advice embedded in Ghana IMF program in 2015 was not given for the running of the domestic affairs of President Mahama. It was given to marshal the country in the right direction.

However, when the NPP came to power it binned this economic wisdom given by the IMF. Instead, the exact opposite was what Akufo Addo and his boatload of ministers started to do and are still doing.

Fellow Ghanaians, won't it amount to hypocrisy and probably gross incompetence on the part of the IMF today if the Fund thinks it's not bad policy and mismanagement by officials of the Akufo Addos government?

Because it was the same IMF that observed these realities about the Ghanaian economy in 2015. And less than two years later a new government took over and decided to jettison and ignore all this wise counsel by the IMF, and rather did the exact opposite plunging the country back to ugliest mess than the previous.

How then would the IMF try to exonerate the government of this comatose state of our economy?

As a matter of disciplinary measures, in the first place, the Fund must not have listened to the Cock and Bull story of the Ghana government which, a while ago, decided to abandon the advice offered by the Fund.

But you see, the Ghana government did not decide to trash the wise counsel by the IMF because of the fake and fraudulent policy of Ghana Beyond Aid policy. That policy was completel balderdash! Its was to aid and abet the government to engage in naked robbery based on Kalebule projects such as Planting for Food and Jobs, NACOB which was a fraud and dead on arrival; the so-called Free Education, which reigns total havoc on the quality of education of Ghanaian SHS leavers; one-village-one-dam and other one-nonsense-plenty-corruption projects.

As a student leader, I have come to realize that the more projects a certain student leader decides to work on, the more money they get to siphon off through kickbacks!

Shine your eyes, fellow Ghanaians.

Why is it that the New Patriotic Party, NPP, claims to be a liberal democratic party as a matter of political ideology that don't want to have anything to do with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a Social Democratic party? Meanwhile, the NPP are always the first to initiate so-called social-intervention projects? Especially when an international economic advisory body like the IMF counsels the country against such practices? Wake up and rise up against political carcass eaters, economic blood sucking thieves, and social miscreants!

The answer is not farfetched, fellow Ghanaians: It is because of corruption!

In any case, do this bunch of crooks are suggesting that the IMF Program President Mahama undertook was meant for Togolese economy or his own household? Was not prescribed for managers of Ghana's economy regardless of the political ideology and party? Does hunger have a political coloration? Poverty is poverty and suffering is suffering.

So, it was in that context President Mahama implored the IMF boss to be factual about the reality rather than playing to the gallery and trying to flog a dead horse.

However, some Ghanaians who are either living under a rock or just being enablers and promoters of evil, think the IMF should not hit the government hard with the reality.

For me I believe the deliberate covering up of the inequities of the bad managers of the Ghanaian economy by the IMF Boss could mean a force for good. The only problem is that, the KEY participant in that "national gangsterism and burglary which has contributed to the present mess, are capitalizing on the comments of madam Kristalina Georgieva to hammer home cheap points. That is, the government wants to shed its toga of ineptocracy and irresponsibility as far as the bad economy is concerned by using her comments as a cover. They have been looking for cover having swindled and emptied the coffers of the country.

What leaders dont want to take responsibility? If not Russia-Ukraine war, it is the death of the Queen of England etc. that cause the mess? It is never as a result of governmental mediocrity and myopia.

We begrudge them not. These are men and women who have made stealing their pastime in the last six years since the inception of this "scramble for Africa" government, devouring everything and anything we have ever had as a nation.

They have shared state lands and other properties and even have the audacity to bequeath their proceeds of corruption as inheritance. You wont find apparent godforsaken greedy bastards than this group of people.

As indicated above, while it's very difficult to decode the intention of the IMF Boss for her open support of such a bad governance, one thing is certain that, the last thing the IMF would allow to ever happen again is to watch another country goes the Sri Lanka way. Till date, nobody knows where that country's former "thief" (President Gotabaya Rajapaksafrom) ran to hide after fleeing from the country. He was only lucky enough that he escaped through secret tunnels in the Sri Lankan presidential Villa, he was going to be the next Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.

You and I know that his level of corruption is matchless as far as our own GOAT President Akufo Addo. And the amount of money the IMF decides to give them says it all. Only 2.9 billion dollars. An amount previously granted to Ghana free of charge by the IMF, which disappeared into cul-de-sac in less than a year. This is despite over 300 billion borrowed by the government and an addendum of 30 billion Covid-19 Funds.

President Akufo Addo is indeed the GOAT, not Greatest Of All Time (GOAT), but as the Greatest Of All Thieves.

So, Ghana being ranked second only to that messed up country is an indication that the factors which culminated in the collapse of that State can't be farfetched as far as Ghana's economic situation is concerned. Hence, the IMF Bosss desperate measures to protect Akufo Addo and to prevent the same disturbances that wrecked Sri Lanka from happening to Ghana.

And it was fundamentally nothing more than unprecedented levels of corruption and mismanagement of Antichrist proportions that beleaguered Sri Lanka.

Ghana government witnessed with their pair of eyes what happened to their counterpart corrupt Sri Lanka and the dividend that country reaped. Hence, the latest bromance with the IMF by the government of Ghana to help forge a false narrative in order to defend them. Akufo Addo doesn't want to be chased out of the Jubilee House like Sri Lankan did to their President because both have their snouts in the honeypot of corruption. Hence the continuous lobbying for the Fund's support in order to divert an impending political calamity that is about to befall the government of Ghana.

In order to avoid similar turmoil, if not worse than that in Ghana, the IMF has no choice than to massage and negotiate facts about the economy.

I feel very sorry for grandma Georgieva having been bamboozled into covering such a mess by a reckless and clueless but arrogant government.

God in His own time would deal with these criminals.

President Mahama should allow posterity to judge Akufo Addo.

In Sha Allah, I Shall Return.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) thrives on leadership of service, which is well documented in the NPP 2020 manifesto and reiterated by H.E. Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo "We have an excellent message, as set out in our Manifesto, Leadership of service: protecting our progress, transforming Ghana for all. Protecting the NPP's progress over the last four years, transforming Ghana for all and servant-leadership, as demonstrated by Salifu Sa-eed to the delight of all in the Bimbilla Constituency are the foundation of the NPPs objective of breaking the eight (8).

Some observers afar think that Salifu Sa-eed is a Member of Parliament, and others also presume he is still the President's representative in the northern region due to his service to the Constituency. Salifu Sa-eed is determined to give true meaning to the NPP's 'Leadership of Service' by being a servant-leader to the people of the Bimbilla Constituency, contrary to the popular belief that leaders can only bring development if they are appointees of a ruling government or MPs of a ruling party.

Hon. Salifu Sa-eed on September 9, 2022, made a donation of a couple of items including three-hundred bags of cement, a cheque amount of Gh10,000.00, forty-eight trips of river sand and others to the Bimbilla Cemetery Committee. This donation was a response to an appeal by the Committee to him and the general public to support the construction of a fence wall around the cemetery. The construction of the wall becomes necessary following complains of unscrupulous people engaging in unacceptable activities in the cemetery and encroachment of the lands earmarked for the cemetery expansion project in the future.

Prior to this support for the fence wall, the former Northern Regional Minister made similar interventions. In july 2020, Hon. Saalifu Sa-eed partnered with a Turkish philanthropist to execute development projects in the Bimbilla Constituency. So far, the partnership has provided financial assistance to 400 people as well as a scholarship for one student to study in Turkey. The partnership once again delivered three mechanized boreholes to three water-stressed areas in Bimbilla. The electoral areas included Japanese, Jangbe, and Kunkuna.

Salifu Sa-eed is a straightforward servant. This sets him apart from others who believe in 'leader first,' perhaps to satisfy an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. He is the type of leader and party strong advocate who should be the face of the NPP in its attempt to break the eight-year streak in the 2024 general elections. Ghanaian voters are well-informed and understand who represents their interests.

Salifu Sa-eed's humility has made him a household name among people from all walks of life, including party functionaries in the Bimbilla Constituency. His humble nature prevailed upon him to canvass support for the NPP parliamentary candidate in the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, upholding the NPP's dominance in the constituency. All the NPP needs is more Salifu Sa-eeds to deliver service-leadership and instill hope in the grassroots. With personalities like Salifu Sa-eed, breaking the eight is a possibility. The year 2024 is still with the Lord.

Source: Jagre Solomon Bincheratanga
11.09.2022 LISTEN

Irish regulators have fined Instagram 405million for violating childrens privacy.

The long-running complaint concerned childrens data  particularly their phone numbers and email addresses.

Some reportedly upgraded to business accounts to access analytics tools such as profile visits, without realising this made more of their data public.

Instagrams owner, Meta, said it planned to appeal against the decision. It is the third fine handed to the company by the regulator.

We adopted our final decision last Friday and it does contain a fine of 405m [349m], Irelands Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said.

Engaged fully A Meta official told BBC News: This inquiry focused on old settings that we updated over a year ago and weve since released many new features to help keep teens safe and their information private.

Anyone under 18 automatically has their account set to private when they join Instagram, so only people they know can see what they post and adults cant message teens who dont follow them.

While weve engaged fully with the DPC throughout their inquiry, we disagree with how this fine was calculated and intend to appeal it.

Were continuing to carefully review the rest of the decision.

Major breach The DPC regulates large technology companies with European headquarters in the Republic of Ireland.

It has never given such a large fine for a breach of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation.

But last year, it fined WhatsApp 225m, while Luxembourgs data authority fined Amazon a record 746m.

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) child-safety-online policy head Andy Burrows said of Instagrams fine:

This was a major breach that had significant safeguarding implications and the potential to cause real harm to children using Instagram.

The ruling demonstrates how effective enforcement can protect children on social media and underlines how regulation is already making children safer online.

Its now over to the new prime minister to keep the promise to give children the strongest possible protections by delivering the Online Safety Bill in full and without delay.

citinewsroom
In many parts of the western Indian state of Rajasthan, child labour is prevalent, with those forced to do menial jobs often victims of trafficking. Handling rescued children is a sensitive process that requires special skills  something the police are looking to improve on.

Rajasthan ranks seventh in India in crimes against children reported between 2018 and 2020. According to the ministry of women and child development, more than 19,000 incidents of crimes against minors were reported during that period.

For children in difficult circumstances, often the first point of contact in the juvenile justice system is the police and they have been criticised for how they interact with rescued children.

But now helped by Unicef, a series of initiatives is creating a more inclusive and inviting atmosphere for children to have a trusting dialogue with police officers.

There are issues and concerns related to children. Now, police officers are friendly with children and know how to deal with them. Before they were talking to the children as if they were criminals, said Sindhu Binujeeth, a child protection consultant at Unicef.

Interventions by the One Stop Security workers, who are associated with local police stations to inform the police of problems of children, especially relating with adolescent girls is also helping.

Trained police officers with expertise in child protection also operate alongside these workers.

We have registered a lot of cases of crimes against children at my police station," said police inspector Hanwant Singh Rajpurohit.

"We have freed a lot of children from child labour and arrested those involved in keeping these children in bonded labour because of the help of these community workers.

A humane touch

Children were mostly scared whenever they had to come to a police station," he added.

"But we have child friendly stations with rooms that will provide them with a congenial atmosphere and also help them open up to the police.

More than 137 such child-friendly police stations have opened up in the Udaipur division of the state.

Despite various laws and schemes to protect the rights of children, bonded labour and trafficking, and sexual abuse is rampant. A large number of tribal children are trafficked from southern Rajasthan bordering north Gujarat, to work as bonded labourers.

Children are trafficked as bonded labour, where physical and sexual abuse at worksites is also not uncommon.

Awareness that police can be friendly is spreading slowly and surely," said Sheela Sen, a child welfare officer. "The police station has child welfare officers, a critical need in this part of the state, where child labour is rampant."

Sanjay Nirala, a Unicef representative of Rajasthan points out that intensive work is going on in and around the area of child protection and safeguarding of children.

The situation is improving in terms of child migration, child labour and out of school children," said Nirala. "It has drastically reduced in the last four to five years because of various interventions of the police department, education and other departments.

These are still early days as the police try to change their image and implement a string of child-centric initiatives.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot recently said his government was committed to eradicating offences against children such as sexual violence, child marriage and child labour.
Ten years after the US ambassador to Libya was killed in the eastern city of Benghazi, the country remains in turmoil and Washington is vying for influence with other foreign powers.

Islamist militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades stormed the US compound on the evening of September 11, 2012, at a time when the oil-rich North African country was torn by civil war.

They set the building ablaze, killing ambassador Christopher Stevens and IT specialist Sean Smith through smoke inhalation, and then also attacked a CIA annex where two contractors died, both former Navy Seals.

A condolence book and a picture of US ambassador Christopher Stevens are displayed at the Capitol on September 14, 2012, after he and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi attack. By ALEX WONG (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)

The assault, the first to claim the life of an American ambassador since 1979, deeply shocked the United States and caused a political storm for then president Barack Obama's administration.

The State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, was accused by its political foes of deadly mistakes and negligence over the bloodshed, which came 11 years to the day after al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks.

Two years after the Benghazi attack, as more violence rocked Libya's capital Tripoli, the United States, like many other countries, shuttered its embassy there and has not reopened it since.

Joint forces affiliated with Libya's Government of National Unity assemble inside the closed Tripoli International Airport on August 16, 2022. By Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File)

The diplomatic vacuum, and a disengagement from Libya under the next US president, Donald Trump, left the door open for other actors.

The main players have been Turkey, which has politically and militarily backed the Tripoli government, and Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which supported a rival camp based in the country's east.

'Darker moments'

Map of Libya. By Aude GENET (AFP)

The US embassy remains based in neighbouring Tunisia, but this has not stopped Washington from seeking to wield "crucial influence on the Libya file," analyst Jalel Harchaoui told AFP.

"There have been positive moments such as the UN agreement in Skhirat in 2015, on which the Americans had worked hard," he said about the deal struck in Morocco on forming a Libyan national unity government.

There were also "darker moments", Harchaoui said, such as when Trump supported the eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar who launched a failed 2019-20 offensive against Tripoli.

US forces in Libya captured two militants in connection with the Benghazi attack and tried them in the United States. Mustafa al-Imam and Ahmed Abu Khattala were sentenced to 19 and 22 years in prison respectively.

Masked Libyan soldiers take part in a military parade in the capital Tripoli on August 9, 2022. By Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File)

The Benghazi attack had come almost a year after the fall of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime, which was swept away by a popular uprising backed by a controversial NATO-led intervention.

The turmoil plunged the country into political and security chaos. Rival centres of power in the east and west are still vying for control, with various militias and mercenary groups in the fray.

While many diplomatic missions returned to Tripoli last year as the situation on the ground improved, Tunis-based US Ambassador Richard Norland only occasionally visits the Libyan capital.

Oil exports

Burnt cars in Libya's capital Tripoli seen after clashes last month between backers of rival governments killed at least 32 people. By Mahmud TURKIA (AFP/File)

Since March, two rival governments have been wrangling for control in Libya: one based in Tripoli and led by interim premier Abdulhamid Dbeibah since 2021; the other headed by Fathi Bashagha and supported by Haftar's eastern camp.

Fighting between rival militias in Tripoli late last month left 32 people dead and 159 wounded, according to a health ministry report.

The main concern for the United States for now appears to be keeping Libyan oil exports flowing amid the turmoil, said a European diplomatic source in Tripoli, as Russia's Ukraine war has battered global markets.

Two men have vied for power: Libyan interim premier Abdulhamid Dbeibah, on the right, and Fathi Bashagha, based in Benghazi. By Abdullah DOMA, GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT (AFP/File)

Norland has repeatedly called for elections to be held in the country, after the postponement of polls scheduled for December 2021 deepened the crisis. He also warned in June that Libya's rivals must not use oil "as a weapon".

Oil production in Libya reached 1.2 million barrels a day in late July, matching its daily average before an oil blockade was imposed between mid-April and mid-July by groups close to the eastern camp.

The US embassy in Libya said on Twitter last week that "the status quo is unsustainable, and it is incumbent on all external and internal actors to move toward presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible".
Mr Alexander Mensah-Hagan, General Director of Societe des Mines, a mining company located at Burkina Faso, has appealed to the Oguaa Traditional Council to exploit the untapped potentials in the Area to help enhance business growth for prosperity.

He said tourism in Ghana could not be pointed out without mentioning Cape Coast, hence, the need for traditional leaders and the citizens to reposition themselves to take full advantage of the enabling environment to thrive.

Mr Mensah-Hagan, made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after a youth forum organised by the Cape Coast Youth Development Association (CCYDA) as part of activities to celebrate the Oguaa 2022 festival.

The celebration was on the theme: Making Cape Coast Great Again; Through Education, Tourism and Development.

He pointed out that it was time the chiefs collaborated with the citizens and market key investments areas of attraction of the Area and harness the potentials to benefit them and the country.

The General Director who was a Guest Speaker at the Youth Forum said the Area was endowed with immense natural, cultural, historical and artistic attractions that needed to be developed and promoted for both international and domestic tourists.

Some untapped sites he mentioned were the table on which the bond of 1844 was signed on, the building the bond was signed in, the Methodist Church, the military cemetery and among others all within the Cape Coast Metropolis.

He noted that tourism had the potential of creating jobs for the local communities where tourist sites were located to re-distribute wealth and income that will promote national unity and cohesion leading to economic growth.

Mr Mensah-Hagan regretted that Ghana as a country does not give much premium to most things that could generate income, create jobs and opportunities to boost the economy.

Citing a scenario, he said coconut is sold for GH2.00 in Ghana whereas most countries sell that at 30 dollars and said coconut could be re-packaged and re-branded to generate good income for the locals.

He, consequently, called on government to promote local foods and drinks at international, national and regional programmes to advertise the country's product for positive impact on the economy for growth and development.

Additionally, he noted that there were a lot of untapped opportunities in the traditional area and the country that could be profiled and marketed to investment markets both locally and internationally.

He appealed to tourists who visit the area to invest in some potentials of Cape Coast for the citizenry to be impacted by their visits.

Mr Mensah-Hagan called on the youth to come on board the table with stakeholders and leaders to change Oguaa to be the better place they all yearned for.

GNA
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has cautioned against power theft in the country and urged the public to report such illegal activities to the company.

Members of the public with information on any illegal electricity connections or thefts should report such cases to the ECG, and the informants will be duly rewarded, it said.

Mr Charles Nii Ayiku Ayiku, the General Manager, External Communications, ECG, said the Ministry of Energy, in collaboration with the ECG, had set-up a national task force to combat illegal power activities, which was costing the company huge sums of money.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, Mr Ayiku said special utility courts, which sat on Saturdays, had been set-up to deal with cases involving illegal power activities.

He cautioned that those caught engaging in the act would be prosecuted.

Through the court prosecutions the company was able to retrieve three million Ghana Cedis, he said.

We need to increase our revenues and decrease our loses, so that we can serve our customers very well.

Mr Ayiku said the ECG was committed to the smooth implementation of the new electricity tariffs approved by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission, and working around the clock to address challenges of prepaid metres due to the new tariffs.

He urged consumers encountering challenges with their prepaid metres to call their help desk lines for redress.

GNA
Ethiopia's Tigray rebels said Sunday they were ready to take part in peace talks led by the African Union, removing an obstacle to potential negotiations with the government to end almost two years of brutal warfare.

The announcement was made amid a flurry of international diplomacy after fighting flared last month for the first time in months in northern Ethiopia, torpedoing a humanitarian truce.

"The government of Tigray is prepared to participate in a robust peace process under the auspices of the African Union," said a statement by the authorities in the northernmost region of Tigray.

"Furthermore we are ready to abide by an immediate and mutually agreed cessation of hostilities in order to create a conducive atmosphere."

There was no immediate comment from the Ethiopian government, which has long insisted that any peace process must be brokered by the Addis Ababa-headquartered AU.

But the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had until now vehemently opposed the role of the AU's Horn of Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, protesting at his "proximity" to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Sunday's statement, which coincided with Ethiopia's new year, made no mention of any preconditions for talks, although it said it expected a "credible" peace process with "mutually acceptable" mediators as well as international observers.

TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael had earlier this month proposed a truce with four conditions including "unfettered humanitarian access" and the restoration of essential services in war-stricken Tigray.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, he had also called for the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from across Ethiopia, and for troops to pull out of western Tigray, a disputed region claimed by both Tigrayans and Amharas, the country's second-largest ethnic group.

'Choose talks over fighting'

On Saturday, the AU's Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat had announced that Obasanjo's mandate would be extended.

"I reiterated my full confidence in him & encouraged his continued engagement with both parties & intl actors to work towards peace & reconciliation in Ethiopia & the region," Faki said on Twitter after meeting Obasanjo.

Faki also said he had held talks Saturday with visiting US envoy for the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer.

Map of Ethiopia showing the Tigray region. By Aude GENET (AFP)

"May the parties in the conflict have the courage to choose talks over fighting, and participate in an African Union-led process that produces a lasting peace," Hammer said in a new year's message for Ethiopians on Sunday.

Fighting has raged on several fronts in northern Ethiopia since hostilities resumed on August 24, with both sides accusing the other of firing first and breaking a March truce.

The combat first broke out around Tigray's southeastern border, but has since spread along to areas west and north of the initial clashes, with the TPLF accusing Ethiopian and Eritrean forces of launching a massive joint offensive on September 1.

The United Nations had said on Thursday that the renewed fighting had forced a halt to desperately needed aid deliveries to Tigray, both by road and air.

The March truce had allowed aid convoys to travel to Tigray's capital Mekele for the first time since mid-December.

But in its first situation report since the latest clashes broke out, the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said the violence was "already impacting the lives and livelihood of vulnerable people, including the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance".
Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede XIV, has bemoaned Ghanas inadequate infrastructural development despite its ballooning debt stock.

He is concerned that although the country is heavily indebted, there is too little to show for the country's borrowing.

Addressing the gathering at the grand Durbar to climax the 2022 Asogli Yam Festival in Ho, Togbe Afede XIV, says, the economy of the country has been exposed by COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Our economic problems predate COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war. We are lucky to have so much  30 percent of all mineral resources in the world, so much of the worlds arable lands, yet we cultivate so little to the worlds output, and we remain poor, and the worst part is that, we are so much indebted.

He says the huge sums of money Ghana has accessed have not translated into the needed infrastructural development Ghanaians deserve.

More worrying is the fact that, with a lot of debt, we cannot tell what that has done for us. So we still lack a lot of the basic facilities; poor roads. From Accra to Ho and Ho to Aflao, we know how bad the road is. Many of these roads used to be very good. If they were good and are now bad, then it means that we have retrogressed as a country.

This year's Asogli Yam festival which is on the theme Lets Eschew Greed, Unite for Peace, Development and Prosperity started on the 6th of August 2022.

Speaking at the same event, former President, John Dramani Mahama said the Akufo-Addo-led administration has failed in the fight against corruption.

His comment comes on the back of infractions cited in the 2021 Auditor General's Report.

The former President, John Dramani Mahama said the country is confronted with major challenges and needs to eschew greed to foster development.

He noted that, self-centredness has been eroded despite the strong foundations laid by our forefathers.

The NPP government has completely lost control of the fight against corruption. President Akufo-Addo in his inaugural address promised to protect the purse. Today, that public purse cannot be found. Revelations in the Auditor General report for 2021 is only a microcosm of the seeming institutionalization of corruption under this administration, he lamented.


I will shed my last drop of blood for needy people of country: Telangana CM 17 Sep 2022 | 9:53 PM Hyderabad, Sep 17 (UNI) Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao (known as KCR) on Saturday asserted that he will shed his last drop of blood to improve the lives of the poor and needy people of this country. see more..

Ex Minister Kannababu inaugurate YSR village Clinics 17 Sep 2022 | 9:35 PM Kakinada, Sep 17 (UNI) Former Minister and Kakinada rural MLA Kurasala Kannababu has inaugurated the newly constructed YSR Village clinics at three places including Mandapam colony, Gopinath nagar and Bhavanarayanapuram in Kakinada rural constituency on Saturday. see more..

Visakhapatnam: ENC joins Mega Coastal Cleanup drive 17 Sep 2022 | 9:30 PM Visakhapatnam, Sep 17 (UNI) Eastern Naval Command (ENC) has joined the Mega Coastal Cleanup Drive as part of Puneet Sagar Abhiyan and to mark the 37th International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) Day with the theme Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar, Clean Coast, Safe Seas here Saturday. see more..

500 volunteers clear garbage at Kakinada beach in Coastal cleanup drive 17 Sep 2022 | 9:29 PM Kakinada, Sep 17 (UNI) Over 500 volunteers mostly students of various colleges in the city participated in the coastal cleanup drive on Saturday and cleared the garbage at the NTR beach and Kakinada beach raising slogans  Swacha sagar- suraksha sagar. see more..
The Assembly member for the Aburaso in the Ashanti Region, Emmanuel Nyanteng, wants the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to investigate recent fire outbreaks that have occurred in the area.

His request comes after a former Ashanti Regional Director of Audit Service was burnt to death after fire gutted his five-bedroom house in the community last Saturday.

The deceased, 74 has been identified as Stephen Dapaah.

Three other occupants of the house sustained injuries with one other person who lost consciousness were rushed to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital for treatment.

Speaking to Citi News, the Assembly man said the latest incident brings to seven the number of fire outbreaks in the community, a situation he says is worrying.

I just want to use this medium to appeal to authorities and those concerns. We have witnessed series of fire outbreaks in this particular area. So they should come to our aid and investigate the issue so we dont record such incident again.

The injured include the son of the deceased, his two grandchildren and his daughter-in-law.

Earlier in February, the Ashanti Regional Command of the Ghana National Fire Service said more fire incidents were being recorded in the region in the early part of 2022, as 260 cases were recorded in January alone.

Fire outbreaks have in recent times led to the destruction of properties worth millions of Ghana cedis, and also displaced many people.

The Ashanti Regional Fire Commander, ACFO 1 Henry Giwa, told Citi News the situation is not as alarming as they seem, since his outfit has intensified sensitization on fire-related issues.

Some residents of Kumasi have also appealed to the government to provide fire officers with the needed logistics to help them in fighting fires.

According to them, often times, fire officers complain of lack of adequate water hydrants during fire outbreaks.

Citinewsroom
September 11, 2022 The Izium Withdrawal - A Catalyst For 'Starting In Earnest' "We can say that today was the best ever, the second best ever, day for the Russians in the territory of Ukraine. Something must be changed. If you ask what the Russian should change, to tell the truth, I don't know. But I believe, if they don't change anything after this situation, that means there is no need to continue this Special Operation. Because the Ukrainians managed to collect a big number of infantry. Some sources are saying, joking of course they are joking, that now the Ukrainians these days have a so big army that the Ukrainian authorities can give them just stones. And this army is able to crack the Russians' defense order just with stones because there are so much of them." The above is the opener of Dima's Military Summary of yesterday's events in Ukraine. The simplistic view that "quantity has a quality of its own," is usually attributed to Joseph Stalin, the Georgian leader of the Soviet Union during the second World War (as well as before and after). Stalin was wrong, as the Second Battle of Kharkov, mentioned here yesterday, provides. In May 1942, near Izium, the Nazis thoroughly defeated a counterattacking Soviet force twice their forces size. Stalin was also right. In the end the Soviet Union simply outproduced the German Reich and its allies in nearly everything - tanks, airplanes, cannons, ammunition, fuel, food and soldiers - which enabled its victory. (The much propagandized U.S. role in this was historically a mere sideshow.) Yesterday's Russian withdrawal from the region between Izium and the Russian border was a disaster for the (pro-)Russian people on the ground. It was also the rational consequence of a lack of military resources. The Russian military forces in Ukraine are too few to hold the 1,500 kilometer long frontline against a Ukrainian military which now has a.) a much larger force to work with, b.) no concerns about high human losses and c.) a steady supply of 'western' weapons. Russia must adapt to this. The most mentioned demand in the pro-Russian commentariat yesterday was to "take off the gloves" - to seriously interdict 'western' deliveries of weapons, to destroy Ukrainian bridges and other dual-use infrastructure, to switch from a 'Special Military Operation' towards war. Why hasn't the Russia's political leadership done this yet? After observing it for two decades I have concluded that the Russian political leadership, foremost its current leader Vladimir Putin, is driven by two guiding principles. The first is to follow the will of the people. The second are rational policies. The high ratings of Putin and other political leaders have in independent Russian polls is not by chance. It is the result of policies that are a.) rational and well explained and b.) thoroughly democratic in that they follow the public opinion of the majority of the people. They do not allow particular interest groups to have an oversized influence on it. This can best be seen in the war Putin waged against those billionaires who, in the 1990s and early 2000nds, tried to enter politics to prioritize their interests over all others. They were defeated and those who didn't flee to London have since stopped to interfere with the state. The other group that traditionally had an oversized role in Russia, especially during the Cold War, is the military-industrial complex. It shrank during Yeltsin's rule due to the catastrophic financial consequences of his mislead privatization drive. Under Putin the Russian military was somewhat resurrected, rearmed and sufficiently resourced. But it was also tamed. Under Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov the priority of general state policies over perceived military needs is no longer questionable. The biggest opponents to Putin's policies are the nationalist, not the 'western' favored 'liberal' clowns like Navalny. The nationalists can be found on the political left, right and center. They are not well organized but have a voice throughout the political spectrum. (The former President Dimitri Medvedev currently plays to that audience.) The nationalists even have a voice in public media. Here are Gilbert Doctorow's observations of their recent position discussed in prominent Russian talk shows: For his part, Vladimir Solovyov went beyond presentation of the threat posed by the United States and its allies to analysis of Russias possible response. He spoke at length, and we may assume that what he was saying had the direct approval of the Kremlin, ..

...

So, what did Solovyov have to say? First, that Ramstein marked a new stage in the war, because of the more threatening nature of the weapons systems announced for delivery, such as missiles with accuracy of 1 to 2 meters when fired from distances of 20 or 30 kilometers thanks to their GPS-guided flight, in contrast to the laser-guided missiles delivered to Ukraine up till now. In the same category, there are weapons designed to destroy the Russians radar systems used for directing artillery fire. Second, that Ramstein marked the further expansion of the coalition or holy crusade waging war on Russia. Third, that in effect this is no longer a proxy war but a real direct war with NATO and should be prosecuted with appropriate mustering of all resources at home and abroad. Said Solovyov, Russia should throw off constraints and destroy the Ukrainian dual use infrastructure which makes it possible to move Western weapons across the country to the front. The railway system, the bridges, the electricity generating stations all should become fair targets. Moreover, Kiev should no longer be spared missile strikes and destruction of the ministries and presidential apparatus responsible for prosecution of the war. I note that these ideas were aired on the Solovyov program more than a month ago but then disappeared from view while the Russians were making great gains on the ground. The latest setbacks and the new risks associated with the Western policies set out at Ramstein bring them to the surface again. The recent Ramstein meeting promised "long term assistance" to the Ukraine and announced weapon transfers of new quality. In the view of the nationalists in Russia it requires a response. Russia, in their view, needs to escalate. The Kremlin was and is extremely averse to Russian casualties. In this war it prioritizes Russian lives over everything else. That has worked well during the first months of the war. In my estimate the Russian casualties so far were about one tenth of the Ukrainian ones. But the Ukrainian leadership has never cared about casualty numbers. The issue thus does not really matter to it. Russia had set out to 'demilitarize' and to 'denazify' the Ukraine. The main geographic priority was to liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The land corridor to Crimea, and the very Russian city of Mariupol, were also important targets. The demilitarization, mostly by long range weapons, has worked well. The Ukraine no longer has a defense industry. The de-nazification is an ongoing process. The fascist 'nationalist' units like the Azov battalions and their brethren in the Kraken and other groups have been decimated. The first phase of the war was about pushing the Ukrainian government into an early agreement. The threat to Kiev was designed to achieve that. It nearly worked. At the end of March Kiev agreed to fulfill Russian demands. Then Boris Johnson was sent to push for prolonging the war to "weaken Russia". The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski has since obeyed that order. Russia pulled back from Kiev and started phase two of the war. Since then the Luhansk oblast and the land corridor to Crimea, especially Mariupol, have been won. The liberation of the Donetsk Republic has stalled. The number of Russian and allied forces fighting the war was kept steady or even decreased over time. Meanwhile the Ukrainian forces have grown manifold. They are getting a very significant amount of arms from 'western' sources and new promises to keep those supplies coming. Even when they are armed to a lesser degree, higher numbers of men do matter over time. This made potentially costly defeats, like recently at the Izium front, possible. The Russian military has readjusted to this threat by decreasing the held territory and by concentrating on the original aims of the war. The Russian public, which at first did not fully understand why the war was necessary, has since grown in its awareness. It now understands the big game that is played against its country. It may soon demand to adjust the level of resources put into the war to the one needed for a decisive victory. Polls will clarify if or when that point is reached. That is why Dima concludes that: "We can say that today was the best ever [..] day for the Russians in the territory of Ukraine." It is now probably assured that they will be liberated. One way or another. I also believe that the withdrawal from the Izium region, which left behind a significant number of pro-Russian civilians under deadly threats from fascist 'filtration' groups, will be the catalyst for a significant escalation on the Russian side. I may, like so often, be wrong. There is still an intermediate play to come. The 3rd Russian Corps, formed from well paid reservists, armed with new weapons and now reportedly deployed south of the Donbas region, might be a game changer. If it moves north, and manages to role up the Ukrainian fortifications at the Donetsk line from behind, it may become the decisive force. But the establishment of the mobile Ukrainian forces that in recent days moved, largely unopposed, towards the Oskol river, is a new card which the Ukrainians can play again against any weak spot in the Russian lines. The Russian public, softly led by the Kremlin through Russian media, is now likely to demand more. The question then is how much more. It must not mean the total mobilization of the Russian military. 'Western' claims that Russia is isolated are wrong. It has many friends it can call upon to contribute to its efforts. Diversion moves against the U.S. military in many regions of the world are just one of several possibilities. Time is always the third force on the battlefield. Both opponents have to play against, or ally with it. Europe is currently starving itself by boycotting Russian energy resources. That is unsustainable and it will, over time, have to stop following its current U.S. directed policies. Economically the Ukraine is broke and it can not, despite foreign subsidies, sustain a long war. There are also potential political changes within the U.S. that will play a role. The long game favors Russia. Still, the war must be won on Ukrainian grounds. Russia must up its game. On July 7, in a session with Duma leaders and party factions heads, Putin said: Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet. Well, maybe now is the time to do so. Posted by b on September 11, 2022 at 6:36 UTC | Permalink Comments next page  next page 
September 11, 2022

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

Too few troops, too small garrisons, to hold onto too much Ukrn territory. Kyiv/Pentagon pushed their manpower/cannon fodder advantage where Russian forces weakest, rushed through w DRGs and are exhausting Russian firepower across a broad front trying to put out fires everywhere.

Reserves too slow to the front to prevent the manuever warfare overun. Russian forces retreating from Kharkov region to avoid encirclement. Eastern Ukrainian citizens who worked w or even just took aid from Russian troops will pay the heaviest price.

Will the Kremlin now at last finally call up Russia's plentiful military reserves, expand the intervention force and get serious about this total war against Banderastan & NATO?
The two American tourists reportedly asked the monarch to take a photo of them at their picnic location close to Balmoral.

The Queen would always stop and say hello it was clear from the moment we first stopped they hadnt recognised [her]

- Richard Griffins, Former protection officer

The American man started off by telling The Queen about his vacation plans and asking the royal and where do you live?

She playfully replied, well, I live in London, but Ive got a holiday home just the other side of the hills.

The Queen stated that she had been visiting the area for over 80 years since I was a little girl. To which the tourist asked, well if youve been coming up here for 80 years, you must have met the Queen?

Quickly she came back with well I havent, but Dickie here meets her regularly.

Still oblivious the man turns to Griffins asking youve met the Queen? Whats she like?. Knowing he could have a little fun with it, he replied she can be very cantankerous at times, but shes got a lovely sense of humour.

The tourist then got up, passed his camera to The Queen and asked her to take a photo of him and Griffins!

After the interaction, and once they had walked away The Queen turned and said: Id love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to friends in America. Hopefully, someone tells him who I am.

The 96-year-old monarch passed away peacefully at her Balmoral estate on Thursday (08.09.22) afternoon.

Source
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  At least three people are dead after a powerful earthquake hit a remote part of Papua New Guinea Sunday morning, authorities say. Others were injured and infrastructure damaged in the magnitude 7.6 jolt that was felt across the Pacific country.

The three people died in a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau, said Morobe Provincial Disaster Director Charley Masange. Other people had been injured from falling structures or debris, and there was damage to some health centers, homes, rural roads and highways, Masange told The Associated Press.

Masange said it could take some time to assess the full extent of the injuries and damage in the region. But he said the sparse and scattered population and lack of large buildings near the epicenter in the nation's largely undeveloped highlands may have helped prevent a bigger disaster, given the earthquake was so strong.

One resident from the town closest to the epicenter described his ordeal to the AP.

Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in Kainantu when the quake struck.

Ravu tried to stand up from his chair but couldn't maintain his balance and ended up in a kind of group hug with his colleagues, while plates and cups crashed from his shelves to the ground, he said. His children, ages 9 and 2, had their drinks and breakfast spill over.

Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everybody as the shaking continued for more than a minute.

Ravu said that about 10,000 people live in and around his town, which is located 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the quake's epicenter.

He said people were feeling rattled.

It's a common thing that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesn't last as long and is not as violent as this one, Ravu said. It was quite intense.

Ravu was sorting through the damage to his home, which he said likely included a broken sewer pipe judging from the smell. He said friends elsewhere in Kainantu had messaged him with descriptions of cracked roads, broken pipes and fallen debris, but hadn't described major building collapses or injuries.

They are starting to clean up their houses and the streets, he said. Communication seems to have been affected, he added, with some cell towers likely to have fallen.

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 2018 in the nations central region killed at least 125 people. That quake hit areas that are remote and undeveloped, and assessments about the scale of the damage and injuries were slow to filter out.

Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, said it was too early to know the full impacts of Sunday's earthquake, although its strength meant it most likely caused considerable damage.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 90 kilometers (56 miles). NOAA advised there was no tsunami threat for the region.

Papua New Guinea is located on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, to the east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia. It sits on the Pacifics Ring of Fire, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the worlds earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 (UNI) Former Union Minister of state for Defence and External Affairs and Popular Telugu Actor Uppalapati Venkata Krishna Raju died due to cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at AIG Hospitals in Gachibowli here in the early hours of Sunday.

He was 82 and is survived his wife and three daughters.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said 'Saddened by the passing away of Shri UV Krishnam Raju Garu. The coming generations will remember his cinematic brilliance and creativity.

He was also at the forefront of community service and made a mark as a political leader. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti'.

BJP National President J P Nadda twetted 'Saddened to hear about the demise of veteran Tollywood actor & former Union Minister U Krishnam Raju. A critically acclaimed & talented actor, he contributed immensely to the Telugu film industry & served the country with sincerity. My condolences to his family. Om Shanti.'

Union Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted 'Pained to learn that the beloved star of Telugu Cinema and former Union Minister, U Krishnam Raju Garu has left us. He won millions of hearts with his versatile acting & worked for the betterment of society.

His passing away leaves a deep void in our Telugu cinema. My condolences.'

A tweet from Telangana Chief Minister's office said KCR directed Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to conduct the funeral of his dearest friend and former Union Minister Uppalapati Venkata Krishnam Raju with full state honours.

AIG Hospitals in a statement said Krishnam Raju was admitted for post COVID complications on August 5. He was diagnosed with severe pneumonia caused by multidrug resistant bacteria and fungal organisms, severe infective bronchitis.

He had heart rhythm disturbances during the hospital stay and worsening of kidney function. He was managed on ventilator support since admission.

He was on appropriate treatment and close monitoring was done. "He succumbed to severe pneumonia and its complications on 11.9.22 and expired at 3.16 am today due to cardiac arrest," the statement said.

His body was shifted to his residence from AIG Hospitals to enable the people and film Industry to pay their last respects. The last rites will take place on Monday.

Krishnam Raju was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kakinada and Narapuram constituencies in 1998 and in 1999.

He was the Union Minister of state for four years during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet from 1999-2004.

The Veteran actor quit BJP to join the Praja Rajyam party floated by megastar and former Union Minister K Chiranjeevi .

He contested from Rajahmundry Lok Sabha Constituency in the same year but lost .

In his film career spanning five-and-a-half decades during which he acted 183 films, the former Union Minister was popularly known as 'Rebel Star' among his fans and Telugu Film Industry due to his rebellious acting style.

He made his debut with Chilaka Gorinka' in 1996 but 'Bhakta Kanappa' and 'Bobbili Brahmanna' films brought him fame.

He won five filmfare awards and three Nandi awards from the Andhra Pradesh government.

Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao also condoled his death.

UNI CS
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, delivers a speech after taking oath as the 17th president of the Philippines, during the inauguration ceremony at the National Museum in Manila on June 30, 2022.
Aluminum cans, plastic and beer bottles, were some of the waste collected during the 2022 Guam International Coastal Cleanup, Saturday. Courtney Scharff, left, and Stephen Gozun volunteered at the island's largest cleanup at Gov. Joseph Flores Memorial Park, Ypao Beach.
BEIJING (AP)  Chinese state media say the countrys top legislator decried sanctions against Russia during a recent visit to the country, underscoring China's backing of Moscow in its war on Ukraine despite claims of neutrality.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Li Zhanshu urged greater cooperation on fighting against external interference, sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, among others, in a meeting with Russian lawmakers Thursday.

Li also held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of an expected meeting this month between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a regional gathering in Uzbekistan. That would mark Xis first trip outside China since the pandemic began in early 2020.

Li is a member of the Communist Party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee and is considered one of Xi's closest confidants, the two having worked together for decades. Ranked third in the Communist Party hierarchy, Li is the highest-level official to travel abroad since the start of the pandemic.

The meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization  a political, economic and security forum that China and Russia dominate  comes as Putin faces setbacks in his attempt to conquer Ukraine and Xi prepares for a congress of the ruling Communist Party that is expected to grant him a third five-year term as leader.

Xinhua said Russia also backed Beijing's condemnation of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit last month to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China threatens to annex by force.

Li thanked the Russian side for firmly supporting China on the Taiwan question," Xinhua reported.

Russia has also backed China against international criticism, including at the United Nations, over its mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

The world's two leading authoritarian states, China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies against the U.S. and other liberal democracies. Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi hosted Putin in Beijing in early February, during which the sides issued a joint statement declaring, Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no forbidden' areas of cooperation."

In that statement, Russia also said it confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan."

China has steadfastly refused to criticize Russia's invasion of Ukraine or even to refer to it as such, and has accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking the conflict, despite Putin's statements that he regards Ukraine as a historical part of Russia that must be eliminated as an independent political entity.

Although condemning the punishing economic sanctions against Russia, Beijing has not provided military or financial support to Moscow that could trigger legal action from Washington against its companies.

Russia held sweeping military drills that ended last week in the countrys east, involving forces from China in another show of increasingly close ties between the two.

Xinhua said Li met with Putin in the far-eastern port city of Vladivostok, and with Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko and Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian State Duma, in Moscow on a visit that ran from Wednesday to Saturday.
They're known at school as the group of parents who orchestrate everything from Halloween parties to book fairs, but a parent-teacher organization isnt just for the kids.

Parents join a PTO for all kinds of reasons. It has helped some revitalize career skills, share passions, find job opportunities, and assuage the middle-age friend desert, all while making sure the kids have fun.

I thought it was important for my kids to see I thought they were important and that their education was important, said Judy Walters, recalling her stay-at-home-mom days raising two little girls. But really, I wanted to meet people and have a life.

The PTO was where Walters met some of the people she still considers best friends. I got close to a number of my room-mom people, and I met a lot of parents who I wasnt close to but still really liked and enjoyed, she says.

PTO is a common acronym for the group of parents and teachers who work together to fundraise, plan activities and provide extra enrichment for students. The term can be used interchangeably with the Parent Teacher Association, a national nonprofit headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, or the PTC, or parent-teacher council.

As kids return to school this fall, you might see flyers or emails pleading for parents to get involved. PTOs play an important role as school boards face tough budget choices, particularly for extras non directly related to the curriculum.

Especially as schools and families emerge from pandemic lockdowns, people are looking for ways to connect. PTOs can provide that at a time in life when making new friends typically slows down because of work and family.

Sara Dean, 46, signed up for her schools PTA, nervous about assimilating into what she saw as an established group. But by spring, she was happy to have made new friends.

Dean hosts the podcast The Shameless Mom Academy, which discusses womens empowerment, and balancing parenthood and work. She devoted an episode to what she learned from working as the PTA president at her childs school outside Seattle.

The opportunities for bonding happen quicker, she said of working on the PTA. There is more comradery and ease of building relationships that I wasnt expecting but that was a lovely experience.

She also didnt expect to pick up career-building skills.

Dean was used to working independently, as a writer and podcast host and producer. As PTA president, she was thrown into building teams, helping everyone get along, and finding resolutions to problems the school faced  skills that could easily translate into corporate America or the world of nonprofits.

Thats not why I signed up but its a benefit that is really cool, she said.

The same goes for Colleen Nolan. The eight years she spent working various roles on an elementary school PTO led, she said, to two nonprofit board positions  at a city food bank and a neighborhood improvement group  and a paid, part-time position as a records keeper.

I met people in the neighborhood and, over the years, they recognized me as someone who was a `doer,' Nolan said. People saw me as someone who could answer questions and they used me as a resource.

Many parents bring their passion projects to the PTO, said Andy Garlick, an elementary school principal. These might include personal finance, diversity, or cultural customs from another country, for example. Parents bring what they know to the table.

Theres a lot of people who want to use the minimal free time they have to do good in their community, he said.

There are criticisms and jokes, of course. In the 2018 comedy Bad Moms, Christina Applegate and Mila Kunis spar over who is the better PTA presidential candidate. And the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia shows a snooty mother from Wellsbury, Massachusetts arguing with an outsider from Texas about how to best raise money for the PTA.

In reality, wealthy neighborhoods tend to have far more parental involvement and fundraising power than areas without such affluence. This leads to more enrichment opportunities for students, and more educational necessities like books or tech gadgets. Some argue it compounds inequities in the U.S.

And PTO parents often spend their own money. Some organizations have dues and others dont, but many parent volunteers end up paying for projects and events.

Kimberly Rae Miller joined the PTA to become more involved and was surprised to find how much money it required out of her own pocket.

But, she said, If you have the time and financial resources to participate, its a great way to have access to a part of your childrens life that you dont always have access to.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP)  In a somber, regal procession, Queen Elizabeth IIs flag-draped coffin was driven slowly through the Scottish countryside Sunday from her beloved Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Mourners packed city streets and highway bridges or lined rural roads with cars and tractors to take part in a historic goodbye to the monarch who had reigned for 70 years.

The hearse drove past piles of bouquets and other tributes as it led a seven-car cortege from Balmoral, where the queen died Thursday at 96, for a six-hour trip through Scottish towns to Holyroodhouse palace in Edinburgh. The late queen's coffin was draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland and topped with a wreath made of flowers from the estate, including sweet peas, one of the queen's favorites.

The procession was a huge event for Scotland as the U.K. takes days to mourn its longest-reigning monarch, the only one most Britons have ever known. People turned out hours early to grab a space by the police barricades in Edinburgh. By afternoon, the crowds were 10 people deep.

I think she has been an ever-constant in my life. She was the queen I was born under, and she has always been there, said Angus Ruthven, a 54-year-old civil servant from Edinburgh. I think it is going to take a lot of adjusting that she is not here."

Silence fell on the packed Royal Mile in Edinburgh as the hearse carrying the queen arrived. But as the convoy vanished from view, the crowd spontaneously started clapping.

A very historic moment. I am quite speechless actually, said Fiona Moffat, a 57-year-old office manager from Glasgow. She was a lovely lady. Great mother, grandmother. She did well. I am very proud of her.

When the hearse reached Holyroodhouse, members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, wearing green tartan kilts, carried the coffin past the queen's youngest three children Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward  into the throne room, where it was to remain until Monday afternoon so staff can pay their last respects.

King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla will travel Monday to Edinburgh to join another solemn procession that takes the queen's coffin to St. Giles Cathedral on the citys Royal Mile. There the coffin will remain for 24 hours so the Scottish public can pay their respects before it is flown to London on Tuesday.

The first village the cortege passed through was Ballater, where residents regard the royal family as neighbors. Hundreds of people watched in silence. Some threw flowers in front of the hearse.

She meant such a lot to people in this area. People were crying, it was amazing to see, said Victoria Pacheco, a guest house manager.

In each Scottish town and village, the entourage was met with respect. People stood mostly in silence; some clapped politely, others pointed their phone cameras at the passing cars. In Aberdeenshire, farmers lined the route with an honor guard of tractors.

Along the route, the cortege passed through locations laden with House of Windsor history. Those included Dyce, where in 1975 the queen formally opened the U.K.s first North Sea oil pipeline, and Fife, near St. Andrews University, where her grandson Prince William, now the Prince of Wales, studied and met his future wife, Catherine.

Sunday's solemn drive came as the queens eldest son was formally proclaimed the new monarch  King Charles III  in the rest of the United Kingdom: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It came a day after a pomp-filled accession ceremony in England.

I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of sovereignty, which have now passed to me, Charles said Saturday.

Just before the proclamation was read Sunday in Edinburgh, a protester appeared with a sign condemning imperialism and urging leaders to abolish the monarchy." She was taken away by police. Reaction was mixed. One man shouted, Let her go! Its free speech! while others shouted: Have some respect!

Still, there was some booing in Edinburgh when Joseph Morrow, Lord Lyon King of Arms, finished his proclamation with God save the king!

That upset Ann Hamilton, 48.

Theres tens of thousands of people here today to show their respect. For them to be here, heckling through things, I think it was terrible. If they were so against it, they shouldnt have come," she said.

Still, it was a sign of how some, including people in Britain's former colonies, are struggling with the legacy of the monarchy  and its future.

Earlier in the day, proclamations were read in other parts of the Commonwealth, including Australia and New Zealand.

Charles, even as he mourned his late mother, got to work at Buckingham Palace, meeting with the secretary-general and other Commonwealth envoys. Many in those nations are grappling with both affection for the queen and lingering bitterness over their colonial legacies, which ranged from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British cultural institutions.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is in favor of an Australian republic, said Sunday that now was not the time for a change but for paying tribute to the late queen. India, a former British colony, observed a day of state mourning, with flags lowered to half-staff.

Amid the grief enveloping the House of Windsor, there were hints of a possible family reconciliation. Prince William and his brother Harry, together with their respective wives, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, delighted mourners near Windsor Castle with a surprise joint appearance Saturday.

The queen's coffin was taking a circuitous journey back to the capital. After it is flown to London on Tuesday, the coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state until a state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 19.

In Ballater, the Rev. David Barr said locals consider the royal family as neighbors.

When she comes up here, and she goes through those gates, I believe the royal part of her stays mostly outside," he said of the queen. And as she goes in, she was able to be a wife, a loving wife, a loving mum, a loving gran and then later on a loving great-gran  and aunty  and be normal."

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes after the hearse passed through Ballater.

It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the queen," she said. She certainly gave service to this country, even up until a few days before her death.

___

Corder reported from London.

___

Follow AP coverage of Queen Elizabeth II at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
"Horse" by Geraldine Brooks: A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history. From these strands, this Pulitzer Prize-winning author weaves a sweeping story of spirit and obsession, inspired by the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington.

Adult Non-Fiction

"Hand Lettering for Beginners" by Sarah Ensign: Have you ever wanted to learn how to hand letter, but didnt know where to start? This book will teach you how, using simple and fun techniques. Youll learn how to use a brush pen, create basic strokes and connect letters. Once youve honed your basic lettering skills, youll be able to create your own unique projects.

DVD

"Zeros and Ones": Ethan Hawke and director Abel Ferrera join forces for this gritty, tense political-thriller set during one deadly night in Rome. Called to the city to stop a terrorist bombing, soldier J.J. desperately seeks news of his imprisoned rebel brother, who holds knowledge that could thwart the attack. Navigating the capitals darkened streets, J.J. races to a series of ominous encounters, hoping avert a crisis.

Juvenile Fiction

"A Sky-Blue Bench" by Bahram Rahman: This picture book, inspired by the authors experiences growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan, tells the story of Aria, a schoolgirl who recently has lost her leg to a landmine explosion and finally is heading back to school with a prosthesis. Aria worries that it will be difficult for her to sit on the floor all day at school, and she turns out to be right. She decides to visit the local carpenter and learn how to build her very own bench. When a sky-blue bench appears in Arias usual seat, the girls are inspired to learn how to build even more furniture for their classroom in this beautiful story of resilience and determination.

Did you know?

The library's Music Under the Dome concert series will return at 4 p.m. Sunday with a performance on steel drums and marimba by Illinois College drumline director Tyler Carpenter. Admission is free.
Ministerial Statement The Chief Minister of Gibraltar The Hon Fabian Picardo KC MP

Chief Minister's Ministerial Statement on the eve of National Day

"My dear fellow Gibraltarians and residents of Gibraltar, The death of Queen Elizabeth the Second has been a dreadful blow for all British people and for the people of all Her Realms and Commonwealth.

"The whole of Gibraltar is under a cloud of sorrow today. We are united in mourning.

All of the British people and the British family of nations mourn the loss of our Queen and the end of the Second Elizabethan era.

For the next ten days and beyond we will be mourning the passing of our beloved sovereign.

The Queen of Gibraltar.

A position Elizabeth the Second held not just in our hearts but in our laws also.

And Gibraltar, as the only Primary Saluting Battery outside of the United Kingdom, has today seen the Royal Gibraltar Regiment perform a seamless death gun salute at the tower.

96 rounds were fired.

One for each year of Queen Elizabeths long life.

Our beloved and respected Royal Gibraltar Regiment guarded our sovereign earlier this year.

Today they have done us all proud under the command of Gibraltarian Major Charles Bonfante.

Tomorrow, also at 1pm, the Regiment will fire a 21-gun salute in honour of the Proclamation in London of the new King, Charles The Third, King of Gibraltar.

In reflecting with you on the depth of our mourning I would echo the words yesterday of the newly appointed Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Liz Truss MP.

Barely two days after She was appointed by Queen Elizabeth The Second, the Prime Minister said that Her Majesty had been [T]he Rock on which modern Britain was built.

I agree.

I am sure we all do.

But I go one further.

She was our Queen.

Gibraltar was HER Rock.

And She was ours.

As She had said of Her own husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, She was our STRENGTH AND STAY.

Our Rock in hard times.

And in all Her time on the throne, Her Majesty was consistently known to have cared deeply for Her people in Gibraltar.

We cherished Her visit in 1954.

A visit that left an indelible mark on our small, then emerging, nation and carved between our Sovereign and the Gibraltarians a SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP without equal.

In its own way, Her visit cast the die for the years ahead of us in a way that has served to define us and further cement our loyalty to the Crown.

A loyalty which She reciprocated to us and all our fellow British subjects.

Upon Her accession to the throne, when Queen Elizabeth devoted Her life to service, She expressed Her commitment as being for life.

She became an example of service and respect for the rule of law.

Most recently She demonstrated that by stoically abiding by COVID rules to mourn the love of Her life, the Duke of Edinburgh alone.

And She has demonstrated that also by serving literally until the last hours of Her life.

48 hours or so before Her death, She was asking Ms Truss to form a Government.

She had been served by 15 Prime Ministers.

She had been served by 6 Chief Ministers of Gibraltar.

She had countless other premiers, prime minister and first ministers in Her service throughout Her Realms and Commonwealth.

But She was also a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother.

And today we extend our condolences also to the members of Her family who are mourning not just a monarch, but a matriarch and a mother also.

I do so on behalf of all members of His Majestys Government of Gibraltar, all ministers, all members of the Parliament as well as all civil servants and all the public service as well. And indeed on behalf of every single Gibraltarian and every resident of Gibraltar.

In reflecting for Gibraltar on Queen Elizabeths lifetime of service, I think we must reflect on the fact that She was the Queen of all our Constitutions to date.

As our Queen, she was the Head of our Executive and we were expressly one of Her Dominions. It was under Her hand that those Orders in Council were made.

Each step in our journey to greater self-government to date was established and entrenched in Her time on the throne.

We were emancipated to the autonomy we have today in the glorious Second Elizabethan era. So modern Gibraltars abject devotion to the Crown has been fashioned by Her reign.

We have enjoyed the fruits of the stability and consistency of Her long reign,

The longest of any British Monarch to date.

Yet, even on this saddest of days, we will also want to remember our Queen with a smile also.

What better epitaphs to this Monarch of ours than Her stylish stint with James Bond at the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony in London.

Or the more recent short with Paddington Bear as we all celebrated Her Platinum Jubilee.

I am sure we will all want to remember Her impish smile as Paddington poured tea at Buckingham Palace.

And Her welcoming smile at Balmoral for Her new Prime Minister, the third woman she would ask to form a Government.

She certainly had style and panache in abundance.

She displayed that style and panache in all Her public acts and engagements. For all those reasons and many more, Her Majesty will be forever in our Hearts.

In fact, as the post war period developed and restrictions from General Franco bit harder and harder, the devotion and loyalty of the British People of Gibraltar for Queen Elizabeth as the embodiment of the Crown grew deeper and deeper.

Closer and closer. Stronger and stronger.

And those bonds have been tied so tight by Her that they are cemented for ever and will only deepen evermore under our new Monarch and His successors to come.

My dear friends,

Today is the eve of our saddest National Day.

Although we will not be celebrating National Day in the traditional way this year, I do want to wish everybody in Gibraltar a happy day, however tinged with sadness it may be as a result of the death of our beloved Queen Elizabeth.

I know that the cancellation of National Day is also a severe blow, given how keen we all were to celebrate together again for the first time since 2019 after the pandemic.

This year is the Thirtieth Anniversary of the first National Day celebration.

For tomorrow, Her Majesty the Queen had sent me a message which I was to read to all those assembled at Casemates.

It was a message already delivered before Her death.

Her Majesty communicated Her message through Her beloved former ADC, the Governor, Vice Admiral Sir David Steel.

Her message reads as follows:

As you celebrate the important occasion of your National Day, I would like to congratulate you Chief Minister, and send my good wishes to the people of Gibraltar. As we overcome global health challenges together with determination and fortitude, may we look to better times in the future. Elizabeth R.

I know we will cherish that message forever from our beloved Queen Elizabeth.

This year we will be a nation that will still be red and white.

But we will be as sad as we are proud.

In great measure as a result of our SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP with Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family, we shall be no less red, white and blue.

No less red, white and proud.

And no less red, white and free.

Because that FREEDOM is what the Elizabethan era has delivered to us.

Tomorrow, when I am not on official government business, I will still wear red and white, with a black ribbon also to remember the loss of our Queen.

And so today, I want you all to join me in DEDICATING THE THIRTIETH GIBRALTAR NATIONAL DAY TO THE MEMORY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND.

To celebrate Her memory.

To give thanks for Her life, Her commitment to duty and Her dedication to all the British people.

And to commemorate Her by dedicating our most precious day to Her.

Tomorrow we will commemorate the day in a more muted way.

The Gibraltar flag will fly over the Foreign Office in London.

It will fly at full mast  as tomorrow King Charles The Third will be proclaimed King in London.

I have also just received a letter from the Prime Minister congratulating us on our 30th National Day and sharing in her sorrow with the People of Gibraltar.

So I urge you to enjoy the day tomorrow with your family and friends, tinged with sadness as it will be, commemorating the great memory of our former sovereign.

Do so respectfully, with your families and friends, whether in beaches, homes or restaurants around our nation.

I ask that at an appropriate time during your meal, you should all respectfully toast the memory of our deceased, beloved Queen Elizabeth.

And I ask that we should also all toast the good health and success of our new Monarch and Sovereign, King Charles The Third, King of Gibraltar.

The formal Proclamation of King Charles as King of Gibraltar will happen in Gibraltar on Sunday at noon at the Convent.

This event will be streamed live to the screens at Casemates.

On Sunday, all our flags will fly at full mast for one day only.

Then we will revert to half-mast until the end of mourning the day after Queen Elizabeths funeral.

In days to come after the Proclamation we will have time to reflect also on our declaration of allegiance and loyalty to His Majesty, King Charles The Third, King of Gibraltar.

A new Carolian Era beckons.

For now, I know that you all join me in wishing that Queen Elizabeth the Second rest in eternal peace.

God Bless Gibraltar. God Save The King. Long Live the King."
Jacksonville Sunrise Rotary Club has received a Rotary Citation from Shekha Mehta, 2021-22 president of Rotary International.

Out of 48 clubs in Rotary District 6460, Sunrise Rotary is one of only 11 to receive the honor, according to the club.

To qualify for a Rotary Citation, a club must achieve a minimum of 13 goals set by Rotary International, including increased membership, Polio Plus donations, per capita support for the Rotary Foundation, community service and conference attendance.

Jacksonville Sunrise Rotary meets at 7 a.m. Tuesdays in the conference room of Holiday Inn Express in South Jacksonville.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP)  The United States on Saturday announced $40 million in aid to buy fertilizer and other key agricultural inputs in time for the next cultivation season in crisis-hit Sri Lanka.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who is visiting Sri Lanka, made the announcement after she met farmer representatives in Ja-Ela outside the capital, Colombo. She said the money will be in addition to the $6 million announced earlier to assist low-income farmers.
For Oprah Winfrey, Sidney is an act of love for Poitier View Photo

TORONTO (AP)  Oprah Winfrey was discussing her profound affection for trailblazing actor Sidney Poitier  a longtime friend and mentor to her  when she was overcome by emotion during an interview on the upcoming documentary  Sidney, a life-spanning portrait. She plunged her head into her hands and cried, I just love him so much.

Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman, George Nelson, Robert Redford and Halle Berry were all interviewed in Sidney, and their reflections on the iconic performer and civil-rights activist are often illuminating. But Sidney means something intensely personal for Winfrey, a producer on the film.

I was trying not to lose it, actually, because my love for him is as deep and as strong as for any human being I know, Winfrey said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sidney premiered Saturday. He was my adviser, my counselor, my friend, my comfort, my balm, my joy.

Sidney, which Apple TV+ will premiere Sept. 23, arrives eight months after the death of Poitier, the groundbreaking actor who paved the way for countless Black actors in Hollywood and single-handedly revolutionized how they were portrayed on screen. Directed by Reginald Hudlin, Sidney was made with the cooperation of Poitiers family. Much of it had been completed before he died in January at the age of 94, including his interview with Winfrey.

But the loss of Poitier  whom Winfrey at the time of his death called the greatest of the Great Trees  has made Sidney only more poignant.

The film is an act of love for me for him, Winfrey said as tears again welled up. I dont know why Im breaking down. My opportunity to do this was my offering to him.

Winfrey has said her life was irrevocably altered when she saw Poitier become the first Black performer to win best actor at the Academy Awards (for 1963s Lilies in the Field). A life in show business suddenly became attainable to her. They later met for the first time when Winfreys talk show was taking off. Poitier was one of the few who could understand what she was going through as a Black entertainer.

During the early days of navigating fame and all that comes with fame, being assaulted on all sides by Black people, white people, people saying youre not this or you should be doing that, he was the person I turned to, said Winfrey. He said, Its always a struggle and a challenge when youre carrying other peoples dreams.'

It was the first of many conversations over the years.

Remember Tuesdays with Morrie? I could have done Sundays with Sidney, says Winfrey. He was my person. He was my guy. He was my friend and my brother.

Hudlin, the director of House Party and the Thurgood Marshall drama Marshall, estimates he had completed about 90% of the interviews on the film when Poitier died.

Whatever pressure I was putting on myself basically doubled, Hudlin said. There was a disappointment to know that he would never see it, but I was glad at a time when everyone wanted to touch him and connect with him, we would have this movie.

Interviews with Poitier were conducted earlier, separate of the film, before the stars health deteriorated. But the footage of Poitier speaking directly to camera, and hearing that voice narrate his life story, makes for one last chance to be in his regal presence. Poitier, born in the Bahamas, talks about how his young identity was forged without racisms influence. It wasnt until he left for Miami at 15 that he encountered it.

I left the Bahamas with this sense of myself, Poitier says in the film. And from the time I got off the boat, America began to say to me, Youre not who you think you are.

Sidney, which draws on Poitiers memoir, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, touches on some of his seminal films, including The Defiant Ones (1958), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Guess Whos Coming to Dinner. It also delves into how he connected to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement with Hollywood; his friendship with Harry Belafonte; and his move into directing with Buck and Preacher (1972). Above all, it captures how racism, or anything else, was never a match for Poitiers unshakable integrity.

For me, personally, I look and go: How did he do it, with no role model? marveled Hudlin. Hes looking at a wooded forest and he just carves a path, always making the right choice. How did he always know the right thing to do without a road map? To single-handedly take on decades of racist imagery in cinema, right from its inception, and shatter all of that misbegotten imagery with the truth of who he was.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

By JAKE COYLE

AP Film Writer
3 dead after 7.6 quake hits remote part of Papua New Guinea View Photo

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  At least three people are dead after a powerful earthquake hit a remote part of Papua New Guinea Sunday morning, authorities say. Others were injured and infrastructure damaged in the magnitude 7.6 jolt that was felt across the Pacific country.

The three people died in a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau, said Morobe Provincial Disaster Director Charley Masange. Other people had been injured from falling structures or debris, and there was damage to some health centers, homes, rural roads and highways, Masange told The Associated Press.

Masange said it could take some time to assess the full extent of the injuries and damage in the region. But he said the sparse and scattered population and lack of large buildings near the epicenter in the nations largely undeveloped highlands may have helped prevent a bigger disaster, given the earthquake was so strong.

One resident from the town closest to the epicenter described his ordeal to the AP.

Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in Kainantu when the quake struck.

Ravu tried to stand up from his chair but couldnt maintain his balance and ended up in a kind of group hug with his colleagues, while plates and cups crashed from his shelves to the ground, he said. His children, ages 9 and 2, had their drinks and breakfast spill over.

Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everybody as the shaking continued for more than a minute.

Ravu said that about 10,000 people live in and around his town, which is located 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the quakes epicenter.

He said people were feeling rattled.

Its a common thing that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesnt last as long and is not as violent as this one, Ravu said. It was quite intense.

Ravu was sorting through the damage to his home, which he said likely included a broken sewer pipe judging from the smell. He said friends elsewhere in Kainantu had messaged him with descriptions of cracked roads, broken pipes and fallen debris, but hadnt described major building collapses or injuries.

They are starting to clean up their houses and the streets, he said. Communication seems to have been affected, he added, with some cell towers likely to have fallen.

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 2018 in the nations central region killed at least 125 people. That quake hit areas that are remote and undeveloped, and assessments about the scale of the damage and injuries were slow to filter out.

Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, said it was too early to know the full impacts of Sundays earthquake, although its strength meant it most likely caused considerable damage.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 90 kilometers (56 miles). NOAA advised there was no tsunami threat for the region.

Papua New Guinea is located on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, to the east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia. It sits on the Pacifics Ring of Fire, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the worlds earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.

By NICK PERRY

Associated Press
A man whose out-of-the-blue confession in 2001 solved the long-dormant case of a San Antonio airman killed 11 years earlier was sentenced Monday to 45 years in prison.

Timothy C. Thomason, 38, avoided prosecution on a capital murder charge by pleading guilty to murder before State District Judge Mickey Pennington on Monday.

Authorities said they are seeking indictments of two others whom Thomason implicated in the slaying of Scott M. Prince.

"I anticipate his continued cooperation in the investigation," Medina County District Attorney Tony Hackebeil said in a story in Tuesday's San Antonio Express-News.

The defendant was jailed in California on a theft charge in 2001 when he told of strangling a young airman in San Antonio years before. Thomason's account contained details that linked him to the disappearance of Prince, 26, on Nov. 9, 1990.

Until then, authorities said, they had no leads in the slaying of Prince, whose skeletal remains were found on a ranch in Medina County 16 months after he vanished.

Prince's parents complained about not being consulted on the plea bargain and called the sentence too lenient.

"I know that he's been helping, but I still think he should get the death penalty. I don't know how you get away with murder," Joan Prince told the newspaper in an interview from Florida.

"Under the circumstances, I thought this is an appropriate plea sentence," Hackebeil said, noting that Thomason voluntarily came to Texas, led officers to the murder scene and provided other useful information.

Thomason's account of Prince's death has changed. He said initially that Prince gave a ride to him and a girlfriend as they hitchhiked on Loop 410 and that they robbed and strangled him as a friend by the name of Mike watched. In a jailhouse interview last fall, Thomason claimed he had wanted to free Prince but that "Mike" stomped him to death.

Thomason's wife, Judith Thomason _ his girlfriend at the time of the killing _ was located in Michigan last fall and charged with capital murder in Prince's death. Officials said she implicated herself during a telephone call to her husband at the Medina County Jail, where she is now being held.

According to court records, she implicated herself in a conversation that was recorded by saying she would not have told what she knows about the murder. Officials said Thomason recently initiated divorce proceedings against his wife.

Information from: San Antonio Express-News
A man has been charged with capital murder in the death of his girlfriend's 4-year-old son.

Paul Castellano, 21, was arrested on Friday, a day after Joshua Pacheco died of strangulation and trauma to the abdomen, San Antonio police Sgt. Gabe Trevino said.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated allegations of physical abuse by the family involving a different child in June 2003, department spokeswoman Marina Yzaguirre said.

The agency was not able to prove child abuse or rule it out, but caseworkers felt the family needed their services, she said in Saturday's edition of the San Antonio Express-News.

The family, however, decided not to participate after about six weeks, and the case was closed in mid-September.

State caseworkers took two other children, a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old, into custody following Joshua's death.

Joshua died the same day Gov. Rick Perry ordered a statewide investigation into Child Protective Services' procedures.
Rafael Aguilera

The University of Texas Permian Basin will be showing off its College of Engineering at 11105 W. Highway 191 with an alumni reception Sept. 21.

Those attending the reception will get to meet George Nnanna, dean and professor at the college and head of the Texas Water and Energy Institute at the college. Attendees will also hear about the latest projects underway at the college and have a chance to network with UTPB alumni and other professionals.
If anyone in the United Kingdom was prepared for the emotional fallout of the death of Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, it was the country's radio DJs and producers.

According to Ben Cooper, chief content and music officer at Bauer Media Audio UK, a company that operates dozens of British radio stations, at the time of the queen's death, blue "obit lights" flashed in radio stations around the country. Long-standing protocols, known as "obit plans," quickly kicked into gear. There would be no more advertisements. No on-air competitions. Prepared playlists flooded the airwaves.

As the country was still processing the death, British radio had already turned down the dial on the pep and begun providing listeners with more somber sounds: Coldplay's "The Scientist," for example, Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," The Cars' "Drive" and a lot of Adele, according to Cooper.

The tonal shift was happening not just at Bauer's stations, but across the radio landscape as well - from major broadcasters to local stations. Even Fun Kids - the British equivalent of Radio Disney, according to station manager Matt Deegan - switched to playing instrumental versions of children's movie music to reflect the national mood. For many in Britain - where, according to a recent survey by Radio Joint Audience Research, 89 percent of the population listens to the radio for, on average, 20 hours a week - the expectation was clear: The country is in mourning.

It goes beyond radio. During the official 10-day mourning period, some sporting events and festivals have been canceled. Comedy shows have been removed from TV programming.

Such sensitivity isn't legally mandated but is widely expected, Cooper says. "Radio stations are the soundtrack for society. And you have to reflect the mood of the nation," he explains. "It boils down to the fact that this was someone's grandmother, someone's mother, and the British population has a huge affinity and love for her. And so when someone dies, you don't want to play loud music or be in a celebratory mood."

Deegan, of Fun Kids, says the British Broadcasting Corporation has set high expectations for radio's response to troubling times. "Here, radio is such a part of people's lives, and we're very fortunate to have the public's interest, so we work very hard to give them something decent to listen to," he says. "I think that's why we may be more reflective on a point like this."

For his station, complying with such expectations can be tricky. "Kids songs are upbeat," he says. "They're about dancing around, having a laugh, singing along, and so when you want to do something else, you have to think hard about it." But you don't want to be caught playing a song like "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" right now, he says.

For industry insiders like Cooper and Deegan, the death of the queen is a moment for which they have been meticulously prepared. Cooper has worked in radio for three decades and says the protocol for a major death, such as that of the queen, is "drilled into you."

"It is something that has been in the back of my mind throughout the whole of my career, that this is something that you have to get right," he says.

Cooper worked as a producer on a pop music station at the BBC at the time of Princess Diana's death in 1997 and remembers the grief mounting across several days. "You had to mirror that sadness," he says. "It lasted pretty much all the way through to her funeral."

Now, Cooper oversees Bauer UK, which has stations ranging from the pop-centric KISS to a station focusing on the hits of the 1970s to 1990s - all of which have begun playing their format-specific sad songs: Beyonce's "Halo," for example, or Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah."

According to Cooper, stations are expected to start introducing more midtempo music in the coming days but will return to somber tunes for the day of the funeral, Sept. 19. He has encouraged producers and hosts to monitor the emotional pulse of their audiences.

Some listeners applaud the change. When Polly Sharpe, a 45-year-old lecturer in journalism at Liverpool John Moores University, left the house for the first time after hearing of the queen's death, she found solace driving to the reflective 1990s music that Bauer's Absolute Radio was playing. "It was quite nice to have the music to allow me to think about it rather than having the reporters talk to me about how we should be feeling," she said.

Sharpe heard songs by the English rock group Elbow and other soothing music and thought about the sense of stability the queen had brought her in anxious times. "It felt like we were this tiny island, but at least we had this amazing woman."

Not everyone agrees about how best to honor the queen. Lex Wilson, 19, who lives outside Newcastle and listens to the radio at work, says the tone doesn't feel quite right. It's not that she's against the queen, she explains, but that the music programming misses an opportunity. "I feel like hearing all of this sad music, it's not reflecting the celebration of what was such a great and long rule by Queen Elizabeth."

James Ward, a journalist based in Bristol, simply doesn't get the fuss. "It's been absolutely bonkers," he says. "As you walk down the street, every 20 yards you see the picture of the queen. It's insane. This is the kind of thing that we make fun of North Korea for doing."

Listening to the radio, Ward has heard local DJs with no national media experience struggle to meet the moment.

"They're just dragging out anything that they think sounds plausibly sad," he says. "I don't even know how to describe it. Songs I've never even heard, like power ballads from the '80s. There's this charade of solemnity. It's not their responsibility to grieve on behalf of the nation, but that's the task that they've been given."

Ward is alarmed by the way the media has abandoned stories about, say, the energy crisis, which could kill people who cannot afford to heat their homes this winter. "There's a real kind of sinister side to it," he says of the incessant mourning. "The lack of impartiality. The assumption that everyone in the country wants this."

While such sorrowfulness might send Ward to Spotify, Cooper believes this kind of event can actually increase loyalty to radio.

"We talk a lot in the media about streaming services and playlists, but radio is so much more than a playlist," he says. "It is that connection to the zeitgeist and capturing those feelings in the 'live-ness' of radio. I think this moment shows the power of the medium."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

LONDON (AP)  Prince William and wife Kate made a surprise joint appearance with Prince Harry and wife Meghan on Saturday, warmly greeting a large crowd gathered outside Windsor Castle to remember their long-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

Their walkabout," the first time the brothers have appeared amicably together in public since March 2020, comes at a time when the younger generation of Britain's royal family must step up their responsibilities significantly.

William, long second-in-line to the throne, is now the heir apparent after his father, King Charles III, became Britain's new monarch upon his mother's death. That means William and Kate, both 40 and parents of three young children, immediately assume a much more central role as the new face of the monarchy.

William and Harry had been on frosty terms since Harry quit as a senior royal and moved to the U.S. two years ago. Their show of unity Saturday was reportedly initiated by William and left some observers hoping that Harry, 37, might return to the fray and support his elder brother in sharing the heavy workload now on Williams shoulders.

Certainly William and Catherine, as the new Prince and Princess of Wales, will be even more in the media spotlight if thats possible, said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine. Until Thursday, there was a buffer between him and the throne. That buffer has now been removed.

Its a stark contrast to how thing were just two weeks ago, when William and Kate announced they were moving their family from central London to a more rural base in Windsor. Observers thought they were seeking more privacy and a more normal upbringing for their children, who just started a new year together at a private school.

Long before he ascended to the throne, Charles indicated that he wanted a slimmed down monarchy with a tighter core group of full-time working royals and lower expenses.

That was before Harry's move  and before the princes' uncle, Prince Andrew, was effectively banished from public life following sexual misconduct scandals.

Not many other recognizable working royals  members of the royal family who officially represent the monarch  were left to share the hundreds of official engagements and numerous overseas visits undertaken each year.

The group includes Charles and his wife, Camilla, now the Queen Consort; William and Kate; the queens only daughter, Princess Anne; and the queens youngest child, Prince Edward, and his wife, Sophie. Also working royals, but much lesser known, are the queens first cousin, Prince Richard, and his wife, Birgitte.

In his first speech to the nation, which was broadcast Friday, Charles formally bestowed his own title, the Prince of Wales, to William. Kate is now the Princess of Wales, and is the first person since Williams late mother, Princess Diana, to hold the title.

William and Kate also inherit Charles and Camillas other honorary titles, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. That means managing and taking income from the Duchy of Cornwall, an estate comprising land across the U.K. that is reportedly worth 1 billion pounds.

With Catherine beside him, our new Prince and Princess of Wales will, I know, continue to inspire and lead our national conversations, helping to bring the marginal to the center ground where vital help can be given, Charles said Friday.

In his speech, Charles said he knows won't be able to devote as much time and energy to causes he cares most about, such as the environment and climate change.

William will now likely spend more time championing those topics. He already made his mark by founding the Earthshot Prize, an ambitious legacy project expected to hand out millions of pounds in grants for environmental initiatives over the next 10 years.

It will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real, William wrote in a statement Saturday. I will honour her memory by supporting my father, The King, in every way I can.

Charles also spoke briefly of Harry in his address to the nation, expressing his "love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.

Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, moved away from the U.K. to seek financial independence and freedom from severe British media scrutiny into their lives.

The couple is now settled in California with their two young children. Both Harry and Meghan repeatedly have aired their unhappiness with the royals since their departure.

Those tensions were put aside Saturday, as the two princes and their wives arrived in the same car to greet people who pressed against road barriers outside the gates of Windsor Castle. Each royal stopped to speak to both children and adults, accepting flowers and condolences from an excited crowd.

It was so beautiful to see. I felt so emotional and I felt the queen would have loved it," said Banita Ranow, 28. Her mother, Baljinder, said the visit was fabulous."

I just hope in the future they remain like that and that the brothers come together," she said.

___

Follow AP stories on Queen Elizabeth IIs death and other stories about the British monarchy at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
LONDON - The appearance in Britain this week of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who very publicly split from royal life two years ago, raised a flurry of questions for many royal watchers: Will their kids be officially named prince and princess after the death of Queen Elizabeth II?

Under rules that are more than a century old, any child or grandchild of the monarch can get royal titles.

While Harry's grandmother reigned, the Mountbatten-Windsor children, Archie Harrison, 3, and Lilibet "Lili" Diana, 1, were too far down the line of succession to be automatically entitled to royal titles. (The queen, namesake of little Lilibet, had the power to change that but did not, much to the chagrin of Harry and Meghan fans.)

Under King Charles III, Archie and Lilibet as his grandchildren traditionally would be given new honorifics - but it is not clear whether they have gotten them yet.

"I would expect the situation to be clarified. It hasn't been," royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said Sunday.

In a list of those in line to succeed the monarch published by Buckingham Palace, Archie and Lilibet - respectively sixth and seventh in line to the throne - were referred to as "Master" and "Miss," not "Prince" and "Princess."

This fueled speculation that Charles, who has famously said he wants the ranks of the monarchy to be "slimmed down" around a core set of full-time working royals, might break with precedent and decline to offer his grandchildren royal titles. The palace did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment from The Washington Post.

The question of Archie and Lilibet's status took on new urgency last year when the couple said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that the royal family treated their firstborn child, Archie, differently, including by denying him the title of prince - a move Meghan, whose mother is Black, suggested was driven by institutional racism within the monarchy.

In 1917, King George V, Harry's great-great-grandfather, issued a legal document known as Letters Patent laying out which royals were entitled to the title of prince or princess and of HRH, his or her royal highness, and the regal trappings that come with them, which can include financial compensation and patronages.

Harry and Meghan gave up their own HRH titles as part of an agreement with the royal family when they retreated into more private lives and moved to North America. (As The Washington Post has reported, the couple and their children have moved into a $14.7 million home in Montecito, Calif.)

"The grandchildren of the sons of any such Sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of Dukes of these Our Realms," the 1917 document reads.

This means that while Elizabeth reigned, of all her great-grandchildren, only Prince William's eldest son, Prince George, was entitled to be called his royal highness. However, she issued a patent to allow George's siblings, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, to have HRH titles.

With the accession of Charles to the throne, Archie and Lilibet "should've been offered [royal titles]," Fitzwilliams said.

In her interview with Winfrey, Meghan said that while she was pregnant with Archie, she learned that Buckingham Palace "didn't want him to be a prince or a princess" and that "he wasn't going to receive security."

In the face of extreme media scrutiny of her and her family, Meghan said, she was concerned her son would be less safe if he didn't enjoy the full protection she felt came from a royal title. She also said she and Harry didn't make the decision not to give Archie the title of prince, as some media reports at the time had suggested.

When asked why she thought the royal family didn't make Archie a prince, Meghan said conversations were happening "in tandem" about how Archie wouldn't be given a title and about "how dark his skin might be when he's born."

"The implication was that they weren't offered titles and that was linked to racism," Fitzwilliams said. "That was extremely damaging."

Not all royals choose to take a title, and it's not clear whether Harry and Meghan will want their children to have them even if they are offered, Fitzwilliams said.

Princess Anne, the daughter of Elizabeth, chose not to give her children, Peter and Zara, HRH titles. She spoke about her decision in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair. "I think it was probably easier for them, and I think most people would argue that there are downsides to having titles," she said. "So I think that was probably the right thing to do."

While there are many advantages to being a titled member of the royal family, a major downside is the lack of privacy that comes with an elevated status in the eyes of the press and the public. "On the other hand, if Harry and Meghan are desperately sensitive about this issue, as it appeared on Oprah they were, it's very important of course [that Archie and Lilibet] be offered them, because that's the 1917 edict," Fitzwilliams said.

If they weren't offered titles, "obviously it would be seen as a deep snub," he added. "If they were and if they decided not to take them, that's an individual choice."

- - -

The Washington Post's William Booth, Karla Adam and Jennifer Hassan contributed to this report.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Monica White had gone through a painful divorce, but at 53 she was ready to begin dating again in the fall of 2020. She created profiles on dating sites and soon got a message from a potential suitor - a man authorities would allege was a serial killer a year later.

Anthony Robinson, 36, who police have dubbed the "Shopping Cart Killer," allegedly met women on dating sites and lured them to hotels, before killing them and loading their bodies into shopping carts to dump in vacant lots. He has been charged in two killings and been linked publicly by police to three others.

"Hi beautiful," White recalls Robinson writing in his first message. "I'd like to get to know you better."

The whirlwind romance that followed was by turns intense, bizarre and menacing. White's account provides the richest picture yet of a man who has largely remained a mystery since authorities labeled him a serial killer at a news conference that garnered national attention in December.

Police have said little about Robinson, other than that the D.C. man moved frequently and held a range of jobs. His family has never given media interviews. Louis Nagy, an attorney for Robinson, declined to comment for this story.

Robinson is slated for a preliminary hearing on two counts of murder Monday in Harrisonburg, Va., where he is accused of killing 54-year-old Allene Redmon, of Harrisonburg, and 39-year-old Tonita Lorice Smith, of Charlottesville, last fall.

The Post has also learned police are re-examining the 2018 death of a Maryland woman who Robinson was engaged to marry in light of the allegations against him.

White said her brush with an alleged serial killer has left her shaken. She said she has not been able to go on dates since.

"It really rocked my world," White said. "I went into a depression."

White, who lives outside Harrisburg, Pa., said her relationship with Robinson proceeded quickly after that first message. White said Robinson was flattering, telling her what he found attractive about her profile. She said he liked that she was into art and had been a preschool teacher.

White said she told him she was looking for a serious relationship, and he confided in her that he preferred older women because they were more mature.

The messages soon progressed to video chats. White said Robinson would call her from the Metro as he commuted to or from his job in the District of Columbia, where White said he was working removing snow and cleaning streets for the city. At the time, Robinson was living in a friend's apartment in D.C. and occasionally stayed with his mother in Maryland.

Robinson told White he had never been married, but he did have a son who died when the child was around 2 years old and a daughter who was around 5 or 6 at the time. White said she never learned much about the children's mother, but sensed Robinson had a difficult childhood himself.

White and Robinson grew closer.

"He seemed to have an attachment to me, so he would call me every day," White said.

By late 2020, Robinson scheduled his first visit to Pennsylvania. White said she and Robinson spent a weekend together, hanging out, watching movies and eating Chinese food. White introduced Robinson to her adult son.

The relationship continued, and White said Robinson said he hoped they could be a couple and move his daughter to Pennsylvania to live with her. Robinson returned to the Harrisburg area for White's birthday in February 2021.

White said Robinson's visit held a surprise: He bought a one-way bus ticket.

"When he got here, he said I'm going to have to get a job or something in order to get back home cause I don't have my ticket money," White said.

White said Robinson got a job at a warehouse for an online pet supply store and stayed with her for three weeks while he raised money for his return trip.

White said Robinson never discussed killing or hurting women, but he did have darker moments.

At one point, White said he pulled up his shirt to show her a scar and said he had been stabbed. White said Robinson never explained how the stabbing occurred, but promised he would kill anyone that came at him with a knife again. When they were intimate, White said Robinson sometimes choked her briefly, leaving her gasping for breath.

Robinson mentioned he had been engaged to a woman who died.

The woman was 30-year-old Skye Allen, who passed away on Valentine's Day in 2018. Robinson had met Allen online in 2016, and the pair were planning a wedding, her family said. The couple were living with Allen's mother in Glenarden, Md.

Stacey Allen, Skye's mother, said she found her daughter barely breathing and with a light pulse in her bed on the morning of Feb. 14, 2018. Skye Allen had spent the night with Robinson in the room the pair shared, Stacey Allen said. Skye Allen was rushed to the hospital, where she died a short time later.

Skye Allen's death was found to be caused by "fatal cardiac arrhythmia," according to a copy of her death certificate obtained by The Post. Prince George's County police said they are taking a fresh look at the case.

"The Prince George's County Police Department did not open an investigation into Ms. Allen's death in 2018," the department said in a statement. "Our agency was not notified of her passing, which occurred at a hospital, and therefore had no involvement in documenting any aspect of her death. She was cremated following her death. In January of 2022, a PGPD Homicide supervisor did speak to Ms. Allen's relatives. Based on those conversations, the PGPD's Cold Case Unit is reviewing the facts surrounding her death."

At White's house, her relationship with Robinson came to a tumultuous end. White held a birthday party for herself in mid-February 2021. At the party, White said Robinson drank heavily and made sexually suggestive comments toward her son and the teenage son of a friend, which were confirmed by a cousin of White's who attended.

White said she confronted Robinson about the comments the next day. White said she told Robinson the comments were inappropriate and asked if he had an interest in men. White said Robinson told her he did.

White said she felt blindsided because Robinson had not been forthcoming about that side of himself and said she couldn't trust him any longer. "He could be anything," White said.

A fight ensued, during which Robinson called police before he finally left, White said. Local police confirmed they responded to a call involving White and Robinson. White thought it would be the last she would see of Robinson, but it wasn't.

Weeks later, White said Robinson messaged her on Facebook and said he was living at a hotel in Harrisburg. Robinson asked her to come to the hotel, saying "I will give you whatever you want." White said he was also interested in buying "spice," or synthetic marijuana. White declined to meet him.

About a month later, White was driving in Harrisburg and saw Robinson walking down the street. White said she was shocked by his appearance. Robinson had always been clean-cut and neatly groomed, but now he had an untidy beard and a knotty Afro. White never saw him again.

Roughly eight months later, in October 2021, police said Robinson killed Redmon in Harrisonburg, about 130 miles south of D.C., after going there for work. Police said Robinson killed Smith in November.

Robinson was arrested on Nov. 23 after both women's bodies were found in an open lot in a commercial district in Harrisonburg. Police said surveillance video and cellphone records connected Robinson to both victims.

Fairfax County police announced in December they were investigating Robinson in connection with the slaying of two women whose bodies were found in a trash can in a vacant lot in the Route 1 corridor. Robinson has not been charged in the slayings of Cheyenne Brown, 29, of D.C., and Stephanie Harrison, 48, of Redding, Calif.

Fairfax County police have interviewed White as part of their investigation, a spokesman said.

D.C. police are also investigating Robinson in connection with the killing of Sonya Champ, 40, of D.C., whose body was found in a shopping cart near Union Station in September 2021.

White said she was stunned when a relative forwarded her a story about Robinson being called a serial killer by police in December. She was supposed to be with her niece, who was giving birth, but she couldn't leave her home. She thought of the women who had been killed and her own experience with Robinson.

"It was all kinds of emotion flooding my head," White said.
This webpage uses Cookies and JavaScript in order to work properly. We strongly recommend to enable those technologies in yur browser. In case of wrongly displayed content you can request necessary information at e-mail address wwwadmin@mzv.cz
Generous reader John Z volunteered early to amplify this fundraiser. He had an unexpected windfall this year and wanted to give some of it to Naked Capitalism. As he said, It keeps me sane in this crazy, crazy world.

If you havent yet been able to contribute, please use this double your donations challenge to turbocharge your gift!

John Z will match the next 100 donations of $50 (and multiples of $50 like $100 up to his match total). Support his vote of confidence in your daily fix of news, opinion, rousing discussions, and cute animal pictures by going to our donation page now!

Other readers have been telling us why Naked Capitalism is important to them:

From psv:

I cant emphasize enough how valuable this site is, and try to spread the word. Thanks to our esteemed hosts and everyone who makes this place such a pleasure and refuge: a one-stop shop for analysis, commentary, and animal pix  tough combo to beat!

From Colonel Smithers:

Just contributed and delighted to so. I began reading* NC in the spring of 2008, following a link from the Grauniad (still respectable then and some years from banning me / my socialist heresy) and having just moved into regulatory and trade policy at a City trade body. It was half a dozen or so years before I started commenting. I reckon that its the same with many readers. *Religiously so daily and at some cost to my work productivity, but I think NC makes me a better and better informed person and employee. I have noticed some new commentators and from new locations in the past year or so. Its great that the NC COMMUNITY is growing and able to share live reporting and insights from so many walks of life and in different locations. Readers who have yet to pipe up, please do so. Its great to know that we are not alone and all have something to say and share.

From Amy P:

Thank you for providing not only such a varied selection of daily links but also for the wonderful comment section. Your commentariat has led me to discover new books to read (The Snoring Bird), podcasts to listen to (The Great Simplification), even YouTube Channels (The Duran and DarkHorse Podcast). I know the occasional recipe has been posted but havent tried one yet! Thank you.

From jhg

Just donated now. Keep up the good necessary work. Great articles, Great Analysis, Great Commentary. There is no website like it.

We are humbled by these kind words and will keep working hard to meet your high expectations!

Please make your contribution here, via check, debit or credit card, or PayPal. If you give by check (we like checks!), be sure to let us know by e-mailing us at yves@nakedcapitalism.com with John Z Challenge in the subject line.

Thanks to John for digging deep to support our community, and I hope readers will respond in kind.

And if $50 is a stretch for you, dont let that stop you from making a donation if youve been planning to but havent had time yet. Every contribution helps us meet our goals. And the other important way to help is by telling others about our work, whether in person to friends, family, and colleagues, or in social media like Facebook and Twitter. So I hope youll take him up on his fundraiser challenge in whatever way you can!
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 659 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why were doing this fundraiser, what weve accomplished in the last year,, and our current goal, rewarding our guest bloggers.

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

What is infection control? According to the CDC:

Infection control prevents or stops the spread of infections in healthcare settings.

Which, arguably, hospitals are. In fact, hospitals have administrative structures for Hospital Infection Control (HIC). Again the CDC:

The role of the hospital infection control committee (HICC) is to implement the annual infection control programme and policies. Develop a system for identifying, reporting, analyzing, investigatingand controlling HCAIs

Develop and implement preventive and corrective programs in specific situations where infection hazards exist.

Review and update hospital infection control policies and proceduresfrom time to time. HICC shall meet regularly  once a month and as often as required.

Since were now 924 days / 30 = ~30 months = 30 meetings into the latest Coronavirus pandemic, one would have expected those regular monthly meetings to have culminated in robust and coherent politicies and procedures to prevent the airborne transmission[1] of SARS-CoV2. But who am I kidding? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here are some revealing anecdotes[2]. (Im including medical offices because the hospitals are the hegemonic institution in the delivery of health care in the United States, and others could be expected to follow their lead.) For example:

Im in a hospital right now in Iowa astounded that masks are no longer required. Absolutely bonkers.  Snickademous (@Snickademous) September 7, 2022

And:

Why am I in a hospital and no one is wearing masks  Jessica (@jes_klein_) September 8, 2022

Day 2: no masks Im going to die here  Jessica (@jes_klein_) September 9, 2022

And:

It does. Was recently in Pennsylvania at a hospital and no masks required. At home in New Jersey, masks required in ALL medical facilities  Lucy Sadie & Mom  (@corganddox1215) September 10, 2022

And:

My 73 year old brother went by ambulance to an ER in IA cuz he couldnt breathe. He tested Covid+ & has pneumonia. He was wearing a mask when he got there & staff told him he didnt have to, IN A HOSPITAL ER! He said one Dr was masked, but no one else. WTH is going on?  chicky  (@_chicky_little) September 10, 2022

And:

Urgent care last Monday for abdominal pain. Masks optional, people coughing in the waiting room. Wearing my n95. Mammogram today, masks optional in the hospital system. Tech wore a surgical. I was in an n95. Potentially risking my health for urgent and preventative care.  njphlaz  (@njphlaz) September 9, 2022

And finally:

Dr appt. today, large medical building, lots of dr. offices. Not a single mask on anyone, including my dr and his nurses. I wore my mask.  Leah Hamilton (@LeaHami55821459) September 10, 2022

At the very least, mask policy  the first layer of defense against aerosol transmission, before ventilation  is inconsistent (or inconsistently enforced) across jurisdictions in hospitals. So its no wonder that Politico writes Nowhere is safe: Record number of patients contracted Covid in the hospital in January[3]:

More than 3,000 hospitalized patients each week in January had caught Covid sometime during their stay, more than any point of the pandemic, according to U.S. government data analyzed by POLITICO. The record surge demonstrates the virulence of the Omicron variant and how even hospitals, where infection control is paramount, provided little refuge. Any level of hospital transmission is concerning, said Aaron Milstone, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who focuses on the prevention of hospital-acquired infections. The data suggests that hospitals should review their practices and make sure they are doing everything they can to protect patients .

(lol no.) This article appeared in February, 2022. Six HICC meetings later, nothing has changed. Interestingly, the issue of whether Covid is airborne and if so, what practices to adopt, blew up way back in 2020. From KHN via the Guardian:

Frontline healthcare workers are locked in a heated dispute with many infection control specialists and hospital administrators over how the novel coronavirus is spread  and therefore, what level of protective gear is appropriate. At issue is the degree to which the virus is airborne  capable of spreading through tiny particles lingering in the air  or primarily transmitted through large, faster-falling droplets from, say, a sneeze or cough. This wonky, seemingly semantic debate has a real-world impact on what sort of protective measures healthcare companies need to take to protect patients and their workers.

In fact, the administrators and the infection control specialists won (as we see from the anecdotes and data above). (See, .e.g., Some hospitals ask patients, visitors to remove N95s, citing CDC.) Why?

In this post, I will show that CDC  hold onto your hats, here, folks  rejects airborne tranmission for Hospital Infection Control[4], indeed for Covid. I will then present new data that shows how airborne transmission is pervasive in hospitals, reinforcing the data and anecdotes given above. I will conclude by speculating why CDC is so sickeningly derelict in its mission to fight disease and support communities and citizens to do the same. This is especially unfortunate, since the CDC created the field:

Infection control (now infection prevention) in healthcare settings is a relatively young medical discipline dating back only to the 1970s. Nationwide surveillance for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) was initiated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1970 via the National Nosocomial Infections Study (NNIS).

Tne CDC Infection Control Documentation Rejects Aerosol Transmission

Im going to take a short journey through the CDCs Infection Control page, looking for what it has to say about airborne transmission. There is a table of contents at too right; Ive highlighted the areas I am going to look at:

The How Infections Spread page has a cute little three-tab widget under the heading How Do Infections Occur?. The tabs are Source, Susceptible Person, and Transmission. Lets look at each tab in turn.

Source;

As you can see, this page has bullet points for examples of transmission via fomites, but there is nothing specific for airborne. Yes, people are one source of germs, but there is no indication of how or why. One might imagine a bullet point for, say, breathing (which creates shared air). But no.

Susceptible Person:

This page contains, at least for Covid, an outright falsehood. Plenty of people who have been vaccinated are susceptible to Covid.

Transmission:

Here, finally, we get a mention for airborne transmission (although one would have expected people to have been given as an example on page one). However, 1) and jaw-droppingly, Covid is not mentioned (which would lead an innocent reader to assume that Covid was not airborne). And 2) aerosol transmission is not confined to long distance infection [pounds head on desk]. If youre sharing air with an infected person, that person can be six inches, six feet, or six yards away (the latter two depending on the quality of ventilation).

Now we turn to the Infection Control Basics page. There are two sections: Standard Precautions for All Patient Care, and Transmission-Based Precautions:

Standard Precautions for All Patient Care:

As I shall show below, 1) the possibility of Covid infection in hospitals is pervasive. Hence, the concept that there are some spaces where PPE is appropriate, and some where it is not, is wrong. Respiratory Hygiene/cough etiquette 2) is droplet dogma; it ignores airborne transmission via breathing, talking, singing, etc.

Transmission-Based Precautions

Once again, 1) there is no mention of Covid. A reasonable reader, considering the salience of Covid on the nightly news or in professional literature, would conclude that Covid is not airborne. 2) The idea that infectious/susceptible persons should be given separate rooms flies in the face that the fact that airborne Covid is pervasive in the hospital setting. Meanwhile, the idea that one might 3) place them in a separate room, but without a HEPA filter, is absurd.

Finally, we turn to the page for Tools for Healthcare Settings. (If you go to the link, you will see that there is nothing specific for airborne transmission)

I will look at the tool for Acute Care, which I take to cover hospitals.The tool is in fact a ginormous survey instrument (PDF). Here is the heading:

Assist in the assessment of some infection control programs this tool certainly does. But I can assure you that there are no entries for ventilation, HEPA, or anything useful for air.

There is an optional section that mentions airborne, I suppose on the assumption that only some facilities have issues with airborne transmission of Covid:

So I clicked through to the link given, and found a Hospital Infection Control Worksheet from CMMS. Here is the first page, but the rest has the same assumptions:

So we find the same weaknesses as in Transmission-Based Precautions above. 1) Covid is not mentioned. 2) Infectious Persons are to be placed in AIIRs (Airborne Isolation Infection Rooms) in which, in section 4.H.6 on the next page, and contradicting earlier guidance, HEPA filters are mandated, just not for everyone else. So theres no thought of HEPA filters anywhere else, like ordinary rooms, or waiting rooms, or offices.

A reasonable person would conclude from reading this checklist that if a hospital can isolate measles patients, it can handle airborne transmission in the general case. Not so!

So if youre looking for a reason why HICCs keep meeting, month after month, and not accepting that Covid is airborne, or doing anything about it, its because their hegemonic authority on infection control, CDC, hasnt given them any reason to believe otherwise. For starters.

Airborne Transmission of Covid is Pervasive in Hospitals

From the preprint The aerobiology of SARS-CoV-2 in UK hospitals and the impact of aerosol generating procedures:

Aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) seemed particularly risky, and policies have restricted their use in all settings. We examined the prevalence of aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 in the rooms of COVID-19 patients requiring AGP or supplemental oxygen compared to those on room air.

(An example of an AGP is a tracheotomy. AGPs are the only form of aersols in hospitals that droplet dogma permits.) From samples in 219 rooms,  the largest air sampling study for SARS-Cov-2 published to date:

SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA was detected in the air of hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients, and AGPs did not appear to impact the likelihood of viral RNA. Enhanced respiratory protection and appropriate infection prevention and control measures are required to be fully and carefully implemented for all COVID-19 patients to reduce risk of aerosol transmission./

And concluding:

Appropriate PPE and mask use are essential as SARS-CoV-2 is frequently detectable in the airsurrounding positive patients. We believe our data supports the use of FFP2/3 medical masks for HCWs caring for COVID-19 patients, particularly for those with prolonged contact in line with HSE guidelines 15 289 . As we move forwards, we must continue to avoid oversimplifying the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 including into droplet vs aerosol, as this can lead to fixed IPC recommendations and must now appreciate that the person, place and procedure influence transmission risk. Future recommendations must be guided by emerging evidence including ongoing studies to identify transmission differences that may occur with new variants of concern

In other words, Covid is pervasive, rather like background radiation. Covid really is airborne!

Conclusion

One asks why? Why would CDC promulgate, and HICCs accept, obvious falsehoods about airborne transmission, falsehoods that are obvious to anybody who keeps up with the literature? A parallel discussion of CDCs documentation on ventilation in schools may provide a clue.

A week ago, I had a 2+ hour call with the senior engineers from CDC-NIOSH who are responsible for the content of CDCs ventilation pages.(12/25)  Devabhaktuni Sri Srikrishna (@sri_srikrishna) September 11, 2022

ACH (Air Changes for Hour) is a metric for ventilation:

(2) economic implications of putting these ACH numbers out there would cause all hell to break loose if well-meaning people across the country adopt them into building codes but later find out they cannot implement them with centralized HVAC systems. (16/25)  Devabhaktuni Sri Srikrishna (@sri_srikrishna) September 11, 2022

Money! [slaps forehead][5]. Why didnt I think of that? Also, of course, careerism, important to the PMC. So here we are.

NOTES

[1] Covids Most Vile Tweet is still up [pounds head on desk]:

FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne. The #coronavirus is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. To protect yourself:

-keep 1m distance from others

-disinfect surfaces frequently

-wash/rub your 

-avoid touching your  pic.twitter.com/fpkcpHAJx7  World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 28, 2020

4,340 quote-tweets, the last one fourteen minutes ago (as of this writing). So WHO is still damaging peoples health, good job,

[2] The United States seems, unbelievably, to be superior in mask protections to other Five Eyes countries, like the UK, Canada, and Australia, if the volume of outraged tweets is any indicator. Of course, in the US we may have just given up on outrage altogether, as with Covid generally.

[3] In the UK: Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to hospitalised patients likely caused approximately a fifth of identified cases of hospitalised COVID-19 in the first wave in England, but less than 1% of all infections in England.

[4] The UK infection control community is as bad and possibly worse.

[5] I suggested the same in February 2021, based only on CDC documents [lambert preens].

APPENDIX: If Your Heatlh Care Facility Forces You to Remove Your N95

If you do not carry a Badger Frame (or Seal), here is a post on How to Make a DIY N95 Mask using a surgical mask and two eight-inch rubber bands.
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 718 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why were doing this fundraiser, what weve accomplished in the last year,, and our current goal, rewarding our guest bloggers.

By Thomas Grjebine, Head of the Research Program International Macro and Finance at CEPII, Jerome Hericourt, Scientific Adviser at CEPII, Research Fellow at EPEE, Professor of Economics at Universite Paris-Saclay, and Fabien Tripier, Professor of Economics at Universite ParisDauphine, PSL Research University. Originally published at VoxEU.

The lack of real convergence between countries in Europe is a major obstacle to the proper functioning of the Euro area. This column investigates the role of sectoral reallocations in the divergence of productivity between countries and shows that variations in the relative size of sectors have encouraged diverging productivity dynamics. Because real estate shocks drive sectoral reallocations  directly feeding the productivity divergence between countries  policies aiming to promote convergence in Europe should focus not only on supply-side policies but also on the effects of diverging national demand shocks.

The creation of the euro in 1999 was expected to become a catalyst for real convergence in Europe. Instead, real divergence increased as evidenced by low productivity growth in the periphery of the euro area relative to core countries. This divergence was accompanied by massive capital flows from the euro areas core  Germany, the Netherlands  to its periphery, (e.g. Portugal or Spain). The process left peripheral economies with financial and real estate bubbles  Spain being emblematic of the latter  together with a continuously weakening manufacturing sector while this same sector gained strength in Germany (Krugman 2013).

Figure 1 provides a striking illustration of the divergence process at work in the euro area since the beginning of the 21stcentury. It focuses on three countries emblematic of structural divergences within the euro area: Germany and Spain, for the previously mentioned reasons, as well as France, which is often described as occupying an in-between position. Between 2000 and 2015, Spanish total factor productivity (TFP) stagnated, while French TFP increased at half the pace of German TFP.

Figure 1 TFP dynamics

Note: This figure uses EU KLEMS data and measures TFP as a weighted average of sectoral TFP based on a classification with 33 sectors. Country-level TFP (in log, with value set to 0 in 2000) built using historical value-added shares by sector as weights. DE: Germany, ES: Spain, FR: France

Parallel to this real divergence, European countries experienced heterogeneous real estate price dynamics which took the form, in some economies, of massive boom-bust cycles. These real estate booms occurred notably in Spain and France, while price increases were more moderate in Germany, particularly in the first decade of the sample (Figure 2). This column argues that real estate prices contributed to both the productivity divergence and the slowdown in the EU through a sectoral reallocation mechanism.

Figure 2 Real estate prices

Note: Country-level real estate prices (index, with value set to 100 in 2000). DE: Germany, ES: Spain, FR: France.

The key role of sectoral reallocations in productivity dynamics

A recent literature studies the role of resource misallocations in explaining international differences in productivity by focusing on within-sector reallocations among firms (see e.g. Bartelsman et al. 2013, Banerjee and Coricelli 2017, Garcia-Santana et al. 2020). However, in recent research (Grjebine et al. 2022), we show that reallocation between sectors is a strong candidate in explaining both the productivity slowdown observed in most EU countries and the divergence between them.

Based on a database of 33 sectors and 14 countries between 1995 and 2015, Figure 3 compares the actually observed TFP to a counterfactual aggregate TFP, based on a weighted sum of sectoral TFP for which the share in value-added for each sector has been set to its 2000 level. In Spain, the TFP dynamics would not have been negative without these reallocations. In France, the difference between the cumulative growth of TFP for the initial sectoral structure and the observed growth of TFP is around 2%. This disparity means that without sectoral reallocations, growth in TFP could have doubled. The gap in cumulative TFP growth between France and Germany would also have been reduced from about 1.5 percentage points to 0.5 points. The right panel shows the difference between the plain and the dashed lines for each of the three considered countries, revealing the extent of the divergences in TFP dynamics fuelled by sectoral reallocations: whereas losses have been limited in Germany, they have been significant in Spain (until a reversal in 2008) and continued increasing in France. We report TFP losses due to sectoral reallocations for the 14 studied European countries. TFP losses due to sectoral reallocations are largest in France, followed closely by Denmark, Finland, and Portugal. Losses are also substantial in the UK, Italy, and Austria.

Figure 3 TFP losses due to sectoral reallocations

(a) TFP vs. TFP without sectoral reallocations

(b) TFP losses due to sectoral reallocations

Note: Panel (a): TFP is the country-level TFP (in log, with value set to 0 in 2000) built using historical value-added shares by sector as weights. TFP (initial weights) is the country-level TFP using initial value-added shares by sector as weights. Panel (b): TFP losses displays the gap between TFP and TFP (initial weights). DE: Germany, ES: Spain, FR: France.

Figure 4 compares the dynamics of real estate prices with those of TFP. It is striking to see that the dynamics of TFP losses and real estate prices reflect each other closely, and that periods of booming real estate prices generally coincide with sectoral reallocations detrimental to TFP. This clearly suggests a relationship between the two phenomena.

Figure 4 Real estate prices versus TFP losses

Note: Country-level real estate prices (index, with value set to 100 in 2000). TFP losses displays the gap between TFP and TFP (initial weights). TFP is the country-level TFP (in log, with value set to 0 in 2000) built using historical value-added shares by sector as weights. TFP (initial weights) is the country-level TFP using initial value-added shares by sector as weights.

Real estate shocks as a trigger for sectoral reallocations

In this regard, real estate shocks lead to reallocations involving all sectors of the economy, and not only towards construction, thus transforming the structure of the economy. More specifically, we use variations in (real estate) collateral at the country-sector level to identify the impact of real estate shocks on sectoral reallocations. The collateral mechanism is linked to the financial accelerator (Bernanke and Gertler 1989, Kiyotaki and Moore 1997): with imperfect financial markets, financially constrained sectors (and firms within these sectors) will use their pledgeable assets as collateral to finance their investment (Chaney et al. 2012). Consistently, we expect that an increase in the value of the collateral will allow sectors to increase their investment, the more so if the sector has relatively more collateral (which we measure through the amount of real estate capital owned by the sector).

More specifically, we identify exogenous shocks to domestic real estate prices through a combination of world demand shocks and country-level supply constraints on the real estate market. This allows us to recover the causal impact of real estate price shocks on investment, share of total value added (as a proxy for sectoral size), and TFP growth at the country-sector level. Our results show that exogenous real estate price shocks increase sectoral investment and size: a 10-percentage point increase of real estate sectoral holdings brings an additional 0.8 percentage points in the ratio of investment to capital stock, and an additional 6 percentage points to the ratio of gross value added to capital stock. Conversely, we find no significant impact on sectoral TFP. Put differently, real estate shocks may affect aggregate TFP exclusively through a sectoral reallocation mechanism.

Interestingly, we find that these productivity effects of real estate price shocks are not only quantitatively non-negligible but also point to a greater divergence between EU countries. On the one hand, there is a group of countries where real estate shocks generate TFP losses, including countries where real estate booms started early and were substantial, such as Ireland, the UK, France, and Spain. On the other hand, there is another group of countries for which our mechanism generates TFP gains  including Germany, Austria, and Italy, where real estate prices grew later or at a slower pace. These results fit well with recent work by Hau and Ouyang (2018), whose data for the Chinese manufacturing sector demonstrate that real estate booms exert a detrimental effect on other industries through the diversion of local savings into the real estate sector.

Policy implications

The lack of real convergence between countries is a major obstacle to the proper functioning of the euro area. This column highlights the importance of a sectoral specialisation mechanism triggered by real estate cycles in feeding this lack of real convergence. This explains Spains lag behind Germany before the Great Recession, and partly explains Frances lag afterwards. In this regard, real estate shocks not only lead to reallocations towards the construction sector, but also change the relative size of every sector and consequently the whole structure of economies.

In this work, we remain relatively agnostic about fundamental shocks that drive real estate prices. Diverging financial or housing cycles  in particular between France and Spain on the one hand and Germany on the other  could be due to diverging demand shocks at the national level such as diverging fiscal policies. From a policy perspective, institutions that want to promote the convergence of productivity in Europe should thus not only focus on supply-side policies but should also take into account the effects of diverging national demand shocks on the European productivity divergence.

References available at the original Originally published at VoxEU
(Natural News) We are happy to report that Dr. Simone Gold of Americas Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) has been released from prison following a lengthy bout of persecution over her speaking appearance at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capital insurrection.

Video footage  see below  shows Simone walking out of a facility waving her arms in celebration and flashing a heart sign at a camera across the parking lot while shouting, Im back!

Dr. Simone Gold has been released and has a message for you!#FreedomIsGOLD pic.twitter.com/Ft8Jf8qQsa  Dr. Simone Gold (@drsimonegold) September 9, 2022

This heartwarming display was tweeted alongside a message from Dr. Golds Twitter page urging her supporters to send a welcome message along with a special hashtag celebrating her release.

Show your support by sharing your welcome back messages to her as a reply to this tweet with the hashtag #FreedomIsGOLD, the tweet reads.

Trumps signing of First Step Act in 2018 allowed for Dr. Golds early release

Dr. Golds early release, we are told, is a result of the First Step Act of 2018, which was signed into law by former President Donald Trump. The legislation is, as described by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP):

 a bi-partisan effort to improve criminal justice outcomes, as well as to reduce the size of the federal prison population while also creating mechanisms to maintain public safety.

Using a risk and needs assessment system, the First Step Act of 2018 allowed for Dr. Gold to be deemed a non-threat to the public in comparison with, say, a mass murderer.

Under the act, the system provides guidance on the type, amount, and intensity of recidivism reduction programming and productive activities to which each prisoner is assigned, including information on which programs prisoners should participate in based on their criminogenic needs, the BOP says.

The system also provides guidance on how to group, to the extent practicable, prisoners with similar risk levels together in recidivism reduction programming and housing assignments.

The First Step Act also expands the Second Chance Act. Per the FSA, BOP developed guidance for wardens of prisons and community-based facilities to enter into recidivism-reducing partnerships with nonprofits and other private organizations, including faith-based and community-based organizations to deliver recidivism reduction programming.

In case you missed it, Dr. Gold appeared on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to talk about how the plandemic was being bungled. Americans were not allowed access to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) or ivermectin at the height of the plandemic, and Dr. Gold spoke out about it.

She also spoke out against Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines, warning about their dangers and urging people to seek out safe and effective alternatives like the aforementioned medications.

Speaking out about all this while Trump supporters were rioting by entering through the velvet ropes at the Capitol building instantly made Dr. Gold a target. She was later arrested and tried for her crimes, only to now be released with a smile on her face.

A true American hero! wrote one commenter about Dr. Golds labor of love in educating the world. Well never know how many lives were saved by her having the courage to speak out so early!

You helped me survive covid last week, wrote another who took Dr. Golds advice to heart and successfully overcame his illness. I am so grateful.

Another wrote that now is the time for Dr. Gold to sue those who went after her, seeing as how there was no insurrection and she certainly was not part of one.

She is a brilliant and courageous woman who has both MD and JD degrees, another commenter piped in. Her First Amendment Rights were violated by an unreasonable prosecution.

The latest plandemic-related news can be found at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Twitter.com

NaturalNews.com

BOP.gov
(Natural News) A federal judge ruled this week that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top Biden administration officials, such as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, must produce the records of their communications with Big Tech firms such as Facebook.

The move came as part of a lawsuit that the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana filed against the government over collusion with Big Tech companies to censor people.

According to documents released as part of the case on August 31, more than 50 Biden administration officials in a dozen agencies have participated in pressuring Big Tech firms to crack down on what they claim is misinformation and censor their users.

However, many of the officials in question have not been cooperative. Not surprisingly, one person who has not been forthcoming is Dr. Fauci, who also serves as chief medical adviser to the president. The government maintains that Fauci should not have to answer questions or supply his records related to either of his roles. They have also tried to prevent Jean-Pierre from providing records and responses.

The new ruling on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty requires these parties to comply with the requests for records and questioning.

He said: First, the requested information is obviously very relevant to Plaintiffs claims. Dr. Faucis communications would be relevant to Plaintiffs allegations in reference to alleged suppression of speech relating to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19s origin, and to alleged suppression of speech about the efficiency of masks and COVID-19 lockdowns. Jean-Pierres communications as White House Press Secretary could be relevant to all of Plaintiffs examples.

He referred to incidents such as the coordinated effort to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the presidential election of 2020 and censorship of claims that the COVID-19 virus stemmed from experiments in a Chinese lab.

Fauci and Jean-Pierre must comply with the request within 21 days. In addition, Fauci must supply full answers to questions about his role as the director of the NIAID.

Censorship against those who disagree with COVID-19 policies comes from the top

A lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, Jenin Younes, noted that their previous round of discovery revealed that censorship efforts against those who disagree with the government regarding COVID-19 policies come from the top.

In a statement, she remarked: Americans deserve to know Anthony Faucis participation in this enterprise, especially since he has publicly demanded that specific individuals, including two of our clients, Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, be censored on social media.

It is time for Dr. Fauci to answer for his flagrant disregard for Americans constitutional rights and civil liberties, she added.

HHS officials also ordered to comply

Another agency that has been uncooperative with the suit is the NIAIDs parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Discovery revealed that key officials in the agency have taken part in what the plaintiffs refer to as a censorship enterprise and have been unwilling to provide documents and answers in the current legal battle.

They objected to requests to search for relevant records on the grounds that they were unduly burdensome and disproportionate to the needs of the case. Although Doughty agreed that searching for records among 80,000 employees would be overly burdensome for the HHS, he maintained that the employees who were specifically identified in documents from the parent company of Facebook, Meta, must respond to the requests within 21 days.

There is no question that Big Tech and the major social media platforms have been engaging in censorship, and it is becoming increasingly clear just how willing they are to do so at the governments behest. By refusing to cooperate, many of the government officials who have a hand in these actions are only making themselves look even more culpable.

Sources for this article include:

NTD.com

TheEpochTimes.com
(Natural News) The hits against the highly politicized FBI just keep on coming, proving those who think the bureau needs a top-down management purge exactly right.

According to local reports out of Salt Lake City, Utah, Robert Alexander Smith, 65, is now facing four counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, all of which are first-degree felonies. In addition, Fox13 Now reports, Smith is also facing two counts of lewdness, each of which is a class-B misdemeanor.

The local outlet reports:

According to court documents, Smith was arrested after a young girl told her mom in June that she wanted to talk about something very uncomfortable. She said that on multiple occasions, Smith had forced her to touch him inappropriately under his clothes in 2020.

Interviews were then conducted with the girl, as well as four other girls who said Smith had engaged with them in inappropriate ways. One of the girls said Smith forced her to do the same thing as he did with the first victim, and three other girls said Smith had touched them inappropriately under their clothing.

The outlet cited the arrest report, which said that Smith occupied a position of special trust as it pertains to the victims in this case. The alleged abuse took place at Smiths Stansbury Park home at the time, but according to court records, he now resides in Tooele, Utah.

Smith was arrested last week and charged in court the following day. The judge ordered him held in custody without bail.

Someone with the FBIs Salt Lake City office told Fox13 Now that the bureau takes allegations of misconduct very seriously.

We are aware of the arrest of an FBI employee. The FBI takes allegations of misconduct very seriously. As such, the incident has been referred to the FBIs Internal Affairs Section. We cannot comment further on an ongoing personnel matter, the bureaus full statement to local media noted.

According to The National Pulse, the young girl who initially reported the alleged touching to her mother was around six or seven years old at the time. The An Open Secret Twitter account described Smith as a supervisory intelligence analyst.

FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Arrested for Child Sex Abuse Robert Alexander Smith, 65, Stansbury Park, Utah Investigation did interviews with 5 minor girls who said they were victims https://t.co/DIACmO90Xq  An Open Secret (@AnOpenSecret) August 30, 2022

It should be noted that President Joe Biden himself has some questions to answer  if anyone in the garbage media would ever ask him  along these lines, such as explaining why he took showers with his daughter Ashley, which she wrote in her own diary was probably not appropriate. She also wrote about her hypersexualization at a young age and her obsession with sex later in life, for which she sought treatment. In order to bury the story, though, Bidens Justice Department arrested two Florida residents who found the diary Ashley left behind in a halfway house that they attempted to sell. The pair has since pleaded guilty.

The news also comes in the same week that FBI Special Agent Timothy Thibault was escorted out of the Washington, D.C. field office after allegedly using his privileged position to cover up the investigation of Hunter Bidens laptop, effectively helping to swing the 2020 election in Joe Bidens favor, The National Pulse added.

Thibaults name has been in the news for his alleged bias and allegations that he tried to run interference in the Hunter Biden investigation, Fox News noted further. Thibault was named by Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley in a July 18 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Grassley cited whistleblowers who alleged a pattern of political bias from high-ranking officials, including Thibault.

The FBI doesnt just contain a few bad apples.

Sources include:

FoxNews.com

TheNationalPulse.com
(Natural News) The Ford Motor Company announced a recall of the electric version of its Mustang muscle car, citing a manufacturing defect.

The Michigan-based car maker said it is recalling 1,175 units of its Mustang Mach-E model due to concerns that the rear-axle half shafts on the vehicles right side may have a manufacturing defect. This could mean the affected part could break easily, endangering drivers.

According to YourMechanic.com, broken axles pose an accident risk by making drivers lose control of their vehicles. Once an axle breaks completely, a vehicle will be unable to move. If in case the axle breaks while driving, a serious accident could occur.

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) noted that if a cars half-shaft breaks, the vehicle could actually roll away while it is parked. A broken half-shaft can also cause a car to lose power and if the part breaks while driving, it could cause a safety hazard  which is the other main reason for the recall.

As part of the recall, dealers will examine the Mach-E and replace the right-rear half shafts as required. Ford announced that there have been no reports yet from owners of troubles with the vehicle.

The recall covers Mach-E models made between July 18 and July 29 at the Cuautitlan assembly plant in Mexico.

Car and Driver reported that the standard price of the 2022 Mustang Mach-E model when it was introduced last year was $43,995. Initial shipments of the 2022 Mach-E came in February.

Mach-E hit with multiple recalls over the past year

Fords Mach-E had been hit with recalls before, according to cars.com.

In May, a recall was issued for the all-wheel drive version of Mach-E because its powertrain control module safety software was found ineffective in detecting software errors that could lead to unintentional acceleration or deceleration.

A 2021 recall was issued because the cars windshields could detach. Another 2021 recall was issued because the front subframe bolts may not have been tightened properly during assembly.

Ford said these recalls are made as a preventive measure. There are currently no known injuries or deaths connected to the problem, but the various issues are a cause for worry. Ford has issued 50 recalls overall so far this year, which is the most by any manufacturer, per data from the NHTSA.

Toyota, General Motors announce recall of EVs

Toyota announced in June the recall of its bZ4X electric SUV. The company cautioned owners not to drive the car because the wheels may suddenly fall off.

The company has not yet found the problem. Last month, it offered to buy back the SUV from any owner who wants to be rid of a vehicle that cannot be driven. (Related: Toyota offers to buy back electric SUVs from customers following major glitch.)

General Motors also announced a recall of 4,465 Chevrolet Spark EVs produced between August 2012 and November 2015.

Follow RoboCars.news for more news about electric cars.

Watch the video below to know why electric vehicles are terrible for the environment.

This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Honda, LG to build $4.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant in the US.

Volkswagen to purchase $14 billion worth of battery cells in push to expand production of electric vehicles.

Nissan being sued for electromagnetic radiation emitted from electric LEAF vehicle.

General Motors announces plans to phase out diesel and gasoline cars by 2035 and replace them with electric vehicles.

Sources include:

WesternJournal.com

InsideEVs.com

Finance.Yahoo.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) The Pentagon has halted production of the worlds most expensive  and some say advanced  fighter jet after technicians and engineers found that a component used it the plane contained a Chinese alloy, in violation of federal law.

The Defense Department said it is halting further deliveries of the Lightning II to customers including the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy after finding the Chinese-sourced rare-earth alloy in magnets for pumps used on the fighter.

Defense Department spokesman Russell Goemaere told Bloomberg News in an email that the F-35 program office temporarily paused the acceptance of new F-35 aircraft to ensure the F-35 programs compliance with DoD rules sourcing specialty metals.

Goemaere did say, however, that the Chinese alloy is not going to disrupt current operations involving F-35s currently forward deployed with the U.S. military and global partners because the magnet does not transmit information or harm the integrity of the aircraft and there are no performance, quality, safety or security risks associated with this issue.

He went on to say that the DoD F-35 program office found an alternative source for the alloy that will be used in future turbomachines.

We are working with our partners and DoD to ensure contractual compliance within the supply chain  and are working with the DoD to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to resume deliveries, Lockheed Martin, the aircraft maker, told Bloomberg.

Zero Hedge notes further:

Chinese alloy found in F-35s is no surprise, considering the country controls the global rare-earth metals market.

A Congressional Research Service report found that F-35s use about 920 pounds of rare earths per plane, mainly for electronic warfare sensors, electrical power systems, and magnets.

The US relies heavily on Asian countries for 80% of its rare-earths needs. There have been moves by the Biden administration to increase domestic supply chains as a priority to mitigate if China were to impose an export ban on US defense companies.

Rare earths are also central in manufacturing night vision goggles, precision-guided missiles, and drones. On the civilian side, metals are critical for electric vehicles and smartphones.

Bloomberg News noted that the Defense Contract Management Agency and the F-35s program office referenced a U.S. law as well as a Pentagon acquisition policy regulation that forbid the use of certain specialty materials from covered countries that are listed in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation series. Besides China, those countries include Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Its not clear when the contract agency discovered the violation but the office reported it on Aug. 19.

The turbomachine integrates the aircrafts auxiliary power unit and an air cycle machine into a single piece of equipment that provides electrical power for ground maintenance, starting off the main engine and emergency power, the outlet reported.

Adam Kress, a spokesman for Honeywell, noted in a statement to Bloomberg News that the company remains committed to supplying high-quality products that meet or exceed all customer contract requirements and is working closely with DoD and Lockheed Martin to ensure that we continue to achieve those commitments on products Honeywell supplies for use on the F-35.

In February, the Department of Energy announced an investment plan to bolster American production of rare earth minerals in an effort to move away from Chinese sources.

Applying next-generation technology to convert legacy fossil fuel waste into a domestic source of critical minerals needed to strengthen our supply chains is a win-win  delivering a healthier environment and driving us forward to our clean energy goals, said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. With the Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws investment in the build out of this first-of-its kind critical minerals refinery, we are moving ideas from the lab to the commercial stage and demonstrating how America can compete for the global supply chain to meet the growing demand for clean energy technology.

There is no time to waste on this.

Sources include:

Energy.gov

Bloomberg.com
(Natural News) A new Rasmussen poll has found that for the first time a majority of voters want to see Joe Biden impeached. Perhaps the most startling aspect of the survey is that almost a third of Democrats either strongly or somewhat support the notion.

(Article by Steve Watson republished from Infowars.com)

Less than half of Democrats surveyed strongly oppose the idea, with a total of 32 percent expressing support for impeachment.

Should Biden be impeached? DEMOCRAT VOTERS: Strongly support  20%

Somewhat support  12%

Somewhat oppose  14%

Strongly oppose  49%https://t.co/Wz9VGvZFi0#ImpeachBiden pic.twitter.com/6WWGdZRKo9  Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 8, 2022

Overall, a majority of 53 percent back impeachment, up from 50 percent at the beginning of the year:

Impeach Joe Biden? Donald Trump was impeached, twice. 50% of all voters supported Bidens impeachment back in January. Now thats 53% But only 45% (now 47%) of all voters think Republicans will actually do it if they retake the House this November. Voters know The DC GOP. pic.twitter.com/ldTxBp7u9j  Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 8, 2022

Support for impeachment is even higher among independent voters:

Should Biden be impeached? INDEPENDENT VOTERS: Strongly support  32%

Somewhat support  18%

Somewhat oppose  15%

Strongly oppose  26%https://t.co/Wz9VGvZFi0#ImpeachBidenpic.twitter.com/Ip5qEz7sIW  Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 8, 2022

However, voters have little confidence that such a scenario could unfold:

Only 21% of voters think it is very likely the GOP will impeach Biden. By party:

Rep  32%

Dem  16%

Ind  15%https://t.co/Wz9VGvZFi0#ImpeachBidenpic.twitter.com/helyeQE9Pc  Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) September 8, 2022

The survey found that a third of Republicans said it was unlikely that the GOP would vote to impeach.

Back in January, Senator Ted Cruz announced that he is of the opinion that the Republican party could bring impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden, should the GOP win control of the House again in the mid terms.

During his own Podcast, titled The Verdict, Cruz said I do think there is a chance of that, reasoning that Whether its justified or not the Democrats weaponized impeachment.

Cruz continued, They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel.

You know whats good for the goose is good for the gander, Cruz urged.

I said at the time when we had a Democratic president and a Republican House, you can expect an impeachment proceeding. Thats not how impeachment is meant to work, but I think the Democrats crossed that line, the Senator added.

Read more at: Infowars.com
Ads for fossil fuel, fast food, and other "bad" meat were banned in Haarlem, Netherlands.

Officials in the city have approved a measure to prohibit advertisements for intensively farmed meat from appearing on shelters, buses, and screens in public places, in a first-ever effort to reduce the promotion of goods considered to be major contributors to the climate crisis. The prohibition on meat is in addition to the prohibitions on vacation flights, fossil fuels, as well as fossil fuel-powered vehicles that are already in effect in Amsterdam and The Hague.

Ziggy Klazes, councilor for the GroenLinks (Green-Left) party, said that it will be the first city in the Netherlands-and, Europe and indeed the world-to ban "bad" meat ads in public places. Klazes drafted the motion.

Klazes added that, according to her, the prohibition on commercials for inexpensive meat from industrial farming would also apply to all commercials for fast food restaurants. If people wish to keep eating meat, they could, according to Klazes, who claims that they are not trying to interfere with what people bake and roast in their kitchens. Informing people about the climate crisis and urging them to purchase products that contribute to the problem are ineffective at the same time.

Meat the Problem

According to Wageningen University & Research, each Dutch person consumes 167 pounds of meat annually. US citizens consume more than 224 pounds per person. Over half (57%) of the planet-heating gases produced by raising and feeding cows, goats, pigs, and other animals for food come from the global food production sector.

The problem for the Netherlands extends beyond merely considering promotional ties to meat. The Dutch are the biggest exporters of meat in Europe, earning the nickname "the country that feeds the world." Furthermore, with over 100 million pigs, cattle, and chickens, they have the highest density of livestock in the world. The result of having so many animals in an area barely bigger than the state of Maryland is some extremely serious manure problems. The Dutch government announced a $24.6 billion, 13-year plan in 2021 to gradually reduce livestock and reduce pollutant emissions by half nationwide by 2030.

MP Tjeerd de Groot said in a statement that the message at this point is that this must be fixed immediately. The low-cost framework of food production needs to be abandoned. Both the environment and the farmers' business models are being harmed by this industry. It's time to restore nature, the climate, and the air, which may mean that intensive farming won't be possible in some regions.

While some farmers are aware that a change toward sustainability is required, others have resisted. Dutch farmers lit fires on the sides of roads and dumped waste and manure on highways earlier this summer as a form of protest against the livestock reduction plan.

Read also: 15 Ways To Reinvent Your Marketing

Not Now But Soon...

The actual implementation date of Haarlem's advertising ban is 2024 due to ongoing contractual obligations with advertisers. There may also be a legal barrier to implementing a ban on something that might be seen as an assault on the right to free speech.

Klazes said that ads for a company may not be allowed to be banned, but banning ads for a category of goods that may be detrimental to the public's health is justifiable. Consider advertisements for cigarettes.

Although it is still unclear if the climate crisis falls under the purview of public health, Klazes views the ban as a chance to serve as an example for other Dutch cities.

She added that many think the choice is patronizing and outrageous, but there are just as many who believe it is appropriate. It is a signal, and it would be wonderful if it were to gain national attention, Treehugger reports.

Related article: "Misleading" Animal Rights Activists Cried Foul Over KFC Ad
Excessive rainfall and potential flooding are possible to occur again in multiple areas across the United States this weekend.

This is according to the National Weather Service (NWS), which warned of renewed severe weather from Sunday, September 11, until in the early part of next week.

In addition, thunderstorms could accompany the rainfall and result in the occurrence of widespread floodwaters.

The NWS said these weather hazards will coincide with tropical moisture before a cold front that can generate heavy rainfall and flash flooding as well, including in parts of Florida and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Furthermore, a low pressure area could also produce heavy rain in some areas of Wisconsin and Illinois.

Other states in the Northeast US and Southeast US could also experience renewed inclement weather.

US Meteorologists have considered that the wet weather serves as a relief to the drought-stricken regions of country, including the West, Southwest, and South US.

In recent months, the said regions have witnessed recurring spike in temperatures due to heat waves, causing the eruption of wildfires and prolonged dry conditions.

A widespread electricity crisis and rolling blackouts were also reported.

WPC Weather Forecast

On Saturday, September 10, the NWS' Weather Prediction Center (WPC) in College Park, Maryland, issued the detailed short-range forecast, which is valid until Tuesday, September 13.

In the weather outlook, the WPC mentions the following areas will receive a "Slight Risk" of excessive rainfall:

Southern California

Nevada

Arizona

Eastern Gulf Coast

Central Appalachians

Southern Mid-Atlantic

Upper Great Lakes

The center noted that the Pacific Northwest will be an exemption to the forecast since the region is reportedly anticipated to experience elevated fire weather.

Also Read: Study Explains why North Receives more Tropical Rainfall than the South

Excessive Rainfall and Thunderstorm

In previous weather events, the NWS and other US weather authorities, including the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have forecasted thunderstorms are often accompanied by large hail and tornadoes.

The severe storms are in addition to rainfall, which can occur with or without warning, especially during afternoon and evening hours, as claimed by the authorities before.

Tropical Storm Kay

The US weather agency is also monitoring Tropical Storm Kay or Post-Tropical Cyclone Kay, which can still cause flooding in California and the Southwest.

Hovering over the Eastern Pacific basin, Kay was previously forecasted to bring torrential rain along the US-Mexico border.

According to CBSLA Meteorologist Markina Brown on Saturday, Kay is still expected to bring 2-4 inches of rain in Riverside County and its surrounding mountains.

Meanwhile, a substantial amount of rainfall could fall into Los Angeles County and the Ventura Valley area during this weekend, as cited by CBS News.

Drought Conditions Relief

The current weather conditions are almost similar to that of the August rains, which brought relief to Texas and other parts of the South US.

Last month, excessive rainfall also washed away most of areas suffering with drought conditions, including in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, according to the US Drought Monitor, as cited by the newspaper Lafayette Journal & Courier.

Related Article: NASA: Climate Change Will Cause More Rainfall in Tropical Regions
Hurricanes are some of the strongest weather phenomenon and storm systems in the world, especially those developing over the world's major oceans, including the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

Amid climate change, scientists in recent years have thought of controlling these forces of nature, specifically by weakening their intensity through intervention technology, which is far from developed.

Now, a new study led by researchers in the United States shows that such measure remains "futile" or is not enough even if it cools down oceans to weaken hurricanes.

The new research shows the benefits will be minimal. It suggests using intervention technology to weaken hurricanes before they make landfall is not an effective solution to mitigate natural disasters, especially amid the ongoing climate crisis.

Recent research this year forecasts that hurricane will worsen in terms of intensity and frequency due to global warming.

These massive storms could accumulate enough strength to bring heavy rain and unprecedented hurricane-force winds.

In the US, the onset of the 21st century saw catastrophic hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Artificial Ocean Cooling

The new findings about the insignificant impact of artificial ocean cooling to hurricane weaken was published in the journal on Communications Earth & Environment on August 19.

Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) who led the study concluded that energy alone required for the intervention technology against hurricanes is not feasible in the long run.

The main result from the research says that massive amounts of artificially cooled water will only lead to "modest weakening in hurricane intensity prior to landfall, according to Phys.org.

The research team based their assertions using computer simulations.

Also Read: Hurricanes Are Getting Stronger and Intense Due to Climate Change

Climate Crisis and Juggernaut Hurricanes

Because of global warming, global climate models forecast hurricanes in the future will likely produce more intense rainfall and cause stronger coastal flooding due to higher storm surge from rising sea levels, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Hurricanes, called by different names like typhoons and cyclones, are being called by scientists as tropical cyclones since they are relatively large and continuously rotate compared to normal weather disturbances.

Scientists have long predicted that climate change would trigger extreme rainfall events, according to NASA.

Sea Surface Temperatures

Tom Knutson, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stated even if hurricanes do not change due to the changing climate, flooding from storm surge events will still worsen due to sea level rise, as cited by the US space agency.

Warm sea surface temperatures are one of the ingredients for hurricane development.

With this, the NOAA suggested than an increase in Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes will become common, as mentioned by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES).

In reference to the UM study, the conclusion made by the authors over attempts of artificial ocean cooling to weaken hurricanes could be due to one reason; global warming could still dominate sea surface temperatures.

Related Article: Study: Future Hurricanes May Impact Greater Portions of the Earth
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. High around 85F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low around 65F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Susan McKinney is the librarian at St. Joseph Township-Swearingen Memorial Library. She received her masters in library science from the University of Illinois. She came here from Indiana for graduate school and fell in love with the area.
Where were you 40 years ago, when a gallon of unleaded went for $1.30, a game of Donkey Kong cost a quarter at the arcade and the highest-paid member of the World Series champion Cardinals was raking in a whopping $975,000? A panel of special guests take us on a guided trip down memory lane.
Reporter

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).
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.
AP

Queen Elizabeth IIs flag-draped coffin has slowly processed through the Scottish countryside on a journey from her beloved Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh
Sundiata Cha-Jua is a professor of African American studies and history at the University of Illinois and a member of the North End Breakfast Club. His email is

schajua@gmail.com.
A team of researchers from Japan has discovered that the distribution of platinum within a tumor following platinum-based chemotherapy treatment of ovarian cancer may predict whether the tumor will be resistant to further treatment. The research could offer ways to manage treatment for women whose tumors may be resistant to further platinum-based chemotherapy.

One of the biggest problems with treating ovarian cancer is completely removing the cancer surgically. To facilitate easier surgical removal, patients are given platinum-based chemotherapy drugs early in treatment to shrink the tumor. These drugs introduce platinum into the DNA of the cancer cells making up the tumor, which makes the DNA difficult to read and causes the cells to die.

However, if the tumor is not completely removed, it takes advantage of the body's weakened immunity and comes back, often growing faster than before.

Because the tumor has experienced the treatment before, it develops increased resistance to it, in the same manner that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics. Repeated exposure leads to 80% of women developing ovarian cancer tumors that are resistant to further treatment. Therefore, a technique that would allow doctors to tell if the patient will develop resistance to these commonly used drugs would make this process a lot more effective.

A team of researchers led by Professor Hiroaki Kajiyama, Assistant Professor Nobuhisa Yoshikawa, and graduate student Kaname Uno of the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine reported that the answer to this problem lies in the distribution of platinum in the tumor after treatment. Their findings were published in Scientific Reports.

The team looked at the amount of platinum in both the tumor itself and in its stroma, which is the part of the tumor that supplies cancer cells with nutrition and gets rid of waste products. They found that there were two basic types of platinum distribution: one where the platinum was evenly distributed throughout both the tumor itself and the stroma, and one where the platinum was mostly in the stroma.

The difference was staggering: only one of the 11 patients with an even distribution of platinum died in the 3 years after diagnosis, whereas half of 16 patients with most of the platinum in the stroma were dead within three years. In addition, the patients with tumors that showed an even distribution of platinum were also less likely to develop a tumor that was resistant to further treatment.

We showed that there were two different patterns of platinum distribution within the tumor tissue. The difference in the distribution was shown to be significantly correlated with prognosis, suggesting that it is possible to discriminate between platinum-resistant and platinum-sensitive tumors before they recur. Using this method, early diagnosis of platinum resistance and selection of appropriate postoperative anticancer therapy for patients as well as a new ovarian cancer treatment strategy are possibilities." Professor Hiroaki Kajiyama, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine

Predicting whether a tumor will become resistant to platinum-based drugs would solve one of the major difficulties in successfully treating ovarian cancer. A future where doctors can modify chemotherapy for patients most at risk of resistance will improve their chances of surviving and make sure that the most effective treatment is given.

The study was supported partly by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Nos. 19K18693, 19H01147, and 17KT0033, and by the Kobayashi International Scholarship Foundation.
First characterized in Prof. Tadashi Yamamoto's former lab in Japan in 1996, the gene Tob is well known for the role it plays in cancer. Previous research has also indicated that it has a hand in regulating the cell cycle and the body's immune response. Now, in a multidisciplinary study that combines molecular biology with neuroscience, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have found that this gene also plays an important role in reducing depression, fear, and anxiety. Their work was published by the journal Translational Psychiatry.

"This research is about understanding stress-resilience," explained lead author, Dr. Mohieldin Youssef, former PhD student in OIST's Cell Signal Unit, which is led by Prof. Yamamoto. "The presence of the gene helps with stress-resilience and if it's removed, there's an increase in depression, fear, and anxiety."

Tob is named for the Japanese verb "tobu", which means to fly or to jump. This is because when the cell is exposed to a stimulus, its protein levels jump in activity. Dr. Youssef said that this has resulted in the gene being classed as an immediate-early gene, as it has such a fast response.

The Tob gene is related to many different phenomena but working on the brain system is particularly challenging. Although it was previously suspected, this research is the first work that clarifies that Tob has a function in the brain against stress." Prof. Tadashi Yamamoto

Their conclusion that this gene is linked to anxiety, fear, and depression was drawn from several different experiments. First, the researchers exposed mice to stress and, as expected, saw the Tob protein levels increase. They then used mice which had been born without a Tob gene and found an increase in depression, fear, and anxiety. For example, when a mouse with the Tob gene was placed in a bucket of water, they would swim and try to escape. However, a mouse without the Tob gene simply floated. This lack of will to fight a difficult situation is one way that researchers determine that an animal is depressed.

What's more, the mice without the Tob gene didn't seem to learn. Dr. Youssef explained that when mice are put day-after-day in a place which evokes fear memory, they normally learn that it isn't so bad and stop being as frightened. But those without the Tob gene still showed increased levels of fear observed as freezing, even after several days.

The researchers then teamed up with OIST's former PhD student Dr. Hiroaki Hamada from the Neural Computational Unit. Through an MRI, they found that the connectivity between two key places regulating brain's stress resilience was altered when the Tob gene was removed-;the hippocampus and the pre-frontal cortex. From there, the researchers decided to look at the specific role that the gene plays within the hippocampus. They took mice without the Tob gene and injected this gene into the hippocampus, while leaving it nonexistent in other parts of the body. The level of fear and depression returned to normal, but the mice still had increased anxiety. The researchers then did the opposite-;they created a mouse that had no Tob gene in the cells in the hippocampus but had it in the cells in the rest of the body. In this case, they found that the mice had normal levels of anxiety but increased fear and depression.

"We've concluded that the Tob gene within the hippocampus suppresses fear and depression," explained Dr. Youssef. "But the suppression of anxiety must be regulated by another part of the brain."

Next, researchers from OIST's former Brain Mechanisms for Behavior Unit measured the function of the neurons within the hippocampus of the mice without the Tob gene. They found that excitation was increased, while inhibition was decreased, suggesting that the overall balance was impacted, which would impact the behavior of the mice.

Finally, the researchers conducted molecular analyses after exposing the mice to stress. Interestingly, they found that expression didn't immediate change with stress. But, 15 minutes after exposing the mice to stress, there were changes. Other genes and proteins were impacted if the Tob gene was deleted. This suggests that the Tob gene likely has multiple direct and indirect impacts.

"Uncovering this role of the Tob gene in fear, depression, and anxiety could have vast implications for developing therapeutics for psychiatric stress," said Dr. Youssef.
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, will fund $3.35 million over five years to launch the Genome Research Experiences to Attract Talented Undergraduates into the Genomics Field to Enhance Diversity (GREAT) program.

The program will establish partnerships between universities and will allow undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in science, to conduct genomics research and receive career development training from large, research-intensive schools. The program provides awards to institutions that are either minority-serving, as defined under the program, or eligible for an Institutional Development Award (IDeA).

Minority-serving institutions that do not have a large amount of NIH funding may not have the facilities and resources for cutting-edge genomics research but typically have a diverse student body, including a large number of students from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical research. By requiring these minority-serving institutions to partner with research-intensive institutions, we can help ensure that a broadly diverse population of students can conduct innovative genomics research and use state-of-the-art technology." Ebony Madden, Ph.D., program director for Health Equity and Workforce Diversity within NHGRI's Training, Diversity and Health Equity Office

Over the next five years, NHGRI will provide approximately $1.65 million to California State University, Monterey Bay, to collaborate with the University of California, Santa Cruz, and approximately $1.7 million to the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, to collaborate with schools across the country, including the University of Pittsburgh; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas; University of California, San Francisco; and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to provide genomics courses and research experiences to undergraduate students.

Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

During the application review process, the two awardee institutions stood out for their rigorous approaches to training and mentoring students. They were also positively viewed for their strong collaborations with partner institutions.

"We hope that the GREAT program will help the collaborating institutions learn from each other in a way that builds lasting partnerships," said Lucia Hindorff, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead extramural training program director within the Training, Diversity and Health Equity Office. "The students will also benefit from the strong network they will build at both places."

Additionally, the GREAT program will address the lack of funding needed to promote diversity in undergraduate programs. While funding programs that focus on diversity at the graduate and postdoctoral level exist, attracting a diverse student population at earlier stages is just as important. As part of NHGRI's "Building a Diverse Genomics Workforce: An NHGRI Action Agenda," the GREAT program seeks to strengthen the pathway for undergraduate students to pursue graduate education in genomics.

"Undergraduate students are at an important phase of discerning their future careers," Hindorff said. "It is at this stage where many people who go on to become researchers have their first formative research experience. Hands-on research is often eye-opening and complementary to what students are learning in the classroom."
Amid unprecedented floods which have affected 33 million people and damaged nearly 900 health facilities, Pakistan faces the risk of widespread outbreaks of diseases, including diarrhoea, dengue, malaria, polio and COVID-19.

The floods have killed more than 1,300 people since 14 June and injured over 12,000, according to the countrys National Disaster Management Authority. The provinces of Sindh and Balochistan are the worst affected with floodwaters engulfing entire villages and wiping out standing crops.

Mirza Nasir-ud-Din Mashhood Ahmad, special secretary at the Ministry of National Health Services, told SciDev.Net that with most health facilities damaged in the worst-affected districts, outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue are imminent in the next few weeks.

Ahmad said Sindh is the worst affected as the waters here will not dry for another three to four months, hampering rehabilitation work and the restoration of health facilities. The province faces a health emergency, with the floods limiting access to a vulnerable population and worsening an already ailing health system, he added.

National rainfall was 243 per cent above average in August, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department which is forecasting more rains in the month ahead.

Indrika Ratwatte, director for Asia and the Pacific at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), says this will likely worsen conditions for nearly half a million displaced people and force more to abandon their homes.

People are facing many challenges in the informal settlements, camped along roadsides to escape surrounding flood waters, setting up shelters with whatever resources they have, said Ratwatte, urging the international community to step up its support.

The World Health Organization warned that ongoing disease outbreaks in Pakistan including diarrhoea, dengue fever, malaria, polio and COVID-19 are being exacerbated, particularly in the camps and places where water and sanitation facilities have been damaged.

Public health in Pakistan was already considered compromised before the flood. About 38 per cent of children under five are stunted and the country has the worlds second-highest global burden of hepatitis C.

With 116 of Pakistans 154 districts impacted by the floods and a third of the country submerged, many immunisation programmes have been disrupted.

Our vaccinators are working diligently to ensure that routine immunisation continues in the flood-affected districts where health facilities have been damaged, said Muhammad Ahmed Kazi, director general of the Federal Directorate of Immunisation. Immunisation is a priority and we must reach children in affected districts with vaccines, especially for diseases like rotavirus, typhoid and measles, he told SciDev.Net.

Relief and rehabilitation in displacement settlements will remain a challenge; already disease outbreaks are being reported from most affected areas, said Arif Jabbar Khan, country director of WaterAid Pakistan, adding that the risk of disease outbreaks will continue as long as people remain displaced. An estimated 500,000 people are currently sheltered in camps.

Women and babies at risk

Khan said when people return to their homes they are likely to encounter deteriorated conditions, including contaminated water sources. It is important that the water sources at the household and institutional levels are restored and decontaminated on an urgent basis, he said.

The camps set up to provide emergency shelter also face huge challenges. Maria Mushtaq who cooks and serves meals for internally displaced people in the Khairpur district of Sindh, said: Even in the better organised camps functioning out of school buildings, the washrooms and latrines are not enough to cater to the huge numbers. Despite being cleaned every day, these camps are swarming with mosquitoes and flies.

Of the 6.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Sindh, more than 1.6 million are women of childbearing age, said Sindh Health Minister, Azra Pechuho. She told journalists that there were at least 47,000 displaced, pregnant women at different camps around the province.

The UN Population Fund has estimated that there are 650,000 pregnant women in the flood-affected areas of Pakistan, in need of skilled birth attendants, newborn care and support. Of these, about 73,000 are due to deliver this month. With almost one million houses damaged, the UN agency warns that women and girls are at increased risk of gender-based violence.

The floods were caused by heavy torrential rains since June. The Pakistan Meterological Departments monthly summary for August termed it the wettest August since 1961. The monthly summary for July said that average rainfall in Balochistan was 450 per cent above average and 307 per cent above average in Sindh.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
Fairbanks, AK (99707)

Today

Showers early with some clearing overnight. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Showers early with some clearing overnight. Low around 45F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.
BY Daniel S. Mariaschin

On Sept. 13, 1993, I was among those invited to the signing of the Oslo Accords on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a bright, sunny day, so very appropriate for what many in the audience saw as the impossible: President Bill Clinton presiding over a historic breakthrough in relations between Israelis and Palestinians. I cant say I was sceptical about the signing, but I did harbour doubts. I began my career monitoring Middle East affairs in 1973 as a young professional just out of graduate school. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, was in full throttle as an international terrorist organization. Its principal enemy was Israel, but Jordan, led by King Hussein, was not far behind.

The PLO sought to topple the king in 1970 during what was called Black September. Had that challenge succeeded, who knows what havoc a radicalized Jordan under terrorist control might have inflicted on the Middle East heartland. Over these past 29 years, hopes surrounding the Oslo Accords have risen and then crashed time and again, as the Palestinian leadership has pursued a zero-sum policy regarding a two-state solution. By some counts, there have been four or five major international efforts to start serious negotiations with a view toward achieving a sustainable agreement. During that time, the terror organization Hamas, rejectionist from its inception, has taken control of Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), for its part, refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, insists on a right of return for millions of Palestinians, of whom only some 30,000 are original refugees, and offers stipends and payments to the families of those who have carried out acts of terror against Israeli citizens. As if that were not enough, the PA has led efforts at the United Nations to castigate Israel through dozens of biased resolutions, special rapporteurs and commissions. In sum, PA nihilism is not a policy. It suggests that its leaders would rather live as permanent victims than enjoy statehood. Which is why waiting for a two-state solution is not only frustrating. It begs the question: does the current Palestinian leadership really want peace with Israel? Fast forward to Sept. 15, 2020, at the signing of the Abraham Accords.

Once again, I was in attendance on the same South Lawn at the White House, with the same beautiful weather in the US capital, but with an entirely different vibe in the air. Instead of the 1993 doubts gnawing at some of us, there was a pervasive optimism that nearly 30 years after the Oslo Accords signing, diplomatic creativity had produced a full-fledged path for normal relations between Israel and its neighbours in the region.

Over the years of Middle East diplomacy, we have used terms like confidence-building measures, and roadmap for peace, which, though sounding constructive, wound up being merely hollow diplomatic talk. There can be no peace, no normalization without the will to bring them about.

That means people-to-people experiences, two-way trade and investment, tourism in both directions and academic exchange. In each of these and in other areas of mutual cooperation, the Abraham Accords have produced dozens of agreements. And the sense is, this is only the beginning.

Having normal ties means making serious efforts at understanding one another, on a personal basis. Over the past two years, the Abraham Accords have opened the way to pursuing that goal in earnest, promoting closer Muslim-Jewish relations, and open discussions about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.

Memo to the Palestinian leadership: take note. In the realm of the strategic, the Abraham Accords are already making a major contribution to the goal of achieving stability in the region through a collective worldview that places a high value on progress and mutual respect with ones neighbours. As a result, those destructive forces that have sown chaos, engage in malign behaviour and arm the terrorist organizations that lurk and act in the broader neighbourhood, are now even more exposed than ever before.

The Negev Summit (now called the Negev Forum), which brought together like-minded countries which share the same view of threat assessments in the region, is another early benefit brought forth by the Abraham Accords. In March, I led a group of leaders from our organization to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. We held a number of important, enlightening discussions about the region, and the role that the Abraham Accords can play in expanding both its ranks and its promise to bring better, more peaceful and productive lives to all peoples of the region.

We believe that the United States must play a pivotal role in this process, and together, create a dynamic that can transform this vital expanse of geography into a role model for genuine regional cooperation. Over the years, another diplomatic term has become part of our lexicon: present at the creation. As I watched the four principals sign the Abraham Accords that sunlit day in Washington, D.C. two years ago, I clearly realized that the term was no cliche. As we enter year three, let us hope that this auspicious beginning will continue to bear the fruits its architects so wisely considered.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  Chaos reigned in the home where Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz grew up, testimony in his ongoing penalty trial has shown.

He and his half-brother Zachary tormented their adoptive, widowed mother, Lynda. By the time Cruz reached middle school in the early 2010s, the pair took their fists and baseball bats to the walls, leaving gaping holes. They destroyed televisions and carved gashes in furniture, witnesses said.

Zachary may have been two years younger, but he was bigger and stronger and relentlessly picked on his brother  one social worker remembered Zachary climbing atop a counter and stepping in Nikolas' cereal as he ate.

Lynda Cruz called sheriff's deputies to the family's 4,500-square-foot (420-square-meter) home at least two dozen times between 2012 and 2016 to deal with one son, the other or both. Most calls were for fighting, destroying her property, disrespecting her or running away.

Nikolas was very easily set off and I think Zachary derived some pleasure from pushing Nikolas buttons, testified Frederick Kravitz, one of Cruz's childhood psychologists. In turn, they were very good at pushing (their mother's) buttons.

Nikolas Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murdering 17 students and staff members at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. His trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life without parole. The trial resumes Monday after a week off.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz's case was straightforward. He played security videos of the shooting and showed the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle Cruz used. Teachers and students testified about watching others die. He showed graphic autopsy and crime scene photos and took jurors to the still blood-stained, bullet-pocked classroom building Cruz terrorized. Parents and spouses gave tearful and angry statements about their loss.

In an attempt to counter that, assistant public defender Melisa McNeill and her team have made Cruz's history their case's centerpiece, hoping at least one juror will vote for life. A death verdict must be unanimous.

The defense wants to show that from Cruz's birth to a hard-drinking, crack-smoking Fort Lauderdale prostitute, he never fully received needed help even as he grew increasingly out of control.

And nowhere was that more apparent than in the home Roger and Lynda Cruz built in Parkland, an upscale Fort Lauderdale suburb. They adopted Nikolas at birth in 1998 and, in 2000, Zachary, who had a different birth father.

Lynda Cruz, who turned 50 shortly after adopting Nikolas, was a stay-at-home mom. Roger Cruz, then 61, owned a successful marketing business.

Lynda Cruz "had wanted a child, always wanted a child. So once she got Nikolas, she felt like her family was complete," friend Trish Davaney-Westerlind testified. He was a cute little baby. She would go and get him all these sailor outfits. She was just the happiest I ever saw.

But by preschool, Cruz showed extreme behavior. Neighbors and teachers testified he hit and bit other children and didn't socialize. He was anxious, fell when he ran and couldn't use utensils. Nikolas started seeing psychiatrists and psychologists at age 3 and didn't fully talk or become potty trained until 4.

At 5, just as Cruz entered kindergarten, he witnessed his father suffer a fatal heart attack in the family's den. That left Lynda Cruz alone in her mid-50s with two sons who would have challenged a much younger couple.

Unemployed, she became paranoid about spending, keeping her air conditioners' thermostats in the 80s (25 to 30 Celsius) and unplugging unused appliances. One friend said her monthly electric bill was $80, a fraction of what the owner of a large South Florida home typically pays.

She padlocked the refrigerator so her sons couldn't eat without permission and kept it so poorly stocked neighbors gave her groceries.

Friends gave conflicting testimony over whether Lynda Cruz really was financially strapped or had wealth she didn't want to spend.

In either case, she had expenses other parents didn't. Cruz's mental health treatments weren't fully covered by insurance. He loved online, often violent video games, but hated losing - that's what caused him to destroy TVs and damage walls. She sometimes locked his video game console in her car as punishment  and Cruz at least once broke a window to get it back.

She was a little afraid of him, neighbor Paul Gold testified.

Despite Cruz's tantrums, Lynda Cruz told teachers and counselors he was gentle and loving, a mama's boy. Friends testified that wasn't wholly a facade  Cruz and his mother did have a strong, often affectionate attachment and she favored him over his brother.

Still, Zachary remained popular in the neighborhood while Cruz was the outcast  and not just with children.

Steven Schusler testified that shortly after moving nearby, his landlord called over the Cruz boys and pointed at Nikolas, then about 10.

He's the weird one, arent you Nicky? Schusler recalled the woman saying. Cruz curled up" and looked like a snail when you put salt on one.

But Cruz's behavior was often strange and sometimes violent. When he was 9, a parent called police after he hit her child in the head with a rock. When his dog died after eating a poisonous toad, he went on a killing spree against the amphibians. At middle school, his outbursts disrupted classes and he plastered his homework with racist slurs, swastikas, obscenities and stick figures having sex or shooting each other.

Lynda Cruz became so overwhelmed in Cruz's early teens, a social services agency was assigned to help. That's what brought case manager Tiffany Forrest to the home. She said Lynda Cruz complained Nikolas wouldn't bathe, so Forrest tried to explain to him the importance of hygiene. Cruz stood up, walked outside and jumped clothed into the pool. He then climbed out.

I showered, he told Forrest.

In the coming weeks, Cruz's attorneys are expected to present testimony about his transfer to a school for students with emotional and behavioral problems, his time at Stoneman Douglas and call his brother to the stand. Zachary now lives in Virginia with two benefactors.

Their mother died less than four months before the shooting.

___

Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.
- Advertisement -

gang : According to police, two people were taken into custody from Ghaziabad on Friday after Delhi Police broke a group that was engaged in online fraud.

The culprit, Robin Singh, allegedly phoned the complainant on WhatsApp and identified himself as a supplier of air weapons, walkie-talkies, telescopes, etc., in response to a complaint that was brought to the Cyber Cell, per police. Online, the complainant had placed a 25-telescope purchase and paid Rs. 2,49,000 for them. He added that Robin Singh supplied one water filter and deactivated the complainants number after receiving the money from him.

According to the police, Ravi Singh and Harish, who are both accused, are both real brothers.

During technical analysis of the WhatsApp mobile phone number and analysis of alleged beneficiary bank accounts transactions, one transaction was tracked as a money transfer agent was identified, the police said.

He further stated A team was sent out on Friday to find the criminals, and they were eventually apprehended at their home in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Three Android-powered smartphones and two debit cards that were used to commit the crime were retrieved from their possession and used as evidence in the case.

Following a High Court order, accused were taken to prison and charged with a crime.

Read Also: Indias milk production growth 3-times higher than the global average

STUDY SUGGESTS FLU SHOTS MAY LOWER THE RISK OF STROKE
- Advertisement -

Farooq Abdullah was criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday for calling Jammu and Kashmir voters outsiders and for doing so while serving as chief minister of that state.

Farooq Abdullah, head of the Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) and a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, stated during the all-party conference that they oppose granting outsiders voting rights in the state.

The proposed addition of some 2.5 voters, including non-locals, in Jammu and Kashmirs election lists prompted the request for the all-party conference.

BJP National General Secretary and in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir Tarun Chugh responded to Abdullahs assertion by saying, After all, Farooq Abdullah sahib is insulting the people of Jammu and Kashmir by referring to voters as foreigners and using such language. Give a definition of the term outsiders. Every Indian who is older than 18 years old has the right to vote in the province in which they reside, according to the Election Commission. Therefore, Jammu and Kashmir residents who are at least 18 years old should cast their ballots.

Is Farooq Abdullahs comment against outsiders referring to any particular religion, region, or caste? This makes no sense, and neither does what the outsider is supposed to signify. What does outside, that outside party wont come to Jammu and Kashmir, and Farooq Abdullah mean? Has Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Party or the Sharif family, who are from the Pakistan Muslim League, arrived in Jammu and Kashmir to run for office? Farooq Sahib shouldnt exacerbate the issues or spread misinformation, Chugh remarked.

He said that any political party in the nation has the freedom to run for office in any region, and that the Jan Sangh of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been present in Jammu and Kashmir since the 1950s.
- Advertisement -

Jammu and Kashmir Police deactivated a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) overground worker (OGW) module and detained two people in Sopore on Friday.

At Gousiabad Chowk Chinkipora, which is under the control of the Sopore police station, a joint naka (checkpoint) was built in conjunction with the Army and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Two people were seen moving suspiciously while being checked as they travelled from Dangerpora to Chinkipora. When ordered to halt, they attempted to leave the area. Then, security personnel captured the pair.

Two grenades were found by police in their hands. Shakir Akber Gojree, a Bandipora resident, and Mohsin Wani, a Baramulla resident, were named as the arrested individuals.

The apprehended individuals, according to the police, are over ground workers (OGWs) of the outlawed group LeT and were constantly looking for a chance to assault security officers and civilians.

As a result, a case has been opened at the Sopore police station in accordance with the applicable legal provisions.

One Chinese weapon, one pistol magazine, seven live pistol rounds, 25 AK-47 rounds, and explosive material were also found over the course of the inquiry after the jailed pair divulged the identities of further OGW accomplices.

The names of two other OGWs, according to the police, are Himayun Shariq of Sopore and Faizan Ashraf Wani of Nadihal Rafiabad.
- Advertisement -

In response to the virus causing lumpy skin illness, Delhi Minister Gopal Rai has scheduled a meeting of the involved ministries for this coming Saturday.

The discussion will cover the steps to take to safeguard animals in the nations capital against the virus, which has only been identified in cows and buffaloes. Consuming meat or utilising milk from animals who do not exhibit Lumpy signs poses no risk to humans. Animals with Lumpy can be healed, however the virus can still influence the milk from such animals.

According to research, cattle are susceptible to the viral ailment lumpy skin disease. It is spread by ticks or other insects that feed on blood, such as some types of flies, mosquitoes, and ticks.

It might result in the death of the cow and produces fever and skin nodules.

On August 10, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar introduced the indigenous vaccine Lumpi-ProVac to prevent cattle against Lumpy skin disease, offering relief to the nations livestock.

National Equine Research Center in Hisar, Haryana, and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Izzatnagar worked together to create the vaccine (Bareilly).

Research centres have been working to create the vaccine ever since the illness arrived in India in 2019.
- Advertisement -

The growing number of atrocities committed against the Sikh community in Pakistan has brought to light Gurpatwant Singh Pannuns bogus assertion that the minority group is happy to be living there.

Global Strat View claims that the episode involving the kidnapping, rape, forced conversion, and marriage of a young Sikh girl named Dina Kaur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has exposed the actual state of the nations minority population. When asked by Global Strat View whether SFJ will include Pakistans Sikh community in the Khalistan referendum, Pannun responded, There are 20,000 or 25,000 Sikhs who are living peacefully and they deem Pakistan their home.

Earlier on September 8, leaders of the Sikh community and organisations from the Pakistan Panchayat directly urged the Sikh community worldwide to join them in their rally in Buner, KP, in support of the release of our daughter.

According to Global Strat View, the USCIRFs 2022 Annual Report claimed that abduction, forced conversion to Islam, rape, and forced marriage remained serious concerns for religious minority women and children, notably from Christian, Hindu, and Sikh religions.

A proposed measure to safeguard minorities from forced conversion was shot down by a Pakistani parliamentary committee in October 2021.

Notably, the media reports stated that Pakistani government is deceiving Sikhs and the wider world by keeping just a small number of Gurudwaras throughout the nation, despite the fact that there are hundreds of these historically significant buildings that are being destroyed and desecrated.
- Advertisement -

In light of the thousands of registered students who are still stranded at home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, India has published a comprehensive advise on studying at Chinese medical schools.

Chinese visa restriction has an impact on more than 23,000 Indian students who are enrolled in various Chinese colleges. According to a statement sent by the embassy on September 8, Embassy of India in Beijing has been getting various enquiries from potential Indian students and their parents with respect to seeking admission for undergraduate clinical medical programme in China.

China stated in July that it has made progress in making it easier for Indian students to return and that it is coordinating with the necessary agencies to ensure that the first batch of Indian students may return to China as soon as possible to continue their studies.

National Board of Examination report that showed that just 6387 out of 40,417 students who took the FMG Examination between 2015 and 2021 passed it was also provided by the Indian Embassy.

The assertion was expanded upon, According to the analysis, just 6387 of the 40,417 students who took the FMG Exam between 2015 and 2021 passed it. Here, just 16% of Indian students who took the clinical medical programme at these 45 universities in China at that time period passed.

Due to COVID-19-related limitations, Indian students studying medicine at Chinese universities are unable to return to China to attend classes.

The need to hastily handle the return of Indian students to China so they may start attending classes at an early date was previously highlighted by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting.

Earlier on March 25, Jaishankar and Wang Yi met in attempt to enable the homecoming of Indian students.

According to Indian Embassy in China, the Chinese side had earlier in April stated its willingness to take into account facilitating the return of Indian students to China based on necessity.
- Advertisement -

According to the officials on Saturday, up to three people have been detained in connection with the vicious stabbing that occurred in the national capital on September 9.

A man was murdered and four others suffered critical injuries in a terrible stabbing incident that occurred in Delhis Mangolpuri on Friday, according to the police. A group of eight to nine lads repeatedly assaulted three boys with knives, resulting in one death and two major injuries. The three boys are all relatives, and the accused and the victims live in the same Mangolpuri neighbourhood police reported.

Four squads have been deployed to the Mangolpuri police station to apprehend the other suspects after we arrested three of the accused.

Armaan has been named as the dead, while Fardeen and Moin Khan, two of his cousins, are the two who sustained injuries.

Armaan was pronounced dead upon arrival at SGM Hospital where the three were transferred.

According to Delhi Police, Fardeen got into a fight with Shahbir (Shahrukhs brother) over touching the bike yesterday at approximately 2:15 p.m. while riding his motorbike in front of the home of the accused Sharukh, who is a renowned figure. Fardeen left the place and fled.

Once Fardeen arrived at his home, his brother Monty had made up his mind to settle things amicably with Sharukh. Fardeen also accompanied his brother Monty to the place where Sharukh and Monty got into a furious quarrel.

Armaan, their third cousins brother, also made it there. Then Sharukh and Shahbir gave the order for his friends to execute the three brothers with knives.

As Saif, Sameer, and Vineet stabbed Arman and Sameer alias Muthu, Karan alias Badshah, and Ajay Malik stabbed Monty, Sharukh grabbed Armaan and Shahbir (Sharukhs brother) grabbed Armaan.
- Advertisement -

According to authorities on Saturday, Jharkhand Crime Investigation Department has submitted a chargesheet against 11 identified suspects in the case involving police shootings during the Ranchi unrest.

The fight happened on June 10 of this year. The Daily Market Police Stations FIR number for this case is 17/22.

Following the NHRC standards, the matter was moved to CID in the final week of June.

A CID team of three people looked into the situation.

On the basis of a Circle Officers complaint, case 17/22 has been opened at the Daily Market police station against 22 named and around 810,000 unidentified individuals.

FIR was filed earlier on June 22 in relation to the incident that occurred in Ranchi on June 10, detailing how a mob got violent and miscreants fired at police.

The miscreants attempted to climb on the Hanuman Temple along Ranchis main road and fired 60 to 80 rounds of ammunition, according to the FIR.

Circle Officer (CO) Amit Bhagat filed the specific FIR, claiming that he was on patrol when hundreds of people demonstrated against Nupur Sharmas offensive comments against Prophet Muhammad.

According to the FIR, the protest march did not have authorization. The gathering got violent despite police attempts to disperse it.

FIR stated Miscreants sought to target the Hanuman Temple in a deliberate way to incite religious rioting and continued stone-pelting.

The police cordon was breached by the mob in an effort to climb on the shrine, according to the FIR.

According to the FIR, during this procedure, the mob and the miscreants shot on the policemany in the crowd even sought to seize firearms from police officials.

The police employed some restraint, but the mob was not dissuaded, according to the FIR. It stated that attempts to talk to the demonstrators and appease them, even by the Deputy Commissioner and Senior Superintendent of Police, were unsuccessful.
- Advertisement -

Deepak Mundi, the primary gunman in the Sidhu Moosewala murder case, and his two accomplices were transferred to Mansa, Punjab, according to officials on Sunday.

Nepal Police on Saturday detained the main suspect, Deepak Mundi, as well as his two friends, Kapil Pandit and Rajinder.

Near the border between West Bengal and Nepal, the arrests were made.

According to authorities, all three will be detained in the CIA police station in Mansa.

Deepak, who opened fire in the event, had logistical help from the other two people who were also detained, according to Gaurav Yadav, DGP Punjab Police.

Deepak was the shooter in the Bolero module, while Kapil Pandit and Rajinder provided logistical support, including weapons and hideouts, according to the DGP. Deepak, Kapil Pandit, and Rajinder were arrested today by the Anti-Gangster Task Force team at the WB-Nepal border in the culmination of an intelligence-based operation, the DGP said.

On May 29, intruders shot and killed Sidhu Moose Wala in Punjabs Mansa districts Jawaharke village. A day after the Punjab police removed his protection, along with 424 others, the event happened.

Two suspects, one from Kenya and the other from Azerbaijan, were detained earlier this month in connection with the slaying of Punjabi artist Sidhu Moose Wala, and India has been in regular contact with the local police.
- Advertisement -

According to sources, China wants to get involved in Middle Eastern politics through its 2019 commercial pact with Iraq, which is funding significant infrastructure projects in Tehran in exchange for oil shipments.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which took place 20 years ago, freed the Iraqi people from Saddam Husseins oppressive tyranny. Chinas influence in Iraq is increasing right now, and Baghdad is a prime illustration of how Beijing views the countrys security vacuum as an opportunity to rule it. China has made many attempts to challenge Iraqs hegemony over oil and petroleum resources. Each attempt, though, was thwarted by the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Exxon Mobil and Lukoil, two big oil companies, planned to sell their holdings in important fields to companies supported by the Chinese government, but Iraqs Ministry of Oil intervened to stop it.

Recent sources, as stated in Al Arabiyas post, support certain rumours that the arrangement contains a USD 10 billion credit loan from China, which will be returned by depositing the proceeds from 100,000 barrels of crude oil sent by Iraq to China into a designated account with a Chinese bank.

It should be noted that the agreement between China and Iraq is giving Beijing a significant opportunity to become deeply involved in Iraqi politics. It has been speculated that Beijing may be interested in helping to broker compromises between Iraq and the Arab world as an alternative to the American model, which hasnt worked out very well.
- Advertisement -

Two more explosions shook western Kabul on Saturday amid the frequent explosions that have occurred in Afghanistan.

The Hazara community of Kabul is located in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood, where the explosions reportedly took place. According to Khaama Press, the initial explosion apparently happened around 6:45 in the evening in front of a busy commercial market, while a second device subsequently detonated at the Pul-e-Khushk bus station.

According to a statement from the Talibans Interior Ministry, the explosion was caused by sticky explosives mounted on bicycles, injuring 3 bystanders. Following the explosion, the injured individuals were brought to nearby, closed hospitals, according to reports cited by Khaama Press.

The Shiite neighbourhood west of Kabul has been routinely targeted over the past few years when these explosions occur. Numerous attacks resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Hazara people, and the use of torture against the group has increased drastically.

No one group has taken ownership of the explosions.

Blasting has changed into the new standard in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. Recently, a suicide bombing in front of the Russian embassy resulted in the deaths of over 15 individuals, including two diplomatic staff members.

The incident occurred a few days after an explosion that shook a mosque in northwest Afghanistan during Friday prayers, killing at least 20 people.

Numerous explosions have been recorded in the capital city of Kabul over the past few months, taking scores of innocent lives. This string of explosions follows a year under Taliban administration in Afghanistan.

Rights organisations said that the Taliban had repeatedly breached their promises to uphold womens and human rights. The Islamic authorities severely restricted the rights of women and girls after seizing control of Kabul in August of last year. They also repressed the media, arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and summarily murdered critics and perceived enemies, among other violations.

According to rights organisations, the Talibans violations of human rights have drawn global condemnation and jeopardised international attempts to alleviate the severe humanitarian situation in the nation.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

PORTLAND  An Australian company that has a 10-year, $190 million contract with the U.S. government to refurbish Coast Guard vessels showed off its newly acquired production facility on the banks of the Connecticut River late last week.

Birdon Group, whose U.S. headquarters is in Denver, Colorado, bought a pair of marinas on Riverview Street for $4.6 million this past spring. The Riverview Marina and Yankee Boatyard and Marina have 31 acres of frontage along the eastern banks of the Connecticut River.

Both marinas will continue to operate for pleasure boaters, but Birdons primary use for the site will be as a production facility. The Portland location is the companys first on the East Coast.

Birdon also has a similar production facility in Bellingham, Washington.

A year ago, this was just an idea, said Gov. Ned Lamont during a ceremony celebrating Birdons move into Connecticut, Friday. But the state has been building boats going back centuries.

State Sen. Norman Needleman, D-Essex, said refurbishing the vessels can be done for a third of what it would cost to buy new ones. The government contract calls for overhauling 107 aging motor life boats, which are a type of Coast Guard vessel.

Having Birdon coming here is just spectacular, Needleman said.

Work on 65 of the vessels will be done in Connecticut, said Rob Scott, president of Birdon America.

The first of the vessels to be refurbished arrived in Portland in July, according to company officials.

It will take about two years for Birdons Portland facility to ramp up to full production. Scott said.

Right now, about two dozen people work at the production facility, but Scott said the workforce will increase to 75 within two years. At that point, he said the facility will be churning out a dozen refurbished boats per year.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Connecticut has a special bond with the Coast Guard since its service Academy is located in New London.

These boats are going to save lives, Blumenthal said.

He echoed Needlemans thoughts about the signifficance of Birdon coming to Portland.

But at the same time we are trying to save lives, this contract is also savings us money, Blumenthal said.

Ryan Curley, first selectman from Portland, said Birdons decision to come to Portland is really something major for us.

They are bringing high skill, high paying jobs like welders and electrical engineers to town, said Curley, who became first selectman after the November 2021 election.

But to meet the needs of needs of companies like Birdon for skilled skilled trades workers, Needleman said the state needs comprehensive approach.

I think all of us are looking at a lot of work ahead, he said.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
Frank Whitman / For Hearst Connecticut

The "Best of Connecticut" results are in for 2022. For more of the tastiest treats Connecticut has to offer, see our Editors' Picks and Readers' Choice winners in Best of Connecticut: Food + Drink. (And be sure to check out the winners in Activities + Entertainment and Shopping + Services while you're there!)

Here are the winners from our annual Readers Choice survey for best restaurants and recommendations from some of the most in-the-know dining experts in Connecticut.
HAMDEN  Sameed Iqbal is afraid he and his family will be homeless next month.

The Hamden resident recalled how that possibility took shape one day this summer, when he came home to find a notice on his apartment door.

If Iqbal was going to keep living in the unit, he and his family would have to pay more rent effective Oct. 1. Up 75 percent from what their current rate, the new rate would be $3,500 a month, a $1,500 increase, according to the notice, which Iqbal shared with the New Haven Register.

Suddenly, Iqbal, who said works as an auditor for an accounting firm and lives with his parents, brother, sister-in-law and young niece, was uncertain about where the family would sleep come October.

A comparison between the address listed in the notice and Hamdens online property map show Iqbal resides in a unit owned by Seramonte CT LLC.

He is one of at least a dozen residents of the companys properties near Dixwell and Mix avenues who have filed complaints accusing their landlord of unfairly raising rent, according to records supplied by the town and the Seramonte Tenants Union, which has helped organize the complainants.

Their recourse for relief is through the towns Fair Rent Commission, which met Wednesday for the first time since 2019 and will hold four hearings Sept. 15.

Some of the complaints specifically name Seramonte CT LLC, while others list variations of Seramonte in the landlord section.

For reasons that are unclear, the notice Iqbal received is labeled as coming from Seramonte Estates LLC, which online town property records show previously owned the mammoth housing complex.

Iqbal faces the starkest increase, but at least four other residents have complained about rent hikes of more than $400, according to the records. Some increases appear to already have taken effect, while others will kick in this fall.

Greta Blau, cofounder of the Seramonte Tenants Union, said the increases cause extreme levels of stress and force worry over whether they will have to leave the community.

For some, it causes uncertainty over where their kids will go to school, Blau said, adding that Seramonte residents include elderly persons and children, single mothers, large families and people on fixed incomes.

Weve felt very alone and afraid and worried about where were going to live, (because) theres nowhere to go, she said.

The New Haven Register reached out to Seramonte multiple times for comment via the number the town has on file, the email address listed in the Secretary of the States website and emails to the property manager, but did not receive a response.

Human impact

Boxes filled the living room of Yamil Creve-Coeurs Mix Avenue townhouse Wednesday evening.

Seramonte is trying to raise her rent by $800 effective Oct. 1, according to Creve-Coeurs fair rent complaint, and the tenant said she was preparing for the possibility of having to move.

She has been paying $1,900 per month for the three-bedroom unit, the complaint shows, and the increase would bring the monthly cost to $2,700.

Creve-Coeurs daughter, Margaret Creve-Coeur, described how she felt when she got the news: (I) realized we couldnt keep living here under those circumstances.

For it to just jump out of the blue like that  it felt like they were basically trying to kick us out, Margaret Creve-Coeur said.

Margaret Creve-Coeur shares the apartment with her mother and brother, she said. While she is a student at Quinnipiac University, she said, her brother is a high school senior expected to start college next year.

Yamil Creve-Coeur is a single mother, according to her daughter, and they are not sure where they will live were they to have to leave the apartment.

Its difficult to find a house right now, or even another apartment, in the housing market we have, Margaret Creve-Coeur said. Wed honestly just have to figure it out.  Were hoping it doesnt get to that.

Iqbal is facing the same challenge.

There are not a lot of places to be ... found, he said, adding that he is relying on the Fair Rent Commission to help his family.

Though Iqbals rent notice is dated July 20, he said he did not receive it until Aug. 18.

Iqbal also is confused about the size of the increase. His five-bedroom unit consists of two apartments with the adjoining walls knocked down, he said.

Aside from repainting an area outside the apartment and cleaning up some greenery, he said, the property managers have not done anything to increase the value.

I just dont think that its fair for (Seramonte) to think that we can afford this in a month, Iqbal said. I dont know what they expect us to do.

In arguing against the increases, some tenants in their complaints raised issues about the conditions of their rentals. One tenant claimed leaking water had caused mold problems in the unit, according to the corresponding complaint, which also accuses Seramonte of failing to provide adequately functioning appliances.

Another complaint mentions a hole in the units ceiling, while a third alleged the apartment lacked a kitchen sink faucet and had a toilet with a rotting base that caused sewage problems.

Town involvement

Blau, of the Seramonte Tenants Union, has accused the town of not acting quickly enough in responding to the rent complaints. She also has raised issues with how officials acted when they did become involved.

Blau filed a complaint of her own in February, according to correspondence she shared with the Register. The complaint reported an impending rent increase of $150, which Blau said already has taken effect.

Though she received confirmation of her submission from a town employee, Blau said she did not hear anything further for months  until Wednesday, when an email from a different town official said the Fair Rent Commission had received the complaint.

Her complaint remains unresolved, Blau said, calling the delay egregious.

Blau said the union waited to file more complaints because it was told the town employee in charge of processing them was not doing so properly.

Most of the pending complaints are dated from July and August, and some appear to have been filed after the increase in question took place.

Legislative Council member Sarah Gallagher, D-4, said the commission has an attorney to advise it on its powers for acting on complaints filed retroactively.

Last month, Gallagher met with a group of tenants to discuss their concerns. According to Blau, they asked Gallagher that the town deal with the complaints through the union in order to shield individual tenants.

But town employees then began calling individual residents as well as property managers, according to Blau. She felt the approach disrespected the union, she said, adding that town leaders need to take it seriously for it to be effective.

Mayor Lauren Garrett said the town was following a procedure laid out in its Fair Rent Commission ordinance, which she interpreted as requiring officials to notify landlords about complaints.

A hearing on the complaint shall be scheduled if the Commission determines, after review of the complaint, that the parties are unlikely to resolve the complaint informally, the ordinance states.

It calls on the commission to see if parties can reach a mutually satisfactory resolution prior to scheduling a hearing, a provision Garrett contended cannot be followed without contacting the landlord.

And because the town does not have a union membership list, she said in an interview, officials called tenants to ask whether their complaints should be handled individually or through the union.

Im really thrilled that they have a union because I understand theres power in numbers, she said. We just have to ask them how they want their applications considered.

As for any delays in the towns response, they pertained to a personnel issue, according to Garrett, who said Hamden now has a different person handling the fair rent.

The fair rent ordinance enables the administration to negotiate with landlords instead of sending complaints to hearings, a strategy Garrett said has been practiced in the past. But her administration is asking the fair rent commission to recommend the best way forward.

Due to the unions wishes, Gallagher said, she has refrained from contacting Seramonte. After she met with the tenants, she spoke with Garrett and they realized getting the Fair Rent Commission up and running could not wait.

I really understand the tenants and the unions frustration with this historical lack of momentum, Gallagher said.

Gallagher asked that the Legislative Council put the appointment of two commissioners on Tuesdays agenda so the commission could meet Wednesday, she said.

It did, with three commissioners present - just enough for a quorum.

To have a 75 percent (rent) increase is unreasonable for anybody, Gallagher said. That has to be addressed.

meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

FORESTHILL, Calif. (AP)  Firefighters made progress against a huge Northern California wildfire that was still growing and threatening thousands of mountain homes on Sunday, while crews also battled major blazes that blanketed large swaths of Oregon and Washington in smoke.

The Mosquito Fire in foothills east of Sacramento spread to nearly 65 square miles (168 square kilometers), with 10% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

Cooler temperatures and higher humidity assisted with moderating some fire activity, but higher winds allowed the flames to push to the north and northeast, according to a Cal Fire incident report Sunday.

More than 5,800 structures in Placer and El Dorado counties were under threat and some 11,000 residents of communities including Foresthill and Georgetown were under evacuation orders.

In Southern California, cooler temperatures and rain brought respite to firefighters battling the massive Fairview Fire about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles after sweltering heat last week.

The 44-square-mile (114-square-kilometer) blaze was 45% contained Sunday. The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and other structures in Riverside County. Two people died while fleeing flames last Monday.

A helicopter assisting with operations in the Fairview Fire crashed in a residential backyard while attempting to land at a local airport Saturday afternoon, fire officials said. Injuries to the pilot and two others were not critical.

The southern part of the state welcomed the cooler weekend weather as a tropical storm veered off the Pacific Coast and faded, helping put an end to blistering temperatures that nearly overwhelmed the states electrical grid.

Thunderstorms and the risk of flooding persisted in mountainous areas of greater Los Angeles on Sunday. But after Hurricane Kay made landfall in Mexico last week it quickly was downgraded and weakened further until it largely disappeared, forecasters said.

To the north, remnants of Kay caused flooding Saturday that stranded about 40 vehicles and closed a stretch of State Route 190 in Death Valley National Park. The park was still cleaning up from floods five weeks ago that closed many key roads.

In Washington state, fire officials were scrambling to secure resources in the battle against a blaze sparked Saturday in the remote Stevens Pass area that sent hikers fleeing and forced evacuations of mountain communities. There was no containment Sunday of the Bolt Creek Fire, which had scorched nearly 12 square miles (31 square kilometers) of forestland about an hour and a half east of Seattle.

The fire will continue to advance in areas that will be unstaffed. With limited resources, only point protection will be in place while resources continue to mobilize to the fire, said a Sunday morning incident report.

California's Mosquito Fire has covered a large portion of the Northern Sierra region with smoke. California health officials urged people in affected areas to stay indoors where possible. Organizers of the Tour de Tahoe canceled the annual 72-mile (115-km) bicycle ride scheduled Sunday around Lake Tahoe because of the heavy smoke from the blaze  more than 50 miles (80 km) away. Last years ride was canceled because of smoke from another big fire south of Tahoe.

The Mosquito Fires cause remained under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric said unspecified electrical activity occurred close in time to the report of the fire on Tuesday.

Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in state history.

And the rest of the West hasnt been immune. There were at least 18 large fires burning in Oregon and Washington, leading to evacuations and targeted power outages near Portland as the challenge of dry and windy conditions continued in the region.

Sprawling areas of western Oregon choked by thick smoke from the fires in recent days were expected to see improved air quality on Sunday thanks to a returning onshore flow, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

South of Portland, more than 3,000 residents were under new evacuation orders because of the 134-square-mile (347-square-kilometer) Cedar Creek Fire, which has burned for over a month across Lane and Deschutes counties. Firefighters were protecting remote homes in Oakridge, Westfir and surrounding mountain communities.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, this weekend there were more than 400 square miles (1,035 square kilometers) of active, uncontained fires and nearly 5,000 people on the ground fighting them in the two northwestern states.
Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation spokesman, Charles Aniagwu, has said sacking the National Chairman of the Peoples Democrat...





Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation spokesman, Charles Aniagwu, has said sacking the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Iyiorcha Ayu, would plunge the main opposition party into deeper crises ahead of the 2023 general elections.





Aniagwu disclosed this on Saturday in a Television programme in Asaba while providing reasons why the PDP was exploring other options for resolving its current crisis.





According to Aniagwu, the PDP was taking another look at the issues based on what was permissible by the laws of the party.





He said the suggestion that Ayu must step down has been overtaken by events after the vote of confidence by the National Executive Committee (NEC).





He said, Now if you decide to bring these two positions [National Chairman and the Deputy National Chairman] to the South, have you also made arrangements to take the National Secretary to the North?





Because of these legal impediments, the party, after examining it, felt that given the time, which is just about six months to the general elections, it may likely snowball into some form of crisis within the party.





The party felt that if we proceeded to make these changes, there is the tendency that we could dive into a crisis worse than the one we are seeing at the moment.





The leadership of the party is intelligent enough and Im happy that Governor Nyesom Wike and other leaders appreciate the need for the party to move as a whole into the 2023 general elections.
A Brazilian returnee, Okolie Paulinus Nwabueze has been arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. National Drug Law Enf...





A Brazilian returnee, Okolie Paulinus Nwabueze has been arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.





National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) officers nabbed the father of two with 92 wraps of cocaine which he excreted after days in detention.





A statement on Sunday by spokesman Femi Babafemi said the 53-year-old from Mmaku village, Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu, was arrested on September 2 after arrival via a Qatar Airline flight.





Okolie said he left Nigeria for Mozambique in 2004 and relocated to Brazil in 2017, where he obtained a residence permit before deciding to import the illicit substance for a $4,000 fee.





Another suspect, Aliyu Bello Kwasare was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport for attempting to export a consignment of a new psychoactive substance, Akuskura, to Saudi Arabia.





The 42-year-old indigene of Kware LGA in Sokoto, a resident in the Goron Dutse area of Kano, was arrested on September 5 during the outward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airline flight to Riyadh.





At the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, 1,099,000) tablets of Tramadol 225mg were seized through collaboration between NDLEA and the Customs.





The pharmaceutical opioids packed in 50 cartons weighing 2,058.90kg, were imported from Pakistan via Addis-Ababa on Ethiopian Airways.





On September 6, another suspect, a freight agent, Aliyu Abubakar was arrested at the NAHCO export shed of the airport over an attempt to export a consignment of cannabis concealed inside bottles of body lotion.





Also, a plot by drug cartels to export 7.805 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine to the United States and Australia was thwarted.





The meth consignments were hidden in the linings of local fabrics, wooden statutes, printer cartridges, handles of travel bags and cassava flakes.





In Edo, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, Haruna Favour, was arrested on September 9 with 82 pinches of methamphetamine, various quantities of Loud, Arizona, Colorado variants of cannabis and codeine syrup.





In Gombe, 119,000 tablets and capsules of tramadol, D5 and Exol5 were recovered from two drug dealers, Nasiru Abubakar, 22, and Umaru Bayero a.k.a Hadiza.





In Kogi, Paul Ali, 47, was arrested along the Okene-Abuja highway with 1,404 bottles of codeine syrup weighing 190.94kg and 2,040 ampoules of pentazocine injection. The receiver was arrested in Sokoto.





In Emure forest, Owo LGA, Ondo State, a raid of a cannabis plantation camp led to the arrest of Monday Onoja, 20; Daniel Kehinde, 25; Obinna Okechukwu, 35; 16 bags of the substance weighing 179.5kg were seized.
The Nigeria Police Force has declared a businessman, Azeez Oluwole Saheed, wanted for alleged N50 million investment fraud. The founder of A...





The Nigeria Police Force has declared a businessman, Azeez Oluwole Saheed, wanted for alleged N50 million investment fraud.





The founder of Agribusiness Nigeria Limited is expected to appear before the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) Ikoyi, Lagos.





A special police gazette bulletin disclosed that a warrant of arrest/bench warrant was issued by the Magistrate Court of Lagos.





Azeez is wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy, obtaining money by false pretence, fraud and stealing with social media space and medium advertising investment.





The police acted on a complaint of well-orchestrated theft by Chive GPS on behalf of its clients; it demanded that the 49-year-old be placed on a red notice.





It said after an advertisement in 2019, many subscribers separately transferred over N50 million into the corporate accounts of Farmkonnect.





Noting that the funds were expected to yield interests, the lawyers said Azeez later stopped any form of communication with investors and had been unreachable.





The petition said the action may have been a premeditated fraud disguised as a legal investment scheme owing to false representations.





We believe they may have also swindled thousands of persons of billions of Naira and diverted the funds into real estate and other personal endeavours, it reads.





The investors explained that they were drawn to the scheme because of the endorsement it received from respected personalities.





In a reaction at the weekend, Azeezs lawyer, Ajibola Lawal, stated that his client is not on the run as alleged by a police report.





Lawal insists the Agritech company remains still viable but went into some business crises, though making efforts to revive and stabilize.





Azeez is taking assiduous steps to see to the end of the crisis and never absconded..no need for investors to panic.





So far over 60% of the investors have agreed to the repayment agreement which was issued by the firm, his statement reads.





Azeezs profile says he trained as a chemist and built a career as a versatile military officer of the Nigerian Navy and a maritime security specialist.





It recalled how he made his first agric investment in 2001 and established FarmKonnect in 2016 with a meagre seed investment of 30,000 Naira ($200).




Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
This week marks the 35th anniversary of Pope John Paul IIs historic visit to New Orleans. The Holy Fathers visit on Sept. 11-13, 1987, was part of a 10-day trip to the United States.

John Paul IIs 36 hours in the city followed 16 months of planning by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, including Archbishop Philip Hannan, Monsignor Roger Morin, city, state and federal leaders and hundreds of volunteers.

Shepherd One, the popes chartered Boeing 727 jet, arrived the evening of Friday, Sept. 11.

After spending the night at Notre Dame Seminary, the pope visited St. Louis Cathedral for a reception for 3,000 members of the clergy. He then traveled in his Popemobile to the Superdome, where he spoke to Black Catholic leaders and Catholic educators. He also spoke at a youth rally on the floor of the Dome, featuring a mini-Mardi Gras parade and the St. Augustine Marching 100 band.

Later that afternoon, the pope celebrated an outdoor Mass near the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena. More than 130,000 people endured sweltering heat then afternoon rains. Performers included Pete Fountain (who played Just a Closer Walk with Thee), Al Hirt (Ave Maria) and Ronnie Kole (Amazing Grace).

That evening, the pope attended an academic convocation at Xavier University. He departed New Orleans Sunday morning, Sept. 13, bound for San Antonio.

Reminders of John Paul IIs visit to New Orleans include a marker at Xavier and a plaque in front of St. Louis Cathedral proclaiming the area Place Jean Paul Deux. A statue of the pope (who was canonized in 2014) was placed in front of the Cathedral in 2018. It is the work of sculptor Franco Alessandrini.
Hey Blake,

On Carrollton Avenue, where Mr. Chills barber shop is now, there used to be a pharmacy. We lived nearby and during the 1940s my father worked there packing ice cream. Can you tell me more about it?

Dear reader,

The building at South Carrollton Avenue and Apricot Street has had many tenants over the years, including several pharmacies.

Walsdorf Pharmacy, operated by George and Charles Walsdorf, opened there in 1928. Today, the Walsdorf name is still visible atop the buildings exterior. The family operated pharmacies in several other locations as well.

In 1935, the local Worner Drug Stores chain took over the location. It was the third local drug store for owners Henry Worner Jr. and William Worner. The Carrollton Avenue location, complete with a soda fountain, stayed in business until 1957.

Soon after, it became the Gravois Pharmacy, later part of the Rexall drug store chain, and by the 1990s was Yarbroughs Pharmacy. After that, the building was home to an insurance agency and design firm.

In 2007, it became Mr. Chills First Class Cuts, the home of beloved barber Wilbert Chill Wilson Sr. Wilson opened his first barbershop in 2003 on North Derbigny Street. After Hurricane Katrina, he cut hair in a gas station parking lot, offering free haircuts to first responders and National Guardsmen. Friends and fellow barbers eventually helped him get enough money to set up shop on Carrollton Avenue.

When Wilson died of cancer in 2019, his death was mourned by Mayor LaToya Cantrell and then-Rep. Cedric Richmond. Richmond called Wilson a beacon of light and hope for the city of New Orleanssomeone whose tenacity defied the odds.

Though Wilson is gone, Mr. Chills First Class Cuts remains open at 2736 S. Carrollton Ave.
Trying to change our minds about each other: Healing a divided nation begins face to face
FILE - In this Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001 file photo, rescue workers continue their search as smoke rises from the rubble of the World Trade Center in New York. Twenty years on, the skepticism and suspicion first revealed by 9/11 conspiracy theories has metastasized, spread by the internet and nurtured by pundits and politicians like Donald Trump. One hoax after another has emerged, each more bizarre than the last: birtherism. Pizzagate. QAnon. (AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser, File)
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry speaks to media members outside outside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse in Baton Rouge, as abortion rights protesters hold signs and shout to try to drown him out, after a hearing there on Monday, July 18, 2022. District Judge Don Johnson Johnson heard arguments regarding the state's 'trigger law' Monday to determine whether the clinics could continue to stay open temporarily or be shut down again, deciding in favor of extending the temporary restraining order one day, and requesting more information be presented to him before another hearing Tuesday morning. Court watchers agree the law will ultimately be either upheld or struck down by the state Supreme Court.
We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, revised Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Poke Bros is going to bring sushi in a bowl to Schererville and Crown Point.

The chain that specializes in the Hawaiian dish of poke, or diced raw fish, plans to open soon at 813 W. Lincoln Highway in Schererville and 10543 Broadway in Crown Point.

The fast-casual restaurant has around 20 locations in Chicagoland, mostly in the suburbs. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 2016 and uses a Chipotle-like casual dining assembly line in which customers can build their own poke bowls.

Poke Bros expanded across the Midwest and East Coast as poke has gained in popularity in recent years.

Diners can order poke bowls like the Johnny Utah, which blends salmon with avocado, edamame, cucumber, masago, sriracha aioli and OG Sauce, or Da Kine, which mixes marinated tuna with sweet onion, seaweed salad, green onion, ponzu, masago and OG Sauce.

Protein options include shrimp, spicy salmon, spicy tuna, chicken and spicy chicken. Its served on a base of mixed greens or white, brown or sushi rice.

Other ingredients include jalapenos, carrots, corn pineapple, tofu, crab sticks, soy sauce, crushed cashew nuts, tempura flakes, crispy onions, wonton chips, toasted coconut or sesame seeds.

It also has sides, kids' bowls and mochi ice cream in flavors like green tea, Belgian chocolate and Thai tea.

Poke Bros typically offers dine-in, takeout and delivery through third-party apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash, which vary by location.

For more information, visit eatpokebros.com.

Closed

The Simple Greek, a fast-casual Greek restaurant that allowed customers to customize pita or bowl orders, closed Wednesday after five years at the Centennial Village shopping center in Munster, giving out free fries to its last customers.

The restaurant at 9611 Calumet Ave. aimed to be the Chipotle of Greek food, offering a variety of customizable options. It served up gyros, chicken gyros and chicken or steak bowls that could be topped with hummus, feta, green beans, black olives, cucumbers and red onions. It also had lemon rice soup, Greek fries and baklava.

Opening

A Simple Greek will be replaced with Chick and Shake, a new concept from the same owners featuring chicken, fried chicken sandwiches and milkshakes.

Its expected to open in the same space in October. The first-of-its-kind restaurant could end up becoming a chain if it does well.

Coming soon

The Twin Peaks-inspired Bean Me Up Roastery is coming to Munsters Centennial Village.

The coffee roastery percolates hand-roasted coffee thats made fresh to order and described as damn fine. It also serves pie so good its a crime.

Fans of David Lynchs offbeat and often macabre murder mystery Twin Peaks may recall that Agent Dale Cooper loves the pairing of coffee and pie.

Well, it all started when we were watching the amazing show 'Twin Peaks'. Agent Cooper had just had cup after cup of damn good coffee, which inspired us to go on our own quest for an equivalent damn fine cup of coffee, the owners posted online. After searching and searching to no avail, we decided to just give it a shot ourselves.

Bean Me Up Roastery currently sells its coffee beans and pies online. The pies are named after planets and the coffee beans after pop culture references like Kopis Light, Savage Planet and Pillars of Midsommar.

It plans to open the coffee shop and dessert shop in the mixed-used Centennial Village next month. A grand opening is tentatively slated for Oct. 20 but the business cautions that date could change.

For more information, visit beanmeuproastery.com, call 708-669-3417 or email beanmeuproastery@gmail.com.

Open

Naf Naf Grill is now serving up Middle Eastern cuisine in Scherervilles Shops on Main.

The fast-casual chain that has a heavy presence in the Chicago metropolitan area took over the former Q-BBQ space in the shopping center at Indianapolis Boulevard and Main Street, just south of the Highland border and just east of the Munster town limits.

The new restaurant at 79 U.S. 41 sells pitas and bowls. They can be customized with proteins like chicken shwarma, steak or falafel and ingredients like couscous, hummus, harissa sauce, tahini or Basmati rice. It has sides like fries and lentil soup.

Named after the Middle Eastern expression fan the flame that invites people to share a meal, Naf Naf Grill started in Naperville in 2009. It now has locations in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

It has several restaurants in the city of Chicago, typically in areas with high foot traffic.

Its open from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

For more information, visit nafnafgrill.com or call 219-227-8153.

Coming soon

Dominos continues its relentless march across Northwest Indiana, aiming to open its latest location in Munster.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based pizza chain, the largest in the world by sales volume, is building out a location on Main Street in Munster. Its in the newer strip mall anchored by Anytime Fitness and Nutrition on Main.

Dominos is now hiring at the site, where it already has a row of delivery vehicles ready to go in the parking lot.

Open

JEM MedSpa Munster recently opened in Centennial Village.

The medical spa chain also has locations in Orland Park and Elmhurst.

It offers services like botox, facials, chemical peels, dermal filler, body sculpting, laser skin rejuvenation, hair removal hair restoration, microneedling, skin tightening and vampire facelifts.

JEM MedSpa is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

It will have a grand opening event from Sept. 26 through Oct. 1 with swag bags, special botox pricing and a raffle for two grand prizes. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place with the Munster Chamber of Commerce at 1 p.m. on Sept. 28.

For more information, call 219-249-0777, visit jemmedspa.com or find the business on Facebook or Instagram.
A blend of farming history, family life and memorable meals will be in the spotlight soon at Theatre at the Center (TAC) in Munster.

The new one-man multi-media play "Once Upon A Farm: A Story, A Family, A Tradition" comes to TAC Sept. 14-18.

"Once Upon A Farm" is written, directed and performed by author/columnist Philip Potempa. It's a personal tale of family life on the farm, history of the rural farmer's life in Indiana as well as tales of meals at home and stories surrounding Potempa's From the Farm columns.

"I've been working on this play for as long as I've been writing columns and cookbooks," said Potempa, who began his From the Farm columns while he was a staff writer at The Times. Potempa, who has written four cookbooks, debuted his first cookbook in 2004. Also an inspiration for this show were Potempa's demonstration cooking shows which he did at the former Star Plaza Theatre as well as Theatre at the Center.

"Once Upon A Farm" is the first small-run production to grace the Theatre at the Center stage since the pandemic began.

"I want to bring the stories, colors and characters (of the farm) to life on stage with the play," Potempa said.

On stage there will be a re-creation of the family farm, which is located in San Pierre, Indiana in Starke County, A mix of rare images, video and music will be featured in the show.

Potempa said his From the Farm columns surely provided the inspiration for this production. Audience members will have the chance to hear about many of the individuals from family and friends as well as famous names that have been celebrated in his columns for two decades.

Having multi-media features, including photos and video, in the show, Potempa said "adds a whole other interesting element."

During the show audience members will learn about his paternal grandparents who traveled from Poland to live in Chicago. His grandparents raised nine children during the Great Depression and soon began a new life in Northwest Indiana where they worked as farmers.

"Not everything is scripted," Potempa said about the show. At times, Potempa will break the fourth wall and interact with audience members.

I always thought a one-man stage play or show, with less emphasis on the cooking and recipes aspect and more spotlight on family history using a dose of humor and storytelling, could be just as appetizing and amusing to audiences," Potempa said.

As part of the show, Potempa will create one of the recipes in his last cookbook.

"There'll also be prizes and surprises," he said.

While continuing to research his family history through the years, Potempa said, it still remains fascinating.

"I keep learning things all the time. My dad, at 93, is a living history book."

As part of the show, there'll be an option to add a meal featuring dishes from his last cookbook.
Jerry Davich Jerrys career began in 1995 as a political cartoonist/columnist with The Times of NWI, writing thousands of columns and stories through narrative storytelling, or shining a light on societys darkest corners, or provoking unpopular conversations. Follow Jerry Davich 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

Two days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, editors of this newspaper offered me an assignment I couldnt refuse. A few hours later, I was driving to New York City with a Times photographer, Tasos Katopodis.

We didnt know what to expect when we arrived at our hotel near Lower Manhattan. Fear. Chaos. Body bags. A second attack on the city? Another targeted skyscraper? We had no idea.

Were driving into history, I told Tasos when we hit the road.

My primary assignment was to locate people from our Region who also were driving from Indiana into history for whatever reason  as needed firefighters, cops, and first responders, or volunteers who wanted to donate blood or sacrifice weeks of their lives during that unprecedented crisis.

My secondary assignment was to chronicle what I would experience there: the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and descriptions that awaited stunned visitors, including two Hoosier journalists on deadline.

Just write what youre feeling, said Tamara OShaughnessy, a former Times editor.

Twelve hours later, Tasos and I got our first sight of the smoke still billowing from the World Trade Center destruction zone, dubbed Ground Zero. I pulled the car to the side of a road and we stared at it for a few minutes. It looked like an apocalyptic scene from a futuristic movie.

Lets go, Tasos told me.

He was eager. I was nervous. We drove through the Lincoln Tunnel and straight into another reality.

In Lower Manhattan, machine gun-toting National Guardsmen occupied desolate streets near relocated piles of rubble, charred-out vehicles, and ash-covered sidewalks. An endless parade of emergency vehicles passed us with sirens screaming. Adjacent office buildings housed makeshift relief headquarters and hints of collapse.

Relentless smoke seeped through the streets, choking those who got closer to Ground Zero. Our eyes felt it first, then our mouths, throats, and noses. Most people wore white "face filters, as they were called, 20 years before such a sight would be commonplace in public due to a different attack on our country.

Tasos and I bought face filters at a pharmacy after getting our photos taken for media identification purposes. I proudly wore my press credentials on a lanyard around my neck, immediately starting to talk with anyone who would answer my questions.

I shouldn't be saying this, but they're downplaying how many are dead in there. Bodies are everywhere," Ray Basri, a cardiologist from upstate New York, told me.

He had been pulling "bodies and body parts" out of the Trade Center site for two straight days.

Keep in mind that at this point of the crisis, everyone still believed that living, breathing survivors would be rescued from the wreckage of carnage inside what we now know was a mass burial site.

At the 69th Regiment Armory, a makeshift missing-persons headquarters, hundreds of sobbing relatives searched desperately for any updates about their loved ones. With each new day of waiting and praying, they were the ones looking lost and unreachable.

At that time, I used a cheap flip phone with no camera and no national provider coverage. Unlike today, I couldnt easily contact anyone from our Region who may be in New York City to offer their assistance. I had to use the hotel room phone, which tallied up a ridiculously high bill that my editors had to hide from their boss.

Instead of making more calls, I wandered around the perimeter of the Ground Zero site asking the same oddly specific question to strangers: Are you from Indiana?

Along the way I stumbled onto an abandoned police vehicle with its tires scorched to the rims, its windows blasted out, and its seats burned to a crisp. I smelled it before I saw it. I watched young kids sing "God Bless America" as volunteers ran bottles of water to exhausted rescue workers. People cheered every firetruck that passed by. Thank you! people yelled to first responders.

Outside the Jacob Javits Convention Center, a long line of eager volunteers snaked around the massive building.

This is our new home, Mark Rapp, of Indianapolis, told me.

He was a member of Indiana's National Search and Rescue Team, living from a sleeping bag inside the convention center when he wasnt retrieving bodies at the WTC site in 12-hour shifts.

I narrowed my search to look for someone from Northwest Indiana  my primary assignment for being there. In the meantime, I jotted down my feelings for what would eventually become a series of stories that continue to this day, the 21st anniversary of the attacks.

Numb. Surreal. Unimaginable. Unfathomable. These are the words Americans are saddled with after what took place Tuesday morning, I scribbled into a notepad.

Commercial airplanes transformed into kamikaze missiles; terrified women leaping to their deaths from 80-story windows; an endless plume of smoke hovering like a plague above New York City; and foreigners celebrating our loss while we lick our wounds," I wrote.

As a proud and historically fearless nation, we felt profoundly fearful and vulnerable, a shell-shocked country left dazed and paranoid, swinging in the dark at an invisible enemy. Yet collectively we felt strong, resolute, and bound by our love of country, not divided by our politics.

If you lived through that time in America the Beautiful, you know what I mean.

Near the Ground Zero rescue site, I passed countless food pantry volunteers handing out bottomless cups of caffeinated patriotism. I also passed several impromptu shrines adorning fire stations.

I'm here to pay my respects. Those men were heroes," Thomas Bandon, a retired firefighter from Wisconsin, told me.

He drove 19 hours  straight through  simply to light a candle and say a prayer for his firefighter brothers. I got goose bumps when he first told me. I got goose bumps again when I first wrote it.

After interacting or approaching a few hundred people, each with their own amazing story to share, I bumped into John Novello, a 50-year-old elevator repairman who drove his 1996 Ford Escort to New York City just after the attacks.

You cant do anything sitting in your living room, he told me, echoing the feelings of thousands of volunteers who showed up to do  something.

Novello wore his normal work clothes  Levis jeans, denim shirt, old boots, and a yellow hard hat. A red-white-and-blue bandanna wrapped around his sweaty neck.

Its hard to believe what those terrorists did here, he said, wiping his brow. I feel Im at least throwing a rock at those sons-a-bitches.

I asked where he was from.

Schererville, Indiana, he replied.

I could have kissed him. I may have kissed him. His story ran the next day in this newspaper.

I returned home a couple of days later to join the rest of the country in a mourning period that, for many of us, continues to this day.
CROWN POINT  The driver of a speeding vehicle died Saturday night after he collided head-on with a Lake County Sheriff's Department squad car driven by an officer searching for a suspicious subject, police said.

The speeding vehicle was then rear-ended by another car that was also traveling at a high rate of speed, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said.

The driver of the first speeding vehicle, a 36-year-old man from Crown Point, was taken to Franciscan Health hospital in Crown Point, where he died, according to police and Lake County coroner's office.

An officer also was taken to the hospital, where he was treated for a left knee abrasion and pain to the right leg, Martinez said.

Before the crash, officers were sent to the area of Cedar Lake Road and 127th Place to investigate a report of a suspicious person, the sheriff said.

Shortly after 11 p.m., a "homeowner heard someone knock on her door and when she looked to see who was at the door, nobody was there," he said.

Officers checking the area were heading north on Cedar Lake Road and around the bend north of 133rd Avenue when the two speeding vehicles approached from the south, Martinez said.

"The first vehicle ... drifted into the northbound lane colliding head-on with a Lake County police unit in 13100 block," he said.

"Per Sheriff Oscar Martinez, Indiana State Police was contacted and will reconstruct the accident," according to police.

Indiana State Police said they were assisting with the investigation, but Lake County sheriff's police would retain responsibility if any criminal charges are sought.

Times staff writer Sarah Reese contributed to this report.
HOBART  Financial constraints are preventing the city from providing raises in 2023, but city leaders said they will continue reviewing potential options to keep the municipality an attractive place to work.

The City Council on Wednesday adopted salary ordinances for next year and approved the first reading of an ordinance for the 2023 budget.

Mayor Brian Snedecor said the city is facing about a $9 million hit because of the property tax appeal for the Southlake Mall, and thats a major reason Hobart cant afford raises next year.

He said he will continue meeting with union representatives and other city workforce to discuss achievable ideas that can entice police, fire and other candidates to the city.

Weve been making some progress, Snedecor said.

Among options being reviewed are policy changes that would allow new police and fire applicants to move to a different rank much quicker and the ability to recover vacation time and seniority if they come to Hobart from a different department.

Officials also have had discussions about the possibility of using American Rescue Plan Act funding for a one-time stipend for employees in 2023.

Theres been talk about maybe $3,000 an employee, Snedecor said during the Aug. 17 council meeting.

At the August session, Brian Degrauwe, president of Hobart Professional Firefighters Local 1641, said the Fire Department is understaffed.

That has caused operational issues such as shutting down a fire rig or even a station when there arent sufficient staffing levels.

Snedecor said its been challenging to have enough staffing to serve the citys four firehouses, but he also noted that there are other communities of similar size as Hobart that probably more often than not have fewer fire stations as Hobart.

Degrauwe said that several firefighters have left Hobart recently and that they indicated pay and staffing levels the were main reasons for leaving the department.

He said the base pay in Hobart for firefighters is below whats offered in some other area communities.

Degrauwe said he understands Hobart is working to hire more firefighters, but hes unsure how attractive the job is when other departments offer higher pay.

Since 2019, weve gotten a 2% raise, he said in August.

Snedecor said that Hobart was once among Region communities offering the lowest wages but that the city made strides to get away from that situation.

We certainly dont want to slide back to the point that were on the bottom, Snedecor said.

Although Hobart isnt the highest-paid community in the area, Snedecor believes the municipality remains an attractive place to work.

Weve been fortunate, both (police and fire) departments have hired some really quality individuals that come trained, ready to go (with) certifications, Snedecor said. Really, some of the best of the best.
SCHERERVILLE  Alberts Diamond Jewelers recently honored more than 20 of Northwest Indianas first responders through its annual Hometown Heroes Awards.

Recipients from both police and fire departments were presented with an award and a special watch dedicated to first responders, courtesy of Alberts & Citizen Watch Group.

Honorees were chosen by participating departments all around Lake County for going above and beyond over the last year.

The nearly two dozen officers were recognized for accomplishments ranging from years of dedicated service, a vital role in a case or saving a life.

The Hometown Heroes Awards originally started more than 40 years ago after there was a fire at Alberts Diamond Jewelers original location in East Chicago.

Since then, Fred Halpern, owner of Alberts Diamond Jewelers, uses the Hometown Heroes Awards to thank those who saved them from losing everything.

It was that gratitude that granted Alberts Diamond Jewelers to be one of two Authorized Citizen Watch Retailers to sell the Thin Blue and Red Line watches in the country.

For more information about the Citizen Thin Blue Line and Thin Red Line Watches, please visit albertsjewelers.com.
LAPORTE COUNTY  Commissioner Joe Haney, R-3rd, denies he has any involvement in the anti-government extremist group the Oath Keepers after data released Tuesday showed his name on the membership list.

Haney said he was never a member but believes his name may have ended up on the list because of an article he wrote about the Oath Keepers in 2013 or 2014 for a conservative publication.

"I spoke with their director of communications," Haney said of the Oath Keepers. "Since then, I havent had any contact with them whatsoever.

Haney and five other elected officials from Indiana are allegedly members of the group, according to the list. The membership list was initially released in 2021 by nonprofit journalist collective Distributed Denial of Secrets and included information of thousands of people whose names were in an Oath Keepers database as having paid for a membership at some point.

The Anti-Defamation League, a nongovernmental organization, released a new report Tuesday detailing the number of members on the list from each state who are elected officials, law enforcement, military personnel and first responders.

Im not a member, I have no affiliation," Haney told The Times. "The most recent events theyve been involved in is not something thats acceptable.

The recent report identifies 81 individuals who are holding or running for elected office, 373 individuals who serve in law enforcement, 117 who serve in the military and 136 individuals with roles in emergency medical services.

The report states that an individuals inclusion in the Oath Keeper database is not proof that they were or are still an Oath Keeper, that they hold or held all or some of Oath Keeper ideology or viewpoints or that they ever actively participated in Oath Keeper activities.

"When reviewing this information, you should bear in mind the possibility that the individual misunderstood the nature of the Oath Keepers," the report said.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the group will accept any citizen as a member. However, they focus on recruitment of current and former military, law enforcement and first responder personnel.

At least nine members have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. Stewart Rhodes, the group's founder and former leader, was indicted for seditious conspiracy in January.
VALPARAISO  Burns Harbor is the only Porter County municipality not to see an increase in assessed valuation, County Auditor Vicki Urbanik said.

Urbanik released her annual report for local governments to learn how much to expect to lose to property tax caps as they go through the 2023 budget process this fall. The Board of Commissioners voted to send her report, along with a nonbinding recommendation to consult it, to other taxing units in the county.

State officials are allowing local governments to increase their budgets by 5%, up from 4.3% in 2022.

But even as the budgets are allowed to go up, the amount of revenue lost to property tax caps will increase. The caps are good news for property owners but a challenge to government officials.

For Porter County government, the maximum property tax levy is increasing next year to just over $48 million, a jump from nearly $46 million in 2022 and $44 million in 2021. However, the county should expect to lose $2.4 million to tax caps, an increase from nearly $2.3 million in 2022 and $2.5 million in 2021, Urbanik reported.

Among cities and towns, the biggest loser to tax caps is Portage, with nearly $2.7 million next year. Valparaiso is next with $1.7 million.

Among the smallest towns, Burns Harbor is the winner, with just $280 lost to tax caps next year but a maximum property tax levy of more than $2.5 million. That compares to The Pines, with $390 lost to tax caps but a property tax levy of just $146,302. Burns Harbor is home to a large steel mill, while The Pines has little industrial property within its borders.

Dune Acres is a town of just 258 people, according to the 2020 census, but is losing $8,480 to tax caps. Its maximum property tax levy is $482,331, an indication of how pricey the homes are.

Among townships, Portage is far and away the biggest loser, with $299,130 lost to tax caps, not counting the fire department. The next highest number was $38,310 for Center Township.

Among school districts, Portage Township Schools will lose more than $2 million to tax caps compared to $1.1 million for Duneland School Corp., nearly $891,000 for Valparaiso Community Schools and $778,000 for MSD Boone Township.
MICHIGAN CITY  Three weeks ago, the FBI recovered hundreds of pages of top secret documents from Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort, some from U.S. intelligence human sources. If you or I or David Petraeus or Sandy Berger had hoarded these documents, we would be facing federal felony charges, and, with a law signed by President Trump in 2018  the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act  a sentence of up to five years.

"By signing this Act today  I am ensuring that this lawful and essential intelligence program will continue to protect Americans for at least the next six years," President Trump said of the law that updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The revised law includes Section 1924 that makes it a felony crime to wrongfully possess top secret documents.

"We cannot let our guard down in the face of foreign threats to our safety, our freedom, and our way of life, Trump said.

At an Aug. 18, 2016 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, where supporters chanted Lock her up!, candidate Trump said, "In my administration, I'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law."

Mar-A-Lago is a resort that doubles as Trump's home. It has not been designated as a secure place to review top secret documents and it has almost certainly attracted the attention of adversarial foreign intelligence spies.

NBC News reported that in a late-night Wednesday filing responding to Trumps request to appoint a "special master" to review documents, the Justice Department:

 Revealed that it seized more than 100 unique classified documents  beyond what Trumps team initially turned over in January 2022 and then later in June.

 Argued that Trumps legal team intentionally misled investigators  by signing a letter stating that the documents turned over in June were part of a diligent effort to locate and produce any and all documents in question.

 And alleged that after further investigation, the government discovered new evidence that records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the governments investigation.

What could possibly be at stake? Why should we be concerned about the careless handling of human intelligence by any U.S. official?

This was reported by the New York Times on Oct. 5, 2021: "Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A. station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said. The message, in an unusual top secret cable, said that the C.I.A.s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested or most likely compromised. In recent years, adversarial intelligence services in countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan have been hunting down the C.I.A.s sources and in some cases turning them into double agents."

On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., said on Fox News: Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. Its all about getting him. And Ill say this: If theres a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle  therell be riots in the streets.

All about getting him? How about the Russian FSB out to get American spies in the Kremlin?

Graham is the senator that has maintained the closest relationship with the former president, so this was a warning. Trump then posted the Fox News clip on his social media site. The last time Trump summoned his mob  on Jan. 6, 2021 ("Will be wild")  insurrectionists assaulted the U.S. Capitol. According to Insider.com, at least 896 people are now facing federal charges.

Also on Sunday, Trump sought to undermine the FBI: When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say We arent going to take it anymore?'"

And at 1:46 a.m. Tuesday, an unhinged Trump made this bizarre post: The Presidential Election was BADLY & IRREPARABLY TAINTED by the FBIs FAKE description of the Laptop from Hell to Facebook & the LameStream Media  & for MANY other reasons as well. Declare the rightful winner, or hold a new Election, NOW!"

We know from former attorney general Bill Barr and a group of eight conservative jurists  including former Sens. John Danforth and Gordon Smith, Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg; former federal Judges Thomas Griffith and J. Michael Luttig, and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson  that there was no widespread election fraud.

We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case, the group wrote in a 72-page report that analyzed 64 court cases pursued by the 2020 Trump campaign.

All of this prompted Los Angeles Times reporter David Lazarus to tweet: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but Trump is now under investigation for tax fraud, election fraud, insurrection and violating the Espionage Act. And he's the Republican frontrunner for 2024."

Through the din of scandal are Trump's own words ... "No one will be above the law."
This photograph of Michele Defazio remains, for me, a reminder of the kindness of strangers. I think of her every Sept. 11. I watched Michele walk alone toward the Bowery, where a missing persons reporting station had been set up. Carrying her homemade fliers with her husbands photograph, her grief and worry overwhelmed her, and she paused for the briefest of moments. Strangers on the street also paused to comfort her. The moment was fleeting. Soon after this photograph was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, I called Michele. It was important to me that she knew her story was significant to history. We had a short, somewhat awkward conversation given the strange connection we now shared. She told me she was still working on accepting the loss of her husband and had set up a scholarship fund in his name. In the days following the attack, we would learn that 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees  including Micheles husband, Jason  died in the attack. I later covered their memorial service, crying myself while making photographs of the vast sea of people who had come together in their grief.

Krista Niles
During lunch on Bains des Paquis, a jetty on the shore of Lake Geneva, Amandine guided us through the basics of Swiss fondue (if you drop your bread in the cheese, you have to do something, like sing a song) and described Geneva Watch Days 2021, a trade show that could be called the start of her public career.

During a panel discussion titled What Women Want, Amandines father asked what advice the panelists  who included Yacine Sar, head of communications at the Swiss brand Urwerk, and Suzanne Wong, editor in chief of WorldTempus  would give a 10-year-old interested in watchmaking. They said she should attend watch events, talk with people and do what she loves, then the moderator, the Phillips auctioneer Clara Kessi, asked Amandine to come onstage.

I was a little embarrassed, but I reminded myself that they are all professionals, they are all people who love this and there is no way will they judge me, she said. So I went up and explained a little bit about my passion. They liked it a lot. Afterward, Mr. Bacs, who was in the audience, introduced himself and proposed doing the video.

Later, during a family discussion at home, Amandines father asked if she would like to start a social media site to share her opinions and, while she was enthusiastic, her mother was reluctant, but finally agreed. Her parents regularly help her with IG captions, and filter her direct messages. Her father said that, at least for now, Amandine would not become involved in any sponsorship or financial arrangement to ensure that her posts are free of any constraint. Sometimes I get products sent to me, Amandine said, but I only talk about them if Im really into them.

On her Instagram feed, Amandine said, she is trying to achieve a balance between wrist shots and some where she is featured: Its weird to say, but my favorite type of photo is when there is no watch  for example, when I eat ice cream and I just share an enjoyable moment.
Is it appropriate to tell a joke about body fluids while wearing Chanel?

This was the question posed on Thursday evening by the comic Alison Leiby, who performed at the Comedy Cellar during the Susan Alexandra show. The candy-colored, beaded accessories brand by Susan Korn has a history of choosing unusual sites  previously she has shown in a deli  but the Comedy Cellar, known for its subterranean dank, unadorned brick wall and unsparingly brutal audience, was not an obvious choice of place for hosting a fashion show. Indeed, no one has ever done so.

Always looking to do something a bit off-center, Ms. Korn used Instagram to DM various comedians who follow her brand, including Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman of Saturday Night Live, as well as the Lucille Lortel award winner Larry Owens. The ask? A five-minute set at the Cellar, wearing her accessories, paired with luxury looks borrowed from the RealReal.
But as Ukraine laid its plans to strike back against the Russians, senior leaders in Kyiv decided that sharing more information with the United States would help secure more assistance, American officials said.

Senior U.S. officials declined to say how much details from the counteroffensive plan Ukraine had shared and how much advice the United States had offered. But one official said Americans had constantly discussed with Kyiv ways that Ukraine could blunt the Russian advance in the countrys east.

The gains in the northeast, including the recapture of Izium, a key railway hub, were the most important advances Ukraine has made so far, senior American officials said.

It is not yet clear how much broad strategic importance those gains will have, but there are signs that the current offensive could be the early stages of a drive that could push back the Russian front line significantly, military experts and former intelligence officials said.
TAIPEI, Taiwan  At first the Taiwanese soldiers ignored the drones flying from China. Then, as the flights increased, they fired warning shots. Finally, the soldiers shot one into the sea.

In the past month nearly 30 unarmed drones have buzzed two islands belonging to Taiwan near Chinas southern coast. The drones were mostly civilian, or unidentified, but were clearly targeting the garrison of Taiwanese soldiers stationed on the rocky outcrops.

The drones are adding to tensions between the two sides which have escalated in the past month to new highs. China, which claims self-governed Taiwan as its territory, has intensified the presence of its military in the Taiwan Strait, flying jets and sailing ships ever closer to the island, testing its defenses and raising the risk of conflict.
Ukraines military made significant advances in recent days near the northeastern city of Izium, a key Russian stronghold, according to military analysts and geolocated photos and videos. The breakthrough  possibly some 50 kilometers in just a few days  threatened to encircle Russian forces, which appeared to be caught by surprise.

The progress of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east, paired with slower, more limited gains in the south, represents some of the most significant changes to the front lines of the war in months.

The exact positions of Ukrainian forces around Izium could not be independently confirmed. The Russian military released a video with what it said were reinforcements headed to the Kharkiv area, but it has not made detailed statements about the status of the fighting.
Cmon, Im 45 doing this, he said  a little tart, a little bemused, maybe a little fatigued.

The passage of time is an inevitable subtext of all reunion tours. This show, the first of four arena shows in the New York area, was part of the groups first proper tour in a decade. (Its last studio album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, came out in 2010.) In that time, emo has gone through its second or third revival, Ways comic book The Umbrella Academy has become a Netflix hit and something about the My Chemical Romance mythos has deepened and hardened  it is now a misfit beacon.
If plot is a sequence of events, then the student loan crisis is upending the scale at which story lines, real and fiction, can progress. In novels like Jo Hamyas Three Rooms (2021), Lee Conells The Party Upstairs (2020) and Camille Perris The Assistants (2016), we can observe characters who have gone from ambition-driven to survival-minded. For protagonists saddled with hefty student loans, a dramatic denouement is the news that a job comes with Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance (Writers & Lovers) or not debating between eating the slightly-off leftover burrito in the fridge or splurging on some groceries from C-Town (The Assistants). In Three Rooms, the main character  who has a graduate degree in English  longs to throw a dinner party. However, she cannot pay back her loans and cover rent in London on the meager wages that come with working for a magazine. Now, even to me, she reflects, it seemed ridiculous to concede that I had accumulated substantial debt and a few degrees so that I might contractually labor for the sake of having two free days a week in which to cook a meal in a kitchen I could not actually afford to own, for a small crowd of people my age who spent their lives doing the same.

What to Know About Student Loan Debt Relief Card 1 of 5 Many will benefit. President Bidens executive order means the federal student loan balances of millions of people could fall by as much as $20,000. Here are answers to some common questions about how it will work: Who qualifies for loan cancellation? Individuals who are single and earn $125,000 or less will qualify for the $10,000 in debt cancellation. If youre married and file your taxes jointly or are a head of household, you qualify if your income is $250,000 or below. If you received a Pell Grant and meet these income requirements, you could qualify for an extra $10,000 in debt cancellation. Whats the first thing I need to do if I qualify? Check with your loan servicer to make sure that your postal address, your email address and your mobile phone number are listed accurately, so you can receive guidance. Follow those instructions. If you dont know who your servicer is, consult the Department of Educations Who is my loan servicer? web page for instructions. How do I prove that I qualify? If youre already enrolled in some kind of income-driven repayment plan and have submitted your most recent tax return to certify that income, you should not need to do anything else. Still, keep an eye out for guidance from your servicer. For everyone else, the Education Department is expected to set up an application process by the end of the year. When will payments for the outstanding balance restart? President Biden extended a Trump-era pause on payments, which are now not due until at least January. You should receive a billing notice at least three weeks before your first payment is due, but you can contact your loan servicer before then for specifics on what you owe and when payment is due.









Of course, such scenarios still remain out of reach for many working poor, including those suffering under the burden of different kinds of debt (i.e., medical, the biggest source of debt collections in the United States). What makes student loan borrowers in recent fiction unique, and uniquely literary, is that they often complain of having been betrayed by narrative itself. The notion that a college degree powers upward mobility is so foundational to the American dream (and other national versions of the bootstraps tale) that it has taken on the stature of myth. The governing class believes in a story of mobility and financial prosperity that has not been true for 20 years, says the writer Molly McGhee, who is currently at work on her first novel, about a young man drowning in student loan debt. (He takes a job as a low-paid dream auditor, entering the sleep of white-collar workers to eliminate any stress triggers, ensuring that their dreams can carry on unperturbed.)

The way Americans cling, almost illogically, to the narrative of upward mobility is dramatized in Conells The Party Upstairs. Ruby, a recent graduate who attended college on a partial scholarship, has moved back in with her working-class parents in their basement apartment. Her ex-boyfriend encourages her to take an unpaid internship at the American Museum of Natural History, apparently unable to grasp that because she has loans she cannot work for free. He is from a wealthy family, but volunteers with underprivileged schoolchildren. He is so tethered to the idea that education is the key to social mobility that he can see her plight only as a personal failure. As her boyfriend, he once lectured her that his students came from way more difficult backgrounds than she had, by the way, and turned into real success stories. Ruby, frustrated, lectured him back. They dont turn into stories, she says. Theyre people. Theyll just keep on being people.

The Party Upstairs is also a meta-narrative about the way student loans have derailed the forward motion of storytelling. Ruby still hopes to work at the natural history museum designing dioramas (like the ones she made for a senior project). I am interested in the way dioramas generate stories while sidestepping traditional narrative forms of rising action and conflict, she writes in an artist statement for the project. Instead, the diorama form immobilizes and captures a moment we recognize as part of a story larger than the form itself. At first, the diorama seems to function as an allegory for her life, which, thanks to her debt, is also robbed of rising action. But as Ruby turns her back on her aspirations to class mobility, she experiences a quiet peace. Immobilized in the present, no longer a story waiting to reach crescendo, she can now tend to herself as a person.
The state board action comes at a potential inflection point for the Hasidic yeshivas, with critics of the schools demanding that secular studies in the schools be bolstered and supporters flooding state offices with hundreds of thousands of letters imploring officials to keep out. The Times investigation on Sunday showed that Hasidic boys schools, in particular, are systemically denying some 50,000 children a decent education, an apparent violation of state law.

Timeline: New Yorks Oversight of Hasidic Schools Card 1 of 6 State law requires all private schools to provide an education comparable to what is in public schools. In 2015, New York Citys education department said it would investigate complaints about the quality of secular education in schools in the Hasidic Jewish community. Heres a timeline of the investigation: July 2015: Graduates of Hasidic religious schools, known as yeshivas, wrote a complaint about the poor secular education they received. Then-Mayor Bill de Blasios administration opened an investigation into the schools, but it soon stalled, plagued by delays and a lack of cooperation from the yeshivas. November 2018: The state released updated rules outlining what nonpublic schools like yeshivas must teach and for how long  with consequences for schools that did not comply. Hasidic leaders sued, and the rules were thrown out in court in 2019. December 2019: The city Department of Investigation found the de Blasio administration delayed a report on the schools. A few days later, the city finally released findings: only two of 28 yeshivas that officials visited were offering a basic secular education. The investigation has not concluded, and the city has done little to follow up. Sept. 11, 2022: A New York Times investigation found scores of schools are systematically denying children a basic education, a violation of state law that has trapped generations of students in a cycle of joblessness and destitution. Even so, The Times found, these institutions have collected more than $1 billion from city, state and federal sources in the past four years alone. Sept. 13, 2022: The State Board of Regents voted unanimously to approve rules that would force Hasidic yeshivas and other private schools to prove they are offering basic secular instruction. The vote came after four years of tumultuous debate about how the government should regulate the schools.











Though the schools generally offer only rudimentary English and math and little, if any, science or social studies, they have received more than $1 billion in public funding over the past four years alone. Some use corporal punishment to keep children in line during long days of religious study, The Times found.

Responding to those findings on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said through a spokesman that City Hall has restarted a long-delayed investigation into the quality of education at the schools. Launched by Mr. Adamss predecessor, Bill de Blasio, in 2015, that inquiry appeared to stall some four years later after the city said in an interim report that only two of 28 yeshivas it had inspected were providing an adequate education. Following that pronouncement, the review was shelved during the pandemic.

Nearly three years have passed with little discernible action by the city, but Maxwell Young, a spokesman for the mayor, said last week that the city investigation was in its final stages, and will be comprehensive and thorough.
This monthslong campaign to turn down the new Constitution gained a foothold and never slipped. A barrage of misinformation spread through WhatsApp and social media, and outsize political donations and murky spending gave a financial advantage to the rejection campaign, which no doubt had an effect on voters. The effort was brutal, and brutally effective, in its aim to mislead Chileans to believe that the new Constitution would, among other horribles, spell the end of homeownership and allow abortions up to the moment of birth.

This campaign of doubt, fear and lies cannot be discounted. It tapped into something real that no amount of fact-checking and debunking could overcome: that Chileans, above all, want safety. And a text that is not born of consensus, comity and common ground simply cannot provide it.

No constitution is perfect, let alone a safe haven, and voters know or should know better than to think that a written text will solve all their problems. Yet it is entirely reasonable for a voter to conclude, especially one on the fence who is more worried about putting food on the table, that any proposal causing so much division, manufactured or not, is not the path forward. This explains why even many of those so-called popular districts that voted in droves for Mr. Boric, as well as those hardest hit by poverty and in need of the most change, voted to reject the new Constitution. Or why the very Indigenous groups that would have been granted historic recognition and autonomy in the new text also largely opted to reject it.

Mr. Boric has been wise to recognize these failings. In an address to the nation after Chileans choice became clear last week, he said the as-yet-unwritten Constitution needed to give us a sense of trust and to unite us as a country.

To that end, with Mr. Borics blessing, the National Congress is already at work setting the parameters for how to start over on a new Constitution  who will draft it, for how long and how to narrow in on the substantive areas where theres already unity. There exists wide agreement, for example, that the new Constitution must recognize something the old one doesnt: that Chile is a social and democratic state where rights, equality and wellbeing are guaranteed, no matter a persons status or station in life.

Thats the floor. Thats the beginning of safety. The promise, and peril, of the road ahead rests in ensuring that all Chileans agree on these essentials, agree to disagree on the nonessentials and come together on whats left. That wont be easy  and bad-faith actors uninterested in change could well again torpedo it. But its the only way Chile will have a Constitution that makes room for all.
The campaign seems to be focusing specifically on Black men when considering this deficit.

Notably, Raphael Warnock, the Black Democratic senator from the state who is running for re-election, got the support of about 85 percent of Black people in the poll.

Now, there may be something different in the appeal of these candidates; there is definitely a difference in the quality of their opponents. Or we might simply be seeing the familiar sight of misogyny creeping in.

Its hard for me to tell. While I wish I had the answers here, I dont. But I will say that this trend appears to be bigger than just Georgia. We have seen a similar differential between Black mens and Black womens votes on the national stage. According to The Associated Presss VoteCast survey, 12 percent of Black men voted for Donald Trump in 2020, compared with just 6 percent of Black women. This was consistent with 2016 levels, when 14 percent of Black men voted for Trump.

It should be noted that Black men vote Democratic at a higher rate than other men, but the slippage is concerning for Democrats. As The New York Times reported last week, Georgia Democrats have begun to fret about Abramss chances because, Though she is beloved by Democratic voters, she has lost some ground with Black men, who provided crucial backing in her narrow loss to Mr. Kemp in 2018.
She described one recent walk over the Labor Day weekend, saying that she prayed that schoolchildren, from the most vulnerable to the fiercest, feel safe and valued. She continued: As I approach the main doors of the building, I lay my hands on them and pray that every soul that crosses them experiences peace, perhaps a peace that cannot be experienced at home. I pray for the teachers, that their hearts be enlarged to receive, love and encourage every child in their classroom. As I head to the playground, I picture the school monitors keeping the peace during recess. I pray for God to grant them and the school administrators wisdom for the choices they will face in the year ahead.

Several parents, particularly mothers, said that they prayed with other parents:

Melinda Dewey from Pennsylvania wrote: Every week, at many schools across the country, moms gather to pray in specific ways using the Scriptures. We pray in one accord, choosing to focus on unity and agreeing together, asking God to pour out his blessing in various ways on our children, other children, the teachers and the school officials. It is amazing to see the most challenging situations be resolved in ways we could not have imagined, as well as seeing our children grow and mature in ways certainly beyond our ability as mothers to make that happen. Those hours were some of the most rewarding of my life.

Finally, some readers offered specific prayers. I find it helpful to pray with words Ive received from others, so perhaps you will as well.

Ben Wright from Georgia, who has two school-age kids, wrote: For the past five or six years, when I put each of our kids to bed, we pray: Help everyone who is sick to be strong, help everyone who is scared to be brave, help everyone who is lonely to find a friend, and help us to be friends for anyone we see who is lonely.

Jill Donovan from Missouri, who writes that she has been a teacher for 34 years and currently teaches middle school and high school English, said that this year she is praying: Please put a supernatural blanket of protection over every preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and college in this nation. Please shield and protect all students, teachers and staff members as they teach and learn together. Please put angels around every would-be shooter and help these individuals find the help they need. In the name of Jesus Christ, your son and my savior, amen.

She also wrote that she and her four sisters share prayers with each other weekly over text, and that we are all praying this same prayer this year.
This was the second of the big European brands to jump the ocean for New York Fashion Week to take advantage of the citys current power vacuum in fashion. (Fendi was the first the day before.) It was also the first Marni show to take place outside of Milan, and the third in which Francesco Risso, the creative director, sought to break down the fourth wall between the brand and those who might wear it.

Mr. Risso is one of the rare establishment designers who has used his experience during the pandemic to challenge the status quo and grapple with the point of the fashion show, rather than pay lip service to change and then immediately fall back into old ways. Thus far, he has forced his audience to be active participants in the experience by wearing his collection instead of simply watching it (which was interesting) and made them stand in the dark to create a sort of viewer maze through which models randomly wove (which was a disaster).
She traces the increase in heavy-handed moderation on Instagram and Facebook (both owned by Meta) to two bills that passed in 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. Their stated purpose  to hold tech companies accountable for sex-trafficking schemes on their platforms  has led, she said, to bans on a wide range of material Instagrams algorithm classifies as risque, not just in the U.S. but around the world. (It has regularly flagged Dr. Ares own videos, too, since she is also a pole dance instructor.)

Facebook in particular censored female bodies before, but nothing on this scale, she said. It creates a chilling effect on expression.

The gesture at issue in Sieferts play came with a narrative context. Jeanne, initially a shy teenager who is bullied at school and feels stifled by her Roman Catholic family  her Instagram handle (_jeanne_dark_) is a pun on the French styling of Joan of Arc  has grown emboldened, and begins a pastiche of sexualized music videos.

I had found something that was very funny, I was quite proud of it, de Laurens said recently in Paris. There was something a little grotesque and excessive about it. She parodies people, but she also wants to be like them.

Performing _jeanne_dark_, de Laurens said, has proved stressful for other reasons, too. Since she is constantly focused on her characters smartphone, she sees many of the live  and unscripted  Instagram comments. (The stream is also relayed on screens on both sides of the stage, for the theater audience.) While many comments have been funny, and the production team is quick to ban trolls, some have crossed lines and targeted her body.

I dont want to think about a comment that says I have terrible teeth while Im onstage, de Laurens said. It takes you out of the performance, and it grates.
She showed, for example, that about two-thirds of the enslaved Africans brought to Louisiana came from the area that is now Senegal and Gambia. They interacted with Native Americans, as well as with French and German colonists, to generate what she saw as a robust, independent Afro-Creole culture. That claim went against the conventional wisdom that colonial Louisiana was largely shaped by Haiti and other parts of the French-speaking Caribbean.

Image Dr. Hall's Africans in Colonial Louisiana won a raft of literary prizes and became required reading among musicians and artists in New Orleans. Credit... (no credit)

Africans in Colonial Louisiana won a raft of literary prizes and, surprisingly for a dense (if elegantly written) academic text, became required reading among musicians and artists in New Orleans, who saw it as a road map for the origins of the citys distinctive culture. It inspired Wynton Marsalis to write the oratorio Blood on the Fields (1997), the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

For so long there was this tendency, even in the most prestigious academic circles, to see Africans as an abstraction, coming from a simple single place, Dr. Hall told The New York Times in 2000. But now were starting to see it as a place of great complexity, and the different ethnicities greatly affected the development of African American culture.

Dr. Hall retired from Rutgers in 1993, but that just gave her more time for her real project: turning those 107,000 entries into a searchable computer database, long before many people could even conceive of such a thing.

It took her another seven years. She worked out of a small house in New Orleans and survived on a series of small grants, digging even deeper into obscure archives on both sides of the Atlantic  the sort of effort that many historians dream of but few can afford, in terms of either money or patience.

She did the kind of work that in the 20th century only white men were rewarded for, Nell Irvin Painter, an artist and historian and the author of The History of White People (2010), said in a phone interview. And it is a lot of hard work.
The first lady, Jill Biden, commemorated the day by visiting Shanksville and recalled the sorrow of realizing that her sister Bonny Jacobs, a flight attendant, could have lost colleagues in the attack.

When I got to her house, I realized that I was right. She hadnt just lost colleagues; she had lost friends, Dr. Biden said. As we learned more about that dark day, she felt pride for what happened here as well  pride that it was fellow flight attendants and passengers of United Flight 93 who fought back, who helped stop the plane from taking an untold number of lives in our nations capital.

The scene outside the memorial in New York followed a familiar pattern. Vice President Kamala Harris and Mayor Eric Adams stood by as family members carried photos of their loved ones while others carried American flags or roses. There were sudden looks of recognition, and hugs, between people who saw one another once a year. As the honor guard entered and the national anthem was sung, participants who had been gripping pictures of their loved ones held them aloft.

There were moments of silence at 8:46 a.m., when Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, and at 9:03, when Flight 175 struck the south tower. The reading of the victims names brought both tears and fond remembrances.
Ukrainian forces swift advance in the northeast has increased the pressure on Germany, Europes largest economy, to move faster with the delivery of heavy weapons.

The outspoken mayor of Kyiv, Ukraines capital, Vitali Klitschko, used the opportunity to remind Berlin that Western weapons were crucial to his countrys continued military success and urged Germany leaders to speed up a shipment of German battle tanks.

In order to better protect and equip our soldiers, Ukraine urgently needs more arms deliveries right now, Mr. Klitschko told the German tabloid Bild in remarks published on Sunday, making specific reference to Germanys Leopard tanks.
EDINBURGH  Its streets lined with tens of thousands of admirers, Scotland bade a somber farewell to Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday as her coffin made its slow, final, journey through a country that she helped bind into the British state through her decades of rule, her love of the wild Scottish countryside and her own popularity.

The six-hour funeral procession was the beginning of three days of mourning centered on Scotland, continuing on Monday with a journey along Edinburghs Royal Mile, which starts at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal residence, before moving on to St. Giles Cathedral, where members of the public will have a chance to pay their respects.

The queens death in Scotland, at her home in Balmoral, underscored her close ties to the country, which for two days will be the center of national mourning. But the journey of her body is also a trip laden with political overtones, as new questions arise about the future of Scotlands independence movement in the wake of the queens death.
Ukrainian allies rejoiced at Russias battlefield setbacks.

Let me be frank, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, one of Ukraines most steadfast supporters. It is now beyond doubt that Ukraine could have thrown Russia out months ago if they had been provided with the necessary equipment from Day 1.

Speaking at a news conference with his German counterpart, Ukraines foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, And so I reiterate: The more weapons we receive, the faster we will win, and the faster this war will end.

Ukraines rapid gains followed increased intelligence sharing with the United States, American officials said. Over the summer, as they planned their counteroffensive in the northeast, Ukrainian officials began to offer more real-time intelligence to their American counterparts, a shift that allowed the United States to provide better and more relevant information about Russian weaknesses, officials said.

American officials welcomed Ukraines rapid advance as a heartening development. But senior Pentagon and White House officials urged caution, voicing doubts about the capacity of Ukrainian forces to push Russia back to the lines that existed on Feb. 23, the day before the invasion. Still, they said that the progress suggested the Russian forces were in significant disarray.

For months now, administration officials have said there is no hope of a diplomatic solution to the war unless Mr. Zelenskys forces win back enough territory to have the upper hand in any negotiated cease-fire or armistice. But the fear is that if Mr. Putin believes he is losing the war, he may deploy unconventional weapons.
Because of some mistakes unknown to us, control over political processes is being lost, a pro-Kremlin analyst who often appears on state television, Sergei Markov, said on social media. I guarantee you that this confusion will not last long. But right now, its a mess.

The fundamental problem, analysts said, is that Mr. Putins penchant for misleading his own people is catching up to him. The reality of the Russian setback is poking holes in the Kremlins message that the Russian Army is undefeatable, Ukraine is riddled with corruption and cowardice and Mr. Putin is a brilliant geopolitical strategist. It was just last Wednesday that Mr. Putin declared that Russia had not lost anything as a result of the war, an assertion at odds with Western estimates of tens of thousands of Russian casualties.

For now, the wars supporters have mainly directed their anger over this weekends setbacks at Moscow bureaucrats or at the military leadership. But an early indication that the frustration could damage Mr. Putins own prestige came on the Telegram social network after Moscow went ahead with a grand fireworks display on Saturday evening to mark the 875th anniversary of the citys founding  a slap in the face to the Russian military, some said, on perhaps the most humiliating day for Russia since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
EDINBURGH  The coffin carrying Queen Elizabeth II on her final journey on Sunday arrived in the Scottish capital Edinburgh  now the focus of national mourning  after a six-hour procession from Balmoral Castle, the country estate where she died.

A huge crowd lined central Edinburghs Royal Mile to catch a glimpse of the hearse as it made its way slowly to its first destination, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal residence in the Scottish capital, where the queens coffin will remain overnight.

Local people, visitors and tourists thronged the citys main streets under gray clouds to pay their respects to a monarch who had a deep affinity for Scotland. There was some applause as the convoy of seven vehicles, led by a motorcycle outrider, drove through central Edinburgh, though the mood was respectful and generally somber.
9/11 and After How Students in 12 Countries Are Taught About 9/11 > Venezuela > Iraq > United Kingdom > South Korea > France > Brazil > Germany > United States > Australia > Russia > South Africa > Pakistan Twelve teenagers born after 9/11 told us what they have learned about the event and its aftermath  and what has been left out.

For those born after Sept. 11, 2001, there are no memories of that dark day to shape their views. There is only education  formal, and informal.

With the terrorist attack and the wars that followed having entered the realm of history, we sought to understand how these events are being taught. What is stressed? What is overlooked?

We examined textbooks from all over and talked with educators. But mostly we wanted to hear directly from young people, and so we interviewed students born after the attacks in 12 countries.

Their voices offered only a hint of the diversity of instruction on Sept. 11 worldwide, but their impressions and experiences were striking.

From Moscow to Manhattan, from Karachi to Caracas, from Berlin to Baghdad, students have come away with very different perspectives on terrorism, Islam, war and American power.

If there is a consensus, it can be found in what students told us their education has been missing: depth.

They want to know more.

What did you learn about 9/11 in school? The lessons taught about 9/11 reflect national agendas  if it is taught at all. Im actually certain weve never studied it.>Im actually certain weve never studied it. Polina Russia These types of discussions dont take place in our schools.>These types of discussions dont take place in our schools. Faisal Rehman Pakistan In my primary school, they briefly mentioned it.>In my primary school, they briefly mentioned it. Xolisa Nohenda South Africa The teacher had slides of the planes hitting the twin towers.>The teacher had slides of the planes hitting the twin towers. Lucas Villar Brazil We were supposed to watch a documentary about 9/11>We were supposed to watch a documentary about 9/11 Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela in high school, but in the end they never played it.>in high school, but in the end they never played it. Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela We talked about 9/11 being the first event that>We talked about 9/11 being the first event that Noemi Grette France showed that terrorism existed, and that it was>showed that terrorism existed, and that it was Noemi Grette France a threat to the whole world.>a threat to the whole world. Noemi Grette France It was taught separately as an example>It was taught separately as an example Kim Donghyeon South Korea of international conflict post-globalization.>of international conflict post-globalization. Kim Donghyeon South Korea While talking to my history professor,>While talking to my history professor, Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq he told me it happened to threaten the U.S.>he told me it happened to threaten the U.S. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq And thats what resulted in the U.S. occupying Iraq.>And thats what resulted in the U.S. occupying Iraq. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq In seventh grade, we were given a project>In seventh grade, we were given a project Karen Zhang United States to interview a family member who was personally>to interview a family member who was personally Karen Zhang United States affected by 9/11.>affected by 9/11. Karen Zhang United States Thats when I started to have a lot deeper connection>Thats when I started to have a lot deeper connection Karen Zhang United States to the event.>to the event. Karen Zhang United States

Schools around the world vary widely in their approach to teaching 9/11, if they teach it at all.

Biz Herman, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, has collected 850 textbooks from 90 countries. We worked with Ms. Herman to examine many of the textbooks commonly used by middle and high school students and found that Iran, Venezuela, Egypt, Syria and Mozambique are a few of the countries that do not mention the attack.

In New York and elsewhere in the United States, the Sept. 11 curriculum has been overtly personal and emotional. Students have been asked by their teachers to explore the experiences of their own families.

But at a remove from the bloodshed, and with attitudes of varying warmth toward the U.S., other countries handle the subject with their own nationalistic tilt.

In England, descriptions of the attack appear in one popular textbook in a section titled Terrorist Groups in Action, which also explores how the British government handled the Irish Republican Army. Spanish, French and Russian textbooks discuss Sept. 11 alongside terrorist attacks that struck their own citizens.

Textbooks from (clockwise from top left) Germany, Russia, South Africa, the U.S., Sweden and South Korea. Source: Biz Herman, University of California, Berkeley Textbooks from (clockwise from top left) Germany, Russia, South Korea, the U.S., Sweden and South Africa. Source: Biz Herman, University of California, Berkeley

But some countries teach students that the events of that day offer a lesson, or perhaps a warning, for the worlds powers.

South Korean and Indian students learn that the strikes on the World Trade Center in New York and on Washington were a consequence of globalization. A Pakistani textbook describes the attack, which left almost 3,000 dead, as an incident, and dwells on the risks that come from American hegemony.

Striking an even sharper note, a textbook of Modern and Contemporary World History from China includes a photo of the twin towers in flames near a section on geopolitics. No one power can dominate the world on its own, it says.

What are textbooks and what are they for? Ms. Herman asks. It would seem simple: that it's for educating kids. But its actually for setting national agendas, for sharing a particular narrative. And sometimes its for educating kids.

How did you first learn about 9/11? Horrific images endure. But what came next is often poorly explained. I dont remember precisely how old I was,>I dont remember precisely how old I was, Xolisa Nohenda South Africa but I remember I saw it on a news report.>but I remember I saw it on a news report. Xolisa Nohenda South Africa Buildings being bombed, like the terrorist attacks>Buildings being bombed, like the terrorist attacks Xolisa Nohenda South Africa and stuff like that. I never  I was feeling really astonished.>and stuff like that. I never  I was feeling really astonished. Xolisa Nohenda South Africa It was a right-wing Pakistani newspaper>It was a right-wing Pakistani newspaper Faisal Rehman Pakistan that came to our house regularly.>that came to our house regularly. Faisal Rehman Pakistan The headline was,>The headline was, Faisal Rehman Pakistan After the 9/11 attack, the U.S. downfall has begun.>After the 9/11 attack, the U.S. downfall has begun. Faisal Rehman Pakistan It was a documentary on television.>It was a documentary on television. Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela I felt sad>I felt sad Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela hearing from so many people who had seen their colleagues die>hearing from so many people who had seen their colleagues die Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela because they could not get out in time.>because they could not get out in time. Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela I was like, watching true crime videos excessively>I was like, watching true crime videos excessively Polina Russia on YouTube when I saw photos and videos of people>on YouTube when I saw photos and videos of people Polina Russia jumping out.>jumping out. Polina Russia I think thats why there are conspiracy theories>I think thats why there are conspiracy theories Noemi Grette France around this.>around this. Noemi Grette France Its because its so shocking.>Its because its so shocking. Noemi Grette France Its something that is so threatening and frightening>Its something that is so threatening and frightening Noemi Grette France that when you see it, you just cant believe it happened.>that when you see it, you just cant believe it happened. Noemi Grette France Why was it so easy to hijack four planes?>Why was it so easy to hijack four planes? Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela How did they pass security checks?>How did they pass security checks? Jelena Marie Bielke Germany Did they have prior intelligence?>Did they have prior intelligence? Dorea Nengese United Kingdom How did such a big terror incident>How did such a big terror incident Faisal Rehman Pakistan take place in such a safe country?>take place in such a safe country? Faisal Rehman Pakistan I still dont have the answer for that.>I still dont have the answer for that. Faisal Rehman Pakistan

Many people born after Sept. 11 learn about that day at a young age, but how it happens varies. Some see documentaries about the attack, but others stumble across it on YouTube or hear a chance remark that sets them on a path to learn more.

Many of the students we interviewed said they had first heard 9/11 referred to obliquely, as if the adults talking had forgotten that they were not alive when the attack happened. When asked, the adults would give them a basic rundown of the facts  the hijacked planes, the toppled buildings, the number killed  without much context.

What they remember are the images.

When you see the archival images, youre like: How is this possible? said Noemi Grette, 18, a recent high school graduate from Bordeaux in France.

But the photos and video leave so much unanswered, say young people like Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas, 16, a 10th grader in Ciudad Los Teques, Venezuela.

The questions that I have are: First, why was it so easy for the Taliban to hijack four airplanes from the U.S.? she said, mixing up the Taliban with their allies in Al Qaeda. And the other question that I have is: Why did that war really start between the U.S. and Afghanistan?

What impact did 9/11 have on your world? For some teenagers, the American response to 9/11 matters as much as the attacks It had such a big impact on the United States,>It had such a big impact on the United States, Karen Zhang United States and I feel like its an event that you cant really>and I feel like its an event that you cant really Karen Zhang United States accept just happened, since it was clearly>accept just happened, since it was clearly Karen Zhang United States purposefully done. It wasnt an accident.>purposefully done. It wasnt an accident. Karen Zhang United States It was a moment where everyone realized>It was a moment where everyone realized Jelena Marie Bielke Germany that there are, of course, bad people>that there are, of course, bad people Jelena Marie Bielke Germany and that we are not as safe as we thought we were.>and that we are not as safe as we thought we were. Jelena Marie Bielke Germany The world didnt become a better place.>The world didnt become a better place. Lucas Villar Brazil It just got worse.>It just got worse. Lucas Villar Brazil When the war in Afghanistan started,>When the war in Afghanistan started, Faisal Rehman Pakistan thousands of people were forced to migrate toward Pakistan.>thousands of people were forced to migrate toward Pakistan. Faisal Rehman Pakistan We had to leave our ancestral area, our home,>We had to leave our ancestral area, our home, Faisal Rehman Pakistan our land and our property, and we had to migrate>our land and our property, and we had to migrate Faisal Rehman Pakistan to the city.>to the city. Faisal Rehman Pakistan It has sparked national conflicts between people.>It has sparked national conflicts between people. Polina Russia I dont mean, like, the war itself,>I dont mean, like, the war itself, Polina Russia but just the hatred.>but just the hatred. Polina Russia Because people are frightened of terrorist attacks,>Because people are frightened of terrorist attacks, Noemi Grette France they tend to stigmatize more Muslim people.>they tend to stigmatize more Muslim people. Noemi Grette France I think a lot of people, when they think of terrorism,>I think a lot of people, when they think of terrorism, Felix Tonkin Australia they think of Islamic terrorism.>they think of Islamic terrorism. Felix Tonkin Australia Its really sort of painted a sort of a boogeyman, really,>Its really sort of painted a sort of a boogeyman, really, Felix Tonkin Australia that a lot of people like to look at.>that a lot of people like to look at. Felix Tonkin Australia When Saddam Hussein fell, the state, and its security institutions, fell.>When Saddam Hussein fell, the state, and its security institutions, fell. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq And that motivated extremists to roam the streets,>And that motivated extremists to roam the streets, Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq and to threaten people and kill them.>and to threaten people and kill them. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq The death of my father, and many innocent civilians,>The death of my father, and many innocent civilians, Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq is directly tied to the Iraq war.>is directly tied to the Iraq war. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq

When the post-9/11 generation assesses the impact of the attack on their lives, they often point to what they can see: the long waits to get through airport security, the concrete bollards at the front of public squares to block a potential truck bomb.

But for many students, the lines between that day and the wars that followed are something of a blur, like a thunderstorm with clouds that have merged.

The ramifications can be deeply personal.

Faisal Rehman, 18, said that Americas invasion of Afghanistan led Taliban fighters to safe houses in the border region of Pakistan where his family lived, forcing them to leave for Karachi. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi, an 18-year-old high school senior in Baghdad, said that if not for the events of Sept. 11, Saddam Hussein would have still been among us.

Regime change ended dictatorship, he noted, but it also produced more terrorism inside Iraq. His father was shot and killed in 2005 when Mujtaba was just a toddler.

He was washing his car, which was a big car, he said. I was standing next to him.

For others, like Dorea Nengese, 18, who recently graduated from an East London high school filled with students whose families migrated from Afghanistan, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, Sept. 11 will be forever remembered as a spark for anti-Islamic prejudice and intense debates about whose narratives should be given prominence.

Why, she asked, are students expected to know everything about America without learning about how global affairs are viewed by people from other countries?

What did these events teach you about America? Students aware of 9/11 and what followed are often deeply skeptical of American motives. The response after 9/11 told me about the U.S.>The response after 9/11 told me about the U.S. Jelena Marie Bielke Germany that they kind of want justice,>that they kind of want justice, Jelena Marie Bielke Germany but in a really weird way, kind of,>but in a really weird way, kind of, Jelena Marie Bielke Germany because its not really justice to bomb a country.>because its not really justice to bomb a country. Jelena Marie Bielke Germany Public opinion here is that after 9/11,>Public opinion here is that after 9/11, Faisal Rehman Pakistan America launched a war against the Taliban>America launched a war against the Taliban Faisal Rehman Pakistan and terrorists as cover for the occupation of Afghanistan.>and terrorists as cover for the occupation of Afghanistan. Faisal Rehman Pakistan I really vividly remember I think it was Bush >I really vividly remember I think it was Bush  Dorea Nengese United Kingdom I think it was that president >I think it was that president  Dorea Nengese United Kingdom him doing all these speeches and saying>him doing all these speeches and saying Dorea Nengese United Kingdom very emotive kind of slogans like,>very emotive kind of slogans like, Dorea Nengese United Kingdom Youre with us or against us.>Youre with us or against us. Dorea Nengese United Kingdom And the whole war on terror.>And the whole war on terror. Dorea Nengese United Kingdom As if 9/11 justified everything else that happened.>As if 9/11 justified everything else that happened. Dorea Nengese United Kingdom Perhaps 9/11 was the perfect pretext for>Perhaps 9/11 was the perfect pretext for Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq George W. Bush to accomplish two goals at once:>George W. Bush to accomplish two goals at once: Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq He brought down the Taliban in Afghanistan>He brought down the Taliban in Afghanistan Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq and then went to Iraq to bring down Saddam Hussein.>and then went to Iraq to bring down Saddam Hussein. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq My history teacher always taught us that>My history teacher always taught us that Noemi Grette France America has this peace guard role>America has this peace guard role Noemi Grette France in the world.>in the world. Noemi Grette France I think that the U.S. had no choice but to retaliate>I think that the U.S. had no choice but to retaliate Kim Donghyeon South Korea because the attack took such a huge toll>because the attack took such a huge toll Kim Donghyeon South Korea on its people.>on its people. Kim Donghyeon South Korea But I also think the U.S. was too aggressive>But I also think the U.S. was too aggressive Kim Donghyeon South Korea during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.>during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kim Donghyeon South Korea

For many Americans, remembering Sept. 11 means grappling with the legacy of trauma. With a more international perspective, young people elsewhere often find themselves asking how such a powerful country could be so vulnerable  and what lay at the root of its response at home and around the world.

Some students said American power should still be seen as a force for good. Xolisa Nohenda, 17, a 12th grader in Johannesburg, South Africa, said most of her peers believed that the U.S. plays a big role in defending people.

But for many, it has become common to question American motives.

In almost any lesson that touches on the United States, textbooks from many countries emphasize American military might. Some also suggest that the U.S. attacked Afghanistan and Iraq to obtain oil or other natural resources.

Even teenagers who were not taught from those texts seem to have absorbed a sense of deep skepticism.

I don't know a lot about the war between Iraq and the U.S. but I do know that they, I think, fought about oil, and there was a lot of money involved, said Jelena Marie Bielke, 16, a high school junior in Berlin. And the U.S. wanted to get the oil.

The American response to Sept. 11, she said, showed that the Americans kind of want justice, but in a really weird way  because its not really justice to bomb a country.

Whats gone wrong with 9/11 education? Students blame outdated curricula, fear and political agendas for ignoring 9/11 in schools. Our teachers were anticipating that wed known about 9/11,>Our teachers were anticipating that wed known about 9/11, Dorea Nengese United Kingdom because America  its like, how could>because America  its like, how could Dorea Nengese United Kingdom you not know?>you not know? Dorea Nengese United Kingdom Theres a general consensus that people know>Theres a general consensus that people know Karen Zhang United States what the event was, especially because>what the event was, especially because Karen Zhang United States we live in New York City and many of our parents>we live in New York City and many of our parents Karen Zhang United States had already lived through it.>had already lived through it. Karen Zhang United States We want to focus more on our countrys history,>We want to focus more on our countrys history, Xolisa Nohenda South Africa on our continents history, and its a lot.>on our continents history, and its a lot. Xolisa Nohenda South Africa They didnt want to go into the topic because>They didnt want to go into the topic because Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela they said that it was too complicated to explain to us.>they said that it was too complicated to explain to us. Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela I remember asking my teacher,>I remember asking my teacher, Faisal Rehman Pakistan Sir, I read about 9/11 in the newspaper >Sir, I read about 9/11 in the newspaper  Faisal Rehman Pakistan can you tell me more about it?>can you tell me more about it? Faisal Rehman Pakistan He said firmly,>He said firmly, Faisal Rehman Pakistan Son, these wars are political.>Son, these wars are political. Faisal Rehman Pakistan We dont learn such things in school.>We dont learn such things in school. Faisal Rehman Pakistan For a lot of people who might be teaching 9/11,>For a lot of people who might be teaching 9/11, Felix Tonkin Australia they dont really view it as history.>they dont really view it as history. Felix Tonkin Australia They view it as a contemporary event>They view it as a contemporary event Felix Tonkin Australia that happened in their lifetime.>that happened in their lifetime. Felix Tonkin Australia They suffered the consequences of 9/11.>They suffered the consequences of 9/11. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq When something hurts you,>When something hurts you, Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq or crushes you from the inside,>or crushes you from the inside, Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq then of course you dont talk about it.>then of course you dont talk about it. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq We study wars. What is not scary>We study wars. What is not scary Polina Russia about a war that is very scary about>about a war that is very scary about Polina Russia a terrorist attack that they wont talk about?>a terrorist attack that they wont talk about? Polina Russia And sort of, like, I think its a very>And sort of, like, I think its a very Polina Russia controversial question to be honest.>controversial question to be honest. Polina Russia

Many of the students we interviewed offered sharp insights on why their elders do not teach about Sept. 11 with more context and rigor. Some said schools are always slow to adapt, sticking with outdated textbooks that can take years to update.

I think its time for us to change this educational system and, I don't know, try to focus on something more forward looking, said Lucas Villar, 18, a high school senior in Rio de Janeiro.

Other students blamed politics and discomfort with trauma.

I think sometimes some things are not talked about, because maybe the government failed to control it, said Polina, 19, a university student in Russia, who asked that her surname not be used to protect her privacy and avoid trouble with the authorities.

Like, I dont want to get political, but I really do think that some things are not included just because it might sabotage the general picture of the country. Maybe kids would not feel safe in their country, or it might trigger some sort of thought, some negative thinking about their safety, and what they have to go through. Maybe some phobias.

Felix Tonkin, 17, a 12th grader in Sydney, said some countries (including Australia) may be hindered by a sense of shame about mistakes they made in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's a hard thing to teach, absolutely, he said. But I think its an important thing to teach as well.

In Karachi, Mr. Rehman said he had once asked his teacher to explain and got this reply: Son, these wars are political. We dont learn such things in school. You can learn about them later in life.

What grade would you give your education? Students want a more nuanced, contemporary and international education. A D-plus  because I think that theyve>A D-plus  because I think that theyve Felix Tonkin Australia touched on it briefly, they mentioned it.>touched on it briefly, they mentioned it. Felix Tonkin Australia But I think that they could go a lot deeper>But I think that they could go a lot deeper Felix Tonkin Australia and I think theres a lot more that they could teach us.>and I think theres a lot more that they could teach us. Felix Tonkin Australia I would give it a D.>I would give it a D. Faisal Rehman Pakistan I'm looking at a B-minus here.>I'm looking at a B-minus here. Xolisa Nohenda South Africa An F.>An F. Polina Russia I dont remember discussing it in class ever.>I dont remember discussing it in class ever. Polina Russia I give them 2 out of 10.>I give them 2 out of 10. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq A 2.5.>A 2.5. Lucas Villar Brazil Id give them 50 points out of 100.>Id give them 50 points out of 100. Kim Donghyeon South Korea I would give them a 3 out of 20.>I would give them a 3 out of 20. Ariadna Clareth Sanchez Rojas Venezuela Maybe a C or a D  plus!>Maybe a C or a D  plus! Noemi Grette France Id give them an A.>Id give them an A. Dorea Nengese United Kingdom It almost felt like a bit of a privilege to learn about>It almost felt like a bit of a privilege to learn about Dorea Nengese United Kingdom foreign countries and the history that happened>foreign countries and the history that happened Dorea Nengese United Kingdom in other parts of the world.>in other parts of the world. Dorea Nengese United Kingdom Iraqis have a big role in writing the history of these events.>Iraqis have a big role in writing the history of these events. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq They experienced many events that can be compared to 9/11 >They experienced many events that can be compared to 9/11  Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq it just happened in a different way.>it just happened in a different way. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq But Iraqis also survived war and destruction.>But Iraqis also survived war and destruction. Mujtaba Ali al-Saadi Iraq I would try to explain in a better way why 9/11 happened.>I would try to explain in a better way why 9/11 happened. Lucas Villar Brazil Because I think that for most of us >Because I think that for most of us  Lucas Villar Brazil it doesnt make any sense.>it doesnt make any sense. Lucas Villar Brazil

Across the board, students born soon after Sept. 11, 2001, told us they longed for their teachers and school systems to embark on a deeper dive into the subject, from the historical context leading up to the attack all the way through the long-term impact.

For many, 9/11 has come to symbolize one of the flaws of modern education: an unwillingness to look more closely at relatively recent events that shape the present.

I feel lost, because sometimes I watch the news and I dont understand anything thats happening, said Mr. Villar, in Brazil. And I think the school could help me with that, having more classes about whats going on now, and not just what happened 300 years ago.

Several students also said they needed to know more about Sept. 11 because one day they may be called upon to explain the era of terror to their children.

I feel like I do have responsibility to not only learn about just what happened, but I feel like also just the long lasting legacy of it, and just all the effects and aftermath, said Karen Zhang, 17, a rising senior at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.

More specifically, she said that along with Sept. 11, there should be a bit more of, I think, the history of the U.S. in the Middle East.

Mr. al-Saadi, in Baghdad, said he could understand why so few teachers wanted to teach about 9/11. When something hurts you, or crushes you from the inside, then of course you dont talk about it, he said.

And yet, he and many others argue, that trauma is exactly why the subject must be taught. To process the pain. To learn from the failures. To help the next generation do better than the last.
Antigua and Barbuda is a sovereign island country in the West Indies in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major islands, Antigua and Barbuda separated by around 40 km (25 mi), and smaller islands. The permanent population number is estimated to be in the region of 97,120 with 97% residing on Antigua. The capital and largest port and city is St. John's on Antigua, with Codrington being the largest town on Barbuda. Lying near each other, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17N of the equator.
Queen Elizabeth loved to talk horses and racing with Bart Cummings, but was less keen on the attentions of a prime minister on one of her visits to Australia.
 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd.

All rights reserved.

One News is a registered trademark

of One News Page Ltd.
Newsy 14 Sep 2022

Watch VideoQueen Elizabeth II's coffin will leave Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it is taken amid somber..
Top German politicians are calling for more weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the UK accused Moscow of spreading misinformation on the global food crisis. DW rounds up the latest.
Thousands are expected to turn out on the streets of Scotland later as the Queen's coffin is driven from Balmoral to Edinburgh.
Ukraine has gone on the offensive against Russia and has retaken control over the city of Balakliia, Kharkiv Oblast, and several..

HNGN 09 Sep 2022
Newsy 14 Sep 2022

Watch VideoAfter Russian forces withdrew from Bucha, on the outskirts of the capital of Kyiv, in the early weeks of the war, the..
The Queen's coffin has arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh after a six-hour journey on roads lined by members of the public from her Scottish home, Balmoral Castle.
euronews (in English) 11 Sep 2022

Speaking at the Pentagon on Sunday, President Joe Biden called on Americans to stand up for democracy on days beyond the..
Ukraine's military chief said its forces had recaptured about 3,000 square kilometres since the counteroffensive began in early September.
President Joe Biden and other officials paid tribute to the fallen on he anniversary of Sept. 11, the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.


The chief of James Smith Cree Nation and other Indigenous leaders are calling on the provincial and federal governments to fund on-reserve addiction treatment centres following the horrific stabbing rampage on the Saskatchewan First Nation and neighbouring town of Weldon.
The US president hailed the freedoms which he said were targeted by al-Qaeda 21 years ago. The terrorist group, meanwhile, marked the anniversary with a book detailing plans leading up to its attack.
The Queen's coffin has arrived in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, where it will lie in rest until Tuesday. Meanwhile, Prince William said he was honored to be the new Prince of Wales.
Just a little over a month after launching a joint campaign together, Ayelet Shaked is parting ways with Yoaz Hendel.

Jerusalem Post 11 Sep 2022
If Moscow can blame its Ukrainian separatist partners for the failure and pretend that it is fighting the war with these proxies, then perhaps Russia can save face.
In a "hot-mic moment" captured by Sky News in 2014, then prime minister David Cameron revealed that the Queen "purred down the line" when he told her a majority of Scots had voted against independence.
America is polarized and divided and the world must wonder whether or not it can fulfill its supposed role as leader of the free..

Eurasia Review 08 Sep 2022
Legislators will be able to express their condolences to King Charles III and his Queen Consort when the new monarch tours the four home nations in the run-up to the Queens state funeral.
It is expected the Royal Cortege will head down the A90 and M90 through Perth and Kinross, over the Friarton Bridge, en route to Edinburgh
Thousands turn out to pay their respects as the Queen's coffin travels from Balmoral to Edinburgh.
Nearly 5,800 people have been killed in the conflict in Ukraine and the situation of prisoners of war in Russian-held areas is worrying, the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country said on Friday.



Matilda Bogner was presenting some of the findings of its latest report to journalists in Geneva,...
Estonia has every reason to support Ukraine in its hour of need, Estonian Entrepreneurship and Information Technology Minister Kristjan Jarvan says.* *That is because what Moscows forces have been doing in Ukraine, they did earlier in Estonia. And Estonians have never forgotten that.



In an interview with The Kyiv Post,...
Ukrainian forces advanced their counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine Sunday, looking to take advantage of Russian troop withdrawals from the northeastern Kharkiv region in a retreat that may have changed the course of the nearly seven-month conflict.



Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy derided the Russians in his nightly...
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

TORONTO (AP)  Canadas opposition Conservative Party elected its go-to attack dog as its new party leader Saturday.

Pierre Poilievre is a firebrand populist who opposes vaccine mandates and blames Canada's inflation on Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He won the party leadership on the first ballot, defeating a moderate, centrist candidate with 68% of the votes cast by the party's members.

The 43-year-old Poilievre is a career politician and was a Cabinet minister in then Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government. He embraced Canadians who were against vaccine mandates and supported the freedom truck convoy that paralyzed Canadas capital and blockaded the border with the U.S.

Tonight begins the journey to replace an old government that costs you more and delivers you less with a new government that puts you first, Poilievre said. By tackling Liberal inflation we will put you back in control of your life and your money.

Poilievre won the party base, attracted large crowds and signed up thousands of new members.

Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said an apt U.S. comparison for Poilievre is Republican Sen. Ted Cruz but without the anti-abortion stance.

He is a right-wing populist, Wiseman said. Most Canadians recoil at his populism now, but hell moderate some of his positions and soften his language and image. I expect the next election to be about the incumbent, an incumbent with growing political baggage.

Wiseman said if his rhetoric keeps up, he may tumble in the polls. It is a big win for Poilievre, but Conservative members are a poor reflection of the broader public," he said.

Poilievre, who led his campus conservative club while at university, has been a member of Parliament since age 25.

He has urged the firing of the head of Canadas central bank, calling him Trudeaus personal ATM machine. He has also promoted crypto currency and has said he will defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

It remains to be seen how much emphasis he will place on populist tropes now that he has secured the leadership of the party and needs to convince people beyond the Conservative base to support the party, said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

In 2005, Poilievre joined other Conservative lawmakers on the losing side of a vote by Parliament to approve same-sex marriage. In 2008, he apologized after questioning whether Canada was getting value for all of this money by compensating survivors of the country's widely criticize Indigenous residential school.

Poilievre is a married father of two who represents a district near Ottawa. He was adopted by two school teachers and says he was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a teenager who couldnt raise a child.

Trudeau channeled the star power of his father, the Liberal Party icon and late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he first won election as premier in 2015 and has led his party to the top finish in two elections since. But his popularity has faded.

However, the Liberals and the opposition New Democratic Party reached an agreement that would see Trudeaus party keep power until 2025. Trudeau has said he will lead his party into the next election.

We will stand up and speak out against the reckless policies that Mr. Poilievre has been pushing since the start of his leadership campaign, and during his nearly 20 years as a Conservative insider, Liberal lawmakers Dominic LeBlanc and Rachel Bendayan said in a statement released by the governing party.

The new Conservative leader is proposing dangerous ideas that would risk our economy, our health, and our safety.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WASHINGTON (AP)  The discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trump's home has thrust U.S. intelligence agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role as the foil of a former president who demanded they support his agenda and at times accused officers of treason.

While the FBI conducts a criminal investigation, the office that leads the intelligence community is also conducting a review  currently on pause pending a court order  of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The investigation comes at a perilous time in American politics, with increasing threats to law enforcement and election workers and as a growing swath of officials assail the FBI and spread baseless theories of voter fraud. There's already a wide range of speculation about what was in the documents, with some Democrats pointing to reporting about possible nuclear secrets while some Trump allies suggesting the case is a benign argument about storage.

So far, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proceeded cautiously, issuing no public statements and declining to answer questions about the reviews structure or how long it will take.

A look at what's known and expected:

NOT A FORMAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

According to the government, the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and papers the Republican former president had turned over previously included highly sensitive Special Access Program designations as well as markings for intelligence derived from secret human sources and electronic signals programs. Those forms of intelligence are often produced by the CIA or the National Security Agency, and the underlying sources can take years to develop.

The ODNI review will try to determine the possible damage if the secrets in those documents were to be exposed. It has not said if it's investigating whether documents already have been exposed.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the review in a letter to the chairpersons of two House committees. Haines' letter says the ODNI will lead a classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search." Experts say that could include non-classified papers with notes written on them that might reference classified information.

Haines' letter also says her office will lead an assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.

That's different from a formal damage assessment that intelligence agencies have carried out after high-profile breaches like the disclosures of programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Damage assessments have specific requirements under intelligence community guidelines published online, including an estimate of actual or potential damage to U.S. national security, the identification of specific weaknesses or vulnerabilities and detailed, actionable recommendations to prevent future occurrences.

Under those guidelines, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a subsidiary within the ODNI, would lead a damage assessment. The center is led by acting Director Michael Orlando as President Joe Biden has not yet nominated a chief counterintelligence executive.

It's unknown whether the intelligence review will include interviewing witnesses. Haines' letter says the ODNI will coordinate with the Justice Department to ensure its assessment does not unduly interfere with the criminal investigation.

For now, the Justice Department has said the ODNI review is paused after a federal judge barred the use of records seized at Mar-a-Lago in a criminal investigation. Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Courts order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work, attorneys for the government said in a court filing.

THE ANSWERS COULD BE UNSATISFYING

The results may not come for weeks or months, and full findings will likely remain classified.

Lawmakers in both parties are calling for briefings from the intelligence community. None is known to have been scheduled.

Former officials note that its often difficult for agencies to diagnose specific damage from an actual or potential breach. Given the political climate and the unprecedented nature of evaluating a former president, the ODNI is widely expected to be limited and precise in what it says publicly and privately to Congress.

But reviews like the one underway often help top officials and lawmakers better understand vulnerabilities and how to manage risk going forward, said Timothy Bergreen, a former Democratic majority staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.

No healthy organization or society can exist without comprehensive review of its mistakes, Bergreen said. Thats always been a democracys big advantage over authoritarians.

AN OFFICE CREATED AFTER SEPT. 11

Lesser known than many of the agencies it oversees, the ODNI was created in the reorganization of the intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks. Amid revelations that the FBI and the CIA did not share critical information with each other, the ODNI was intended to oversee the 18-member intelligence community and integrate the different streams of collection and analysis produced by different agencies.

The ODNI supervises the drafting of the President's Daily Brief, the distillation of top American intelligence provided to Biden and top advisers daily. Haines is the president's principal intelligence adviser and often briefs Biden in the Oval Office along with other national security leaders.

Trump went through three directors of national intelligence in his last year, part of his long-running battles with the intelligence community.

Some of his top officials were accused of selectively declassifying information for political purposes. And before, during and after his time in office, Trump has accused intelligence officials of selectively leaking material to undermine him or not being sufficiently loyal.

He was incensed by the long-running investigations into allegations of Russian influence on his 2016 campaign, calling them the greatest political CRIME in American History. And he excoriated the person who spoke to a whistleblower about his pressuring Ukraine for derogatory information, saying that person was close to a spy who could have committed treason.

Under Biden, Haines and other top officials have been involved in declassifying information about Russia's war plans against Ukraine. They have also faced questioning about overly optimistic assessments of Afghanistan prior to the fall of Kabul.

Michael Allen, a former Republican majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the ODNI is uniquely positioned to handle such a closely watched review.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why you have a DNI, to coordinate across the wide and disparate community of intelligence agencies, said Allen, author of Blinking Red, a history of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence reforms. This is their bread and butter.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

BROWN TWP.  For nearly two decades, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians has worked to restore an ancient and endangered fish to Manistee waters.

On Saturday, nearly 60 young nme, or lake sturgeon, were released into the Manistee Rivers Rainbow Bend near the tribes streamside rearing facility.

The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians has been committed to this project of slowly building up the sturgeon population with these annual plantings. The release is part of an environmental and spiritual commitment to the fish and their habitat.

Fingerlings that were reared at the facility were released in a ceremony on Sept. 10, and could survive in Manistee waters for over a century.

Around 56 young sturgeon, ranging from 6-9 inches long were handed to attendees and released after a prayer was given. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, male sturgeon can live as long as 55 years old and females can live up to 150 years old.

The LRBOI Natural Resources Department began its streamside sturgeon rehabilitation program in 2004.

Archie Martell, the Fisheries Division Manager for the LRBOI Natural Resources Division said that the small fish have around an 80% survival rate in the wild.

Young sturgeon are collected from the wild in spring and early summer, then reared in the facility until they are mature enough to be released, according to Martell. There, the young fish are safe from natural predators and can be acclimated to their home waters that are pumped from the river into the holding facility.

We have a few fish at our facility this year that we collected back at the end of May first part of June, reared them up to this point (and) gave them everything we could to give them the best headstart we can, Martell told those in attendance.

Before the release, people were invited to see the facility where the sturgeon were reared and were able to interact with the fingerlings.

Larry Romanelli, Tribal Ogema of the Little River band of Ottawa Indians credited the dedication of those working for the tribes fisheries division.

This is important to me. This is important to nature and the reconnection of everything, Romanelli told those in attendance. I really want to (applaud) our natural resource department, and all the partners that go into this. It's a huge amount of work, that they're out there in the middle of the night collecting eggs.

Out of roughly 2,000 collected specimens, Romanelli said that only the 56 had survived to the point where they could be released. In prior years, as many as 300-400 individuals had been released into the Manistee River.

The Big Manistee River watershed may once have held one of the largest sturgeon populations in the Lake Michigan Basin, according to documents from the LRBOI Natural Resources Division.

Like other sturgeon, these fish are an ancient, semi-cartilaginous species recognized by bony plates on the sides and back. As bottom-feeders, the sturgeon use an elongated spade-like snout to stir up sediments on the bottoms of lakes and rivers while feeding, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.

They have been known to grow over 7 feet long and can weigh up to 240 lbs, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources which measured the record lake sturgeon in 2012.

Romanelli noted that many of those in attendance were experiencing the ceremony for the first time.

When I see these young kids, and I watch them place the fish in the water  that fish may be around for 100 years. So they may grow with you, Romanelli said. You may see them again in your lifetime, and that means a lot.
ISTANBUL (AP)  Greek coast guard ships opened fire on a cargo vessel sailing in international waters in the Aegean Sea, the Turkish coast guard said, escalating tensions between the regional rivals that have mounted in recent weeks.

There were no casualties in the shooting 11 nautical miles (13 miles) southwest of the Turkish island of Bozcaada on Saturday, the Turkish statement said. It added that after harassment fire from two Greek coast guard vessels, two Turkish coast guard ships went to the area and the Greek boats left.

Calls to the Greek Embassy in Ankara went unanswered Sunday, and it wasn't clear why the gunfire occurred.

The neighboring countries have been embroiled in disputes for decades and frictions have ratcheted up in recent weeks, with both sides alleging airspace violations. Greek officials have raised concerns about another outbreak of conflict in Europe, following Russia's war in Ukraine.

Turkey says Greece is breaking international agreements by keeping a military presence on islands close to Turkeys Aegean coastline. It also has accused Greek air defenses of locking on to Turkish fighter jets during NATO exercises over the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece says it needs to defend its eastern islands  including tourist hotspots Rhodes and Kos, which are much closer to Turkey than to the Greek mainland  against its larger and militarily stronger neighbor.

Video footage from Saturday purportedly shows a Greek coast guard ship alongside the Comoros-flagged ship Anatolian as the sound of about a dozen gunshots are heard. A crew member speaks in Turkish, saying they are being attacked by the Greek coast guard.

The video, which was released by the Turkish coast guard and seems to have been filmed on a cellphone, shows what appears to be a bullet hole in a window and in the ceiling of the cargo ship's bridge.

The Turkish statement said the gunfire was in disregard of the rules of international law. The 18 crew of the Anatolian consisted of six Egyptians, four Somalis, five Azerbaijanis and three Turks.

A Turkish prosecutor ordered an investigation. The country also has protested to Greek authorities, with Ankara demanding a swift investigation and explanation.

The Anatolian was anchored Sunday in the Dardanelles Strait off the Turkish coast, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

This week, the Greek government wrote letters to NATO, the European Union and the United Nations, asking them to formally condemn increasingly aggressive talk by Turkish officials and suggesting that tensions could escalate into open conflict.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said the behavior of Turkey  also a NATO member  risked a situation similar to that currently unfolding in some other part of our continent, referring to the war in Ukraine.

The Marine Traffic website, which monitors global shipping, says the Anatolian was previously named the Mavi Marmara. Israeli commandos stormed the vessel  then a passenger ship  in 2010 as it attempted to break a blockade on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, killing nine Turkish activists, including a dual American citizen.

The Mavi Marmara incident led to a serious diplomatic rift between Israel and Turkey, which withdrew its ambassador to Israel and scaled back military and economic ties. Israel later apologized for the deaths and agreed to compensate the victims families.

In its entry for the Anatolian, Marine Traffic carried photographs of the Mavi Marmara with Turkish and Palestinian flags hanging from its sides. The websites last recorded location for the Anatolian was in the Somali capital Mogadishu in late June.
Photo: (Photo : PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

An Indian mom fought off a tiger with her bare hands to save her toddler son from its jaws, an official announced on Wednesday, September 7.

Archana Choudhary stepped out of her home in the central state of Madhya Pradesh on Sunday evening as her 15-month-old boy wanted to relieve himself. Local official Sanjeev Shrivastava told AFP that a tiger believed to have strayed from the nearby Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve suddenly pounced on them.

He said the tiger attacked and tried to sink its teeth into the kid's head, but the mother leaped to the boy's rescue. The tiger kept trying to snatch the child until villagers heard the mom's screams and rushed to their rescue.

Mom suffered punctured lungs, wounds in her abdomen

With reinforcements on the way, the tiger escaped into the forest. Shrivastava said the mother had been admitted to the hospital, and she is now out of danger and recovering. He added that the baby is also doing fine.

The mom suffered punctured lungs and wounds to her abdomen in the tiger attack, while the young boy had deep gashes on his head. According to civil surgeon Dr. Misthi Ruhela in the city of Jabalpur, the mom and child were being treated in the intensive care unit (ICU), and both had been given anti-rabies injections.

According to The Times of India, a search operation has been launched to push the wild animal back to its territory. Villagers had also been told to stay indoors at night while the tiger was still at large.

Last month, it was reported that a tiger killed a man in front of his wife and neighbor in the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve. As more forestland is lost to urban expansion, conflicts between humans and animals have been rising across South Asia.

Read Also: NBA star Luka Doncic in Legal Conflict With His Mom; Files Petition for Trademark Control

Tiger attacks rising in India

According to figures from the Indian government, nearly 225 people were killed by tigers between 2014 and 2019, while data showed that more than 200 tigers were killed by poachers or through electrocution between 2012 and 2018.

A controversial hunter killed a female tiger blamed for over a dozen fatal attacks in the subcontinent in 2018. The tiger population was estimated to be at 2,967 back in 2018.

India announced in 2019 that the number of wild tigers had increased 33 percent in four years despite the rise in human conflict. However, animal attacks on people living around the said tiger reserve are not uncommon. Villagers told BBC Hindi that elephants have also been entering their villages in the past months apart from tigers and are damaging their crops.

According to experts, this is not a complete surprise as rapid urbanization is destroying the animals' natural habitats, forcing them to enter towns and villages in search of shelter and prey.

Related Article: Single Dad Looking For Amusement Park Date Goes Viral With Wholesome TikTok Video
Photo: (Photo : Andreas Glockner)

According to Polygon, Disney's Pixar announced plans for a sequel to 2015's Inside Out which depicts numerous emotions inside a young girl's head. The original director of the movie, Pete Docter, and voice star, Amy Poehler, made an appearance at D23 to celebrate the news that surprised many Disney fans.

The first movie followed and narrated the emotions inside of a young girl named Riley as her family moved to San Francisco. The 50-year-old voice actress said that the sequel will take place right inside Riley's head, only this time she's a teenager and includes a whole new crop of teenage emotions.

"Inside Out 2" from Pixar is coming in the summer of 2024. Kelsey Mann will take over the directing reigns from Docter and will helm the new installment with a script from Meg LeFauve, returning screenwriter. The 2015 movie was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. The voice cast included Poehler as Joy, Bill Hader as Fear, Lewis Black as Anger, Mindy Kaling as Disgust, and Phyllis Smith as Sadness.

Pete previously told media outlets in June 2015 that they didn't have sequel plans at the time as there was still no sequel idea from him at such point. "Never say never," he added.

Read Also: Experts Not Recommending Nursery Trends Posted by Influencers; Not Safe for Babies

Movie shows that it is okay not to be okay sometimes

The "Parks and Recreation" actress revealed that the film's message is something that everyone can relate to and appears to be relevant to all ages. Poehler commends Pete for doing a beautiful job and also for reminding everyone of how life is difficult and how emotionally treacherous it is to grow up and just leave childhood behind but the constant pursuit of happiness as humans and as parents sometimes get in the way of real growth.

The sequel will surely captivate children and parents alike as the beloved elephant imaginary friend, Bingbong, played by Richard Kind, will introduce the new environment and setup.

The movie depicts numerous emotions which only means that sometimes, it's okay to be sad and "it's okay to have feelings that are not maybe the ones that you thought you were supposed to have or are what is expected of you." Amy finds it beautiful how the movie makes a wonderful attempt at taking such a huge intellectual idea and making it a very small, human, connecting experience. The film grossed $857.6 million worldwide, People reported.

Sequel will not have the same cast as the 2015 movie

Unfortunately, Hader and Kaling will reportedly not be joining the sequel due to salary demand. According to the news outlet, Amy will be making $5 million for the movie but the rest of the cast was only offered $100,000. However, Disney increased the offer to no avail.

There is no news yet on how the movie will incorporate the loss of Hader and Kaling's voices but Riley and her mind's master will be the main subject once again. Teenaged emotions are still not revealed but the movie will surely shock the audience with its own twist.

In 2016, Jim Morris, Pixar's president, shot down any spin-offs. He said that most studios jump on making a sequel as soon as their film is successful but their business model is a filmmaker model which only means that they won't make any sequel unless the original director of the film has an idea that they are willing to go forward on, Scary Mommy says.

Related Article: Netflix's New 'CoComelon' for Older Kids To Include Speaking Characters
The influx of pirated fabrics on the local market, high cost of production and weak enforcement of anti-piracy measures are threatening the survival of the countrys remaining textile companies.



The Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL), Text Styles Ghana Limited, formerly known as GTP, Volta Star Textile Limited and Printext, which are the main companies that survived the turbulence of a dwindling textile sub-sector, are suffocating as a result of these triple challenges.



Ghana once had a vibrant textile industry with 16 large companies that employed some 25,000 people and accounted for 27 per cent of total manufacturing employment as of 1977.



However, the industry deteriorated such that by 2005, many of the textile companies folded up with the four major existing ones - GTMC, ATL, GTP and Printext, engaging a mere 2,961 workers.



The Daily Graphic has gathered that while some of the companies are struggling to pay the salaries of their workers, others are bearing the brunt of high cost of production, forcing them to shut down temporarily. Some of the workers of the textile companies disclosed to the Daily Graphic that they had been sent home and were recalled as and when work was available.



Context



Since 2010, task forces have been set up to crack down on fake textiles.





That move was in compliance with the World Trade Organisations Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement, which mandates governments not to allow infringed goods to enter the channel of commerce and also not to allow the re-exportation of such goods.



However, that intervention has not been successful as the operation has not been consistent or sustained, giving way for traders and importers to have a leeway.



The textiles imported into the country are relatively cheaper and given the economic situation, those who patronise them opt for the comparatively cheaper price.



The textile companies have been helpless in getting the needed legal support despite the persistent calls from workers in the industry.



Text Styles challenges





In the case of the Text Styles, the company has sent all its 600 workers home for the first two weeks of September, and they are to return on September 12.



The company is going through biting financial challenges, making it difficult to pay workers salaries.



The local union secretary, Sylvester Donkor, told the Daily Graphic that the management of the company took the decision because of the dire financial challenges occasioned by the shortage of residual fuel oil (RFO) on the market and the difficulty in selling it products, which had led to large unsold volumes in its depots.



He said in the absence of RFO, the GTP had switched to the use of diesel as the alternative fuel to power the boilers.





But this has increased the cost of production so much, at a time when sales have drastically reduced.



The two-week break will end on September 12 and we are only hoping that the RFO situation would have improved by that date, so that they will recall workers, he said.



Mr Donkor explained that the decline in sales was largely because of the influx of pirated fabrics onto the Ghanaian market.





When the borders were closed in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were making good sales to break even because there was no illegal importation of pirated fabrics through the unapproved borders. However, after the borders were opened, things became worse for us, he said.



He called for the enforcement of the anti-textile piracy task force that was set up to flush out pirated fabrics from the market to pave the way for local companies to survive.



ATLs blues



For the ATL, the company which employed over 3,000 workers about a decade ago, now has less than 500 workers.



The workforce was 600 last year, but as of today, we are less than 500, a highly placed source at the company who pleaded anonymity told the Daily Graphic.



He added that even with the reduced number of workers, the company was not in full operation.



The source said the workers were at home and only called to work when the company received institutional requests from churches, schools and other clients.



Workers are at home without working, but they are paid their salaries every month. The only reason this is possible is that the government made ATL one of the beneficiaries of the one district, one factory (1D1F) initiative, the source said.



GTMC folds up



The situation has worsened at the GTMC, forcing the company to fold up lately.



When the Daily Graphic visited the premises of the GTMC last Tuesday, there was no human activity there, except security officers who were manning the entrance. A notice had been posted on the wall at the entrance, indicating that the buildings were being used for other purposes.



GFL-TGLEU concerns



The Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) and the Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Union (TGLEU) attributed the dwindling fortunes of the textile industry to the failure of the government to implement measures that would help clamp down on the influx of pirated fabrics onto the markets.



The General Secretary of the GFL, Abraham Koomson, called for the immediate implementation of the textile tax stamp policy that was initiated by the government to help identify pirated fabrics.



He also stressed the need for the operationalisation of the anti-textile piracy task force that was set up by the government four years ago to clamp down on criminal elements who had invaded the local textile industry with pirated designs, logos and other materials.



The task force, made up of personnel of the National Security, the Custom Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Trade and Industry Ministry, GUTA and other stakeholders, was given the mandate to curb the menace of the illegal importation of pirated Ghanaian textiles prints.



We want the task force to be enforced as soon as possible so that we can get rid of the pirated textile fabrics and give space for the local textile manufacturers. We cannot be promoting the one district, one factory initiative and sit down for local textile companies to die, he stressed.



Mr Koomson also called on the government to extend the two-year VAT waiver for textile companies to 10 years to enable them to make the right investment decisions.

Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Hollard Insurance employee, Maa Korkor Nai, Head Technical Underwriting is the Professional Underwriter of the Year at the Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (CIIG) Awards held at the plush Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.



Organized under the theme: "Celebrating Excellence in Ghanas Insurance Industry." The prestigious industry awards sought to honour individuals, companies, and insurance reporters who had excelled in the practice over the year.



Speaking at the event, the President of the CIIG, Tawiah Ben-Ahmed, said: CIIG Insurance Excellence Awards is to ensure that insurance practices and services in Ghana are of the highest possible standards. As well as conform to internationally accepted best practices to drive sustained growth of the insurance industry.



Commenting on the recognition, Managing Director of Hollard Insurance, Daniel Boi Addo, described the win as a deserving honour.



Our people mean everything to us so it's fulfilling to have one of our best Hollardites in the limelight for the second time, at the second edition of the CIIG Awards. Maa Korkor has been a phenomenal team member. Her competency and leadership have positively impacted our ability to deliver on our promises. We are thankful to the CIIGs jury for recognising her as the industrys best in technical underwriting and to our colleague Hollardites for constantly bringing their A game."



"At Hollard Insurance, our purpose is to enable people to create and secure a better future. To this end, we actively invest in the professional development and expertise of our talent to their benefit, and for our customers, and the industry as a whole", he added.



Maa Korkor's work experience spans over fourteen years in insurance, nine of which have been in management roles.



She is the Head of Technical Underwriting with the added responsibility of leading the Global Accounts Unit and Reinsurance Team at Hollard Insurance. Before this, she worked within the Claims and Underwriting functions in various roles: including Head of Central Underwriting, Head of Direct & Global Accounts, Lead Underwriter for Specialized Risks, and the Travel Business Portfolio.



Her experience involves taking on increasingly complex roles in the various technical and operational divisions of Hollard and working with clients of varied interests across a spectrum of international and local industries. This affords her a seamless blend of industry knowledge, capabilities, and expertise.



About Hollard Insurance



Hollard Insurance is a subsidiary of the insurance group, Hollard Ghana, which combines its deep local knowledge of the market with the world-class expertise of an international insurance brand. With feet firmly planted on Ghanaian soil but Headquartered in South Africa, Hollard delivers innovative insurance solutions customised to the unique risks Ghanaians face. Hollard was previously Metropolitan Insurance which operated in Ghana for over 25 years.



Hollard Insurance offers various non-life products including travel, motor, personal accident, and home insurance, and more. Beyond various nationwide office branches and Hollard 2U franchise shops, Ghanaians can find Hollard at Shell Fuel Station Welcome Shops, Melcom stores and online at www.hollard.com.gh and www.jumia.com.gh for all their insurance needs.













Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Supreme Law of the Land (Constitution) guarantees the freedom and enjoyment of rights of its citizens. This position is buttressed by Articles 14 and 21 of the 1992 Constitution which talks of protection of personal liberties and general fundamental freedom.

General misconception



The general impression among the Ghanaian populace per the interpretation of Article 270 (1-3) is that our Kings and Chiefs are Lords to themselves. However, being an institution it is regulated by the 1992 Constitution and the Chieftaincy Act (759). This assertion is further mirrored in the famous case of Republic v Techiman Traditional Council Ex-Parte Tutu (1982-83) GLR 996 at 999 where Coussey J A then, stated that Chieftaincy, since the British colonial administration, has been governed by statute and this has continued since independence of Ghana in 1957. Thus, the institution of chieftaincy, although it has evolved in accordance with customary law, has been subjected to regulation since the advent of British colonialism in the jurisdiction.



Banishment



The Constitution is quite explicit on the above subject and that no one or institution has the right to banish his or its subjects.



Under this forth Republic in 2007, a famous chief who is also a lawyer issued a statement banishing a Government official from his traditional area for refusing to make his representative the chairman of a local Board. Such action was also repeated by another paramount chief in one of our five regions of the north of the country on his subject and his family.



These acts received wide condemnation by the Ghanaian public.



Kwasi Addai (Odike) and Kumasi Traditional Council



About two weeks ago, Odike made a categorical statement on Oyerepa FM that imputed the character of Kumasi Traditional Chiefs of being kingpins in the illegal mining industry, popularly known as galamsay.



Based on this, the Traditional Council acting through the Bantamahene or Krontihene of Kumasi banned him from entering Manhyia Palace. This order has been received with mixed reactions by a cross section of Ghanaians.



I can state emphatically that, the action by the Kumasi Traditional Council is totally right and that they have not violated any article of the Constitution. It must be drummed home that Manhyia is not a public place, it is a private one like any private residence.



Invitation by Kumasi Traditional Council to Odike to Manhyia



This request by the Traditional Council was unconstitutional, in the sense that Nananom were re- inventing the wheel of a law that has been revoked or repealed. Therefore, Odikes refusal to attend to Nananom call was absolutely right.



In the celebrated case of Nana Adjei Ampofo v Attorney General and the President of the National House of Chiefs from 2007 to 2011, the Supreme Court of nine judges presided by His Lordship Dr. Date Bah agreed with the Plaintiff that if the President of the Republic, who holds executive authority of the state has no power to subpoena any citizen of Ghana, then who else can do so.



Hence, section 63(d) of the Chieftaincy Act which makes it an offence when a person deliberately refuses to honour a call from a chief to attend an issue has been repealed by the case law.



The Traditional Council never coerced or threatened Odike to attend their call, hence they have also not breached any article of the constitution too. The matter dies by itself.



Odike and the Chieftaincy Act of 2008 (759)



Section 63 (c) says a person who knowingly uses disrespectful or insulting language or insult a chief by word or conduct commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than two hundred penalty units or to a term of imprisonment not more than three months or both.



Of the four Declarations sought by Nana Adjei Ampofo, only one was granted and the rest were refused by the Supreme Court. Hence, all offences under section 63 of the chieftaincy Act hold good.



So where do we situate Odikes action now. He made a fleeting and blanket statement attacking the character of Nananom in Kumasi Traditional Council. He never mentioned anyones name in his attack.



But cant Nananom have the locus to hall him before the courts of the land based on Act 759 section 63 (c) for redress?

I leave it to the judgment of Ghanaians.



Oyerepa FM and Kumasi Traditional Council



Oyerepa being a legal entity and pro-active in their business march, quickly apologised to the Kumasi Traditional Council through the Acting President, Nana Boakye Ansah, the Chief of Asokore Mampong, and Professor Emmanuel Asante, Ex-President of Methodist Church Ghana.



Oyerepa rendered an unqualified apology for creating a medium for Odike to spew such uncomfortable words in attacking Nananom.



As part of their amicable settlement and lasting peace, both parties agreed that Oyerepa should be off air, whilst their apology was being considered.



Within a spate of two days, Oyerepa was back in the air and that ends the matter.



Nowhere did the Kumasi Traditional Council arrogate to itself the regulatory powers of National Communication Authority (NCA). Hence, where lies these unfair accusations?



Forth Estate of the Realm



No Ghanaian can undervalue the pivotal role of the media, both print and broadcasting in Ghanas current dispensation. However, there are some few journalists who have the penchant for engaging in misrepresentation and misreporting of facts. This is particular so, when the matter is coming from certain geographical corners of the country. Either people are deliberately being disingenuous or spicing up issues. We dont build a nation like that.



It is my strongest conviction, that if Senior Akoto Ampaw had been ceased with the facts of these matters which arose in Kumasi, he wouldnt had drawn such conclusions in his interview three days ago .



Unfinished business of National House of Chiefs



In the celebrated case of Nana Adjei Ampofo v Attorney General and the National House of Chiefs, of the four Declarations sought, the Supreme Court of Ghana granted only one.



Some Nananom, Togbes, Naabas, Kirous, Nenes, Wuras, Niis and others feel being jettisoned by this ruling, and that this ruling is a curtailment of their powers.



This is never so. It is the clear position of the law which has been clarified. That, section 63 (d) of the chieftaincy Act was in contravention of Article 2 of 1992 Constitution on consistency compliance.



The Supreme Court directed our Kings and Chiefs through Article 11 (3) and (7) of the 1992 to work assiduously with Parliament in reshaping section 63 (d) of Act 759.



The writer is mindful of efforts put in by then chairman of Legal Committee of National House of Chiefs, Daasebre Osei Bonsu of Asante Manpong, the Wlugu Naa

Professor J S Nabila and Nana Tibrukusu of Nsein, then President and vice President, to ensure that new powers are crafted in a way that will be acceptable to the people of Ghana through the Constitution. It is a project that must be brought to fruition.



Conclusion



The Chieftaincy Institution remains the heartbeat of the country. It is the fulcrum if not the pedestal of which the nation rests in all our national endeavours or affairs and that all efforts must be made to assist it irrespective of bumps and challenges.



The writer is a Senior Partner



Sterling Partnership and former Member of Parliament.

Kumawu









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.

Featured Video
This years International Literacy Day was commemorated in Accra yesterday on the theme: Transforming literacy learning spaces.

The event was organised by Worldreader, in collaboration with World Vision, UNESCO and the Complementary Education Agency (CEA).



Access



A Deputy Minister of Education, John Ntim Fordjour, said the government was working towards ensuring that life-long learning opportunities were provided for all children in the country.



Of what UNESCO considers a human right, everyone must have the opportunity to access literacy, he said, adding that about 20 per cent of the countrys population 15 years and above were illiterate.



According to UNESCO, even though some 125 million children access four years of primary education around the globe, they were unable to have functional literacy, the minister said.



Use of local dialect



A retired doctor and author, Prof. Lade Wosornu, urged school authorities to include the local dialect as a means of instruction, especially at the pre- and basic school levels.



He said using childrens home languages helped in improving their level of assimilation in general academic work.



The international community has long recognised that language issues are central to the organisation and delivery of education of all kinds, the author said.



The Country Director of World Vision, Dickens Thunde, also said the English language had taken a high-status position in Africa, such that in many countries education was delivered in a language children did not understand.



He said although children were exposed to the English language on their first day in school, the reality is that the children do not understand the teacher until several years into their education.



Although there is no one single cause of poor learning outcomes among schoolchildren, studies have revealed that the way lessons are taught in schools also contributes to poor learning outcomes, Mr Thunde added.



The Executive Director of the CEA, Francis Asumadu, said children from disadvantaged backgrounds, most of whom were found in public schools, tended to have learning deficits arising out of issues such as late enrolment and poor preparation at the early childhood level.



A child who enters grade one at age eight or nine has already missed years through which the brain should be calibrating and repositioning for learning.



This child would have to struggle through school to catch up with the system. Most of these children are not able to meet the demands of drawing from missed years of learning and new information, he said.



In a related development, a non-governmental organisation in education, Engage Now Africa, also organised an event in Accra to commemorate the day.



In attendance were the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey; representatives from the Ministry of Education and the Ga Traditional Council.



The Country Director of Engage Now Africa, Cecilia Amankwah, said the issue of literacy remained a red hot bottom switch that needed special attention, since the development of every nation hinged on education.



Development runs on the wheels of literate citizens. The multiplying effects of literacy on the individual, the nation and the world are incalculable and the value-addition that education bears on nations development cannot be under-emphasised, she said.



In a speech read on his behalf, the Ga Mantse, Nii Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, said: On this occasion, I reaffirm my commitment to education and job creation for the people of Ga-Dangme.









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.

Featured Video
Findings from an upcoming report from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) reveal that 7.9 million persons aged six years and older in Ghana are illiterate.



This means that they cannot read and write with understanding.



The report also finds that between the 2010 and 2021 Population and Housing Censuses (PHC), 1.2 million more illiterate adults (15 years and older) were added to the population  from 4.3 million in 2010 to 5.5 million in 2021, the Ghana Statistical Service said last Thursday on the occasion of World Literacy Day.



Of the number, 4.6 million illiterate are females while 3.3 million are males, indicating a female disadvantage that had been persistent over time.



Literacy rate



This is also a confirmation that Ghana has lower levels of adult literacy compared to its counterparts (lower-middle-income and sub-Saharan African countries), after three years of the provisions on illiteracy captured in the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2018-2030.



In February this year, a report of the 2021 PHC, conducted by the GSS, indicated that the literacy rate in the country was 69.8 per cent.



The data was an improvement on the statistics of the 2010 census, when the rate was 67.1 per cent.



The 2021 data also covered persons from age six and above who could read and write in any language.



Males made up 74.1 per cent, with females constituting 65.4 per cent.



Drivers of illiteracy



The GSS statement said the report provided direction for stakeholders to target hot spots and drivers of illiteracy in the country as it focused on three broad areas: trends, patterns and correlates of illiteracy.



An Assistant Chief Statistician at the GSS, Godwin Odei Gyebi, in an interview with the Daily Graphic explained further: The statement is to emphasise the theme to mark the World Literacy Day. After the Census from which about 13 reports were produced, there were specific data on literacy and education. For the purposes of the World Literacy Day, we decided to choose the illiterate population to highlight the situation, he explained.



Regional breakdown of literacy



In the 2021 PHC report, the Greater Accra Region had the highest figure of 87.9 per cent, while the Savannah Region recorded the lowest of 32.8 per cent.





It was titled: Ghana 2021 Population and Housing Census General Report Volume 3D, Literacy and Education.



It presented the educational profile of the population  three years, and older and literacy of persons six years and older.



The data on literacy, school attendance and educational attainment are disaggregated by sex, age, type of locality and region of residence.



The highlights on literacy pertained to three age brackets: six years and older, 11 years and older and 15 years and older, while education was three years and older, 15 years and older and 18 years and older.



The regional breakdown were as follows: Ashanti, 78 per cent; Eastern, 75.7 per cent; Central, 75.2 per cent; Western, 72.6 per cent, and Bono, 71.5 per cent.



Others are Volta, 70.9 per cent; Ahafo, 68.6 per cent; Western North, 62.8 per cent; Bono East, 56.3 per cent, and Oti, 50.6 per cent.



The rest are Upper East, 48.1 per cent; Upper West, 46.0 per cent; Northern, 41.3 per cent; North East, 35.9 per cent, and Savannah, 32.8 per cent.



Also, the detail reveals that four in five (80.6 per cent) of the urban population six years and older are literate in at least one language, compared to half, 55.2 per cent of the rural population of the same age, with the rural-urban differential being similar for males and females.



It further states that four out of the 16 regions have more than three-quarters, 75 per cent, of their population six years and older being literate, with Greater Accra recording the highest, 87.9 per cent, while Savannah has the lowest of 32.8 per cent.



Intervention to improve literacy



To help address this worrying trend, despite the free education at the basic and senior high school level, the government is rolling out some interventions.



Two of such interventions are the conduct of the National Standardised Test (NST) and the Transition to English (T2E) programme.



Last year, the Ministry of Education introduced the National Standardised Test as part of its quest to build a robust education system.



The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, explained that the objective of the Standardised Testing in basic schools is to know how well the students are doing.



He said the performance of the students in the test would enable the Education Ministry to prescribe the appropriate intervention the year after the exam is administered.



Initially, for only Basic four students in Ghana, the NST is to be extended to cover Primary Two and Six pupils in basic schools from 2022.



This academic year, we are going to assess Primary Two pupils, we will assess Primary Four students and Primary 6 students.



Giant stride has been made, but it is not good enough. We cant compete with the rest of the world when the first time we get to know of students achievements is 11 years after theyve left us and that has been the norm with this country for a long time.



We have two years of KG, six years of Primary, three years of JHS. You add it up and thats 11 years and if at the end of the 11 years that we do our first national exam and whether they do well or not its too late for that particular student and other nations around the world are able to assess their students along the line before they hit the 11 or 14 years, he said.



T2E Plus, a phonics-based approach to language learning, will sustain the gains yielded by the ongoing Early Grade Reading Programme, T2E and National Reading Radio Programme.



Under the T2E Plus programme, 5,425 schools will be put on the programme to improve learners reading performance among pupils from Kindergarten Two to Primary Three.



It is being implemented in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.



World Literacy Day



Since 1967, International Literacy Day celebrations have taken place annually around the world to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights, and to advance the literacy agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society.



In spite of progress made, literacy challenges persist with 771 million illiterate people around the world, most of them women, who still lack basic reading and writing skills and are faced with increased vulnerability.

Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The punitive measures against mobile network subscribers who are yet to re-register their SIM cards are beginning to bite hard as they are only able to receive calls.



Twice this week, owners of yet-to-be re-registered SIM cards were not able to make calls or conduct any other transaction with their SIM cards as the National Communications Authority (NCA) punitive measure took effect.



Unfortunately, some users who have successfully re-registered their cards, have also been caught in this punitive measure, leaving many people frustrated. This has resulted in long queues building up at various telecommunication centres as customers turn up to get their issues resolved.



Warning



Last Sunday, the NCA maintained in a statement that: A set of punitive measures designed to culminate the year-long nationwide SIM re-registration exercise will kick in from Monday, September 5, 2022.



From Monday, September 5, 2022, subscribers who have not started their re-registration will have all outgoing calls re-routed to an interactive voice recording (IVR) for a SIM registration sensitisation message to be played before all calls are connected.



Subscribers with uncompleted registration, that is those who linked their Ghana cards to their SIM cards via *404# but have not proceeded to have their biodata captured will also face similar disruption in service from Wednesday, September 7, 2022.



It also said the punitive measures for data services will, however, kick in from September 12.



The release stated that outgoing calls and data services would be blocked for these affected subscribers for 48 hours once a week once the punitive measures kicked in for the month of September, 2022.



Mobile Network Operators shall divide the unregistered SIMs into five batches for the purpose of implementing this punitive measure.



Queues, agitation



At some centres the Daily Graphic visited, it observed that the queues, agitations, frustrations and chaotic scenes were building up like it was during the early days of the exercise.



The situation was the same at the MTN, Vodafone and AirtelTigo service centres the Daily Graphic visited within Accra.



It observed that while some customers had come over to confront the service providers for blocking their networks in spite of having gone through the process of re-registration, others were there to complete the process.



Some customers told the Daily Graphic that they received messages from their service providers that their SIM cards had been blocked partially for two days due to their failure to re-register them using the Ghana Card.



I have tried all means to get my card without success, so why do I get punished for something that is beyond my control? A customer who was clearly agitated, asked.

Another said: I have fully gone through the process and this was undertaken by a team from MTN that came to our church for that exercise. I received feedback that I had successfully completed the re-registration exercise, yet now, I cannot make calls, another said.



This is very unfair and a clear indication that the issues of the SIM card re-registration are more complex than what the NCA and the Minister of Communications are telling us, yet another victim said.



We all understand that we have to re-register our SIM cards, but here is the case that the NIA was not able to issue the cards and instead of dealing with that, we are being punished for it.



This is unfair and unnecessary tension the NCA and the Ministry of Communications want to create. They have to verify that the card issuance process is efficient before they take these punitive measures, one of the students, almost in tears said.



Extreme protest



Last Thursday, things got to a head when an angry taxi driver reacted to his SIM card being blocked by invoking curses on a service provider. A video of the incident has since gone viral.



The taxi driver moved into one of the telecommunication companies in Accra to complain about his predicament.



It is unclear what ensued in the office, but when he came out of the office, he went straight to his car, stripped naked and crossed the busy road, holding a bottle of what looked like alcohol.



On reaching the roads median, he raised the bottle, chanted incantations in anger, poured out the drink and crossed back to the offices car park where his vehicle was and dressed up.



Service providers



Officials of the service providers who spoke to the Daily Graphic said the sanctions had taken effect, but unfortunately since it was a regulatory direction, there was very little they could do.



The officials also admitted that it was possible that those who might have gone through the process also suffered the disruptions because of network issues.



It is a technology process so once the network has a challenge it affects its smooth operations. Our attention has been drawn to the fact that despite completing the process, some people have fallen victim and we will be investigating and resolve that, they indicated.

Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has announced its decision to boycott all political programs on Nhyira FM, a Kumasi-based radio station operating on the license of the Multimedia Group.



The party has also called on the company to suspend its Morning Show Host pending investigations into bribery allegations leveled against him.



Viral audio



The journalist, Kwadwo Jantuah, a known critique of the Akufo-Addo administration is alleged to have received a cash amount of $2,000 and 2000 cedis from the office of former President John Mahama to do the bidding of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ashanti Region and make the government unpopular in its stronghold.



This is contained in a viral telephone conversation between popular NDC activist Appiah Stadium and another party member.



At a press conference in Kumasi on Tuesday (September 6), the Ashanti Regional Communications Director of the NPP Dennis Kwakwa said a recent pronouncement made by the presenter on air on the back of the scandal, informed the partys decision.



We are however worried about recent revelations involving one journalist with the Multimedia Group in Kumasi, Nana Kwadwo Jantuah, who is alleged to have been paid an amount of $2,000 and 2000 cedis by the NDC to insult and denigrate the President



"Our deep search into has revealed that this was not a one off payment but a quarterly contract initiated and mediated by Sammy Gyamfi and Abass Nurudeen, the National Communications Director and the Ashanti Regional Communications Officer respectively.



"The Communication Directorate of the NPP in the Ashanti Region accordingly withdraws its participation in subsequent episodes of Kuro Yi Mu Ns3m and Kukurantumi Shows hosted by Nana Kwadwo Juantuah.



"His emboldened posture, showing readiness to do his worst in the coming days gives us a cause to worry for the safety of our members. He sounds combative determined to exchange blows if that becomes necessary in his view, Kwakwa said.



Calls to NMC, GJA and OSP



The NPP has also indicated that some of its members have petitioned the local chapter of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the National Media Commission (NMC) to take keen interest into the conduct of the journalist.



Mr. Kwakwa further indicated that the party will take steps to petition the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) as far as the criminal aspect of the matter is concerned.



Strong defense



But the Multimedia Group has rejected the allegations describing it as unfounded.



"Preliminary investigations reveal that the allegation is unsubstantiated. The Station engaged all persons involved in the allegation and they have all retracted the allegation. The person who made that particular allegation has accordingly apologized, management of Nhyira FM said in a statement.



"In the light of the above, unless subsequent and concrete clear evidence is produced in support of the above allegation against Nana Kwadwo Juantuah, management views the allegation as unfounded, it said.













Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Dr Patrick Asuming, an economist with the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), has suggested to the government to reintroduce the luxury vehicle tax or other tax measures to save the economy from collapsing.



Speaking to Asaase News, Asuming said the government can consider addressing some of the teething challenges that led to the suspension of the luxury vehicle tax as it weighs alternatives to raise revenue.



We really need to have a general discussion about how we raise more progressive taxes, so it was quite disappointing that when we introduced the luxury vehicle tax, for no clear explanation, it was taken back, Asuming said.



Are you suggesting that we should bring back the luxury vehicle tax? the host asked.



Even if its not the luxury vehicle tax, there has to be additional tax measures that ensure that people are paying more, he responded.

Of course, there were difficulties in terms of, what type of vehicle was defined as luxury vehicle, that means you have to address that challenge, Asuming said. In every country, when you pass a law at times, there will be challenges, so you fix the challenges as the implementation goes on.



You dont scrap the tax because of a challenge with implementation.





Source: asaaseradio.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong sent a homage gift to Ho on Friday for Togbe Afede XIV, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State as part of the ongoing Yam Festival and it was rejected.



This year's yam festival of the Chiefs and people of Asogli State is being climaxed this weekend under the distinguished patronage of Togbe Afede XIV.



The festival started on August 6, 2022, and is expected to end on Sunday, September 11.



The one-month festival seeks to highlight unity, reconciliation, stocktaking and development and is also a platform for the annual reunion with the ancestors and the re-affirmation of allegiance by all chiefs and their subjects in the Asogli State to the Agbogbome Stool.



Rejection of Mr Agyapong's gift



There was a sitting in State at the Asogli State Palace Forecourt on Friday.



Mr Kennedy Agyapong was there in person in Ho on Friday to pay homage.



He sent along some gifts and the gift was rejected at the durbar ground.



Some sub-chiefs, serving as intermediaries to receive the gift on behalf of Togbe Afede rejected it and asked him to take it away.



Their reason was that Mr Agyapong has allegedly been speaking negatively and using unkind words on Togbe Afede.



A video depicting Mr Agyapong on the durbar grounds has some voices in the background shouting "away".



The gift including cartons of bottled water, was packed back into a vehicle that brought them.



Contrary to other reports that suggest that Mr Agyapong was chased out, Graphic Online's Volta Regional correspondent, Alberto Mario Noretti, who was at the durbar grounds reports that Mr Agyapong was not chased away.



It was only the gift that was rejected, he said.



A State Grand Durbar at the Jubilee Park in Ho has been scheduled for Saturday, September 10, 2022.









Why Togbe Afede rejected Kennedy Agyapong's homage at the Asogli Palace



From the Asogli Palace at Ho-Bankoe, Graphic Online's Volta Regional Correspondent, Alberto Mario Noretti reports that it was some sub-chiefs and elders at the Asogli Palace at Ho-Bankoe, who made it clear to the Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential hopeful, Kennedy Agyapong that the Agbogbomefia was not ready to accept any homage whatsoever from him.



Mr Agyapong had turned up at the Asogli Palace at Ho-Bankoe on Friday to pay homage to the Agbogbomefia of Asogli, Togbe Afede XIV, a day prior to the Te Za (yam festival) durbar, but he was not allowed to do so.



Left with no other option, Mr Agyapong who was seen sitting close to the Volta Regional NPP Chairman, Kafui Woanya, then waved goodbye to a section of the gathering and left the palace, reports Graphic Onlines Volta Regional Correspondent, Alberto Mario Noretti, who was at the Palace.



Later, palace spokesman told Graphic Online that the decision to reject Mr Agyapongs gifts of homage was based on his gross lack of respect for the Agbogbomefia.



A few years ago, Kennedy referred to our Agbogbomefia as a corrupt person who used his position as the chairman of the National Investment Bank board to do fishy deals.



We have also not forgotten the comment Kennedy Agyapong made some years ago about the Ewe and Ga people, said the palace spokesman.



A large number of corporate bodies, including banks and other business groups including the Graphic Communications Group Limited, political and religious groups as well as individuals from far and near flocked the Asogli Palace to demonstrate their love and respect to Togbe Afede XIV and pay homage to him when he sat in state on Friday (September 9, 2022).



The palace spokesman made it clear that the Mr Agyapong was not chased out of the palace contrary to some reports.



He left without anyone running after him soon after we told him that his presence and homage were unsolicited, the spokesman added.



Graphic Online observed how Mr Agyapong left the palace peacefully into a waiting vehicle after waving a section of the crowd goodbye.

Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Hamed Esmaeilion is seen in an undated still frame handout from the film "752 Is Not a Number". Esmaeilion has spent the last two-and-a-half years fighting for justice for his wife, his daughter and all the others who were on board, Flight PS752 when it was shot down, a gruelling process captured in Babak Payami's new documentary "752 Is Not a Number," which premieres at this year's edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-TIFF, *MANDATORY CREDIT*
Actor Seth Rogen is photographed as he greats fans during the red carpet premier for the film, The Fabelmans, at Princess of Wales Theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 10, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin
Queen Elizabeth II greets part of the crowd of thousands of well-wishers who turned out at Pentictons airport during a Royal visit to the Okanagan on May 6, 1971. In its glowing coverage of the day, The Herald described the Queens visit as transforming Penticton into a wonderland of fantasy, and the Queen herself appearing as if she descended from a cloud covered sky into an Eden with its white and pink orchard blossoms, its officials smart and polished, and its setting lush and inspiring, as only the Okanagan in spring can be.
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces march in Calgary on July 8, 2016. Canadas military watchdog says his office has received fewer than a dozen complaints from service members about the Armed Forces vaccine requirement, and that an investigation into each has found no foul play.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

Al Franken responded to John Roberts complaining about SCOTUSs legitimacy being questioned by reminding everyone that Republicans stole two seats.

Video:

CNNs Jim Acosta asked Franken, Confidence in the supreme court is at all-time low. The chief justice can say what he wants, seems to be bristling at this criticism. But it appears to be, based on what Vice President Kamala Harris was saying, there appears to be wind at the backs of the Democrats because of that decision that was overturned. Your thoughts?

Franken answered, I disagree with what the chief justice said, the legitimacy of the court was undermined when they wouldnt take up Merrick Garland, and McConnell said it was because it was an election year, and Lindsey Graham pledged that if a vacancy came open during an election year in 20 that he wouldnt vote for  they wouldnt take up a nominee. Theyve stolen two seats. The one that Merrick Garland wasnt given a hearing for. And the one that Coney Barrett, where she was seated a week before the election. That destroyed the legitimacy of the court.

The court has not been legitimate since Mitch McConnell blocked Merrick Garlands nomination. Everything that happened after McConnells actions sprung from the original act of not allowing Garlands nomination to be taken up by the Senate.

If the Supreme Court isnt a motivating issue for Republicans, maybe Hillary Clinton wins Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and there are no Trump nominees to the Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court lost legitimacy before Trump took office. The person who destroyed the credibility of the institution was Mitch McConnell.
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

Like all privileges, the attorney-client privilege is not inviolable. If an attorney speaks to his client in the presence of someone else (other than attorney employees), the privilege goes poof. Additionally, if you find yourself conspiring to commit a felony with your attorney, do not expect that your plans will be safe as privileged communications. This is where Christina Bobb, late of OAN and new to Trumps legal team, comes in. Bobb may have, in an impressively short period of time, managed to go from media personality to lawyer, to co-conspirator, to defendant. Bobb is one of two attorneys who signed off on a document stating that Trump had handed over all government files in his possession and  if she did so without a thorough investigation of her own, it can be construed as obstruction of justice, which is a crime, even in Florida.

Bobb needs an attorney, and dont take any one word for it. Many have noted that Bobb is in serious trouble and that her communications with Trump will not be privileged if she obstructed justice in the process. According to The Insider

Bobb certainly, at a minimum, is a material-fact witness in the context of the governments inquiry into possible obstruction and efforts to conceal the records located at Mar-a-Lago, Bradley Moss, a lawyer specializing in national security, told Insider.

Material fact means that the conversations themselves are evidence and thus not protected by attorney-client privilege. Moss went on to say:

It is not out of the realm of possibility that the government  will at least seek a court order compelling her to testify before the grand jury, citing the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. She should arguably be more focused on preparing a viable defense to a potential indictment than spouting off talking points on Fox News.

Yeah, just like every other self-respecting Trump attorney now needing their own attorney!

She should stay off of TV at this point, as [she] is only making the situation worse.

Correct.

Trump is just a dangerous client and dangerous partner in any business or political endeavor. He lies with such impunity that at any given point, a person may have themselves exposed when tied to one of his lies. Christina Bobb is exhibit A in this self-evident truth. She may have joined up with Trumps defense with good intentions, being honest, providing good counsel, and its all fallen apart quickly.

But Bobbs criminal exposure could make her a critical witness. She may find herself desperately in need of a deal. She may also be one of the few people who might really know Trumps motives and actions with respect to those files and thus might be the most direct line to the truth.

It is worth keeping an eye on Bobb because she will almost surely play a prominent role in this critically important potential criminal case.
?? El Ministerio de Salud informa que 1374 personas han sido dadas de alta por #ViruelaDelMono y se han detectado 52 casos nuevos. Todos vienen recibiendo asistencia medica y se viene realizando seguimiento a sus contactos. pic.twitter.com/Wu24SWLrl8
Herschel Walker used an interview on Fox News to tell white people to stop apologizing for their skin color.

Video of Walker on Fox Newss Sunday Morning Futures:

Herschel Walker tells white people not to apologize for their skin color and complains that the media doesn't love him anymore, "I want every white kid in school to know you don't have to apologize for your skin color." pic.twitter.com/lWrH4RxJ4r

Walker said:

The black and brown, we want public safety, want school choice for our kids. We want to be able to go outside in the streets and be safe. Thats one of the things I think theyve forgotten is  about, is were the same as anyone else. But they continue to want to call you names if you totally disagree with them.

Ive been out meeting the people, and one of the things my wife told me, educate people, because the media is not my friend. It is amazing that they used to love Herschel Walker and now they dont.

I dont care about that. I want people on the streets to be safe. I want them to go to the mall without having to hire a security guard to take you through the mall. I want every white kid in school to know you dont have to apologize for your skin color, every black kid to know youre not oppressed. You can still make it in this country here. This is the only country that you can make it in.

Herschel Walker feels very strongly for all the oppressed white people who have been made to feel bad because they are white. He also told black people that they are not oppressed; his message seemed to be that they should suck it up and show sympathy to all decent white people who feel bad about being white.

The interview was a disaster.

Walker cant be trusted to address media outside of heavily choreographed Fox News interviews and cant be allowed on the debate stage with Sen. Warnock.

Walker is a trainwreck who, when he does make sense, is offensive.

This is the sort of interview that plays well with Fox News viewers but also shows why the Walker campaign is a disaster.
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton urged America to reject MAGA which she called a loud, determined, vocal minority.

Video:

CNNs Dana Bash asked Hillary Clinton, Just listening to that, it is such a striking reminder of how all of Americas elected officials really generally put party aside and came together after those attacks. Would that be possible today?

Former Sec. of State Clinton answered:

Well, I hope that it will be. I give president Biden a lot of credit for trying to continue to reach out to people while still sounding the alarm about the threats to our democracy. I remember very well two days after I gave that interview being in the oval office with then President Bush who asked me what we needed. I told him we needed $20 billion to rebuild New York. He said youve got it. He was good to his word. There were all kinds of political conversations about that, but he never wavered.

And I wish now that people would come together behind President Biden who is doing an amazing job trying to rebuild our manufacturing sector, trying to deal with climate change, expand health care, all the other things including trying to do something about gun violence, that the vast majority of Americans approve of. So we are in a funny position, Dana, because theres a small but very vocal, very powerful, very determined minority who wants to impose their views on all the rest of us. Its time for everybody regardless of party to say, no, thats not who we are as America.

It is not a coincidence that Hillary Clinton spoke about a loud minority trying to impose its views and change America on the anniversary of the worst foreign terror attack ever carried out on US soil.

MAGA carried out the attack on the Capitol which was the worst domestic terror attack on American soil in the nations history.

This is not to suggest that anyone who supports MAGA is a terrorist. They are not, but Trump has embraced and emboldened a violent right-wing minority that is out to impose its views and change America.
As you read this, my wife, Becky, and I are winging across the Atlantic toward Lisbon, Portugal, where we hope to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary  postponed two years for the pandemic.

I have reading material to share with my beloved. She likes it when I do that.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, you can imagine our conversation going something like this.

Apparently, Lisbon was a devout religious city in the 1700s, the fourth-largest in Europe and a rich port city, I say.

She looks out the window, and I continue.

Its a good thing we arent visiting back then.

Why? she asks, eyes on the water far below.

Well, for one thing, the inquisition was underway, meaning theyd have burned this spirituality columnist at the stake.

Ive seen the email from your readers, she says, That bonfire might still happen.

I ignore her comment.

It gets worse. In the 16th century, Lisbon was the site of the worst natural disaster in European history.

She turns to me. Where are you getting all this?

I hold up my source book and she reads the title aloud.

The Big Ones  How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (And What We Can Do About Them) by Dr. Lucy Jones.

Adequately footnoted, I share my abridged version with Becky.

Jones, 67, a science adviser for the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, tells the story in the books second chapter of Lisbons All-Saints Day earthquake.

On November 1, 1755, the ground began to shake about 9:40 a.m. The tremor transitioned into a violent earthquake, lasting five minutes. Jones quotes numbers estimating that the quake was nearly a 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale.

She writes that many victims were sitting in stone churches, where many were crushed to death. If they survived church, they were swept away by the tsunami. If they escaped a watery death, they perished in fires that burned for six days.

Sign up for our new opinion newsletter Get a weekly recap of South Carolina opinion and analysis from The Post and Courier in your inbox on Monday evenings. Email

Sign Up!

The quake killed roughly 60,000 people and destroyed 85 percent of the buildings.

Becky fiddles with the air sickness bag.

Dont worry, I tell her. Theyve rebuilt the city. Well be safe.

Thats good, she says, apparently hoping the story is coming to a close.

Unless, that is ...

Her glare breaks my dramatic pause.

Unless God is still mad at Lisbon.

Becky shivers and reaches for the overhead vent. Or is it the call button to complain about her seat mate?

Its hard to tell, so I put on my earphones and listen to the audio version by myself.

Jones describes how church leaders immediately declared that the hand of Gods punishment had crushed Lisbon.

In a city dominated by the Catholic Church, priests asserted the quake to be divine retribution for allowing too many protestants into the city. Their answer for the people was to execute more protestants.

Protestant clergy countered by asserting that it was Gods reckoning on the Catholic Church for their worship of idol statues. Furthermore, it was payback for the many protestant murders by the Catholic Inquisition.

Fortunately, reasonable thought prevailed a few weeks later when Voltaire, the famed French writer and theist philosopher, rejected the idea that a benevolent God caused the suffering.

What crime or sin had those young hearts conceived? Voltaire asked. If God was punishing Lisbon, shouldnt he also exact the same price from London, Paris or Madrid for their vice?

Jones credits Voltaires deep feeling of unfairness for triggering a fundamental shift in Christian thought.

From that day forward, people of faith drew a distinction between natural evil, like earthquakes and floods, and moral evil like the Holocaust. Reasonable people rejected the idea that God is an angry old man using disaster as divine punishment.

The good news is that Lisbon recovered in remarkable fashion. Relief poured in from all over the world. Their government responded with assistance not seen before.

Lisbons survivors turned their hearts and hands toward rebuilding both their city and each other. In that regard, the people of God truly became the hand of God.

I heave a sigh at the redemptive conclusion and reach for Beckys hand. She gladly accepts it with some hesitancy, hoping shes heard the last disaster story on this vacation.
GEORGETOWN  A team of underwater archaeologists is on the hunt for a Spanish shipwreck from the 1500s that could unlock more secrets about one of the earliest European settlements in the continental United States.

An hour after the break of dawn, around 7:45 a.m. Aug. 26, Amber Cabading, Athena Van Overschelde and Will Nassif pulled their boat away from the South Island Public Boat Landing.

The trio from the S.C. Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology was sailing 40 minutes south to a 16-mile stretch of marsh and open water located at the mouth of the Santee River Inlets.

The site is believed to be the location of the "Capitana," a shipwreck from the 1526 expedition of Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon.

"It's one of the first recorded shipwrecks in the Americas," Cabading, 28, said. "It gives us a little snapshot of what the colonizers were in their mindset. What was their life like? Who was on board? How did they live on board? All of that can kind of be teased out if we find whatever is left of it."

In 1526, Ayllon departed the Caribbean to colonize the Atlantic coastline of the modern United States. His fleet consisted of six vessels that carried over 600 colonists and many supplies meant to help in creating a new Spanish settlement.

"Capitana" was the largest of the fleet, and it sank along the coast of what is now South Carolina, at the mouth of a river that Ayllon called the "Rio Jordan." Over the past three decades, modern scholars have debated on the location of this river.

Many archaeological surveys have tried to locate the flagship based on the conclusions of historian Dr. Paul Hoffman, who suggested that the "Rio Jordan" is either Winyah Bay or the North and South Santee rivers. Previous surveys have also focused on coastal inspections and remote sensing at the entrance to Winyah Bay.

For the S.C. Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, this is not the first time officials have conducted a survey in search of the lost flagship. In 1991, the Institute led a coastal survey of beaches along the Winyah Bay-Santee areas. However, no 16th century cultural material was found.

Since then, the institute has reexamined Dr. Hoffman's theory and reviewed other supporting historical documents, which ultimately suggest that the missing ship was lost near the entrances to the Santee River.

State Underwater Archaeologist James Spirek, a leader of the project, said the shipwreck could also help point archaeologists toward the location of San Miguel de Guadalupe.

In 1526, after a month of salvaging the "Capitana" shipwreck, Ayllon sailed south and founded San Miguel de Guadalupe. Although this colony was eventually abandoned after a six-week occupation, it was one of the earliest European settlements in the continental United States.

"Discovering this significant early Colonial shipwreck would prove of great scholarly and general interest of this fascinating period in the development of the United States and the New World," Spirek said in a statement.

The project has been funded by a 2021-22 fiscal year legislative earmark worth $250,000. The funding was sponsored by state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown, and administered through the S.C. Department of Archives and History.

For more than a month in total, the team has covered different sections of the site each day. While driving at about 10 mph, they utilize the boat's sonar and magnetometer  two instruments commonly used in surveying for shipwrecks. Sonar uses sound waves to "see" in the water, and a magnetometer measures changes in the Earth's magnetic field.

Through these tools, the trio hopes to pick up any noticeable changes beneath the water  like unusual shapes or traces of iron and phosphorus material that could lead them to a possible shipwreck.

Once the team has covered the water, they will develop a report of their findings from the water portion of the site. Then, they plan to use a drone to survey the adjacent beaches and marshes within the site.

The drone portion of the project is expected to start early next year.

Van Overschelde, 31, said the team has faced several challenges with surveying the water portion of the site. For example, they cannot drive the boat through depths of less than 5 feet, and they are constrained by the timing of high tide and low tide.

High tide often starts in the early morning, and low tide causes more shallow water in areas closer to the marshes. This makes it more difficult for the team to survey the water with their magnetometer, which follows behind the back of the boat in the water.

Also, they have had to end some days early because of difficult weather developing in the afternoons.

Then, if they notice anything unusual, the team would need to dive beneath the water. However, diving requires the team to be constrained by their limited amount of oxygen.

"The water just adds an extra layer to every aspect of the aggregation and the search for the sites," Van Overschelde said. "It just makes it more complicated."

The team isn't letting these challenges hinder them from the hope of finding this missing flagship. Van Overschelde, for example, said she grew up on tales of pirate ships and treasure hunting, and she is staying optimistic.

"I've never been on a project of that scale where we actually find what we're looking for," Van Overschelde said. "It would be pretty amazing."




"We are happy to welcome our Lord of Miracles so that he can tour our streets in the beloved city of Lima. He plays a leading role in our festivity. We had not been able to take him out in procession over these two years that have passed," he commented excitedly.





Soto explained that at all times they will rely on the support from ambulances both in the front and back of the group of people who will carry the platform because at all times "the safety of the faithful, of the brother carriers, as well as of the singing sisters and incense burners, will be sought, both at the entrance and exit" of the procession's main zone.

Dates





The first procession will take place on October 8th, followed by those scheduled for October 18th (Tuesday), 19th (Wednesday), and 28th (Friday). The last event is planned for November 1st (Tuesday).





It will not pass through the Main Square









Although the sacred Lord of Miracles will not pass through the Main Square this year, Lima Mayor Miguel Romero announced that he and other metropolitan municipality officials will approach the image to award it the city's coat of arms made of flowers at a certain point of the procession.





"On this occasion, our municipality (members) will go out to meet the Lord, and we will not fail to offer him the honors he deserves," he pointed out.





The mayor announced that the municipality will provide security and medical assistance across the five routes, adding that the Municipality of Lima has approved the design of routes.





"The streets of our city will always be open for our beloved patron, because he gives us the strength to continue working towards the construction of a caring society," he emphasized.





Like Jesus in Galilee




The Democrats will retain their majority.

The Republicans will gain the majority.

The Democrats will have a supermajority of 10 or more senators.

The Republicans will have a supermajority.

I'm not following or participating in the November general election.

Vote

View Results
I first wrote about Rick Rescorla in 2003 after finishing James Stewarts Heart of a Soldier, the book based on Stewarts New Yorker article The real heroes are dead. (The real heroes are dead is what Rescorla would say in response to recognition of his heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam.) Its a good book that touches on profound themes in a thought-provoking way: life and death, love and friendship, heroism and sacrifice, destiny and fate, mans search for meaning, all fall within the books compass.

Rescorla was a British native who moved to the United States to join the Army and fight the Communists in Vietnam. Rescorla was inspired to move to the United States in part by his friendship with Dan Hill. Their friendship is the one constant theme of the book. Hill and Rescorla had become friends in Rhodesia; they consciously modeled themselves on the characters of Peachy and Dravot in Kiplings story The Man Who Would Be King. Later they both served as officers in Vietnam, where in 1965 Rescorla saw harrowing combat in the Ia Drang Valley.

In April 2001, thanks to Hills efforts, Rescorla was inducted into the Armys Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame for his service in Vietnam. The famous photo at the left (taken by UPI reporter Joe Galloway) depicts Rescorla in action in the Ia Drang Valley It is moving to read of the officers who sought Rescorla out to shake his hand and have him autograph their copies of We Were Soldiers Onceand Young, in which Rescorla plays a key role.

Rescorla died a heros death saving his charges at Morgan Stanley in the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Rescorla was head of security for the company; he directed the evacuation in which he had long drilled the companys WTC employees. He knew that a terrorist attack on the WTC was coming and he knew what had happened as soon as the building was hit. His message was one of resolve. Using a bullhorn, he shepherded his charges into the towers one usable fire escape and exhorted them that it was a day to be proud to be an American.

The book closes with the words of Hill, the man who remained Rescorlas best friend until his death. His haunting words pay tribute to Rescorla:

One of my lifes biggest regrets is that I couldnt have been with Rick at the moment of his great challenge and crisis of his life. Then again, maybe it was so destined, because if I didnt survive, there would be nobody left to tell the story. Kipling wrote that all men should count with you, but none too much. I failed there. Rick counted as the world to me. Somebody cautioned that if a person or thing means the world to you, and you lose that person or thing, then you have lost the world. I lost the world when Rick died.

First posted 9/11/2005.

UPDATE 9/11/2011: The San Francisco Opera debuted Heart of a Soldier, an opera composed by Christopher Theofanidis to a libretto by Donna DiNovelli, based on Stewarts book. Cori Ellison provided a preview in the New York Times article Opera recalls a heros life, love and song.

The Daily Mail recounted Rescorlas story in an article full of good photos.

One final note. You may want to take the time to check out the 10-minute American Veterans Center video on Rescorla (below).
On Friday the White House released the Biden-Harris economic blueprint a/k/a the Presidents Economic Blueprint (press release here, 58-page document here). Its a blueprint with five pillars that have done so much for us already and promise to do more and worse in the future.

Performing the work that our native media fact-check workers refuse to do, James Bovard assesses the veracity of claims made in the blueprint. He introduces his column:

The latest Biden victory lap is the administrations most shameless strutting of 2022. The White House Friday issued a 58-page Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint that claims to have performed more miracles than accompanied the Sermon on the Mount. Biden is still trying to take credit for job growth that happened only because of the end of lockdowns. In fact, his success is really a failure  as fewer people are working now than before COVID. Its just one of the many whoppers packed into this ridiculous piece of propaganda[.]

He doesnt exactly require the strength of Samson to pull the pillars down. Here is one of Bovards examples:

CLAIM: The Administration has taken critical steps forward inimproving our immigration system. FACT: The administration has effectively opened the southern borders, enabling millions of illegal immigrants to enter the nation and begin collecting federal benefits. Biden and most of the nations media have ignored the resulting chaos in Texas, Arizona and other states.

Bovards column runs under the mocking headline: Bidens economic victory lap is 58 pages of malarkey.
Terror outfit plans to recruit cadre from Gujarat

NEW DELHI: The intelligence agencies have warned that the global terror outfit Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) will attempt to disturb the communal harmony in the state and disrupt the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections by executing incidents of rioting and attacks on the right-wing leaders.

According to the intelligence inputs, the ISKP has directed its cadres in India to use the Gujarat riots as the trigger point for the recruitment of radicalised youths and the issue of the release of the Bilkis Bano case convicts to disrupt the communal harmony in the state ahead of the Assembly election.

The intelligence assessment also suggests that the incidents of rioting and physical attacks on right-wing organisations, religious leaders and security forces may be attempted by these radicalised youths in the coming weeks.

The ISKP is a front of the dreaded terror group Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and its operatives based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region are coordinating with India-based associates to carry out attacks in India through various means.

The sources in the security grid said that this was not the first occasion wherein the ISKP wanted to execute terror acts in India. It has been trying to spread its footprint in the country ever since the Taliban took over control of Afghanistan on August 15 last year. They try to create their own cadre here with the help of the terror networks of other outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

However, the sources in the security agencies have said that adequate security measures will be taken to ensure the maintenance of communal harmony in the poll-bound state and all necessary security drills will be exercised soon to counter these threats.

In late 2021, the intelligence agencies had shared inputs with the stakeholders comprising the paramilitary forces and police administration to take preventive and precautionary measures to thwart these nefarious designs of the jihadis.

The security alert inputs and disclosures made by the ISIS operatives arrested from Jammu & Kashmir and Karnataka last year had indicated continued intent on the part of the Islamic State (IS) terrorists to carry out attacks in India.

The inputs further indicated that the IS operatives based in the Af-Pak region have been coordinating with their cohorts based here to further their nefarious anti-India agenda and, to some extent, Pakistans intelligence agency ISI has also been aiding them for terror purposes.

The global terror outfits operatives have also assured their Indian associates funds for procuring Kalashnikov assault rifles, small arms, the making of IEDs and preparations for attacks as part of the Islamist terror agenda.

The Islamic State Wilayah Hind (ISHP), an offshoot of ISIS, has in its propaganda magazine "Voice of Hind" had earlier hinted that its cadres should find out the vulnerabilities of the road and railway networks. The terror propaganda magazine also outlined in detail the possibility of attacks on the Indian road and railway network.

Similar indications that the Pakistan-based remnants of the Indian Mujahideen may have been in contact with IS operatives in India and the Af-Pak region were also revealed soon after the busting of the Voice of Hind network of the ISIS in Jammu & Kashmir and Karnataka, the sources further said.

The inputs have come just weeks after the Russian Federal Security Service detained a suicide bomber, a member of the ISIS, who was plotting a terrorist attack against the Indian leader to avenge the alleged insult to Prophet Muhammad.

The intelligence agencies in India have also been extracting information from their Russian counterparts about the detailed plans of the attacks by the arrested terrorist too.
Movie title: Collision Course

Release Date: 2 September 2022 (Netflix)

Running time: 80 minutes.

Director: Bolanle Austen-Peters

Cast: Daniel Etim Effiong, Bimbo Manuel, Gregory Ojefua, Bamike Olawunmi-Adenibuyan, Kalu Ikeagwu, Nobert Young, Chioma Chukwuka Akpotha, Ade Laoye, Kenneth Okolie.

Police brutality in Nigeria and the world has always been a cause for concern.

So when Nigerians rose two years ago to fight the power, the world listened.

Memories of the protests, dubbed #EndSARS, are still fresh.

But rather than solve anything, it has brought a new form of hostility to the officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force.

A good example would be the viral video of some young men who drove off with a traffic warden while she was screaming to be rescued.

While her yelling, e dey carries me dey go where I no know, made humour for many, it did not mask the fear in her voice.

Hers is not an isolated case.

Collision Course is a film that attempts to shed light on some of the causes of police brutality that no one seems to be paying attention to.

Plot

In this movie, Mide Johnson, a struggling artiste with a pregnant fiance, is kidnapped by some TARS officers who torture him and force him to part with his money at gunpoint.

He is haunted by this experience, causing triggers on random occasions.

Even though he has a highly influential father with a foreign degree to boot, Mide struggles with his career as he tries to pioneer a new genre of music.

On the other side is Officer Magnus, an actual victim of the Nigerian public service system.

With a family living in deplorable conditions, Officer Magnus unsuccessfully stakes his kids school fees to buy his way into the elite TARS division of the Nigeria Police Force.

On the same night that Mide is booed off the stage in front of his fiance, Officer Magnus wife makes good her threat to move out of the barrack with his kids.

Both personalities paths cross at an illegal roadblock, and their charged-up moods create a trigger that changes everything.

Review

Collision Course is proof that Nollywood has improved in storytelling.

It is evident in how it captures the different elements that trigger police brutality in Nigeria.

But perhaps this works as a plus and a minus for the film.

In todays Nigeria, the police and civilians have fallen victim to brutality.

Collision Course abrupt ending missed an opportunity to spotlight the dangers of police brutality and the citizens hostility towards the police.

The scene of Mide and Magnus in a car, where they both finally have a talk and realise that they both want the same thing is a good reflection of todays Nigeria.

Magnus forgetting to uncork his gun, which lets off the shot that kills Mide, is a metaphor for how uncontrolled anger claims lives.

Or better yet, how accidental discharge has claimed innocent lives in the country.

Yes, the film spotlights the highhandedness of the Nigerian police, but it also sheds light on some of the causes.

For instance, Officer Magnus is a laid back police officer who wants to do his duties. However, he is pressured by financial incapacities and a nagging wife.

This triggers the question, are we taking the psychological needs of police officers seriously in this country?

Besides that, Collision Course is a good film, with fine acting and near-perfect directing, but it doesnt say anything new.
Jude Nwachukwu, 36, is one of the many Nigerian students affected by the war in Ukraine. He left home for the Eastern European country in 2019 to pursue a Masters degree towards fulfilling his dream of becoming a private investigator or crime scene investigator.

Mr Nwachukwu was able to travel with the help of his elder sister, who gave him her life savings, and a religious group to which he belonged. He envisaged no problem in paying back the loans as his agent had told him he would be able to combine his study with work. But on getting to Ukraine, he found things were different from what he had been led to expect.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, he said: I borrowed money from my fellowship and from my sister too; she gave me the money with the hope that in future I would support her kids, almost four million. I used it to process my visa and paid my tuition and hostel fees.

My sister told me that she gave me all her savings, it was very painful for her to release that money and she said I should remember that they will be the ones calling me for money from that moment.

It took him almost two years of being in Ukraine before he finally found a job as a forklift driver that paid him $500 (N211,000) a month. But shortly after that lucky break, the Russia-Ukraine war started on 24 February.

Helpless students

Almost seven months after the war began, most Nigerian students in Ukraine like Mr Nwachukwu have yet to find their way around the uncertainty brought about by the war. Many of them say their schools have refused to release their transcripts or certificates to enable them to transfer to schools in other locations.

Mr Nwachukwus case was made worse by the loss of his credentials in Hungary after he fled Ukraine.

When we got to Hungary, I fell sick. My friend who was with me went out strolling when someone came in and stole my laptop bag containing all my certificates except my international passport which was in my winter jacket, he narrated.

When I confronted the security guards in charge of that station, they started acting in a suspicious way and then I knew they were behind my missing bag. But they denied and asked me to go make a report with the police. When I got to the police I was practically humiliated, they told me to go away. They even threatened to stab me.

He eventually left Hungary for Germany and is now in Portugal, living on food from the Red Cross that comes once a day.

Unlike Mr Nwachukwu, Sandra (not her real name), a fourth-year student at Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine, has all her documents intact but is also stuck as it is almost impossible to get my original certificates and transcripts from the university.

Sandra did not want her identity revealed because of fear of victimisation by her Ukrainian university. She said students including her now have to go through agents to get their transcripts, describing the Ukrainian education system as a money-making venture.

For this, some agents are asking for $700 (N298,000) and to wait two to three months for a mere transcript. All these are aimed at discouraging students from transferring and keeping the flow of fees into their pockets, Sandra said.

According to her, Ukrainian schools do not have the interest of their students at heart because they are in partnership with those agents.

The same agents boldly say that the transcript can be ready faster if the students want to transfer to universities that they have made available in other countries. This shows that the agents want to clamp down on students freedom.

Sandra narrated how many Nigerian students missed scholarship opportunities in Hungary for students at risk from Ukraine, which, she said, their Indian and Asian counterparts enjoyed to continue their studies.

Not only were we denied the scholarship, but we were also denied the opportunity for self-financing, as the results of the scholarship (application) were released weeks after the slated period. By the time most of us knew our fate, it was already too late to choose the option of self-financing, for example in Semmelweis University that I had applied for, she narrated.

The situation has led many Nigerian students to continue to wander around Europe in search of opportunities to continue their study programmes.

According to Mr Nwachukwu, he could not consider returning to Nigeria because, aside from the fear of the economic and security situation in his home country, he has nothing to pay back his loans. I left Nigeria because I couldnt get a job. If my country was good, do you think I would prefer staying back in Europe?

Another student, who identified himself simply as Iheanyichukwu, said he did not consider returning to Nigeria because of the incessant strikes in universities and because he also felt the war in Ukraine would not last longer than three months.

A second-year student of Kyiv Medical University, Mr Iheanyichukwu had fled Kyiv and travelled through Warsaw in Poland and Budapest in Hungary to Mainz, Germany. In Mainz, he is without a job as he has not been issued a pass to work or even learn the language of the people.

Ukrainian schools refused to issue us our transcripts and our original WAEC result. They are threatening us with expulsion, but we cannot afford to be expelled because our admission is tied to our residence permit. The second after you are expelled, your permit would be terminated.

Mr Iheanyichukwu had graduated from a Nigerian university before leaving for Ukraine to study medicine. However, his dream of becoming a doctor has been cut short by the war. He is also not considering a return to Nigeria because of the situation in his home country.

After over 1,000 students were evacuated from Ukraine to Nigeria in March, the Nigerian government through the education ministry advised the students who were interested in being absorbed into Nigerian universities to apply through a public portal. But public universities in Nigeria have been on strike since then.

MDCN rejects online classes

Unlike Mr Iheanyichukwu, Annabel Ikuru, a second-year student of Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, returned to Nigeria a day before the war broke out. She has since been taking her classes online. But her parents are also contemplating sending her to another university in Europe to continue her education, especially as the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) is questioning degrees acquired from taking classes online.

However, she may return to Kyiv soon after learning that some of her fellow non-Nigerian students are already back in classes in Kyiv, which is relatively safe. Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian news platform, reported in August that schools in Kyiv and Lviv planned to resume offline classes by 1 September.

Why students must apply for expulsion to get transcripts  Ukrainian Official

But when PREMIUM TIMES contacted the Director of the Ukrainian State Centre for International Education, Olena Shapovalova, she said the law in Ukraine mandates students requesting transcripts to write an appeal for expulsion to the dean of their schools.

According to Ms Shapovalova, expulsion in Ukraine is an indication that a student has completed their study year and is no longer a student. It is not different for Ukrainian students, she stressed.

Every student has a right to get their transcript when they finish studying in the school and it should be very clear that there is no possibility for the university not to give the transcript if the student finishes his/her studies, she said.

In order to get a transcript, the student needs to write an appeal about their desire to get a transcript and it is the procedure of expelling. In Ukraine, the word expel means finish. It might also be due to the desire of the student. There are different reasons to be expelled according to the legislation in Ukraine.

To get a transcript, you need a reason. The reason is that you have finished studying in Ukraine. Academic transcript shows the end of your education, Ms Shapovalova explained.

However, she said the preparation of transcripts might take a long time as they have to be computed individually. She said there is a difference between the study certificate and the transcript. While the transcript is a legal document, it is almost like a degree, the study certificate does not need to be legalised and is signed by the dean.

The official added that universities cannot issue original documents to a person without proper authorisation. So, such students would need to provide proper power of attorney, which has to be verified by the Ukrainian embassy for those in Nigeria or a Ukrainian lawyer.

Ukrainian universities remain open, fully functional despite war

Additionally, she said despite the war, all Ukrainian universities remain open and fully functional, regardless of where they are located and are holding classes online and offline.

According to Ms Shapovalova, her centre has devised ways for students to continue their studies even with the war.

International students in their first to third years will continue online with Ukrainian universities, studying theoretical subjects, while those in their fourth to sixth year can take theoretical courses online while practical classes and clinical rotations to be held in person on foreign universities campuses or hospitals or clinics under partnership agreements, she told PREMIUM TIMES.

Reminded that the MDCN said it will not accept degrees acquired online, Ms Shapovalova said the centre is in talks with the Nigerian authorities and had a recent meeting with the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Education and Health as well as the university commission (NUC), MDCN and the admissions agency, JAMB.

Additionally, students can join academic mobility and exchange programmes for one year at foreign university campuses in person under partnership agreements facilitated by the Centre and Ukrainian universities, she said.

These programmes foresee that students go to partner universities for studying in person while the education process will be arranged under Ukrainian universities syllabuses. All foreign partner universities under academic mobility and exchange programmes should be fully accredited for medical programmes, she added.

However, if an international student decides to withdraw their documents from a Ukrainian university to transfer to another higher education institution in another country, she said they need to contact their university and submit the application. But she stressed that only after official order of a students resigning from a university will their official transcript be issued and picked from the university.

Be wary of agents

Ms Shapovalova advised foreign students to be wary of agents who want to take advantage of the war to extort them, adding that Ukraine schools only have partner universities in Romania, Georgia, Turkey, Moldova and some European countries.

Most of the students from Nigeria do not apply to the university directly, they apply through recruiting agencies. Some agents have interests in transferring students to universities where they have agreements and will get commissions, that is why some of them may manipulate the students because of the war situation, making students believe they have no options, she said.

She further said some agents have agreements with Ukrainian universities and students can confirm by checking the website.

Chiamaka Okafor is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World , which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.
The Kaduna State Government says troops of the Nigerian Army have gunned down several bandits at Tollgate general area of Chikun Local Government Area in the state.

The Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, confirmed the development in a statement on Saturday in Kaduna.

Mr Aruwan also disclosed that notorious bandit Boderi Isiya narrowly escaped being killed, but his second in command and several other fighters were gunned down by the troops.

According to him, security agencies informed the Kaduna state government of this development in operational feedback.

He explained that a painstaking check with credible human intelligence sources further confirmed that Boderi and his terror group had a bad day at the hands of the combat-ready troops.

According to the reports, the troops engaged the bandits around the Tollgate general area of Chikun LGA.

The bandits scrambled in retreat, only to run into another ambush laid by the troops in Sabon Gida general area.

The troops engaged the bandits ferociously and ultimately subdued them.

Corpses and weapons were recovered at the scene, while some of the terrorists eventually died from bullet wounds.

Boderis deadly second in command, one Musti, was among those identified to have been eliminated, alongside one Yellow Mai-Madrid and one Dan-Katsinawa, with others yet to be identified, he said.

The commissioner also said some of the terrorists are battling life-threatening wounds.

Mr Aruwan disclosed that Musti and Boderi were responsible for the security breach at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna.

He added that they were also responsible for the kidnapping of students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, the Emir of Bungudu and several other citizens in 2021.

The commissioner said Governor Nasir El-Rufai praised the troops for the commendable feat under the leadership of the General Officer Commanding, 1 Division, Taoreed Lagbaja.

He noted that it was the latest of notable breakthrough recorded since the GOC took command of the Division.

The Kaduna state government will keep the public updated on further developments.

Citizens with useful information regarding the bandits reported to be seeking medical attention in the general area and elsewhere, are encouraged to bring such information forward via the following numbers: 09034000060, 08170189999, Aruwan said.
Recent comments by Governor Nyesome Wike of Rivers State that some unnamed persons in the Presidency are backing the presidential candidate of the main opposition PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has once again sparked speculation of conspiracy against Bola Tinubu by some persons at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Why are they being so arrogant? I can tell you, they are arrogant because they believe somebody at the presidency is backing them. But what they dont understand is that the same person at the presidency backed someone during the APC presidential primary and the person failed. I will tell Nigerians at the appropriate time who that person at the presidency that is backing them and making them arrogant, he said.

While the remarks may be viewed as the usual outbursts that characterise political campaigns, however, the events of the past eight months tend to give some credence to the comments.

In the build-up to the APC presidential primaries, speculations were rife of a plot to stop Mr Tinubu by some persons at the presidency. The speculations dominated public discourse until the counting of votes at the APC national convention at Eagle Square on June 9.

The decision of Mr Wike to bring in Mr Tinubu into the ongoing turbulence in the main opposition party appears to be in continuation of the London talks. Last month, Mr Wikes camp and Mr Tinubu held a meeting in the UK capital.

Messrs Wike and Tinubu appear to agree on a power shift to the south. The former has even given his party conditions that it may not be able to meet.

He insisted that PDP national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, must resign as a condition for reconciliation talks.

Mr Wike, alongside Governors Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and Simeon Ortom of Benue State have anchored their grievances with the party on the need for inclusion. They have even rejected overtures from the party with resignations of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Jibrin Wali and Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Aminu Tambuwal.

Eight months of plots: From Emefiele to Jonathan to Lawan

Many of the aspirants for the APC presidential ticket were close to President Muhammadu Buhari. Some of them reportedly claimed to be the presidents preferred candidate and the aloofness of Mr Buhari encouraged the speculation up to the very last moment.

Among the aspirants tipped as the candidate of the presidency was the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele. Despite the laws discouraging his office from participation in partisan politics, Mr Emefieles name was paraded as the anointed candidate. The refusal of Mr Buhari to call the CBN boss to order fuelled the perception that he had the backing of the president.

The decision of Mr Emefiele to approach the court to allow him to participate and several comments credited to him further enraged Nigerians. Amidst the controversy, all that the world heard from the presidency was a graveyard silence.

One other name that popped up in the period was former President Goodluck Jonathan. Like Mr Emefiele, some groups procured the APC N100 million nomination and expression of interest forms for the former president, even though he is not a member of the ruling party.

For months, the speculation that Mr Jonthan was the candidate of the Villa was rife. Even after he failed to show up at the screening of the aspirants, the speculation did not stop.

Immediately after Atiku Abubakar emerged as the candidate of the PDP, many within the party urged the APC to nominate a Northern candidate to square up with the former Vice President. Once again, the speculation of a Villa candidate turned to Senate President Ahmad Lawan.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported that the issue of selecting a candidate for many months engaged the APC Governors Forum. It would be recalled that President Buhari had thrown the challenge of picking a consensus candidate to the governors before departing the country on May 31.

A bombshell dropped by the National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, in announcing Mr Lawan as the consensus candidate to members of the National Working Committee of the party almost shattered the APC. However, the position of the APC governors that the presidency should be zoned to the south killed the idea of a northern candidate.

Many also speculated that Mr Buhari would back his loyal deputy of seven years, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, as his successor. Mr Buhari refused to endorse a candidate, rather, he adopted five names recommended by the APC governors.

The Abeokuta outburst of Mr Tinubu that birthed the emi lokan slogan was believed to have been spurred by these plots to outwit him in the race. Mr Tinubu while speaking to Ogun State delegates, claimed that President Buhari would not have emerged if not for his support.

Joe Igbokwe, an ally of Mr Tinubu, told PREMIUM TIMES that because the APC is focused on power shift to the south, the speculation of some unnamed persons in the presidency backing Atiku is untenable. He argued that the rotation of the presidency along north and south has been established as a result of the June 12 struggle.

To him, any support for Atiku from the presidency is like an attempt to put a knife on the things that hold the country together.

One thing you should know is that the presidency is zoned to the south. If we go by the rules set down as consequences of the June 12 crisis that led to the death of so many people, we agreed as a nation that power will continue to rotate between North and South until we have learnt our lessons and do things properly.

Let nobody put this (rotation) asunder. For the sake of peace and prosperity, I can tell you the presidency will come from the South. Atiku is not on the ballot. His intervention is like putting a knife on the things that hold us together as a nation and we cannot go back to Egypt. We have left Egypt, we are not going back. He is not supposed to be on the ballot.

The battle is between Asiwaju and other candidates from the south.

Anybody coming from the North is a violation of the agreement. For the sake of peace in the country, it has been an agreement since 1999. The death of YarAdua almost distorted it, but it has been restored. We are still maintaining it. Atiku is not on the ballot. We cannot sacrifice the nation for the ambition of one man. Even the northerners, it is in their own interest to ask Atiku to step down, he said.

Mr Tinubu may want to distance himself from the North-South dichotomy because he is counting on votes from the North.

He is counting on states, some governed by the APC, in the North-east, North-west, and North-central to battle Atiku and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party.

Tinubu denies rift with Adamu, visits APC headquarters

Last week, Mr Tinubu, after a meeting with the National Working Committee of the APC, denied speculation of friction between him and the National Chairman of the APC, Mr Adamu, who almost foisted Mr Lawan on the party as the consensus candidate.

To the rumour manufacturers, I read in some papers about a disagreement between myself and the chairman  that is a big lie. They did not know that we have come a long way. The big masquerade dances not in the cage but in the market square. And that is what Adamu used to be, full of wisdom. We were governors together before God put us together on this project again. He is going to deliver as the chairman of the party for me to become the president of Nigeria, and I am very confident of that, he said.

This perhaps will address the speculation that there is a plot to remove Mr Adamu as the chairman of the party.

Tinubus documentary and push back from Lagos APC chieftain

On Sunday, the team of the APC presidential candidate released a 30-minute documentary tagged Tinubu Unveiled: Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu: The Pathfinder of New Lagos. The video aired on some television stations.

In it, Mr Tinubu made a number of claims on different issues, particularly on the condition of Lagos State before his emergence as governor of the state in 1999. He described the Lagos he inherited as a jungle.

When we came in as a democratic government in May 1999, the situation was precarious. We came into a jungle and an uncivilised environment. There were mountains of refuse all over Lagos; schools without roofs; no single ambulance to save lives. You can imagine where we had hospitals without single oxygen to save lives. Civil service environment was chaotic. The state was in total chaos and disorganisation, Mr Tinubu said.

He further claimed that Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, a prime real estate corridor, was a refuse dump before he converted it to an asset.

I have converted the liabilities confronting Lagos to assets of great value. Along Ozumba Mbadiwe, we used to pick dead bodies. People have forgotten truck pushers along that corridor. That corridor used to be the dirtiest, all through the Lekki Corridor. I brought private investors to turn many refuse dumps to gold mines, which created an economic recovery path for Lagos, he said.

Instantly, the documentary generated mixed reactions from different quarters. Interestingly, a chieftain of the APC, Tunde Bank-Anthony, countered some of the claims made by Mr Tinubu in the interview.

The people that succeeded Asiwaju (Tinubu), Babatunde Fashola succeeded him and his eight years was more visible than Bola Tinubus eight yearsHe (Tinubu) cannot claim glory for what they did; its not possible, Mr Bank-Anthony said.
Five security personnel were killed in the past two weeks (August 28  September 10) as Nigerias security forces continued onslaughts on armed groups in different parts of the country.

The killings, as well as those of five civilians, showed a further decline in killings by non-state actors.

The 10 people killed in the two weeks add to the 12 killed in the previous two weeks to mark a record of one month with less than 30 fatalities. Before then, over 50 people, including security personnel, were killed monthly across the country. Some months witnessed hundreds of killings.

The reduction in the killings comes about five weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari said his orders to security chiefs to stop attacks in the country were yielding the desired results. The military has since been announcing successes against various armed groups with scores of terrorists killed or arrested weekly.

Of the 10 people killed by non-state actors in the past two weeks, five were security personnel including three police officers and two soldiers.

PREMIUM TIMES compiled the incidents from media reports. Thus, unreported cases are not included.

READ ALSO:

Below are the recorded incidents:

Lagos

A chairman of the road transport union was killed during a clash between rival cultists in the Mile 12 area of Lagos State.

The state police spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, told PREMIUM TIMES that the deceased was identified as Alhaji Sule, adding that his surname is unknown.

Katsina

Two soldiers were killed while four others sustained injuries on Wednesday, 31 August after a gang of terrorists ambushed troops from the 32 Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Katsina.

Residents of Shimfida, where the attack took place, told PREMIUM TIMES that many terrorists were also killed in the firefight that ensued after the ambush.

Borno

About four persons, including the Chief Imam of Gima, were reported killed with several others sustaining injuries when Boko Haram terrorists invaded the Ngulde community of Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State on 4 September.

Enugu

Three police operatives were on 7 September killed when gunmen attacked them at New Haven, Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigerias South-east.

The incident happened at about 10:15 p.m. at a bus stop in the area.

The gunmen were said to have opened fire on the operatives, who engaged the hoodlums in a shootout.

Worst is over  Lai Mohammed

Reacting to the improvements in the past weeks, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, said the worst of the security challenges facing the country is over.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Mr Mohammed said bandits and terrorists would never hold sway in our country.

The minister said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been able to reduce the incidents of insecurity, adding that there might still be cases  but not on the scale witnessed by Nigerians in the past.

As far as the daunting security challenges we face are concerned, we can tell you that the worst is over. Never again will terrorists and bandits and their cohorts hold sway in our country, he said.

The security challenges we have faced, as an administration, have been daunting  from terrorism to banditry to kidnapping to separatist violence to crude oil theft to armed robbery and sundry crimes.

Its undoubtedly the greatest challenge to the peace and security of our great nation since the civil war from 1967 to 1970. It is the kind of challenge that would have overwhelmed many nations.

But thanks to the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, we can say, I want to repeat, that the worst is over and peace and security are gradually returning to the land. Please dont misunderstand or misrepresent this assertion.

We may still witness isolated cases of security challenges here and there, but it will not be on the scale that we have witnessed in the past.

The minister added that the media should always highlight the efforts of the security agencies in trying to keep the country safe.
The number of Nigerias Supreme Court judges has dropped to 13, widely coming short of the courts full complement of 21 justices as stipulated in the Constitution, by eight.

The number had spiralled down from 20 that it was in November 2020, less than two years ago, to 14 in June this year, with the sudden resignation of the immediate-past Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad.

It has now further dropped to 13, as Abdu Aboki, who joined the bench of the Supreme Court less than two years ago in November 2020, retires.

A statement by the Supreme Courts Director of Press and Information, Festus Akande, on Sunday, said Mr Aboki clocked the mandatory retirement age of 70 on 5 August.

It also said a valedictory court session to mark Mr Abokis retirement from the bench, which could not immediately hold after his retirement more than a month ago, would now hold on Thursday, 15 September.

The valedictory ceremony, according to the statement, could not hold then due to the annual vacation of the court.

The event, now scheduled to hold at 10 a.m.on Thursday at the Supreme Court, will be presided by the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, the statement added.

It noted that Mr Aboki had a rather short period of one year and eight months on the apex courts bench.

Downward trend

With Mr Abokis exit, the Supreme Court is back to where it was in February 2020, when the number of its justices, maintaining a streak of a downward trend, dropped to 13 with the retirement of Amir Sanusi.

The number of justices after Mr Sanusis exit had, in no time, dropped to its all-time low of 12 with the retirement of Paul Galumje in April 2020. This left the remaining judges on the bench groaning about the heavy workload marked by insufficient personnel to man the bench.

In November 2020, the downward trend was arrested, as eight justices elevated from the Court of Appeal bench, among whom was Mr Aboki, were sworn in, drastically jerking up the number of Supreme Court judges to an unprecedented 20.

But since then, seven justices have exited the Supreme Court bench without replacement  either through death, retirement or resignation  plunging the number back to 13 within less than two years.

This drastic drop within the relatively short period began with the death of Sylvester Ngwuta about three weeks to his retirement in March 2021.

About two weeks after Mr Ngwutas death, Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, who was then the second-most senior judge of the Supreme Court, also retired on attaining 70 in March 2021.

In quick succession, Samuel Oseji, died in September 2021, aged 67, less than a year after his appointment to the Supreme Courts bench.

Eight months after Mr Osejis demise, Mary Peter-Odili, who took over from Mr Rhodes-Vivour as the next-in-line to the CJN, also retired on attaining the statutory retirement age of 70 in May this year.

Eleven days later, Ejembi Eko, also attained the statutory retirement age of 70 and bowed out of the Supreme Court bench in May 2022.

Rather shockingly, the then CJN, Mr Muhammad, June this year, resigned on health grounds, coming 18 months ahead of his 70th birthday in December 2023 when he would be statutorily due for retirement.

Mr Aboki, whose retirement on 5 August more than a month ago, was announced on Sunday, left behind 13 justices on the Supreme Court bench.

Thwarted move to attain full complement of 21 justices

The 13 justices now occupying the Supreme Court bench fall far short of the full complement of 21 justices stipulated in the Nigerian constitution.

In June 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari wrote the then CJN doubling as the chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to initiate in earnest the process of appointing additional five Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria to make the full complement of 21 Justices.

But Mr Buharis tardiness in treating issues concerning judicial appointments highlighted in a PREMIUM TIMES analysis thwarted the goal of achieving the full complement of 21 justices of the Supreme Court.

Justice Aboki

The Supreme Court shared a brief profile of Kano State-born Mr Aboki, who retired from the Supreme Court bench in August, in its statement on Sunday.

He began his journey on the bench 37 years ago when he was appointed a High Court judge in the Kano State judiciary in 1987.

His short profile in the Supreme Courts statement reads:

Hon. Justice Abdu Aboki was sworn in as Justice of the Supreme Court alongside seven other distinguished jurists on the 6th day of November 2020; thus spending a rather short period of one year and eight months on the apex courts bench.

His Lordship was born on 5th August 1952 in the commercial city of Kano. He had his primary and secondary education in Kano State before proceeding to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he studied Law. Upon his graduation in 1976, he proceeded to the Nigerian Law School in Victoria Island, Lagos; and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1977.

Justice Aboki was appointed a High Court Judge in Kano State Judiciary in 1987. He was elevated to the Court of Appeal in 2006; from where he came to the Supreme Court in 2020. His Lordship had served in different capacities in many Committees at different levels of Courts in the course of his career. He had equally attended several conferences and workshops where he presented scholarly papers within and outside the country.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has been preparing for the take-off of the presidential campaigns in relative peace. Its condition appears to be different from that of its main rival, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has been under a storm in the rift between its flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar, and Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike. But a remark on Wednesday by Mr Wike suggests that the tranquillity in the ruling party may also just be a smokescreen.

On Thursday, while commissioning a campus of the Rivers State University in Ahoada East Local Government Area, Mr Wike inevitably dwelt on the crisis in his party. His group had long demanded the resignation of the national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to correct a regional lopsidedness in the leadership of the PDP. His camp had told Atiku at their meeting in London about two weeks ago that Mr Ayu must cede his position to a southerner before the camp would consider supporting the candidate for next years presidential poll.

Mr Wike is also known to be seeking Mr Ayus ouster as punishment for his alleged bias in the presidential primary of the party in favour of Atiku. The camp has rejected appeals that the changes in the leadership of the party should be withheld until after the general elections next year.

Atiku had enough

But Atiku appears to have finally had enough of the belligerence of the Wike camp. Last week, he rallied the party behind Mr Ayu and got his supporters across the country, including in Mr Wikes own territory, to openly back his moves.

Mr Ayu had refrained from exchanging words with the Wike camp while the candidate tried to pacify the governor. But on 31 August, he granted the BBC Hausa Service an interview during which he rejected the call for his ouster, dismissing those making it as children who were not around when he and other leaders formed the party in 1998.

On Thursday, the National Executive Committee of the party finally met and passed a vote of confidence in Mr Ayu, cementing his position. The committee also accepted the resignation of Walid Jibrin as the chairman of the partys Board of Trustees and his replacement by a former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara.

The National Working Committee of the party also last week accepted a proposal from Atiku for the structure and composition of the campaign organisations of the party for the general elections.

There had also been a report that Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal was also stepping down as the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and that Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde would take the position. But Mr Tambuwal later denied the report, although Mr Makinde indicated that he rejected the offer to take the position. Mr Tambuwal is on Atikus side in the party crisis while Mr Makinde is an ally of Mr Wike.

PDP NEC Meeting

The party said 397 members of the NEC, including Atiku, former Vice President Namadi Sambo and past national chairmen of the party were accredited for the meeting. But only four of the partys 13 governors attended, although two others, including Samuel Ortom of Benue, were represented by their deputies. Mr Ortom is an ally of Mr Wike, who also stayed away from the event like his other governor allies  Mr Makinde of Oyo and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia.

The resolutions of the NEC and other developments in the party last week indicate that the PDP, or Atikus side of it, has decided to move on without the Wike group. This is serving Mr Wike and his camp an ultimatum to join the train or be left behind.

It is noteworthy that some leaders of the party in the South who are not associated with Mr Wike have found their voices to decry the River governors perceived excesses. One of them is Mr Ayus immediate predecessor, Uche Secondus. Mr Secondus had been prodded to the chair by his friend and associate in Rivers, Mr Wike. But he had also been removed last year, a few months before the end of his four-year term, following a rift with the same Mr Wike. For several years now, there had been no love lost between the erstwhile friends. Mr Secondus statement may be a signal for others in and outside Rivers who had been tolerating the governor to speak out towards isolating him.

Atiku doubles down

Speaking on Saturday on ARISE NEWS Channel, a spokesperson of the Atiku campaign organisation, Charles Aniagwu, defended the decision of the NEC to stand by Mr Ayu. He argued that removing him would have created a constitutional crisis that could snowball into greater problems for the opposition party.

That greater crisis is what the ruling APC is waiting to happen but the leadership of the party is intelligent enough and am happy that Governor Nyesom Wike and other leaders appreciate the need for the party to move as a whole into the 2023 general election.

He denied that the recent developments amounted to snubbing the Rivers governor. People may misinterpret it to mean calling the bluff of certain stakeholders but that is far from it because the party leadership examined the issues vis-a-vis the provisions of the partys constitution as amended in 2017, he explained.

Mr Aniagwu further argued that the resignation of Mr Jibrin as BOT chairman and his replacement by Adolphus Wabara have redressed the imbalance complained about by the Wike camp.

The emergence of Wabara in the South to join the vice presidential candidate and National Secretary had created some form of balance in the interim. But what is most important is that there is a bigger elephant here which is winning the 2023 general elections because Nigerians are looking up to the PDP to rescue the nation from where we are at the moment, he said.

Wike Obstinate

However, the governor has vowed to fight on. On Saturday, he said the confidence vote passed on Mr Ayu by the partys NEC had no effect on the agitation of his camp.

Speaking at a reception held in Port Harcourt for defectors into the PDP, the governor said: I was listening and watching; they said there is one man they called Secondus. They said he was dancing, celebrating that NEC gave their person a vote of confidence. He forgets history.

Ask him if the same NEC through Aliyu Babangida moved a motion of vote of confidence supported by the same person, Ndudi Elumelu. They gave you (Secondus) a vote of confidence; what happened? You left office. We dont fight and go back. If you like you can have as many as 20 votes of confidence; its not my business. My business is to make sure the right thing is done, and the right thing must be done  whether today or tomorrow.

What next?

It may be premature to declare that both sides have crossed the Rubicon. Mr Ayu last week announced that a delegation of the NWC led by his deputy would be going to Port Harcourt to see the governor. He also assigned Mr Wabara to see through the reconciliation process.

With the campaigns opening in just over two weeks, members of Mr Wikes camp would have to decide quickly whether to cease fire or how far they can go in punishing Atiku without hurting the candidates of the party in their own states.

But Mr Wike seemed only to be eager to assure his own candidates that they would not be caught in the crossfire of the fight. At Saturdays event in Port Harcourt, he said: If God gives you the ticket of PDP in this state, go home and sew your cloth for the inauguration day. Because what will any Rivers man or woman be saying that he or she wants to vote for any other person in Rivers State?

As for Atiku, he has so far refused to give such assurance of the fidelity of voters in his vote-rich state, which had consistently voted for the party by large margins since 1999.

Plot against Tinubu

In his first reaction to the vote of confidence by the PDP NEC, Mr Wike had described Mr Ayu as arrogant for refusing to resign. Speaking on Thursday while commissioning a Campus of the Rivers State University in the Ahoada East Local Government Area of the state, he also blamed Atiku for the situation.

Why are they being so arrogant? I can tell you, they are arrogant because they believe somebody in the presidency is backing them. But what they dont understand is that the same person at the presidency backed someone during the APC presidential primary and the person failed. I will tell Nigerians at the appropriate time who that person at the presidency that is backing them and making them arrogant, he said.

That remark suggests that at least one of the powerful figures around President Buhari remains not keen about a Tinubu presidency. It is possible that Mr Wike made the remark merely to taunt the PDP candidate on the risk of heading to next years poll without his support. But an appraisal of developments in the APC leading to the partys own presidential primaries would reveal how some shadowy figures in the presidency had made their best efforts to stop Mr Tinubu from coasting to the partys presidential ticket.

From the moment in February when he declared his bid, the former Lagos governor and titular national leader of the party was tipped as the man to beat in the race. In fact, one of his main challengers told a PREMIUM TIMES reporter before the convention that everybody else was in the race in the hope of winning President Buharis anointing. I have gone round the states too to meet our party delegates but that is just to fulfil all righteousness. Nobody on his own can beat Tinubu, the aspirant told the reporter in early June. And so it eventually turned out.

Adamu and the cabal

It was the reason that every measure the party took to expand participation in the primary, make it competitive or to manipulate it, seemed targeted at Mr Tinubu. After Abdullahi Adamu emerged as national chairman of the party in March and began to mince his words on what had been thought to be settled issues such as mode of primaries and zoning, he was quickly dubbed the hatchet man of the figures in the presidency thought to be determined to impose a different candidate on the APC.

Mr Adamu, who himself had been prodded to his top party position by the presidency cabal, would later prove those who suspected his intentions right when he eventually tried to sell the partys National Working Committee the dummy that Senate President Ahmad Lawan was President Buharis anointed candidate.

He had shown his hands in earlier shenanigans such as the continuous extension of the sale and submission of the partys nomination forms and the efforts to lure non-members of the party such as former President Goodluck Jonathan, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele and African Development Banks President, Akinwunmi Adesina, into the race. He had also been publicly hostile to Mr Tinubu, threatening to have him punished for his outburst in Abeokuta a few days to the primary, in which the seemingly frustrated aspirant made derisive comments about Mr Buhari.

But it is known that Mr Adamu was never acting his own script, as he is deemed the agent of the so-called shadowy cabal exercising the authority but not the responsibility of the president from behind the scene. Many incredible things have been ascribed to the cabal over the past seven years, so Mr Wikes allegation of a promise to manipulate the election for the main opponent of the presidents party may seem par for the course with them.

More so that Atiku is from the same side of the country as Mr Lawan whom they had failed to spirit onto the saddle at the APC primaries.

Interestingly, Mr Tinubu had on Thursday found himself debunking, as a rumour, a report of a rift between himself and Mr Adamu.

To the rumour manufacturers, I read in some papers about a disagreement between myself and the chairman and that was a very big lie. They didnt know that we have come a long way. The big masquerade dance not in the cage but the market square.

And that is what Adamu use to be, full of wisdom, we were governors together before God put us together on this project again. He is going to deliver as the Chairman of the party for me to become the president of Nigeria. And I am very confident of that, the candidate said to journalists.

Buhari and Atiku

Some observers have pointed out that Messrs Buhari and Atiku are not foes despite their years of political differences and rivalry, noting for example the role the former vice president reportedly played last August in Kano State at the wedding of the only son of the president, Yusuf Buhari, to Zahra Bayero, a daughter of the Emir of Bichi, Nasiru Ado Bayero.

Pictures of Yusuf Buhari and Atikus son leaning in to speak with the former vice president during the wedding Fatiha had set tongues wagging on social media, with captions that Atiku had stood in as the father of the groom. A fact check by Daily Trust newspaper later found the claim to be false, as Maman Daura, President Buharis nephew, stood in for Mr Buhari during the wedding and also received the bride on behalf of the president.

However, past developments have shown that many of the political moves made in the name of the president were actually not by him or even to his knowledge, which should offer Mr Tinubu little comfort.
Members and supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were hopeful that at the end of the week, peace would have been brokered among the warring members  particularly between the partys presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.

These hopes were heightened after the two men met in London weeks ago, having been at loggerheads since the partys presidential primary in May.

With the same hope, many members had looked forward to the PDPs 97th National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and prayed that major decisions would be made to reconcile aggrieved members and bring the long-awaited and lasting peace the party needs so badly.

Safe to say these hopes have been dashed as the PDP appears to still be in chaos regardless of the resolutions made at the NEC meeting and some deliberate attempts at bringing peace  like pouring water into a basket.

The crisis in the main opposition party is now forcing it to focus less on the campaigns, which begin in a few weeks, and more on appeasing aggrieved members  comprising Mr Wike and some southern leaders who are demanding a grand sacrifice  the resignation of the partys National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu.

Mr Wikes camp gave this as the condition before it would consider whether to support Mr Atikus presidential bid.

Mr Wike, who made this demand on behalf of the southern zone of the country, said it is to correct the imbalance in the leadership structure of the party.

He, like many other members from the South, described it as unfair to have the presidential candidate, national chairman, and chairmen of the Board of Trustees and the PDP Governors Forum, all from the North.

Atikus promise to make necessary consultations and revert to Mr Wike and his camp after the London meeting, and Mr Ayus initial promise to step down if a fellow northerner becomes the presidential candidate, were the basis for which many members were hopeful for peace  peace that would, at least, appease the governor and make him tone down his tirades.

An uneasy demand

It took Atiku and PDP about three weeks to, not necessarily meet Mr Wikes demands, but do something. The three weeks were not exactly easy as he had to deal with Mr Wikes daily tantrums about alleged enemies within the party, enemies after him and enemies who are looking to oust the South from major positions in the party as well as enemies who intend to loot the partys funds.

As if that was not enough, Messrs Wike and Ayu at some point, had a back and forth, with the latter describing the governor and his supporters as children for calling for his resignation. And Mr Wike, in his usual expeditious manner, responded with a challenge.

During this period, Atiku would also meet with party chieftains and a few other presidential aspirants  but aspirants like Mr Wike and former Senate presidents, Bukola Saraki and Anyim Pius, were noticeably absent.

It was as though Atiku knew the demand for Mr Ayus resignation was not feasible. It was also like a deliberate attempt to get members of the party to send a message and somehow appeal to Mr Wike.

It has to be the only justification for Dele Momodus epistle wherein, he addressed a letter to Mr Wike  begging him to embrace peace and not make decisions in anger.

In his epistle, Mr Momodu also asked the PDP to look beyond the mistakes of the past and admonish Messrs Wike, Ayu and Atiku to rise above the war of attrition for the sake of long-suffering Nigerians who need our attention desperately.

Atikus numerous meetings also had to be the justification for Babangida Aliyu, former governor of Niger State and former Information Minister, Jerry Gana, calling for peace in the party as well as PDP governorship candidates visiting Mr Wike for the same purpose.

An alternative sacrificial offering

At Thursdays NEC meeting, Mr Ayu did not resign, despite previous speculations that some members of the NEC were proposing a vote for the chairman to go and rumours that many members of the party wanted him gone.

Walid Jibrin, the chairman of the partys BoT, was the sacrificial lamb led to the slaughter. He announced his resignation at the BoT meeting, which preceded the NEC meeting on the same day.

We all want to make Atiku Abubakar become the president by all means, and that is why I sincerely decided to step down from the BoT, he told members of the BoT. I discussed this with the candidate and he agreed with me. I am sure if the party wins, I will be given a bigger position.

His decision to resign was clearly not unrelated to Mr Wikes demands. He was immediately replaced with a former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, who would serve in an acting capacity.

For Atiku and the PDP, Mr Jibrins resignation and Wabaras appointment into the partys leadership structure should suffice.

As if to goad an already angry Wike, the NEC, in a unanimous voice vote, passed a vote of confidence in Mr Ayu and commended him and the National Working Committee for their hard work and resilience.

It is the second time the party would pass a vote of confidence in Mr Ayu, despite calls for his resignation.

More betrayal? Sacrifice rejected

Mr Wikes reaction to Mr Jibrins resignation came less than four hours after it was announced  as expected.

He described the move as an insult to southern leaders in the party. But most importantly, he berated Atiku for joining the queue of people who have betrayed him.

On this queue, Atiku pretty much stands behind Mr Ayu, the Sokoto state governor, Aminu Tambuwal, and a few other unnamed enemies in the party. Mr Wike narrated how Atiku was the first to suggest that Mr Ayu has to go since he (the presidential candidate) is from the North.

We were in Bala Mohammeds house, the Bauchi State Governor, after the primary He came to me and said Ayu must go. That is my problem with this country, he said as he wondered why Atiku was going back on his word.

And for Mr Ayu, Mr Wike said the vote of confidence cannot save him.

Mr Jibrins resignation, the vote of confidence on Mr Ayu and Mr Wikes statement have generated mixed reactions.

A major question now is: if Atiku and Mr Ayu, at different times, said the latter would step down after the primary, what went wrong? Why is Mr Ayu holding on to the position?  besides the fact that he was elected for a tenure of four years and has only done one  as he has explained in the past.

Also, why does Atiku seem so lackadaisical about doing something now?

On one hand, Mr Ayu is a key ally of Atiku. Their friendship dates back to the Third Republic where they were members of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). They were also together in the G-36 that formed the PDP.

Understandably, Atiku would rather have a loyalist and a friend by his side as he campaigns and runs for the highest office in the land.

One of the spokespersons for the Atiku campaign, Charles Aniagwu, has said instead of removing Mr Ayu, the PDP was exploring other options in resolving the crisis rocking the party.

The party, he said, is taking a second look at the issues based on what was permissible by the laws of the party. He said sacking Mr Ayu would create a constitutional crisis for the party which would snowball into greater problems than what the party was currently faced with.

On the other hand, what if Atiku really wanted Mr Ayu gone? What if he asked Mr Ayu to resign to correct the lopsidedness and restore peace in the party and he (Ayu) refused? And Atiku, realised another option is to appeal to Mr Jibrin to be the sacrificial lamb especially since he is also one of those who have criticised the lopsidedness in the partys leadership structure.

Chances of Mr Ayu refusing to step down are also possible if one were to go by Mr Wikes concern and accusations that the chairman has his eyes on the partys funds.

Either way, whatever move the PDP thinks it has made towards appeasing Mr Wike and his group or brokering peace, is far from successful. Atiku knows this. The party knows this which is probably why they have asked Mr Wabara to reach out to Mr Wike and make peace with him.

The defiant Mr Wike is still calling for Mr Ayus head  apparently, the only acceptable sacrifice at the moment.

What next?

Like it or not, Mr Wike remains a political bride who has the attention of many suitors at the moment.

He has threatened to withhold his support for Atiku in the 2023 general election if his demands are not met.

Many have said he has the upper hand on the negotiation table and does not need to back down.

Whether or not the governor will support the presidential candidate of the All Progressives ls Congress, Bola Tinubu, or that of the Labour Party, Peter Obi  two people who have tried to win him over  remains unclear.

It is, however, not a risk the PDP is willing to take.

Although the partys recent move spells do your worst for Mr Wike, chances are, there will be more talks.

Already, there are speculations that Mr Tambuwal, who is also the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, will resign, to pave way for a Southern governor to occupy the position. The Forum is also expected to meet soon and make a decision.

In the coming days, we expect more meetings and negotiations within the party and with Mr Wikes camp. And there will definitely be more begging  just as much as Nigerians witnessed in the previous week, if not more.

Mr Wabara already started the begging when he addressed the NEC meeting on Thursday. He will likely do more should he meet Mr Wike later in the week.

While the party works towards appointing members of the presidential campaign council, a large chunk of its time will be focused on more ways to appease the angry Rivers governor.
Some police officers were on Sunday killed when gunmen attacked the convoy of Ifeanyi Ubah, the senator representing Anambra South District in the Nigerian Senate.

The senators convoy was attacked in Enugwu-Ukwu, a community in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigerias south-east.

The gunmen were said to have ambushed and opened fire on the convoy, killing a yet to be confirmed number of police officers attached to the lawmaker.

One source said police officers in the convoy initially engaged the gunmen in a shootout during which three of the officers were killed.

A second narrative said about seven of the officers were gunned down by the hoodlums during the shootout.

The senator, Mr Ubah, reportedly escaped the attack, but sustained injuries.

Some of his aides were killed, including some police officers. The senator managed to escape as his car was riddled with bullets, a witness said.

I was driving to that spot from the link road to the express when some people in a shop shouted at me and asked me to turn back and take another route, which I did, the witness added.

There are speculations that what happened was an assassination attempt.

When contacted, the police spokesperson in the state, Tochukwu Ikenga, confirmed the attack on the senators convoy.

Yes. There was an attack at Enugwu-Ukwu today, but the casualty figure is not clear, he said.

Mr Ikenga said the Commissioner of Police in the state, Echeng Echeng, led operatives to the scene of the attack.

He said the details of the attack were still sketchy.

Police operatives are on ground there as operations are going on. The situation is being monitored, the police spokesperson said.

Mr Ubah is a member of the Young Progressive Party (YPP).

He was a governorship candidate for the YPP in the 2021 governorship election in Anambra State which was won by the incumbent governor, Charles Soludo of All Progressive Grand Alliance.

Anambra, like other states in the South-east, has witnessed several attacks by gunmen.

A state lawmaker was recently kindnapped and subsequently murdered in the state.

The Nigerian government has blamed the attacks on a separatist group, IPOB.
The Director-General of Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency (BASEPA), Ibrahim Kabir, has confirmed the death of three persons in the flood which damaged 1,453 houses and several farmlands in the Zaki and Gamawa local government areas.

Mr Kabir stated this while briefing Governor Bala Mohammed when he paid a sympathy visit to the affected communities on Saturday in Zaki Local Government Area.

He said after assessment of the damage caused by the downpour on Wednesday, it was found to have killed three persons and damaged 1,453 houses and unquantified farmlands in the two LGAs.

He said the flood also cut off roads linking the two local government areas with communities and some parts of the state in six places on the highway.

As palliative measures, the communities need 14 canoes as means of transportation to cross the cut-off roads to continue their normal businesses, he said.

Mr Kabir advised the communities to relocate to safer areas to guarantee their safety.

Governor Mohammed commiserated with the communities over the deaths of three persons and the destruction of houses and farmlands in the two local government areas of Zaki and Gamawa.

He called for a collective effort in addressing the devastating effects of incessant flooding affecting communities across the state.

Mr Mohammed, while inspecting the level of damages caused by the flood, said the communities were exposed to the dangers of flooding

He noted that annual losses of lives and property were being recorded in the state.

Mr Mohammed lauded the federal government and World Bank for the interventions in other facets of development and infrastructure.

He, however, called on the federal government to assist the state in providing a permanent solution to the problem, as well as provide palliative to victims.

The governor presented relief materials of two trucks of maize, drugs and medical consumables to Zaki and Gamawa local governments.

He also directed the SEMA to immediately procure 14 canoes for the affected communities and take inventory of the damage caused by the flood to enable the government to take further actions.

(NAN)
When the CIA planned to install a statue honoring Harriet Tubman, it looked to her final resting place for the design it wanted.

The spy agency unveiled the statue on Wednesday at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was designed by Brian Hanlon, the same sculptor who built the Tubman statue that stands outside of the Equal Rights Heritage Center in Auburn.

In a Facebook post, the CIA said the attendees at the dedication ceremony to unveil the statue included Tina Wyatt, a great-great-great-grandniece of Tubman, and Deanna Mitchell, superintendent of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland. Hanlon was also at the event.

"We're honoring her for the example she set," CIA Director Williams Burns said. "It's an example of courage, of conviction, of service, and sacrifice and selflessness. Of all the things we hope to live up to every day at CIA."

Tubman is known for escaping slavery, serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad and the years she spent in Auburn. In between, she was a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War. She also led the Combahee Ferry Raid, the first woman to lead a military operation in the United States.

The statue is the latest example of the federal government recognizing Tubman for her life's work. The U.S. Department of the Interior formally established the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn five years ago. There are also plans to place Tubman's likeness on the redesigned $20 bill.

In August, President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring the Treasury to mint commemorative coins honoring Tubman. A portion of the proceeds from the coins will go to the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn.
The President of the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria (APN), Taiwo Obindo, says that more than 60 million Nigerians are suffering from mental illnesses.

Mr Obindo, who is also the chairman, Faculty of Psychiatry, West African College of Physicians, Nigeria Chapter, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

Mental healthcare is in a sorry state given that we have more than 60 million Nigerians suffering from various mental illnesses and the fact that only about 10 per cent of them were able to access appropriate care.

We are left with more than 90 per cent who are unable to access care and this group is called the treatment gap for mental illnesses, Mr Obindo said.

He said the gap was as a result of various factors like the knowledge gap in which people do not have appropriate information about the causes and treatment for mental illnesses.

Mr Obindo said some factors hindering the management of mental illness in Nigeria included myths and traditional beliefs; inadequate mental health facilities and a number of mental health professionals.

According to him, the few available mental health facilities were located in the city centres.

Knowing that 60 per cent of Nigerians live in the rural areas, they do not have access to appropriate care and have to travel long distances to access facilities, Mr Obindo said.

He also said that the number of mental health practitioners was low as it fell below the ratio recommended by the World Health Organization.

According to him, the few that were trained were often eager to leave the country.

The environment in which we practice, the security situation and the remuneration that people were given in the country tend to push them out.

And then, of course, the pull factor from the developed countries where they tend to poach on the already trained medical practitioners in the country, particularly the psychiatrists, he said.

Mr Obindo said that the cost of hiring practitioners in low medium income countries was low; so it was easier for developed countries to poach the already made products rather than training such professionals locally.

He said there was a need for Nigeria to implement its Mental Health Policy on the practice of psychiatry.

Mr Obindo added that although the document was last reviewed in 2013, it was not being implemented.

He said one major component of the policy was the integration of mental health into primary healthcare, which was yet to be achieved after nine years.

The psychiatrist added that the law operating in the country was the lunacy act, which was first enacted in 1916 and reviewed in 1958.

The Mental Health Bill by the mental health stakeholders led by the Association of Psychiatrists of Nigeria (APN), in conjunction with the National Assembly and the Ministry of Health was yet to be assented to by the President.

This is the most recent effort in 30 years, he said.

(NAN)
The United States governments Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has declared a Nigerian, Chidozie Obasi, wanted for allegedly defrauding the New York State government of more than $30 million.

This was contained in a tweet via the FBI Philadelphias official Twitter account on Saturday.

The tweet asked the general public with knowledge of his whereabouts to contact the FBIs local office.

Chidozie Collins Obasi of Nigeria is wanted for defrauding N.Y. State out of more than $30 million. Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts should contact their local FBI office or go to tips.fbi.govanonymous tips OK. More info via @USAO_EDPA, the tweet read.

Chidozie Collins Obasi of Nigeria is wanted for defrauding N.Y. State out of more than $30 million. Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts should contact their local FBI office or go to https://t.co/M0Wg0RiRKfanonymous tips OK. More info via @USAO_EDPA: https://t.co/RRow3U6hWD pic.twitter.com/OnG9p5Os7N  FBI Philadelphia (@FBIPhiladelphia) September 9, 2022

Charges

According to a statement released by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ), Mr Obasi, 29, was charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, and 16 counts of wire fraud.

The US authorities accused the Nigerian of allegedly defrauding US hospitals of $31 million by offering non-existent COVID-19 ventilators for sale.

The DoJ explained that the scheme which had initially targeted Americans through a spam email campaign offering illegitimate work from home jobs, and then during the COVID-19 pandemic, later shifted to targeting U.S. hospitals and medical systems by offering non-existent ventilators.

The DoJ continued that shortly after COVID-19 had struck the United States, Mr Obasi took advantage of the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EID Loans) introduced to aid Americans affected by the pandemic-induced lockdown by applying for and receiving more than $135,000 in EID Loan proceeds by stealing identities and information of American citizens.

According to the DoJ, Mr Obasi allegedly perpetrated the schemes from Nigeria alongside other co-conspirators, from abroad in Canada between September 2018 and June 2020.

READ ALSO:

The scheme alleged in the Indictment began in September 2018, with a spam email campaign that offered phoney work from home jobs. When a person responded to the phoney job offer, Obasi or a co-conspirator posed as a representative of a legitimate company, often a supposed medical equipment supplier based outside the United States, and offered the person a job as the companys U.S. representative with responsibilities including collecting on outstanding invoices.

A co-conspirator in Canada then sent the new employee counterfeit checks purportedly from customers of the company, and the new employee deposited the checks, took a commission, and wired the rest of the money to a foreign bank account ostensibly owned by the fake company. As alleged in the Indictment, Obasi and his co-conspirators obtained more than $1 million in this manner.

The Indictment further alleges that in approximately March 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States and ventilators were in high demand, Obasi posed as a representative of an Indonesian-based medical supply company offering ventilators for sale, and claimed to have a large stockpile of ventilators manufactured by a German company whose headquarters was in Telford, PA.

The defendant allegedly convinced a medical equipment broker in the U.S. to broker sales of these non-existent ventilators, and ultimately deceived the State of New York into wiring more than $30 million for the purchase of ventilators that did not exist. Obasi continued to target other potential customers with this same scam, including hospitals.

Later, in approximately June 2020, the Indictment alleges that Obasi and his co-conspirators took advantage of the EID Loan program by using stolen identities of U.S. citizens to apply for and obtain more than $135,000 in EID Loan proceeds.

Accused risks maximum sentence of 621 years in prison

The statement which described Mr Obasi as a fugitive says he faces up to 621 years in jail with full restitution and a fine if caught and prosecuted.

If caught and convicted, Obasi faces a maximum sentence of 621 years in prison, a five-year period of supervised release, and a $5,750,000 fine. Obasi also will be required to make full restitution of the more than $31,000,000 that he obtained by fraud, the statement said.

The US government said the charges and Indictment, are only accusations. And the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Another Nigerian awaiting sentencing for COVID-19 benefits-related fraud

A Nigerian, Abidemi Rufai, a suspended aide of Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, was arrested at New Yorks JFK airport in May 2021, over similar allegations of using stolen identities to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in the COVID-19 pandemic-related unemployment benefits.

Mr Rufai pleaded guilty to the charges in May at the US District Court for Western Washington at Tacoma.

The accused who was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, nine counts of wire fraud, and five counts of aggravated identity theft, is now awaiting sentencing.
The Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Abiodun Alabi, has advised the public to resist any demand for a bribe by any police personnel, irrespective of the officers rank, in the discharge of their duties.

Mr Alabi gave the advice on Saturday during his interactive session with crime reporters, warning that under no circumstance should any civilian offer money to police either to secure bail or facilitate the performance of an officers responsibility.

The police boss, who reiterated the age-long declaration that bail is free, reminded the public that anyone who offered a bribe to the police was as guilty as the police officer who received the bribe.

Nigerians like to buy their freedom because they have committed offence. I wonder why a man would want to waste money bribing police to secure his freedom if he has not committed a crime, he said.

The commissioner commended the commitment of officers and men of tactical units like the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Anti-Cultism and others.

Mr Alabi, however, warned the bad elements in the various squads to desist from demanding and collecting money from members of the public who came to them with crime-related problems.

According to him, information had reached him of instances where huge sums were demanded by some operatives of the squads from members of the public who came to lodge one complaint or the other.

The CP said that on such occasions, he disciplined such erring officers, adding that he would henceforth deal ruthlessly with any officer or rank and file caught indulging in such anti-service activities.

Arrests

The police on Sunday said 35 suspected armed robbers were arrested between June and August in Lagos State.

The commands spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, told the News Agency of Nigeria that 13 other suspected armed robbers were killed in different parts of the state during encounters with the police within the period.

He said while 37 robbery operations were foiled in different parts of the state, 32 different arms and 78 pieces of ammunition abandoned in vehicles by suspects were recovered during the same period.

The image maker said that no kidnappings were recorded within the period, but 15 suspected cultists were arrested.

Mr Hundeyin said six vehicles were recovered and some of the cars were handed back to their owners after proof of ownership.

He noted that police officers under the command had three attacks from members of the public during the same period, with the attackers since being charged to court.

22 murder cases recorded on June, 20 in July and eight in August. We had three cult incidents recorded in June, one in July and one in August.

We recorded four suicide cases in June, three in July and one in August, he said.

(NAN)
More than 400 Nigerian students have graduated from Nexford University (NXU), an American online university, for the 2021 to 2022 session.

The online university according to the Country Director, Olamidun Majekodunmi-Ogundoyin, was launched in the country in 2019 and has since enrolled over 3,000 learners in Nigeria.

Though the university said it does not think of itself as a beneficiary of the ongoing prolonged strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), it acknowledged that it recorded significant growth in applications during the strike.

In her remarks Saturday at a graduation ceremony held at Oriental Hotel, Lagos, Mrs Ogundoyin noted that the American university has partnered with over 50 organisations, graduated over 600 alumni and enrolled about 700 full or partial scholarship recipients.

She said: Todays event is extremely exciting. It marks a milestone in the brand and the education system in Nigeria. It means several things.

One, the fact that we can allow and admit several students ranging in the 1000s to enter and enrol into an online programme thats very unconventional and very non-traditional.

Here in Nigeria. Were graduating over 400 students today and weve enrolled over 3000 in Nigeria alone. It says something for the future of education right here in Nigeria.

Regarding affordability, the online university noted on its official website that students can pay tuition monthly, $90 per month for a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), and $180 per month for a Master of Business Administration (MBA).

Abah, others speak

In his keynote address, the Country Director of DAI, an international development organisation, Joe Abah, urged the graduates to keep learning to acquire more skills to give them better chances with employers.

So the higher the degree you have, the better the chances you have, unfortunately, the world is just wired that way, so do give yourself as much of a chance as you can, he said.

Also speaking at the ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of Metro Africa Xpress (MAX.ng), Adetayo Bamiduro, who is an alumnus of Nexford University, advised the graduates to leverage the knowledge acquired to create value in society.

Its about leveraging this knowledge, this experience, to create real meaningful value to ourselves and the society at large, he noted.

NXU duration

Mrs Majekodunmi-Ogundoyin explained that the duration of the NXU programme depends on the students and that it compares to traditional universities. She said its bachelors degree runs for three years.

She said: So the Nexford degree that youre earning is in your own hands so you have the ability to scale as fast or as slow as you want to.

On average, our bachelors degree takes about three years to complete compared to traditional universities

And for the masters programme, thats the Masters in Business Administration (MBA), you can finish it in about 18 months on average but then again, some people finish in less time 12 to 14 months, while others finish a little later if they are working or doing other things at the same time.

Speaking on the university system and how it benefits students, its Founder and Executive Director, Fadl AlTarzi, said the system has been structured to equip students with the right skills to meet the expectations of employers.

He said: You know, the world is moving virtual, its a global grid right now. If youre on the grid, you would be able to access career opportunities by equipping yourself with the skills that you need.

Employers in the US, the UK, Australia, and all over the world are looking for talents like we have in Nigeria because theres a shortage of talent in other markets.

Theres an abundance of talent here. What they need are the right skills to move forward. So youre no longer limited by your physical location today.

On the admission process, he said: We have a simple admission process. Thats fair and equitable. Anyone that applies to Nexford will get a decision within two-three days.

You need to have prior education and a minimum level of English proficiency to equip yourself to succeed at Nexford.

How ASUU strike contributes to growth

The university management said while it does not derive joy in the ongoing industrial action by university lecturers, it has recorded significant enrollment growth during the strike.

You know, weve been growing every year, weve been doubling and tripling our student base every year, ASUU strike definitely contributed to growth as well, but weve been growing prestrike and we will continue growing post strike.

Well we dont think of ourselves as beneficiaries of this strike, you know, the strike harms students all across Nigeria and thats not in the interest of our sector, Mrs Majekodunmi-Ogundoyin.

She gave an example of a student who joined Nexford after spending two years in a Nigerian public university.

When asked about Nexfords relationship with the Nigerian Ministry of Education, both the CEO and Country Director said there is no formal collaboration with the Ministry.

As an American University, they explained that they are licensed and accredited in the US and UK, so being an online university has allowed Nexford to be accessible for any learner all around the world.

Mr Abah also decried the ongoing ASUU strike, noting that the strike is damaging to the Nigerian education system and the young people.

It affects their progress and their career. And its totally unfair on the students, he said.

From OAU to Nexford

In an interview with one of the first-class MBA graduands, Tosin Nathaniel-Luz who had her first degree in Law from the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), said the programme at NXU took to her to a greater level because she is now more equipped with digital skills as the courses were more practical than theory.

Initially I had the mindset that its just an online school that shouldnt take so much for me but sincerely, I was shocked because it was quite overwhelming and I learned a lot, its way more than the usual theory, it was practical.

I did a lot of self-learning, I learned how to use a lot of new tools, online tools, different applications, and, we took an examination online, and the examination was supervised, yes, an online examination where you cant even do examination malpractice because the computer is watching you.

She also noted that her interest in business made her apply for the NXU MBA programme and she studied more than at OAU, where she graduated with a second-class upper grade.

Ive always been business-minded throughout school, and I still graduated with a 2.1 CGPA, but I did way much more at NXU and came out with a 4.0 CGPA.

And I think that thats an achievement and Im very proud of myself because I didnt feel it was doable, she said.

Speaking on the duration of the MBA programme, she said she spent two years due to other engagements and confirmed that the tuition is monthly.

I spent two years actually from 2020 to 2022 because I took some breaks but I know of some colleagues that said they finished in six months.

You can go at your pace and its a monthly payment, youre not pressured into paying all at once.

In his comment, the Speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin, commended the university for giving Nigerian students an alternative to earning degrees.

I can see a bright future for Nexford, I was expecting it to be more of a conservative programme but to my surprise, I see a lot of graduates, I see that the future is bright for Nexford University.

Most especially enjoy the fact that they mix Tech in education, which is the future, as we all know ASUU has been on strike for months without end and the state governments would urge them to end the strike but with this platform, theres a way out for students for tertiary education, he said.
A 53-year-old Brazilian returnee, Okolie Nwabueze, has been arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) Abuja by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for allegedly importing 92 wraps of cocaine.

Mr Nwabueze, a father of two, ingested the drugs and eventually excreted them after days under observation in the agencys facility.

This is contained in a statement by the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday in Abuja.

Mr Babafemi said that the suspect who hailed from Mmaku village, Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State, was arrested on September 2.

The arrest was upon his arrival on a Qatar Airlines flight en route Brazil-Doha-Abuja.

The NDLEA spokesperson said that the suspect claimed to have left Nigeria for Mozambique in 2004 and finally relocated to Brazil in 2017.

This, he added, was where he obtained a residence permit before deciding to import the illicit substance for a $4,000 fee.

In the same vein, a 42-year-old man, Aliyu Kwasare, was arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, (MAKIA), Kano.

Mr Babafemi said that the suspect was caught for attempting to export a consignment of a new psychoactive substance, Akuskura, to Saudi Arabia.

He said that the suspect, an indigene of Kware LGA in Sokoto, who lived in Goron Dutse area of Kano, was arrested on September 5.

He said she was arrested during the outward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airline flight to Riyadh.

In another development, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Ikeja Lagos, no fewer than 1.099 million tablets of Tramadol (225mg) have been seized.

Mr Babafemi said the drugs were intercepted through inter-agency collaboration between NDLEA and the Nigerian Customs.

The pharmaceutical opioids packed in 50 cartons weighing 2,058.90kg, were imported from Pakistan via Addis-Ababa on Ethiopian Airways.

The consignment was concealed among other non-controlled pharmaceuticals.

Also, a freight agent, Aliyu Abubakar, was on Friday arrested at the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO) export shed of the airport.

The arrest was over an attempt to export a consignment of cannabis concealed inside bottles of Caro white body lotion, he said.

(NAN)
Gunmen have killed the wife of a leader of a local vigilante operative in Umuopu, Enugu-Ezike, a community in Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigerias South-east.

The incident happened on Friday night.

The victim, Ogochukwu Onuh, was shot dead after her husband, simply known as Akada, reportedly escaped from the gunmen.

Sources said the gunmen were infuriated that the vigilante leader, who was their target, escaped, prompting them to kill the wife.

The incident occurs barely three weeks after another leader of the communitys vigilante group, identified as Levi was shot dead by gunmen.

It is not clear, for now, if they are the same gunmen responsible for both killings.

They shot the woman and left almost immediately. So, people raised an alarm. We then rushed her to the hospital where she finally died, a source from the community told PREMIUM TIMES.

Her husband, the vigilante leader, was said to be leading an onslaught against gunmen terrorising the community.

It was learnt that the vigilante leader has been collaborating with security agencies in the community to fight the gunmen.

The guy (Mr Akada) has been attacked many times by the gunmen. Even the late Levi. They have been attacking them (Akada and Levi) because they are the ones that help to stop the gunmen from terrorising us here, said Kasiemobi Ugwu, a resident of the community.

The police spokesperson in the state, Daniel Ndukwe, confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES, but did not give details.

Investigation and manhunt of the fleeing assailants have been launched, Mr Ndukwe said.

Increased attacks

Enugu, like other states in the South-east, has witnessed an increase in deadly attacks lately.

The latest incident comes about two days after gunmen killed three police officers at New Haven, Enugu North Local Government Area of the state.

Last week, gunmen attacked members of the Labour Party (LP) who were holding a meeting in Awgu Community, Awgu Local Government Area of the state.

Earlier on 31 August, some other LP members were also attacked by gunmen in Nenwe, a community in the Aninri Local Government Area of the state.

In late June, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint along Agbani Road in Enugu South Local Government Area of the state. Two officers were feared killed in that attack.

In Mid-June, a police officer was killed by gunmen who attacked a police checkpoint in Ibagwa-Ani, a community in the Nsukka Local Government Area of the state.

Earlier, on 2 June, two police officers were also killed when gunmen attacked Mkpamte Community in the Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of the state.

The Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, recently banned the operations of motorcycles and tricycles in some local government areas to check the frequent attacks in the state.

The governor later lifted the ban, following public outcry, and assurances from leaders of the transport operators to assist the government in bringing an end to the attacks.

The attacks, mostly targeted at security officials and government facilities, have been attributed to the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which is agitating for a sovereign state for the Igbo-speaking people in the South-east.

The IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is detained in Abuja where he is standing trial for terrorism.
That culture of defending the dead, even when we know their excesses while alive, is what the rest of the world seems to be espousing with Queen Elizabeths transition. While I agree that wishing evil on the living as Professor Anya did was not tidy enough and sounds very inhuman, I am not against her dwelling on the perceived soft landing for genocide that Britain under the Queens watch gave the Nigerian war.

Like a prude confronted with sexually explicit images, the world didnt hide its shock at Nigerian-born American professor, Uju Anyas negative comments last week about the late British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The world had waited with bated breath at manifest indications that Elizabeths last hours had come. Amid this apprehension, the Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Critical Sociolinguistics and Critical Discourse at Carnegie Mellon University launched her salvo. It came in the form of a tweet that brimmed with bile and hate. She had twitted: I heard the chief monarch of a thieving, raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating. It was a bazooka that upset and shook the world out of its sanctimony.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, the worlds third richest man, had an immediate riposte for Anya. This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I dont think so. Wow, he had written. Not one to be cowed, Anya launched another diatribe at both Bezos and the now-confirmed-dead 96-year old monarch. If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star, she tweeted. Uju was apparently making reference to the 19671970 Nigerian-Biafran war, during which time the British Empire, supporting Nigeria, had supplied arms and ammunition that helped Nigeria vanquish Biafra. About one million people reportedly died in the needless war. For Bezos, Anya had a retort: May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.

Uju is apparently an against-method academic. Born of a Nigerian/Trinidadian origin, her parents lived in Enugu, Nigeria and her fathers embrace of African polygyny fractured the wedlock, necessitating her Trinidadian mother to flee to America with her and siblings. A self-confessed lesbian, Uju got legally separated from her husband in 2017, even as she publicly announced her against-the-grain sexuality.

While Uju may be considered to have stepped off the borders of humanity by wishing another person excruciating pain and death, the facts of her grouse are in the public domain and need not be glossed over. An analysis of Anyas tweet reveals three key elements in her accusations against the British Empire, viz theft, rape and genocide-support. There is none of these allegations, which historical renditions, especially by African and Africanist scholars, have not leveled against the British colonisers.

Apparently because of her vested interest in Nigeria, Britain overtly supported the country in the civil war and indeed supplied arms and ammunition to Nigeria. Thousands of Igbo were killed in the 1966 pogrom, with Britain, the immediate past suzerain, lifting no finger. The Harold Wilson government, through its lackey High Commissioner in Lagos, David Hunt, was unapologetically against Biafra. As the war raged, 1.8 million refugees sprang up in Biafra, many of whom were living skeletons, and kwashiorkor-stricken kids. Karl Jaggi, head of the Red Cross at the time, estimated that about a million children were killed by hunger and bullets, though Red Cross saved about half a million through its interventions.

With the help of BBC correspondent, Fredrick Forsyth, the terrifying pictures of skeleton-like children appeared on British TV and unsettled Britons, leading to lack of appetit,e as those figures disrupted their dinner meals. The hitherto covered grim situations of the war, which Wilson had shielded from the British peoples view, sparked outrage and revealed Britains complicity in the genocidal war against the people of Nigeria. Queen Elizabeth was so powerful that if she indeed desired that the war should not be fought by both youthful soldiers, Yakubu Gowon and Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, no blood would have been shed by both parties.

Before Anya, Forsyth had revealed this connivance within Britains top echelon of power. He had written, What is truly shameful is that this was not done by savages but aided and assisted at every stage by Oxbridge-educated British mandarins. Why? Did they love the corruption-riven, dictator-prone Nigeria? No. From start to finish, it was to cover up that the UKs assessment of the Nigerian situation was an enormous judgmental screw-up. And, worse: with neutrality and diplomacy from London, it could all have been avoided. The truth is that, if Britain and her monarchy had insisted that the Aburi Accord, struck by the two leaders in Ghana, should be observed to the letter, there would not have been the bloodshed that eventually occurred.

Thus, while we criticise Professor Anya, we should also not gloss over this history. By our human conventions and norms, Anya tripped over the borders. The convention is for us to beatify fellow residents of this human space who transit mortality for immortality, with their earthly sins forgiven. Our laws are no less guilty, as even criminals undergoing trial have their cases discontinued. But should we allow the dead to escape that easily?

Britain was stung by the allegation of vicarious complicity in the multiple deaths. It became clear that it either did not seek armistice between the warring countries or it failed in its peremptory bid to reconcile them. Dr Akanu Ibiam, former governor of the Eastern Region, disclaimed the Knight of British Empire (KBF) bestowed upon him by Queen Elizabeth in protest of UKs biased involvement in the war. To further press home his protest, Ibiam reportedly renounced his English name, Francis. So many other people protested the British complicity in the deaths of the people who later became re-assimilated into Nigeria.

What in Harold Wilson and David Hunts actions showed that they did not mirror the mind of Queen Elizabeth and her desire for the deaths of people who, a few years before then, were her subjects, under the British colonial umbrella? People who had now taken on the new name of Biafra? If the debonair Queen didnt stop Wilson from supporting the war on Biafra, why does anybody want to spare her of historys unkind jab for the colossal deaths during the Biafran war?

Facts of history do not see Britain and Queen Elizabeth as benevolent but cruel conquerors. Till today, Britains foundational roles in the socio-political woes that Nigeria currently faces have not ceased from jutting out of remembrancers lips. The 1914 amalgamation was effected by Britain for the business pleasure of the Empire, without any regard for the future of Nigeria. The Royal Niger Company, a mercantile concern formed in 1879, was chartered by Britain in the nineteenth century for this purpose. It became part of the United Africa Company, which was used for the purchase and formation of colonial Nigeria. Through the activities of the company, Britain fenced off Bismarcks Germany from the acquisition of Nigeria and enabled this colonial empire to establish firm control over the lower Niger.

In Kenya, Britains conquistador role was no less benumbing. Between 1952  the year Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne  and 1960, a revolt of the Kikuyu tribe against British rule reigned. The war was fought over three issues  the expulsion of Kikuyu tenants from settler farms, white settlers taking over the lands and Britains failure to ascribe political representation to Kenyans in their own land. In the uprising, 32 white settlers and about 200 British police, as well as soldiers, were said to have been killed. More than 1,800 African civilians were killed in return, while the number of Mau Mau rebels killed was put at around 20,000. When Britain hunted and captured the leader of the uprising, Didan Kimathi, on 21 October, 1956, it signaled the beginning of the move to grant Kenya its independence. Kimathi was executed by hanging in the early hours of 18 February, 1957 at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.

Many of the empires under British suzerainty will also remember Britain and the Queen with grim-laced hearts.

Thus, while we criticise Professor Anya, we should also not gloss over this history. By our human conventions and norms, Anya tripped over the borders. The convention is for us to beatify fellow residents of this human space who transit mortality for immortality, with their earthly sins forgiven. Our laws are no less guilty, as even criminals undergoing trial have their cases discontinued. But should we allow the dead to escape that easily?

Britain dealt unkindly with the nations under it like merchandise and forcefully and unjustly expropriated their natural endowments in a very mercantile manner. In the process, many lives were lost and futures destroyed. While many of those Mephistophelean activities of Britain took place before Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, as the monarch who the rest of the world has known in the last 70 years, she should be recipient of responses to the cruelty of her recent forebears. Methinks this was what Anya was saying but which, either due to her unbridled anger and lack of diplomatese, she failed to pad with niceties  as the world would have wanted. Attempts at suppressing the angst against the past, rather than placate the offspring of those whose kindreds blood was spilled by African rulers, in connivance with colonial authorities, have boomeranged. Treating them dismissively and dressing them in derogatory words like a dot in a circle have led to the metastasis of hate and raised angry persons like Anya and Nnamdi Kanu.

The way to go is to allow those who lived miserably be apportioned blames commensurate with their measly existence and those who live life as puritans be so accorded same at their departure. We have taken this apportioning of blanket beatification on the dead to such an absurd level that it encourages evil doers to bask in the warmth of their evil broths.

The culture of not speaking ill of the dead is ancient and perhaps spans the whole of humanity. Africa has carried this culture on its head, probably more pretentiously than the rest of the world. History has, however, not allowed us to close our eyes to the evils perpetrated around us, even by ancient African monarchies who are the precursors of the current kings. From Sunni Ali Ber, the first King of the Songhai Empire and 15th ruler of the Sunni dynasty, who conducted a repressive policy against the scholars of Timbuktu; Askia the Great, the emperor of the Songhai empire; Shaka the Zulu; Idris Alooma; Benhazin Bowelle of Dahomey; Menelik II; Mansa Musa of Mali and down to some of our ancient Alaafins of the old Oyo Empire, as well as their chiefs, like the wicked Bashorun Gaa, Africa too does not have a sparse supply of despots. Today, we paper over these excesses in history, just as we are doing with the Kings and Queen of England.

British monarchy and some monarchies in the world are realising that modernity may make it hard for them to continually assert the fiery powers of their fiefdoms as they did in time past. This, I think, is the most enduring manifestation of the monarchy superintended by Elizabeth II. Under Elizabeth as Queen, though the monarchical power was huge and awesome, it was dressed in ceremonial robe. The political power, on the outward, was then made to look like the decider of the destinies of Britain and its erstwhile colonies. This however does not remove from the fact that the monarchy was an umpire of bloodshed and tears in colonial territories some centuries ago.

The realisation of this wave shift in power was espoused by the author of the celebrated Yoruba classic, Igbi Aye Nyi  Life swivels like a wind  Chief T. A. A. Ladele. Written in 1978, Ladele, an Okeho, Oyo State-born History teacher in Durbar College, Oyo and pioneer Headmaster of Baptist School, Iwere-Ile, was one of Nigerias early writers. In Igbi Aye Nyi, the 1920-born writer sought to teach us all about the ephemeral worth of political power and the un-enduring texture of raw brawn. Set in a town called Otolu at the outset of the colonial incursion into Nigeria, Oba Bankarere, the Otolu king, in concert with his sons, inflicted huge terror on his subjects through his excessive wielding of power. He flaunted the wealth that accrued from power and defied all known societal norms. Two of Oba Bankareres subjects however rose to save the sanity of the traditional institution and the lives of the people. In the end, the colonial government waded in to curtail these excesses in a manner that rubbished the king and curtailed his outlaw sons.

That culture of defending the dead, even when we know their excesses while alive, is what the rest of the world seems to be espousing with Queen Elizabeths transition. While I agree that wishing evil on the living as Professor Anya did was not tidy enough and sounds very inhuman, I am not against her dwelling on the perceived soft landing for genocide that Britain under the Queens watch gave the Nigerian war. By not treading this path of beatifying the dead, in spite of themselves, Professor Anya and travelers on her kind of boat have received flaks on their persons. Some even went to the extent of deploying Anyas sexuality to attack her and a queer character said that because she tweets positive comments on the Labour Partys presidential candidate, she epitomises the negative energies some online rats ascribe to the candidate. Yes, Africans cannot stand same-sex relationships, but the fact of our global existence is that the biology of some people is misdirected towards such sexuality, in spite of themselves. There are so many citizens of the globe who share our admirable opposite-sex biology but whose minds are as odious and repugnant as the sewer. So why beatify the latter and incinerate the former?

To me, the culture of beatifying the dead with a blanket of a life well lived is self-serving. Most of the time, we spread this omnibus blanket as shawl on the disreputable lives of the dead simply because we all dread what the world would say when we too exit the world. This was aptly explained by the late Ilorin, Kwara State Dadakwada maestro, Odolaye Aremu, who sang that no one can predict who will be free of being drenched by a rain that is yet to abate. He had expressed it in his lyrics as Ojo ti nro ti o da, Olohun lo mo iye eni ti o pa.

The way to go is to allow those who lived miserably be apportioned blames commensurate with their measly existence and those who live life as puritans be so accorded same at their departure. We have taken this apportioning of blanket beatification on the dead to such an absurd level that it encourages evil doers to bask in the warmth of their evil broths. This does not discourage the living from evil. While it is nice to beatify Queen Elizabeth as it is being done all over the world for her recorded great footprints while alive, let non-conformists like Anya freely dwell on the misgivings they have about her too. They should not be made victims of unfavourable censor or censure.

Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.
When he is sworn in on 13 September, Ruto will become the fifth president of independent Kenya, the second ethnic Kalenjin, after the late Daniel Arap Moi, to hold the office. He will also be the second former indictee of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be installed in the position in succession to his current boss, Uhuru Kenyatta, both tried unsuccessfully by the court in connection with the post-election violence (PEV) that followed Kenyas 2007 presidential election.

On 5 September, Kenyas Supreme Court, sitting as the final and sole judicial arbiter of presidential election disputes in the country, certified the election of incumbent Deputy President, William Samoei Ruto, as the lawful winner of the presidential election conducted the previous month on 8th August.

When he is sworn in on 13 September, Ruto will become the fifth president of independent Kenya, the second ethnic Kalenjin, after the late Daniel Arap Moi, to hold the office. He will also be the second former indictee of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be installed in the position in succession to his current boss, Uhuru Kenyatta, both tried unsuccessfully by the court in connection with the post-election violence (PEV) that followed Kenyas 2007 presidential election.

Rutos journey from ICC indictee and out-of-favour Deputy President to the presidency is a testament to the ruthlessness of his political talents. The improbable story of how a man with a record of over 30-year involvement in the good, the bad, and the ugly of Kenyas politics, still managed to spin a winning legend of hustler vs. dynasty will be studied by students of political branding and communications for a long time.

Kenyas election was not the only significant presidential contest in Africa this year. Two weeks after that event, on 24 August, Angolans also went to the polls to elect a president. At the end of balloting, the ruling Peoples Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), party of General Joao Lourenco, the incumbent president, was announced winner, polling 51% of the vote to 44% by the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Three days after Kenyas Supreme Court affirmed the results in Nairobi, Angolas Constitutional Court similarly rejected UNITAs challenge to the outcome of the presidential election, and certified the election of the incumbent as duly returned.

The election in Kenya was, however, the most consequential ballot on the continent this year for many reasons. Kenya is a regional anchor in East Africa, with considerable strategic and diplomatic heft beyond the region. It is closely involved in seeking and bringing stability to a fragile region. Kenyas model of constitutional reforms in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 PEV is also an inspiration beyond its borders.

The outcome was close. Raila Odinga, the leader of the Azimio Coalition, whom Ruto beat to the prize, lost with a mere 233,211 votes out of 14,212,995 cast but could have sent the election into a run-off or second round with just 70,000 votes, to deny Ruto the constitutional threshold of 50%+1.

Beyond these numbers, however, the outcome in Kenya is also another significant chapter in how the ICC has become a factor  acknowledged or not  in African politics. When he attended the inauguration of President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013 (with Ruto as Deputy President), Ugandas President Yoweri Museveni famously declaimed against un-named Western powers whom he said were now using it (the ICC) to install leaders of their choice in Africa and eliminate the ones they do not like. At the time, Uhuru and Ruto faced ICC pending processes in connection with the PEV.

In the trial of Ruto 16 of the 42 prosecution witnesses stopped co-operating with the court and refused to testify because of threats, intimidation, and fear of reprisals. Several other witnesses admitted during their testimonies to have told lies to the prosecutors in return for money. The case was frustrated by witness tampering and intimidation. The court could not acquit Ruto nor could it find him guilty.

In 2015, the case against Kenyatta collapsed, leading to his discharge and paving the way for his re-election as president two years later. In the trial of Ruto 16 of the 42 prosecution witnesses stopped co-operating with the court and refused to testify because of threats, intimidation, and fear of reprisals. Several other witnesses admitted during their testimonies to have told lies to the prosecutors in return for money. The case was frustrated by witness tampering and intimidation. The court could not acquit Ruto nor could it find him guilty.

If the trial was an effort masterminded by anyone to dim their political prospects, the opposite seems to have occurred. Far from bearing out President Musevenis thesis, the trial of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto appeared to have injected steroids into their political careers.

But Kenya is not the only place where the ICC was accused of international insertion into domestic politics under the guise of prosecutorial action for accountability. When the ICCs appeals chamber acquitted former DRC Vice-President, Jean-Pierre Bemba, of all charges in 2018, it was said that the judgment was a political decision aimed at threatening the acting DRC President, Joseph Desire Kabila, who is not in a hurry to organise free and fair elections and leave power. One commentator queried: Could the ICC have been manipulated by those who uphold prescriptive democratic ideals and who have the necessary power to impose democracy in developing countries? The possible manipulation of the ICC could have led to Bembas freedom.

Following the indictment of Sudans former president, Omar Al-Bashir, by the same court in 2009, another observer described an imbroglio of political and justice considerations, in which it seems the politics always wins out. In Sudan, some would argue, the ICC did not have a realistic means to bring Bashir to trial but used the indictment as a strategic leverage on such other issues as the independence of South Sudan and support for international terrorism.

The absence of a smoking gun to anchor these claims on has not necessarily stopped them from flourishing. What cannot be disputed is the fact that the footprint of the ICC in Africa has had far-reaching political consequences in a continent in which the court has not always been remarkable for its political acuity or sense of timing.

The impact of the ICC in Kenya will be a matter of considerable speculation well into the foreseeable future. The background does bear a brief reprise.

On 27 December, 2007, Kenyans went to the polls to elect a president. Three days later, on 30 December, the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), in the middle of the night, announced President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) as duly elected with 46.42% of the votes, ahead of Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), to whom it gave 44.07%. Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in. Meanwhile, in the parliamentary vote that took place with the presidential ballot, the ODM won 99 of the 208 seats on offer, with 30.83% of the votes, beating the PNU slate, which ended up with 43 seats from 20.89% of the votes cast.

Some people will argue that the outcome of the ICC process in Kenya has been salutary. For proof, they may call attention to the fact that as close as this 2022 ballot was, there was no violence. That is one way of looking at it. It has taught the voters to avoid dying for politicians. They have nowhere to run to or hide.

Thereafter, as reported by the New York Times the following day, [i]t took all of about 15 minutes. for the country to explode.

According to an initial assessment issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations following a mission in February 2008, more than 1,200 Kenyans were reported killed, thousands more injured, over 300,000 people displaced and around 42,000 houses and many businesses were looted or destroyed. A significant number of cases of sexual violence were also reported.

It took a plurinational mediation led by former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Anan, to stem the violence.

The power-sharing government instituted at the end of the mediation under the National Accord and Reconciliation Act established a hybrid international judicial commission of inquiry into the violence. The three-person commission headed by Philip Waki, a judge of Kenyas Court of Appeal, made two important findings. First, it found that armed militias, most of whom developed as a result of the 1990s ethnic clashes, were never de-mobilized [and] led to the ease with which political and business leaders reactivated them for the 2007 post-election violence. Second, it concluded that the PEV was a result of planning and organization in other areas, often with the involvement of politicians and business leaders. Instead of paying a price, it seems those politicians and business leaders flourished.

Some people will argue that the outcome of the ICC process in Kenya has been salutary. For proof, they may call attention to the fact that as close as this 2022 ballot was, there was no violence. That is one way of looking at it. It has taught the voters to avoid dying for politicians. They have nowhere to run to or hide.

It is well possible that the would-be president who has prevailed over every prosecutor and politician arrayed against him will, in office, overcome his provenance and plunder greatness from the jaws of infamy. That would be an ending fit for a Hollywood script.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer and teacher, can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.
Such is the depth and spread across all the campuses of the Lagos State University (LASU), where Professor Lateef Akanni Hussein held sway as the sixth Vice-Chancellor from 2005 to 2011, that this tribute was to be authored jointly by two of us, colleagues at LASU, Dr Noheem Thanny and I. Both of us and several others across the academic and non-academic staff of LASU have assorted, pleasant memories of the great soul and now feel heavily indebted to Prof Husseins fairness in university administration.

Husseins death inflicted a deep gash in many of us. What a time to die for him? Many of our current students who never knew Hussein are currently being made to realise that there was a LASU where sanity was ensured to prevail without agitation or any form of disturbance for peace on the campus. That assuring situation was programmed and derived from the conscious efforts of a committed scholar, a demonstrative moralist of no mean standing, guided by his ultimate belief in justice, as prescribed by Islamic philosophy.

The distinguished professor of Physics was highly contemptuous of secrecy and abhorred unfounded officialdom especially with matters deserving urgent attention. He was always quick to announce that no memo could suffer unnecessary delay on his desk even as final decisions on issues of general interest would not be hidden from anyone. He shocked the entire university community when he announced no fewer than some 60 secret bank accounts were being run for no clear reason.

He equally demystified the office he occupied often announcing that the VCs job was one of the easiest in the system with memos passed up to him often requiring only approved or not approved. He repeatedly celebrated openly the fact that that he had a most uncommon privilege, which even the nations president didnt have, of having two professors as deputies. His argument was that these deputies were qualified to be VC as well. Indeed, Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, one of them then, is the sitting VC. Olatunji-Bello is often in awe of her late boss whenever she has cause to refer to him, just like many of us, fellowmuslims, who will readily volunteer to pray for his soul as regularly as possible on account of his indelible, good deeds. You are even tempted to even ask: What are those good things in LASU today that you cannot directly or indirectly trace to Hussein? Most conspicuous perhaps are the ubiquitous official Kia cars found all over the campuses even as the conspicuous greening of the campus took root in his days. We shall come back to Husseins midas touch on LASU later.

Hussein had both carrot and stick that he never hesitated to dispense. As soon as he assumed office he announced that he would do all humanly possible to be fair to all but that he would not hesitate to sanction whoever was found wanting. He began with punctuality at the university Senate meeting. You will need to work hard to be as businesslike as Hussein. Senate meetings, he insisted must be attractive to serious scholars and therefore shouldnt exceed one hour. There was no moratorium on this and so a number of old-order professors were alerted to the new sheriff in town the day he presided over the first senate meeting. They arrived 30 minutes after the meeting commenced but were politely turned back. The good thing was that some of them learnt the lesson fast and also passed it to the rest of us. Yet, to give utmost prominence to his treasured attitude to work, the punctuality master procured several boards hanged on all blocks on the campus with the simple message: Punctuality is the soul of business

Husseins welfare regime was so endearing that it disarmed even his adversaries some of who, in their incurable bigotry, labeled him Taliban, just because, like every other tendency he had or perceived to have, he was unapologetic with his muslim identity.

Some contemporary university staff in Nigeria will find it hard to believe that Hussein pressed for and paid LASU staffs entitlements with regards to excess workloads and related matters, without any agitation. He became the strongest reminder to me of my late secondary school principal at Ede Muslim Grammar School, of blessed memory, Mr Babatunde Olatunji, often proudly pontificating that he would either run a first class school or none at all. Hussein left no one unconvinced that he didnt beg for the VC job and that the government of Lagos State would only earn itself honour by acquiescing to his official requests for the good of lASU.

Holder of a First Class degree in Physics from Nigerias premier university, UI and an avowed believer in the university tradition combined with his own ingenuity as an administrator, one of the most enduring components of his legacy in LASU manifested in fair recruitment regime opening doors to academics of Lagos State origin and others alike without undue interference. Yet he was most prompt with payment of salaries, a most distinct departure from the practice of the immediate past, inept leadership.

Hussein wasnt any less focused on students wellbeing. For the first time in the history of the university he started the university scholarship award scheme. Students whose performance were form second class upper upwards were granted tuition waiver and even got paid as much as whopping N250,000 as book allowance. Those were the ones referred to as university scholars and at least three of such have since joined us, their teachers, as colleagues at the School of Communication of the university. Genuinely committed to cultivating and nurturing world class inspiration for LASU students, Husseins tenure remains the one to be beaten in exposing LASU students to international engagements and also enabling them to appreciate their teachers with varying international exposure.

Interestingly, Hussein earned as much as he also spent with his ingenuity and a most inspiring approach to cultivating and nurturing internally generated revenue for the university. The vibrant part-time services he ran has been the most creative and the most robust in the history of the university. With accountability almost at perfection, lack of funds no longer constituted any serious challenge for basic services within the university. Budget tradition thus became meaningful with academic departments and others being encouraged to ensure that their needs were duly documented in their budgets which they were also made to defend. All the official Kia cars and a few Chevrollete owned till date by academic departments and others in LASU till; date were bought by the Husseins administration.

Hussein who taught 100 Level courses even as the numero uno officer of the university subscribed substantially to mentoring and never hesitated to demonstrate it to the full admiration of the entire community.

Unfortunately, Hussein was too trusting with some of his appointees who tragically did him in with their own greed and arrogance sharply contrasting to the philosophy of Husseins patriotic intervention as Omo Eko Pataki. What resulted turned out to confirm the Shakespearian assertion in Macbeth that The love that follows us is sometime our trouble which we still thank as love. The inevitable imperfections notwithstanding, Husseins unwaivering sincerity and commitment to quality scholarship, patriotism and good governance remain indomitably outstanding till date in LASU. May his beautiful soul rest in peace eternal in Aljannah Firdaus. Ameen thuma amen.

Tunde Akanni, the acting Head of Journalism Dept doubles as pioneer director of the universitys Digital Media Research Centre, DMRC. Follow him via: tundeakanni.com and @AkintundeAkanni(Twitter)
VIENNA, Sept. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Universal Energy Facility (UEF), a results-based financing facility managed by Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), has reached a milestone  it verified its first set of electricity connections: 542 connections to mini-grids across eight communities in Madagascar. With that, the facility has also disbursed its first grant, with mini-grid developer WeLight receiving USD 592 per connection.

Improved electricity access is having a positive impact on local residents in Ambohitoaka, Madagascar, where the Universal Energy Facility has supported the development of mini-grids.

"This is an important milestone in the history of the Universal Energy Facility," said Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy.

"These connections in the communities of Ambovonomby, Mangindrano, Marovato, Ambohitoaka, Anjozoromadosy, Ambodisaina, Andohajango and Marotandrano in Madagascar are proof that results-based finance delivers reliable and affordable electricity access at speed and scale to populations most in need."

Launched in October 2020, the UEF is a multi-donor facility that provides grants to eligible organizations once the connections they establish have been verified. Under this results-based model, companies are incentivized to build at speed and scale  in contrast to a traditional procurement model for financing energy projects.

In its initial wave, the UEF is supporting mini-grid development in Benin, Madagascar, and Sierra Leone. The initial 542 connections verified in Madagascar will provide approximately 2,170 people with electricity, while also powering important community services and businesses.

"We are thankful for this grant that will be instrumental in bringing productive electricity to villagers and trigger economic growth and positive social impacts in eight new villages across Madagascar," said Romain de Villeneuve, CEO, WeLight Africa.

In the community of Ampasimatera, the new mini-grids are anticipated to provide new economic opportunities for local residents.

"Electricity alone cannot create all the conditions for economic growth, but it is an essential element to meet the needs of the population of Ampasimatera in order to facilitate the development of economic activities in the commune," said Thyerry Rozenaly, Mayor of Ampasimatera.

More mini-grids supported by the UEF are under construction in the three countries, where the facility expects to provide results-based finance for approximately 14,000 electricity connections.

A new wave of the UEF was also launched on 24 August and focuses on supporting Stand-Alone Solar for Productive Use (SSPU), starting with Nigeria. This wave is designed to scale up access to electricity for households, micro, small and medium enterprises.

The UEF is a multi-donor facility supported by Shell Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Africa Minigrid Developers Association, Power Africa, Good Energies, UKaid, Carbon Trust, IKEA Foundation, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (BMZ) and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

More information on the UEF is available at seforall.org/UEF.

About Sustainable Energy for All

Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) is an international organization that works in partnership with the United Nations and leaders in government, the private sector, financial institutions, civil society and philanthropies to drive faster action towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7)  access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030  in line with the Paris Agreement on climate. SEforALL works to ensure a clean energy transition that leaves no one behind and brings new opportunities for everyone to fulfill their potential.

SEforALL is led by Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. Follow her on Twitter @DamilolaSDG7. For more information, follow @SEforALLorg.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NaXEzCeOk

SOURCE Sustainable Energy for All
Today's story comes to us from Ed Dean of Auburn, and it is a wonderful story about his uncle, Joe Dean. Thanks so much, Ed, for sharing this story with us!

Dear Mr. King,

I started reading your Sunday column this morning and thought about my uncle Joe (Joseph W. Dean). When he passed on, his younger relatives from Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent me his U.S. Army records. He had been staying at the Michigan veterans facility since December 1980.

Uncle Joe was five years older than my father, who was born in April 1917. Uncle Joe left Auburn High School in 1929, having completed the 10th grade. His major courses of study were commercial. From 1930 to 1941 he was employed as a personnel manager for the Meredith Publishing Co. He hired, trained and supervised personnel in the displaying and selling of merchandise by phone and direct contact. He managed and supervised over 40 employees.

He was inducted into the U.S. Army on March 10, 1941, at Fort Benjamin in Harrison, Indiana. He was 28 years old, almost 29. He was appointed as sergeant (temporary, administrative) non-commissioned officer on July 16, 1941, while at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. He rose to the rank of sergeant on July 29, 1943. His active duty as an enlisted man was from March 10, 1941, to Oct. 22, 1941.

He then attended Officer Candidate School, Camp Lee, Virginia, Course No. 26.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Quarter Master Corps upon graduation. He then spent 17 months as a second lieutenant (unit officer) and was responsible for supervising and instructing classes in supply, administration and kept records and personnel reports.

He then spent six months as a first lieutenant property officer, in which he requisitioned supplies and light equipment, followed routing and storage, and was responsible for issue and keeping of records.

After World War II, sometime around 1947 to 1948, Uncle Joe was asked by the army to return to active duty from civilian life in order to compete for a regular Army commission. My uncle turned them down. My father said it would have been "a mere formality" that he would have been assured of receiving a regular commission.

The picture of Uncle Joe in his uniform was probably taken at Fort Hayes, Ohio.
Co-chairs Natasha Koifman and Suzanne Boyd bring together local and international changemakers including Eric McCormack, Hayden Christensen, Nelly Furtado, P.K. Subban, Dax Dasilva, Rick Mercer, Fefe Dobson, Wesley Louissaint, and more, raising funds for education in Haiti

Download Images Here  Credit Getty Images (Photographer: Ryan Emberley)

TORONTO, Sept. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Co-chairs Natasha Koifman and Suzanne Boyd hosted the 14th annual Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ) Festival Gala, an intimate evening raising over $725,000 for education in Haiti.

Ryan Emberley (CNW Group/Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ), NKPR)

The night began with a beautiful performance by Haitian-Canadian Wesley (Wesli) Louissaint and Congo-born Lionel Kizaba. Emcees George Stroumboulopoulos and Natasha Gargiulo then returned to the stage for their second consecutive year co-emceeing the APJ Festival Gala, expressing gratitude for supporters and guests and stressing the importance of the cause while detailing the current climate in Haiti.

Natasha Koifman, Canada Board Chair, US Board of Directors and Festival Gala Co-Host, spoke passionately about her commitment to the cause and appreciation for the long-time supporters in attendance. Opening the night in a grateful, passionate, and motivational tone, Koifman thanked everyone who made all of this positive change possible. She highlighted the overall pass rate of above 90 per cent, 1,300 students graduating since 2016, and over 27,000 students attending since its opening.

Highlights from the evening include:

Eric McCormack was honoured with the official Artist for Peace and Justice Award for his strong commitment to social good, presented by Suzanne Boyd and Yannick Bisson . McCormack has been involved in many causes over the years.

was honoured with the official for his strong commitment to social good, presented by and . McCormack has been involved in many causes over the years. George and Eric Hendrikx also honoured environmental activist and champion Dax Da silva with the prestigious Canadian Changemaker Award for the tremendous impact he has made through his non-profit environmental alliance, Age of Union . In 2021, he pledged an initial $40 million towards conservation projects around the world that aim to solve critical environmental challenges.

also honoured environmental activist and champion with the prestigious for the tremendous impact he has made through his non-profit environmental alliance, Age of . In 2021, he pledged an initial towards conservation projects around the world that aim to solve critical environmental challenges. A special performance from Fefe Dobson and Dan Kanter .

and . Showcasing the first-hand impact of APJ on the lives of youth in Haiti , the emcees introduced intimate video messages from Susan Sarandon , Sting, and Paul Beaubrun among others. They recalled their own experiences of the positive impact APJ can have, encouraging guests to raise funds so Haitian youth can receive education for a better future.

, the emcees introduced intimate video messages from among others. They recalled their own experiences of the positive impact APJ can have, encouraging guests to raise funds so Haitian youth can receive education for a better future. A live auction led by stars of he hit show Trading up with Mandy Rennehan , Mandy Rennehan and Lauren Ferraro raised $273,500 .

, raised . Natasha Koifman and George led an inspiring moment to "Fund The Need", identifying significant need at the Haitian academy. Yannick & Shantelle Bisson started it off with a $30,000 donation to fund teachers' salaries as well Ellie Mae donated $25,000 to fund 350 students with uniforms. Many guests including Natasha, George, and Peter Tunney , among others, rallied together to raise an impressive $163,250 to improve teachers' salaries.

APJ's mission is to encourage peace and social justice, working to alleviate poverty around the world. The organization's immediate efforts serve the poorest communities in Haiti with programs in education and training in creative industries, while expanding its reach globally by partnering with effective local organizations to give young women access to quality education.

Generous sponsors for this year's event include: Air Canada, Audi, REMY Martin, Oxley Real Estate, 9 Story Media Group, La Bonne Fille Fine Tea Co., Ritz Carlton, Ellie Mae, and Flow Water.

For more information on the organization or to make a donation, please visit http://www.apjnow.org or follow @artistsforpeace on social media.

About Artists for Peace and Justice

Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ) is a non-profit organization that encourages peace and social justice and addresses issues of poverty around the world. APJ's immediate goal is to serve the poorest communities in Haiti with programs in education, healthcare, and dignity through the arts. The organization is committed to long-term, sustainable development in direct partnership with the Haitian people. The model is simple: APJ believes in empowering local communities, fostering economic growth, and the power of education to change a nation. To learn more, visit www.apjnow.org or follow @artistsforpeace on Instagram and Twitter.

About NKPR

NKPR was started in 2002 by Natasha Koifman in order to combine two passions: shining a spotlight on stories of substance and supporting causes that are making a difference around the world. Over the past 18 years, NKPR has established itself as a highly regarded full-service public relations, artist management and digital agency with offices in Toronto, New York and Los Angeles, representing over 40 national and international brands and supporting charitable organizations like Artists for Peace and Justice. For more information, visit NKPR on social media @natashankpr or at www.nkpr.net

SOURCE Artists for Peace and Justice (APJ), NKPR
NANJING, China, Sept. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mid-Autumn Festival comes as the moon turns full. As a traditional festival of the Chinese nation, the Mid-Autumn Festival is associated with good wishes for family reunions. A famous Chinese news media Modern Express invited four young people to show how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in China.

On the day, reunions of numerous families set off the full moon to advantage.

A famous Chinese news media Modern Express invited four young people to show how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in China.

The bright moon in the sky triggers emotions.

Where do you spend the festival this year? All Chinese people, wherever they are, share the same sentiment of missing home.

Admiring the moon, eating mooncakes and enjoying colored lanterns and other traditional customs of the festival have been passed down from ancient times to the present. These ceremonies are exactly what make the Chinese people romantic.

For youngsters, eating mooncakes of new tastes and visiting the best moon-admiring places both turn age-old traditional customs into fashions.

(https://youtu.be/nM87nnADpEY)

Yan Chao, a youngster from Nanjing, is walking by the Qinhuai River to feel the charm of the city, a capital of six ancient dynasties. In his hand is a Suzhou-style mooncake, something originating more than 1,000 years ago.

Custard mooncake is the favorite of Emma Chin, a youngster from Hong Kong. For her, it is also an indispensable ceremony to watch colored lanterns at Victoria Harbor, Tsim Sha Tsui during the festival.

Emily Yau, a young lady from Macao, prefers gathering with relatives and friends at the Ruins of St. Paul to celebrate the festival.

Where can we admire the most beautiful moon in Taiwan? For Zhang Youfang, a youngster from Taiwan, in addition to Sun Moon Lake, Feng Chia is also a good choice. Having a bite of mooncakes while appreaciating the moon to express the missing for family members and the hope of an early reunion.

As a traditional snack for the festival, mooncakes symbolize a spiritual feeling. As circular as the moon, mooncakes also evoke thoughts for family members. The moon, when combined with mooncakes, signifies reunion.

People eat mooncakes and admire the moon with their families. While enjoying the happy traditional festival, Chinese youth join hands to preserve the festival and pass down Chinese culture to future generations.

SOURCE Modern Express
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --The following statement was issued by Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) on the 21st anniversary of the attacks of 9/11:

"On this September 11, it is important to note that the Biden administration has forgotten nearly every lesson learned on that tragic day. By loosening immigration inspections, border controls, document security, interior enforcement, and screening standards, America is no longer secure.

"The threat of state-sponsored radical Islamic terrorism is still a very clear and present danger, as we have been reminded in just the last few months. The stabbing of Salman Rushdie, the plot to kidnap former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and the attempted assassination of an Iranian dissident in Brooklyn remind us that our enemies understand our vulnerabilities and are prepared exploit them.

"As we remember the lives of the 2,977 people who were slaughtered 21 years ago, in part due to lax immigration enforcement policies, we must also recognize the even more massive loss of life going on right now as a result of the Biden administration's deliberate sabotage of border enforcement. Last year, under President Biden's watch, 36 times as many Americans, 107,622, died of drug overdoses  including 71,238 from the fentanyl that is pouring across a wide-open border.

"If we owe anything to those who died on this day 21 years ago, their families, first responders who rushed to the scenes of devastation at the Pentagon and World Trade Center, as well as the men and women who fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is to make sure that such events are never repeated on U.S. soil. Sadly, on September 11, 2022, it seems that many of the lessons of 9/11 are being forgotten."

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 3 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

Contact: Ron Kovach, Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
NANJING, China, Sept. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mid-Autumn Festival, or the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, falls on September 10 this year. To better carry forward Chinese traditions and culture, Modern Express, a renowned media from China, is launching the Global Recruitment for One Culture One Identity Program.

Global Recruitment for One Culture One Identity Program

According to the recruitment information, the program is aimed at inviting Generation Z from China to explore interesting stories about Chinese traditions and culture through activities on classical poetry, cultural relics, intangible cultural heritage, night market food and songs. Young Generation Z from different parts of China will spread voices of the youth by recording and sharing their own experience, hoping to pass down Chinese traditions and culture in this way.

It's reported that this program will last from September 2022 till January 2023 and Generation Z from all across China can sign up for it.

For more information and signing up, please check the link below:

https://twitter.com/ModernExpressEN/status/1568429613185142785

You can also scan the QR code in the picture to join the program.

SOURCE Modern Express
Thousands of mourners who have flocked to the capital for the opportunity to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II have been told to stay away after the queue reached nearly five miles.

The line was closed earlier today for six hours in order to reduce the length of the queue, starting at Westminster Hall with the end closer to Southwark Park.

Here, according to the Daily Mail, some 2,000 people are being kept in a holding area until the queue shortens.

Crowds of people were begging to join the main queue, with security letting roughly 100 people join every 10 or 15 minutes.

According to the BBC, the queue is at capacity, although it is unclear exactly how many people that is.

With that being said, the estimated wait time is about 14 hours, with those waiting told to expect little time to sit down as the queue is constantly moving.

People will be able to visit up until 6.30am on Monday 19 September, the day of her funeral.

Monday 19

The Queens state funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey.

Plans involve the Queens coffin to be carried along by carriage pulled by sailors rather than horses, with senior members of the Royal Family following behind.

The military will line the streets and join the procession, as well as heads of governments, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key public figures.

The service will be televised and a national two minutes silence is expected to be held.

The Queens coffin will be taken to St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle, and her final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annexe to the main chapel.

Here, her mother and father are buried, as well as the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret.

Her late husbands coffin, the Duke of Edinburgh, will be moved from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queen's.
Last Friday, nearly all of the UKs population had that rare thing, a new shared common experience.

The country sat down to listen to the first address from its new king and, for anyone under the age of 70, it was a first.

King Charles III made his address following the sudden and unexpected death of his mother Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, an event that is still now hard to take in for many,

Indeed, given the seeming indestructibility and reverence towards Queen Elizabeth II during her 70-year reign, there had been plenty of speculation in the past that Charles might not make it to be king at all.

But all that changed last week and now King Charles has been proclaimed, a new era has officially started.

Such is the media spotlight on the monarchy these days, that Charless private life is pretty much a known quantity, especially in the ongoing raking over of his ill-fated marriage to Princess Diana.

How he will react to his new constitutional role as King is less certain, especially when the UK is going through possibly its biggest crisis in decades.

His mother made it a point never or rarely to venture into the world of politics, but Charles has already publicly nailed his colours firmly to the mast of sustainability, green energy and environmentalism.

Commentators have suggested that one of his first formal acts might even be to give Royal Assent to the new energy bill allowing fracking and new North Sea oil and gas exploration licences.

However, this is likely to need only ministerial approval according to the government.

Squaring his beliefs on the environment with a world of soaring gas and electricity prices, or at least not getting involved, will be a tricky balancing act.

So will dealing with the Commonwealth, an institution decried as an anachronism by many but one that thrived under his mothers watch.

Britains colonial past, calls for reparations and more countries wanting complete independence from the UK all might come into sharp focus without the binding glue of Queen Elizabeth

Handling the wishes of countries in the Caribbean as well as Canada and Australia will require a skilful diplomatic touch, something that his mother proved herself to possess time and time again.

Whether Charles can be an equally skilled and adept statesperson will be one of his key challenges.

In his first address, the King said the new Charlesian era will be more of the same, but as he also made clear, he has a very tough act to follow.
Base Carbon (OTCQX:BCBNF, NEO:BCBN) CEO Michael Costa discusses the financing solutions and development expertise and financing the company provides to the global voluntary carbon market.

Base, which started trading on the OTCQX Market on August 18, also helps investors achieve their ESG investment goals, Costa told Proactive.

He also took Proactive through current projects, including a cookstove carbon reduction agreement with the DelAgua Group in Rwanda and an agreement to facilitate the development of a cookstove and water purifier carbon reduction project in Vietnam with Sustainability Investment Promotion and Development Joint Stock Company (SIPCO).
Lucknow, Sep 11 : The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, around midnight on Saturday, has suspended 15 officials for alleged laxity in connection with the Levana Suites hotel fire incident that claimed four lives in Lucknow on September 5.

Besides, action under applicable rules would also be taken against four retired officials.

These steps come as a high-level probe pointed towards alleged "connivance" in connection with the functioning of the Lucknow hotel where the blaze erupted.

A departmental inquiry has been ordered against the officials as well.

A government spokesman said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath gave directives for strict action after receiving the report of Police Commissioner S.B. Shirodkar and Lucknow Divisional Commissioner Roshan Jacob who jointly conducted a high-level inquiry into the incident.

The report that was submitted in the early hours of Saturday also found that officials did not raise a red flag on various violations in the hotel premises, people privy to the development said. The chief minister had formed the committee comprising Shirodkar and Jacob soon after the incident.

The five departments, whose officers face action include the departments of home, energy, appointment, housing and urban planning (Lucknow Development Authority) and excise.

Sushil Yadav, the then fire officer, Yogendra Prasad Yadav, fire officer (II), chief fire officer Vijay Kumar Singh, assistant director (electricity security) Vijay Kumar Rao, assistant engineer Ashish Kumar Mishra and sub divisional officer Rajesh Kumar Mishra, Mahendra Kumar Mishra PCS (then competent authority) Lucknow Development Authority have been placed under suspension.

Departmental inquiry will also be initiated against them.

Others placed under suspension include Lucknow Development Authority's then assistant engineer Rakesh Mohan (housing and urban planning department), junior engineer Jitendra Nath Dubey, junior engineer Ravindra Kumar Srivastava, junior engineer Jaivir Singh and Ram Pratap Mate, the then district excise officer Santosh Kumar Tiwari, excise inspector sector 1 Amit Kumar Srivastava and deputy excise commissioner (Lucknow) Jainendra Upadhyay.

Action under applicable rules would be taken against chief fire officer (retired) Abhay Bhan Pandey, LDA executive engineer (retired) Arun Kumar Singh, executive engineer (retired) Om Prakash Mishra and assistant engineer (retired) Ganeshi Dutt Singh.

The probe report also mentioned multiple flaws related to the entry and exit routes, ventilation as well as faulty fire-safety gadgets, people privy to the issue said.

In the joint report, deficiencies were reportedly found in fire-fighting equipment inside the hotel. Besides it came to light that though fire-fighting arrangements were inadequate, the fire department had given an NOC to the hotel.

The report stated that there was no emergency exit but no civic department objected to it. Besides, no notices were issued to the hotel highlighting these deficiencies.

Moreover, the parking lot in the basement was used for storing other things instead of parking vehicles.

The kitchen had open wiring exposing everyone to fire in case of a short-circuit.

The bar was reportedly operational without safety equipment required to douse flames. Besides, there were poor arrangements for evacuation, improper training of hotel staff and improper construction at numerous points.

A senior police officer, who examined the spot, had stated earlier that liquor bottles were found lying on the third floor, and there was a bar on the floor above it. He suspected that due to the inflammable nature of alcohol, the fire tore through liquor bottles, causing the flames to spread to the third floor.

Shirodkar said, "We finalised the report late night on Friday and signed it around 12 a.m. on Friday/Saturday midnight. Thereafter, the report was sent to the state government." The police had earlier filed an FIR under Indian Penal Code sections 304 (causing death due to negligent act), 308 (risking people's lives by making them unconscious with their act) against four people, including the hotel's two owners Rahul and Rohit Agarwal, Rohit's father Pawan Agarwal, and the hotel's general manager Sagar Srivastava. Three of them - Rahul, Rohit Agarwal and Sagar Srivastava - were sent to 14 days' judicial custody.

The allegations mentioned in the FIR lodged on the complaint of Hazratganj police station senior sub-inspector Daya Shankar Dwivedi had stated that no fire safety measures were in place at the hotel. Besides, the hotel did not have emergency entry and exit routes.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : Veteran Telugu actor Uppalapati Krishnam Raju has passed away at the age of 83 in wee hours on Sunday, family sources informed.

He is survived by his wife and three daughters. 'Bahubali' star Prabhas is his nephew.

Popularly known as 'Rebel Star' of Tollywood, Krishnam Raju has acted in more than 180 movies in a career spanning over five decades.

Krishnam Raju acted in movies ranging from social, family, romantic, thriller movies to historical and mythological movies. His succesful movies include 'Amara Deepam', 'Sita Ramulu', 'Katakataala Rudraiah' and many more.

Apart from being a two-time Andhra Pradesh government's Nandi Award winner, Krishnam Raju won the Filmfare best actor award for 'Tandra Paparayudu' in 1986. He was awarded the Filmfare South 'Lifetime Achievement' award in 2006.

Born, January 20, 1940 in the West Godavari district, Krishnam Raju made his film debut in 1966 with 'Chilaka Gorinka'. Briefly, he also portrayed the anti-hero in some movies. Krishnam Raju became a household name in Telugu homes with movies like 'Bhakta Kannappa' and 'Tandra Paparayudu'. He also produced several movies under his 'Gopi Krishna Movies' banner.

In his later years, along with film's, Krishnam Raju also pursued a career in politics. He contested as the Congress candidate from Narasapuram in 1991 but list. He won from the same seat as the BJP candidate in the 1999 polls and served as a junior minister in the Vajpayee cabinet till 2004.
New Delhi, Sep 11 : Expressing concern over the continuing serious pollution in the Periyar river of Kerala and its consequences on public health and the environment, the National Green Tribunal observed that pollution is a "crime against humanity" and the "victims are poor voiceless people".

"Pollution is crime against humanity and under law of the land. Right to clean environment is part of Right to Life. As already noted, large number of deaths and diseases are attributable to it. Most of the victims are poor voiceless people. Even if victims are poor and helpless, no State under the Constitution can show apathy and pay lip sympathy to the issue inspite of binding Court orders...," NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel-led bench said in a recent order.

The bench was dealing with three similar complaints over the pollution of the Periyar river, the longest river in the state which is also known as "the lifeline of Kerala".

Pulling up the state government, the green court said, "Reports of the authorities during the last several years do not show improvement in water quality of the River Periyar at any of the locations in question. It is not clear whether the river water is fit for bathing purpose, with Fecal Coliform counts being within acceptable level." Pointing out that the river which is adjoining the Arabian Sea in its last phase through the city of Cochin, the commercial capital of the state, the tribunal noted that the Greater Kochi (Udyogamandal) is one of the critically polluted industrial area, having Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) at 52.94 (2018).

"This certainly necessitates that the industries are compelled to adopt Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD). Further, Periyar River in Kerala falls in the list of identified polluted river stretches under 'Priority-V' category Aluva-Eloor to Kalamassery to Kalamassery, having BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) range between 3-6.0 mg/l," stated the order.

The green court also pointed out the earlier action plan of May 2019, saying it identified short-term and long-term actions but there is no mention of execution of the said plan.

"Such execution must be expedited without further delay on the pretext of non-availability of funds or non identification of executing agencies. Since discharge of untreated sewage into the river is a criminal offence under the Water Act, the same must be stopped forthwith. River must meet standard of atleast Class-B designated best use classification of CPCB. Plea that Kerala being high rain-fed area does not require any solution untenable," the order stated.

The tribunal, while noting the long pending complaints over a decade, said that since all issues related to the river pollution stand identified and there are binding directions of the Supreme Court and the Tribunal to enforce the State's obligation to provide clean environment to citizens, no purpose will be served by endless proceedings before the Tribunal.

It is high time that the State takes over its responsibility and higher level monitoring mechanism is evolved, the green court averred.

Accordingly, the tribunal directed the Chief Secretary, Kerala to constitute a monitoring committee comprising of four Additional Chief Secretaries of concerned Departments - Environment, Local Self government, Irrigation/Water Resource and Finance.

The Additional Chief Secretary, Environment will be the Coordinator. The Committee may hold its first meeting within two weeks to take stock of the situation of execution of action plan with time-bound targets. Progress on such targets must be reviewed atleast once in a month, the order said.

(Jaison Wilson can be reached at jaison.w@ians.in)
HOUSTONHigh Island Health and its affiliate Aneros joined ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer for a fundraising charity event today at MacGregor Park in Houston, Texas.



Aneros and High Island Health are honored to be collaborating with ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer again," said Aneros product and business development manager Forrest Andrews. "After the success of last years campaign and the overwhelming response of our customers, we decided to release another special Blue Prostate Health and Awareness Edition product this year. In addition, were very excited to be one of the sponsors of ZEROs very first Cancer Run/Walk in Houston. Its a privilege to work closely with the ZERO team and to share a common goal of creating a network of prostate health awareness, education and support. The Aneros team is thrilled to participate at the event and have the opportunity to bring more awareness to a mainstream audience.



Houston Metro Urology co-hosted the ZERO Prostate Cancer Run/Walk. ZERO is hosting dozens of Run/Walk events all throughout the United States in September, October and November. Over the last 15 years, the ZERO Prostate Cancer Run/Walks have raised $32 million for testing, research, education, transportation and support.

This year, Aneros has created an Aneros Goes Blue Retail Kit and a special Blue Prostate Health and Awareness Edition MGX Syn and will donate a portion of the proceeds of sales to ZERO in honor of National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

To learn more about ZERO - The End of Prostate Cancer, follow the organization on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube, or visit zerocancer.org.

To learn more about Aneros, follow on Twitter, Facebook,and Instagram, or visit aneros.com.

To learn more about Houston Metro Urology, follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or visit hmutx.com.
Bulandshahr : , Sep 11 (IANS) A stray bull gored a deaf woman to death in Bibinagar area of Bulandshahr. The police have sent the body for post mortem.

According to reports, the victim Shashibala, 34, had gone to a farm and did not return home for a long time on Saturday.

Her family members set out to search for her and found her lying dead in a pool of blood in a field. Blood, hoof marks, and dung were found on the spot.

Police station in-charge Jitendra Kumar Singh said that due to the presence of blood, hoof marks, and cow dung at the spot, it seems that the death was caused by a bull attack. The woman has injury on her head.

There have been other cases of deaths by bull attack in the district.

On September 4, farmer Ramveer Singh, 40, was killed by a bull in the fields.

On May 1, 32-year-old Mayank Rinku, who was working in the fields in the Gulavathi area, was also gored to death by a stray bull.

On August 20, 65-year-old Jaiprakash Meena, a resident of village Bhatpura in the Ahmedgarh area, was seriously injured in a bull attack.
Panaji, Sep 11 : With two failed attempts to catch the 'double engine political train, the Congress MLAs in Goa interested in switching sides have still not abandoned hope.

Both the times they reportedly decided to join the ruling BJP, they couldn't manage a two-thirds majority.

On July 10, 2019, during the last term of the BJP government, 10 MLAs of the Congress along with Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavalekar had switched to the BJP. However Kavalekar and six other politicians lost the assembly election held in February 2022. The Leader of Opposition joining the ruling party had invited criticism from a section of the society.

As the example of switching parties was set by seniors, some old faces of the Congress along with the new faces elected in 2022, attempted to defect on July 10, 2022. However, the early intervention of the central leadership of the Congress foiled their plans. Since then Congress office bearers are keeping close vigil on political happenings.

Another move by these MLAs in 'defection' mode was also foiled during Ganesh Chaturthi, as they couldn't manage an 'eighth' MLA. The Congress has 11 MLAs in the 40-member legislative assembly and require 8 MLAs (two-thirds) to switch sides.

Speaking to IANS, a Congress central leader said that due to the numbers deficit their second attempt also failed. "Now if they wish to join BJP, then they will have to resign and go, a risk which they will not take," the leader said on condition of anonymity.

Interestingly, it is not only the Congress leadership that wants these MLAs to stay in the party, but even some BJP ministers want the same as they fear that they may be dropped from the cabinet to accommodate the new comers.

Recently, there were reports that Congress MLAs Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo, against whom the party has moved a disqualification notice alleging they tried to split the party, were in Delhi to meet BJP leaders. However, both have denied it, saying they are very much in the Congress.

On July 9, 2022, amid speculation that some Congress MLAs were camping in Delhi and had talks with BJP leaders to join their fold, Congress Goa desk in charge Dinesh Gundu Rao had said that they were just rumours. But soon Rao had arrived in Goa to persuade the MLAs who had made up their minds to join the BJP.

On July 10, Rao claimed that the BJP was trying for a two-thirds split in the Congress.

Rao had attacked the BJP for allegedly offering money to the MLAs to defect. "In spite of offering huge money, six of our MLAs have stood firm. I am proud of them. The BJP was trying for a two-third split in the Congress, so a minimum of 8 MLAs have to leave the party," he had said.

The Congress on the same day had removed Michael Lobo as Leader of Opposition alleging he hatched the conspiracy, along with former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, by hobnobbing with the BJP to split the Congress.

On July 11, the BJP unit in Goa had rejected allegations that they were trying to split the Congress MLAs and had said that their leaders were at their homes, when the political development was going on.

"We have no role in this development, only Congress can tell you. I have no information if anyone is joining, if someone comes then we will see. Congress levelled many allegations. Maybe they were trying to keep their MLAs united as the assembly session started from today," BJP State President Sadanand Tanavade had told reporters.

However, BJP's Goa desk in-charge C.T Ravi had stated on May 28 that five MLAs from the opposition were interested in joining the ruling side.

The Congress on July 11, also filed a disqualification petition with the Assembly Speaker against former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo for anti-party activities. This indicates that 'all is not well' in the Congress camp and they have no trust in MLAs whom they see as 'defectors'.

A political analyst says that those who had made up their minds to join the BJP, will in future make a move again as it is a question of power and the BJP needs more strength to win both the Lok Sabha seats in 2024.

Congress leader Mukul Wasnik along with Dinesh Gundu Rao is likely to come to Goa on September 11 or 12 to choose the Leader of Opposition and take stock of the political situation. They will also dissuade their MLAs from boarding on 'double engine' train in the future.
Ahmedabad, Sep 11 : As Gujarat approaches the assembly elections, each party's social media teams are sharpening their strategies to give an edge to their party's election campaign. Social media experts believe this platform can shape the perception and mindset of voters.

When it comes to spread and reach, negative messages spread like wildfire and in minutes and hours travel to thousands and lakhs of social media users, but positive messages trickle only like drops. Their speed is very slow, but the effect is much more than negative messages, is the experience of social media experts as well as party I.T and social media cells.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is exploring this platform since 2012. The party mostly uses it to send positive messages about development work carried out by their state and central governments. The party's campaigns have achieved their goals, claimed Manan Dani, convener of BJP social media.

Dani cited the BJP's examples of social media campaign, 'Uncho Vikas, Unchu Gujarat' (High Development, Gujarat to achieve new peak) or the campaign in civic polls like 'Gujarat che Makkam, Bhajap che Adikham' (Gujarat is confident, BJP is resolute).

If any political opponent is making false claims, the BJP social media team counters with facts, this helps in building the image of the party. The media is not for immediate results.

It is all about perception management, how effectively the party message is conveyed and whether it is reaching the targeted audience or not and creating an appeal, is the basic focus of the social media team, explained Keyur Shah, chairman of the Gujarat Congress I.T. Cell.

Citing the Congress social media's successful campaign, Keyur cited, "Recently the party has launched it campaign, 'Congress nu Kam Bole chhe' (Congress party's work speaks) it was trending on Twitter, this campaign compelled the BJP to launch a counter campaign, 'BJP nu Kam Dekhay Chhe', (BJP's work is visible) and then they launched a series of colleges, universities and other works, which were trolled and questioned by social media users." In the run up to the 2017 assembly election 'Vikas Gando Thayo chhe' (Development has gone mad) was so trending, that the BJP had to counter it with the campaign, 'Hu Vikas Chhu' (I am development).

The AAP's social media campaign is "One Chance to Kejriwal". whereas its social media team is more active in exposing the ruling party's claims.

Social media expert Jaydip Parikh said it is said in the documentary, "The Social Dilemma' the platform has the ability to manipulate the people's views, emotions, behaviour and spread disinformation." It helps a party to find it's audience and helps in reaching them, it actually is able to change the perception."
Mahoba : , Sep 11 (IANS) Hindu activists created a ruckus and expressed displeasure over tiles of deities installed near the staircase of the Community Health Centre in the Kabrai town of Mahoba district.

Police registered a case against the CHCs medical superintendent, the doctor and three unidentified persons on the basis of the complaint on Saturday.

Mayank Tiwari, district general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a resident of Mohalla Gandhinagar, Kabrai, alleged in his complaint that Mahesh Singh, a doctor posted at the Community Health Centre, has intentionally hurt the religious sentiments of the people of the Hindu community by getting the tiles having images of deities installed near the stairs of the CHC.

The place where the tiles of the deities are being installed are often used by CHC staff for consuming alcohol and answering nature's call, he further alleged.

When the VHP activists tried to make a complaint to the medical superintendent Dr Gaurav Singh, the CHC staff, including Mahesh Singh, a doctor, allegedly threatened them with dire consequences.

The police later registered a case against the medical superintendent Gaurav Singh, doctor Mahesh Singh and three unknown persons under relevant IPC sections.

Chief medical officer Dr D.K. Garg, meanwhile, said that the charge of medical superintendent has been taken from Gaurav Singh and Mahesh Singh, another doctor, has been transferred.

The matter is being investigated, he added.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Sunday condoled the death of popular Tollywood actor and former Union Minister Uppalapati Venkata Krishnam Raju.

KCR said that the death of Krishnam Raju is a great loss for the Telugu silver screen. Krishnam Raju acted as a hero in several films in his 50-year career and won the hearts of many as a 'rebel star' with his unique acting.

The Chief Minister said further that the death of Krishnam Raju, who served the people of the country as a member of Lok Sabha, as a Union Minister and through the field of political administration, is sad.

KCR prayed for his soul to rest in peace. He also expressed his deepest condolences to the family members of late Krishnam Raju.

Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has also expressed grief over the demise of Krishnam Raju.

He lauded the contribution of the versatile actor to films and public life and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved family members.
Shimla, Sep 11 : The saffron brigade soldiers are depending upon their General to win the electoral battle for them in Himachal Pradesh.

Facing strong winds of anti-incumbency, the BJP leadership in the state led by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur seems banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "charisma", instead of flashing its own achievement card.

The party is holding a mass public meeting of Modi on September 24, the first of the three rallies planned ahead of the poll announcement, in Mandi town, the home turf of the Chief Minister, with an expected gathering of over one lakh youths.

Normally in every public meeting, Thakur, who is currently on an inauguration spree by travelling to every nook and corner of the state, is missing no opportunity to remind the public about PM Modi's special bond and love for the people of the state where he spent a few years as the in-charge of the state's affairs in the late 90s.

Getting nostalgic by speaking often in the local dialect, even Prime Minister Modi in his public addresses became vocal about his emotional bond and connection with the state that he says has had a very positive impact in shaping and giving direction to his life.

"The Prime Minister has always bestowed his blessings on Himachal by offering so many developmental projects in the past five years. It is his charisma and the local connection with the masses which the state BJP is going to rely on to retain power," senior Cabinet minister Suresh Bhardwaj told IANS on Saturday, adding, "What is wrong in seeking votes on the name of the 'pradhan sevak' who devoted his life to the welfare of the people and good governance." Modi last visited the state on May 31 to address beneficiaries of the Central government's schemes to mark the eighth anniversary of his government from the historic Ridge -- once the promenade of the British colonial rulers when Shimla was their summer capital.

He will be coming to the hill state again on September 24. This time he is coming to Mandi, the district with 10 assembly segments, the state's second highest, to launch the BJP's campaign for elections slated for the end of this year for the 68-member BJP-ruled assembly.

Earlier, he addressed a rally in Mandi on December 27, 2021, to mark the fourth anniversary of the state government.

According to Bhardwaj, the legislator from Shimla, in the last five years there is a double-engine government in the state and at the Centre and the speed of development and the implementation of schemes has gained momentum.

"Himachal proposes projects and the Centre approves the funds. Recently, the Centre approved a bulk drug park for Himachal, a major achievement for a small state. There are several projects and schemes that Himachal has benefitted from. If I talk about urban development, Shimla and Dharamsala have benefitted from the Smart City Mission while AMRUT-I and AMRUT-II are there for other cities." "Not only this, Modi-ji wears a Himachali cap during his foreign sojourns, which also brands the state across the globe," an optimistic Bhardwaj added.

For Chief Minister Thakur, who is quite younger to Modi, Himachal is the second home of "our Prime Minister and he is always excited to visit it".

Expressing gratitude to Modi for sanctioning a bulk drug park in Haroli tehsil of Una district, Thakur, in full page newspaper advertisements last week, said Himachal is the only northern state to get this prestigious project.

"The bulk drug park will not only accelerate the pace of industrialization in the state but will also generate employment opportunities, thereby leading to a significant boost in the prosperity of the region," said Thakur.

Apart from Himachal Pradesh, housing Asia's biggest pharmaceutical hub, the Department of Pharmaceuticals has given 'in-principle' approval to the proposals for pharma parks in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

Thakur in a recent interview to IANS said it is due to the 'double-engine government' that the state has got six government medical colleges and one in the private sector, apart from the completion of the Atal Tunnel and sanctioning a PGIMER Satellite Centre in Una and AIIMS in Bilaspur.

He said the government is spending over Rs 1,300 crore annually on providing social security pension to the needy as compared to only Rs 400 crore spent by the previous state government.

"Our HIMCARE, Sahara Yojna, Ghrihini Suvidha Yojna and Shagun Yojna have been providing much needed relief to the needy and poor," he added.

Thakur said the Prime Minister has visited the state seven times. "Under his leadership, we will start electioneering with renewed energy," he said while inaugurating developmental projects in his Seraj assembly constituency in Mandi district on Friday.

Political observers told IANS the focus of Modi's September 24 rally ahead of the Assembly polls, which are slated later this year, is to keep his party's 'double engine government' on track by recapitulating the milestones the state achieved through the Centre's welfare schemes.

Aiming to make it one of the biggest rallies of the Prime Minister, state BJP chief Suresh Kashyap told IANS that over one lakh people below the age of 40 will attend the rally.

"Youths at the booth level will be mobilised to participate in the rally, while others would also join virtually," he said.

Despite the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) striving hard to make inroads ahead of the polls, the political scenario in Himachal Pradesh seems so far largely bipolar -- a tug-of-war between the two conventional arch rivals -- the Congress and the BJP.

Himachal Pradesh was traditionally dominated by the Congress and saw its first non-Congress chief minister, Shanta Kumar, in 1977, when the Janata Party came to power.

The Congress appointed its three-time MP Pratibha Singh, the widow of six-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, as the state unit president in April.

Unlike her husband who had a direct connect at the grassroots, Pratibha Singh has spearheaded the poll campaign in a bid to oust the incumbent Jai Ram Thakur-led government by saying people are highly upset with its poor performance.

She often blames the BJP for banking on the popularity of Modi to win the polls as it did nothing for the people's welfare.

The Congress is banking on its promise to bring back the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) that will benefit 225,000 employees, a crucial vote bank.

The Congress is banking mainly on an anti-incumbency wave against the ruling dispensation. It won three Assembly and one parliamentary seat in the October 2021 by-polls.

Chief Minister Thakur believes good governance with zero corruption, which is essential for economic growth, and no witch hunting are the mantras for his success. Unprecedented development will remain the party's main poll plank for the forthcoming polls.

The BJP had won a majority in the 2017 Assembly polls with 44 seats in the 68-member Assembly.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Kolkata, Sep 11 : At a time when many thought that dust has settled over the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam and the probe by the central agencies in the matter, the scandal has once again surfaced.

Two contradictory letters have resurrected the scam that left lakhs of ordinary investors in a desperate situation in the opening years of the last decade. One letter is from the Saradha Group's founder chairman, Sudipta Sen, which he wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last year before the West Bengal assembly polls, accusing the current leader of the state assembly, Suvendu Adhikari and some CPI(M) leaders of being the beneficiaries in the scam, The second letter that surfaced as late as September 8, was forwarded to the CBI by Sarbari Mukherjee, mother of Sudipta Sen's once second-in-command in Saradha affairs, Debjani Mukherjee. In that letter, Sarbari Mukherjee has accused Abhijit Mukherjee, an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the West Bengal police of putting pressure on her daughter to name Suvendu Adhikari and the CPI(M) central committee member, Sujan Chakraborty as beneficiaries of the Ponzi scam.

Both Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee are in judicial custody.

While the CID-West Bengal has issued a statement claiming that the allegations on this count are baseless, the floodgates of political mud-slinging have opened where these two contradictory letters have become tools for the two opposing forces, namely the ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition like the BJP and the CPI(M).

While Suvendu Adhikari has reacted by describing the CID-West Bengal as the janitor of the ruling Trinamool Congress, Sujan Chakraborty has portrayed the development as political vendetta.

Trinamool Congress spokesman Kunal Ghosh, who has always been vocal against Adhikari even when both were associated with the Trinamool Congress, has ridiculed the Leader of Opposition for being too excited about the letter from Debjani Mukherjee's mother to the CBI.

"Why is Suvendu Adhikari so excited about this letter? Was he expecting such a letter that will relieve the pressure on him to an extent? It seems he has toiled to manage this letter from Debjani Mukherjee's mother. But he will not escape by making this letter his shield, especially when Sudipta Sen in his letter to the CBI has clearly accused Adhikari of extorting money from him through arm twisting. At the same time, Sen has directly named him on this count while speaking to the media," Ghosh said.

The CPI(M) central committee member, Sujan Chakraborty said that since the beginning the ruling Trinamool Congress has been busy shielding its leaders who had been beneficiaries in the Saradha scam while the BJP has tried to garner political mileage from the entire issue. "But such intimidation of an undertrial, who has been imprisoned for the last nine years, is something unthinkable and unheard of. However, we will not succumb to any such pressure. I wonder why Trinamool Congress is still so scared of CPI(M), which does not have a single representative in the West Bengal assembly," he added.

According to Bishwanath Chakraborty, a representative of the Chit Fund Sufferers' Unity Forum, an association demanding the return of the duped money to the depositors, this political slugfest between the ruling and the opposition parties will take the investors nowhere. "Since CBI and ED started their probe in the matter in the last decade, we had been hearing that the final investigation report might come any time and arrangements will be made for return of money to the depositors by putting the properties and assets of the chit fund entities on sale through auction. But neither the investigation is on track nor the chances of the depositors getting back their hard-earned money," he said.

Explaining the legal process of recovery through auction and simultaneous distribution to the depositors, Calcutta High Court counsel Jyoti Prakash Khan said that the auction process can start only after a court order is specifically given on this count. "That court order will come only after the investigation process is completed and the final conviction in the court is made. Only then the court will direct any government machinery to put the property and assets of the chit fund entities on auction. However, for that the first thing required is completion of the investigation process." Kanak Gayan, who works as a maid in Kolkata and her son, Prashanta Gayan, invested in a one-time deposit scheme run by the Saradha Group that promised monthly returns of Rs 5,000 for five years and at the end of the five-year period the principal money will be returned along with a bonus. "The monthly payments came for the first couple of months and after that they stopped coming. The agent also absconded. Now our money is lost. I heard from the members of the family where I work as a maid that investigation has started and till date, I am hearing that the investigation process is on. I have lost all hope to get back the money," she said.
Los Angeles, Sep 11 : Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence brought serious starpower to the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, appearing at the world premiere of her new film 'Causeway'.

But despite the big, Hollywood name, 'Causeway' was a quieter character study, reports Variety.

Lawrence stars in and produces the film, in which she plays a soldier returning to civilian life in New Orleans.

The film also stars Brian Tyree Henry, Linda Emond, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Russell Harvard. 'Causeway' is the feature directorial debut of theatre veteran Lila Neugebauer, with a script written by Elizabeth Sanders, Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh.

Her character in the film, Lynsey, is desperate to redeploy.

When asked what drove her towards the decision, Lawrence said she found a common ground.

"I felt something in my gut when I read this," she said.

"That kind of immediate, 'We have to make this'. I identify with that feeling of trying to find your home. And trying to find where you have purpose. I left home when I was 14. My relationship with home has always been complicated."
Washington, Sep 11 : Pakistan Prime MinisAter Shehbaz Sharif along with other senior officials is expected to arrive in New York on September 19 to attend the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, UN sources told Dawn.

Sharif is scheduled to address the General Assembly on September 23 and is expected to return to Pakistan the same evening.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif and Federal Minister for Broadcasting and Information Maryam Aurangzeb will accompany Sharif.

The delegation will also include the Foreign Secretary and other senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other departments, Dawn reported.

The Pakistan Prime Minister is expected to attend the inaugural session of the UN General Assembly on September 20, a day after he reaches New York. The same day, he will address a summit meeting on education reforms, which will also consider how to deal with the pandemic's negative impact on education.

Sharif will attend two more meetings on food insecurity and climate change, Dawn reported.

Bhutto and Khar will travel to Washington on September 25 for bilateral meetings with US officials. They are expected to stay in the US capital until September 27.

While the visit to the United Nations has its own significance, one major item on the Prime Minister's agenda -- a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden -- is still undecided.

This year's General Assembly is particularly significant because this will be the first in-person summit of world leaders at the UN since 2019. The 2020 and 2021 sessions were converted into virtual meetings because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : The decision of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to celebrate September 17, which marks the accession of erstwhile Hyderabad state with the Indian Union, as 'Telangana National Integration Day' appears to have taken fizz out of a sustained campaign by the BJP to politically exploit the issue.

In a clear move to embarrass KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, on his home turf, the BJP government at the Centre had decided to organise official celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of what it calls Telangana Liberation Day.

At the main programme to be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Union Ministry of Culture has invited the Chief Ministers of Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

In what is seen as a master stroke by KCR, the state Cabinet has announced year-long celebrations. However, KCR will be countering 'Liberation Day' with 'National Integration Day'. The three-day celebrations beginning September 16 will see a number of programmes being organised across the state.

For the first time since Telangana came into existence, the day will witness official celebrations with the Chief Minister hoisting the national flag.

Political observer professor K. Nageshwar believes that KCR has successfully checkmated the BJP's attempt to politically exploit September 17.

"BJP was aggressively demanding KCR to observe liberation and KCR was dilly-dallying. BJP had an issue. Now that KCR has also decided to observe, obviously an issue has been taken away from BJP," he said.

On September 17, 1948, then Hyderabad state was merged with the Indian Union following India's military action 'Operation Polo', popularly known as 'police action'.

Like the previous governments of Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in undivided Andhra Pradesh, the TRS government in Telangana had rejected demands for officially celebrating the day in view of the reservations of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and other Muslim groups, who say that Muslims were massacred during the 'police action'.

TRS, Congress and other parties celebrate September 17 every year as 'Telangana Merger Day' by hoisting the national flag and paying tributes to the freedom fighters.

BJP has been demanding for the last two decades that the day should be officially celebrated like in some districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, which were part of the erstwhile Hyderabad state.

Being an emotive issue with the potential communal polarisation, the BJP has been aggressively pushing for official celebrations. At every public meeting, Amit Shah and other Central leaders of the BJP have been attacking KCR for not celebrating September 17 officially due to 'fear of AIMIM'.

"Bring BJP to power in Telangana, we will celebrate the day officially in a grand manner," Shah had told a public meeting in Munugode last month.

As the BJP was going aggressively to exploit the issue for gains in the next year's elections, KCR came up with a new strategy to counter it.

Though the saffron party is claiming that it forced KCR for the official celebrations on September 17, KCR's emphasis on national integration is seen as an attempt to send a message of unity in the face of the divisive politics of BJP.

Interestingly, the state Cabinet's decision came a couple of hours after AIMIM, a friendly party of TRS, demanded that September 17 be celebrated as national integration day. AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaiis wrote to both Amit Shah and KCR, suggesting that September 17 be celebrated as national integration day.

For the first time in its history, AIMIM also announced that it will celebrate September 17, although as national integration day. The party MLAs and other leaders will lead motorcycle rallies on September 16.

AIMIM had always maintained that there is only one Independence Day for the entire country and hence there is no need for separate celebrations in Telangana.

Owaisi also argued in his letters to both Amit Shah and KCR that Hindus and Muslims were advocates of a united India under a democratic, secular and republican government. This is also reflected in the Sunderlal Committee report.

The Committee was appointed by the Government of India to report on the situation after the merger of Hyderabad. The Committee found that mass violence was committed against common Muslims living in these territories. Owaisi attached a report of the committee with his letter.

It is also significant that the TRS government decided to organise the celebrations over the next one year. Programmes will be organised on three days (September 16-18) next year to mark the culmination of the year-long celebrations. Even if the Assembly elections are held as scheduled towards the end of next year, this would deny BJP an opportunity to politically capitalise on the issue in the run-up to the polls.

However, some analysts are of the view that by taking this decision, KCR has gone on the backfoot and the BJP may claim victory.

"After displaying his reluctance to observe September 17 as a day of prominence in Telangana history, KCR will start on the backfoot. On the other hand, BJP is setting the narrative when it comes to not just September 17 but on the entire political spectrum of Telangana," said political analyst P. Raghavendra Reddy.

"The TRS government agreeing to celebrate National Integration Day indicates the pressure BJP has created on the issue," he added.
Click here for old website
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : The BJP's emergence as a strong opponent to ruling TRS in Telangana has pushed the Congress to the third place, and the grand old party faces an uphill task to arrest its decline ahead of next year's Assembly elections.

Series of defections, a string of defeats in by-elections, disastrous performance in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls and continued infighting have considerably weakened the party in its former stronghold.

The Congress appears to be in complete disarray with resignation of some of its top leaders in recent weeks and the open revolt by some seniors against state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy.

The recent resignation of sitting MLA from Munugode constituency, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, and his subsequent defection to BJP has added to the woes of the Congress, which does not look ready to confidently face a by-election.

The outcome of the upcoming by-election is likely to indicate the direction of the wind before the 2023 polls.

The bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh by granting statehood to Telangana in 2014 was a political gamble by the Congress, which was hoping to reap the political dividend by claiming credit for carving out the separate state.

However, TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao dashed its hopes by rejecting the proposal to merge his party with the Congress. He decided to maintain the identity of TRS as an independent political party.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, succeeded in claiming credit for achieving the goal of a separate state by winning the public mandate. In the 2014 elections, held just before the formal bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, TRS won 63 seats in the 119-member Telangana Assembly.

The Congress, which was completely wiped out in Andhra Pradesh due to the public anger over the bifurcation, could win 22 seats in Telangana. However, the party failed to keep its flock together as several of its leaders defected to TRS.

In the 2018 Assembly elections, held a few months before the term of the Assembly was to end, Congress faced a disaster. It could win just 19 seats, though it had forged an electoral alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and other TRS opponents.

However, the worst was yet to come. Even before it could gear up for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, it had lost as many as 12 MLAs to the ruling party. Though the party salvaged some pride by winning three Lok Sabha seats, with the reduced strength in Assembly it lost the status of main opposition to Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a friendly party of TRS.

Congress suffered a huge embarrassment as it failed to retain the Huzurnagar Assembly seat, where by-election was necessitated following the resignation of Uttam Kumar Reddy after his election to the Lok Sabha.

The TRS wrested the seat from Congress as its candidate S. Saidi Reddy was elected with a huge margin of over 43,000 votes. Uttam Reddy's wife N. Padmavathi Reddy finished a distant runner-up.

The BJP, which became aggressive following its impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls after winning four seats, added to the worries of Congress. Projecting itself as the only viable alternative, the saffron party started making inroads in Telangana.

The BJP wrested Dubbak from the TRS in 2020 to further consolidate itself. The saffron party, which hardly had any presence in the constituency, pushed Congress to third position.

The Congress suffered another humiliation the same year as it could win just two seats in the 150-member Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). In its best-ever performance in the civic body, the BJP bagged 48 seats to deny the TRS a clear majority.

The emergence of BJP as the main opposition party sent the alarm bells ringing. Owning moral responsibility for the defeat, Uttam Reddy had resigned as the party chief.

The Congress was pinning its hopes on the by-election to Nagarjuna Sagar to revive its fortunes in the state. But its senior leader and former minister K. Jana Reddy lost by over 18,000 votes to TRS debutant Nomula Bhagat, whose father late Nomula Narasimhaiah had defeated Jana Reddy in 2018.

The only solace for the Congress was that it finished runner-up and BJP was a distant third with its candidate forfeiting his deposit.

The appointment of Revanth Reddy as the new state president by the central leadership last year after ignoring several seniors and strong contenders triggered open revolt by a section of leaders, who saw Revanth as an outsider as he had defected to Congress from TDP just before the 2018 elections.

The change of guard also could not bring any change in the party's fortunes. Several seniors started openly attacking Revanth Reddy for sidelining them.

In the Huzurabad by-election held last year, Congress' performance was disastrous. Eatala Rajender's resignation from the constituency after he was dropped from the state Cabinet by Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao had caused the by-election. He switched loyalties to BJP and contested the by-poll as the candidate of the saffron party.

Rajender defeated his nearest rival Gellu Srinivas Yadav of TRS by 24,068 votes. Rajender polled 1,06,780 votes while Srinivas Yadav secured 82,712 votes. The Congress candidate secured only 3,012 votes and lost the deposit. It was a disaster for Congress which had secured 47,803 votes in 2018 to finish runner-up.

BJP is confident that in Munugode, Rajagopal Reddy will repeat the performance of Eatala to give it another victory.

Political observers say the by-election offers another opportunity to Congress to arrest the slide and improve its prospects in the big battle ahead.

With speculations doing rounds in political circles that Rajagopal Reddy's brother and MP Venkat Reddy may also quit Congress and join BJP, Congress is likely to face more embarrassment.

Under attack from his critics within the party over his style of functioning, Revanth Reddy will be under big pressure to deliver and give a befitting counter to Komatireddy brothers and his bitter critics on their home turf.
Quetta, Sep 11 : Tucked in the Kachhi district of Balochistan, the tiny village of Jalal Khan is still reeling from the flooding that destroyed houses and left mass destruction in its wake, Dawn reported.

The village was cut off from the rest of the province due to inundation in the Nari, Bolan, and Lehri rivers, leaving the residents of the remote area to fend for themselves.

During these testing times, the local Hindu community opened the doors of the Baba Madhodas Mandir to the flood-hit people and their livestock, Dawn reported.

According to locals, Baba Madhodas was a pre-partition Hindu dervish (saint) equally cherished by Muslims and Hindus of the area. "He used to travel on camel," says Iltaf Buzdar, a frequent visitor to the village from Bhag Nari tehsil.

Buzdar says as per the stories narrated by his parents, the saint transcended religious boundaries. "He would think of people through the prism of humanity instead of their caste and creed," he quotes his parents, Dawn reported.

The worship place -- frequented by Hindu worshippers from across Balochistan -- is made of concrete and covers a large area. Since it is located on high ground, it remained relatively safe from the floodwaters and could serve as a sanctuary to the flood-hit people in their bleakest hour.

Most members of the Hindu community in Jalal Khan have migrated to other cities of Kachhi for employment and other opportunities, but a couple of families remain on the temple premises to look after it.

Rattan Kumar, 55, a shopkeeper in the Bhag Nari tehsil, is in-charge of the temple at present. "There are over one hundred rooms in the temple as a large number of people from all over Balochistan and Sindh come here for pilgrimage every year," he tells Dawn.

It's not like the temple did not bear the brunt of abnormal rains. Sawan Kumar, Rattan's son, told Dawn a few rooms were damaged, but overall the structure remained safe. At least 200-300 people, mostly Muslims, and their livestock were given refuge on the premises and looked after by the Hindu families, Dawn reported.

Initially, the area was completely cut off from the rest of the district. The displaced said they were provided rations via helicopter sorties, but after they moved to the temple, they were being fed by the Hindu community.

Israr Mugheri is a doctor in Jalal Khan. Since his arrival, he has set up a medical camp inside the temple. "Besides locals, Hindus have also housed the goats and sheep along with other domesticated animals," he told Dawn. "There were announcements on the loudspeaker by the local Hindus, calling upon Muslims to rush to the temple to take refuge," he adds, Dawn reported.

Those who took refuge there say they are indebted to the local community for coming to their aid and providing them food and shelter during this difficult hour.

For locals, opening the temple to the survivors of the flood was a gesture of humanity and religious harmony, which has been their tradition for centuries, Dawn reported.
New Delhi, Sep 11 : Creativity is being stifled and it takes courage to write about what's going on but "the troubles of the present time will inspire tremendous works of literature in the future," says novelist and publisher David Davidar of the anthology, "A Case of Indian Marvels - Dazzling Stories From the Country's Finest New Writers" that he has edited containing the works of 40 writers belonging to the Millennial Generation and Generation Z.

"The slow drip of sectarian hatred into the open veins of our society and the all-out assault on liberal values and creative expression by an assortment of uneducated, illiberal thugs, often egged on by those at the top, will permanently reshape the country - and not for the better," David writes in the Preface of the anthology, which has been published by Aleph Book Company that he founded 11 years ago.

"Well, when times are bad, writers are certainly affected. In the current climate, their creativity is being stifled and it takes courage to write about what's going on. However, creators of great literature do not work to the timelines and deadlines that, say, journalists do. It might take a couple of decades but I am positive that the troubles of the present time will inspire tremendous works of literature in the future," Davidar told IANS in an interview.

The anthology is a follow-up to "A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces" featuring stories by India's all-time great writers that he had edited a few years ago, and which was "received well".

"I thought it would be appropriate to do a follow-up book a few years later that collected the work of the best of the next-gen writers, specifically those belonging to the Millennial Generation and Generation Z. In 2020, the oldest of the millennial generation were on the verge of turning 40, and many writers belonging to Gen Z were in their twenties, so it seemed the right time to start putting together a book like 'A Case of Indian Marvels'," Davidar explained.

The process of selection was "straightforward", he said.

"I was familiar with, and impressed by, the work of approximately half the writers who feature in the volume as they had published well-regarded books, or won major prizes for their fiction; authors like Kanishk Tharoor, Madhuri Vijay, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Meena Kandasamy, Prayaag Akbar, Avinuo Kire, Neel Patel, and so on.

"Other writers who made the longlist were suggested by a variety of people - authors, translators, literary critics. Yet others were put on the longlist by my editorial colleagues who found some gems in literary magazines, online journals, and so on. But as no anthology of real worth has ever been put together by a committee, I made the final selection - the stories reflect my literary taste. Forty stories by writers aged forty and under had a certain symmetry to it, which is why I stopped at forty," Davidar added.

How reflective are these stories of the world around us? "A number of the stories reflect our current reality - the dangerous trends that are evident in the political arena as well as the toxins that are permeating every section of our society today," he replied.

Flowing from this, how would he describe the state of Indian literary fiction today? "Indian literary fiction today hasn't scaled the heights that it had a couple of decades ago. However, I fully expect it to stage a comeback and many of the writers represented in this anthology will be responsible for that revival," Davidar asserted.

The reference was to what has been termed the "golden age of Indian writing in English".

The publication of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" in 1981had been the trigger to a "torrent of outstanding fiction that lasted about 20 years" and saw the publication of defining works like "The Great Indian Novel" by Shashi Tharoor, "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth, "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry, "The Inheritance Loss" by Kiran Desai and "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga.

In the Introduction to the previous anthology, Davidar had written: "In the future, as the Indian writing tradition matures and grows in confidence, we will see an ever-decreasing tendency to seek 'approval' from cultural arbiters other than our own peer groups - in other words, we will gradually grow out of the dreaded syndrome known as 'cultural cringe' that so many former colonies have to deal with. All this would seem to project a bright future for Indian literature in the twenty-first century..." Needless to say, the optimism remains.

Davidar also rued the lack of translations of stories from other Indian languages and "the disproportionate amount of attention and resources devoted to the work of writers and writing in the English language in India". How and when does he see this being reversed? "It's heartening to see that translations are being given a lot more attention today, most mainstream publishers publish books in translation, they are eligible for some of the biggest literary prizes, they are reviewed in the media and so on. But much more needs to be done if we are going to have a fair representation of translated work in publishers' catalogues, bookshops, literature festivals, and the personal collections of readers. I have no idea when we will get to this stage, it will probably take a couple more decades, but progress is certainly being made," he maintained.

Davidar is the author of three published novels - "House of Blue Mangoes" (2002), "The Solitude of Emperors" (2007) and "Ithaca" (2011). The last was a while ago! When can we expect an encore? "Yes, it's been a while since I published a novel, being a hands-on editor and publisher doesn't leave me with much creative energy to expend on my own fiction. However, an idea for a novel has been simmering in my mind for a while, and I am hoping I'll be able to do something about it in the next year or so," Davidar concluded.

It's a novel that's going to be anticipated with bated breath - that's for sure! (Vishnu Makhijani can be reached at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
Seoul, Sep 11 : South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol plans to attend the funeral of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II set to be held in London next week, the Presidential office said on Sunday.

Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday at the age of 96 after ruling for 70 years.

The state funeral for her will take place on September 19 at Westminster Abbey in London, and Yoon will attend the funeral, according to a statement by Kim Eun-hye, senior Presidential Secretary for Public Affairs.

The President is largely expected to visit London ahead of his envisioned trip to New York for the UN General Assembly from September 13-27, Yonhap news agency reported.

On Friday, Yoon expressed condolences over the Queen's passing, saying, "She had a strong belief in the cause of human freedom and left great legacies of dignity. Her kind heart and good deed will remain in our memories."
Lahore, Sep 11 : The Special Court Central has ordered the freezing of 13 more accounts of Suleman Shehbaz, the son of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in the National Bank of Pakistan, The News reported.

Suleman, along with father Shehbaz and brother Hamza Shehbaz, is accused of alleged money laundering worth Rs 16 billion.

The court directed the authorities concerned to freeze the accounts of companies said to be owned by Suleman, including Al Arabia Sugar Mills, Ramzan Sugar Mills, Chiniot Power Limited, Sharif Feed Mills and Unitas Steel.

It also issued a showcause notice to bank officers for not freezing Suleman's accounts despite the court orders.

The court observed why criminal proceedings should not be initiated against the bank officers for not complying with the court orders.

The court added that the banks had been given clear orders to freeze the accounts and the investigation officer had informed the banks in writing of the court orders, The News reported.

The banks, instead of complying with the court orders on freezing accounts, just presented details of the accounts, the court order said. The court then summoned the bank officers in person on September 17.
Seoul, Sep 11 : The Chief of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party (DP) expressed regret on Sunday over North Korea's declaration of a nuclear weapons state and vowed bipartisan efforts for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Lee Jae-myung's comment in a Facebook message came as the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday that the country has passed a new law declaring itself a nuclear weapons state and enshrining a right to use preemptive nuclear strikes for self-protection, a move the North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un called "irreversible".

"It is very shocking and worrisome ... Such a move does not help peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula at all. It will rather make things worse only to cause fatal damage to both South and North Korea and bring tragic results," Lee said.

Pyongyang's latest move shows that sanctions and pressure cannot resolve the matter, the chief said, calling on the Seoul government to lead practical action in a proactive manner to achieve peace, Yonhap news agency reported.

"The DP will make bipartisan effort to improve the inter-Korean relations and to achieve the peaceful resolution of the North's nuclear weapons programme," he added.
Mumbai, Sep 11 : Music composer duo Sachin-Jigar, who worked in late actor Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer 'Shuddh Desi Romance', said that it was a fulfilling experience working with Yash Raj Films on the romantic comedy with a vast genre of songs.

'Shuddh Desi Romance' has completed nine years of its release in Hindi cinema. The film received rave reviews and the cast of Sushant, Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor were appreciated for their roles.

Music composer duo Sachin Sanghvi and Jigar Saraiya, popularly known as Sachin-Jigar gave music for the film and they recall being part of the film.

Sachin said: "It was a very fulfilling and overwhelming experience working with Yash Raj Films on this romantic comedy where there is such a vast genre of songs. It was an incredible experience examining the music while taking into account the essence of the land, especially since a significant portion of the plot was filmed in Rajasthan." It has some beautiful tracks including 'Tere Mere Beech Mein','Gulabi' and the title track. The success of the movie largely depends on its out of the box storyline and moving ahead of typical Bollywood style romance, touching more relevant topics like live-in relationship and meaning of commitment and marriage for the younger generation.

Directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Aditya Chopra, the film was released on September 6, 2013.

The duo is currently working on 'Bhediya', an untitled film by Sujoy Ghosh, 'Farzi' by Raj and DK, a web show by Homi Adajaniya, Aankh Micholi and Kehvatlal Pariwar.
Kiev, Sep 11 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stressed that it remains impossible to negotiate the end of the war with Russia because it has failed to formulate any adequate positions, Zelensky said at the panel discussion during the annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy.

"We want to end the war, but (our) circumstances and capabilities have changed. (Our people do) not want to negotiate with terrorists. Although one can communicate even with terrorists, because at least they know what they want, " the President added.

Zelensky emphasised that there is no confidence that the Russian side will keep any of the promises it makes.

"I think they won't. No one believes (that they will). You wouldn't want to make deals with them," he said.

The President added that before diplomatic negotiations with the Russian Federation become possible, the Russian army has to withdraw from Ukraine and Russia has to "stop behaving like a terrorist".

"In order for us to open a channel of diplomatic communication with (Russia), (Russian leaders) must demonstrate their political will, (they must demonstrate) that they are ready to give back the land that's not theirs. Then we can begin to discuss avenues that might open up certain diplomatic measures," Zelensky said.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Kiev, Sep 11 : Russian forces have bombarded the Ukrainian city of Mykoliav in which nine people were reportedly injured and several buildings have also been damaged, Oleksandr Sienkevych, Mayor of Mykolaiv, said on Telegram on Sunday.

"Mykolaiv was shelled heavily last night (September 10/11). Residential buildings have been damaged. Preliminary reports indicate that nine people have sustained various degrees of injuries, four of them are still hospitalised," he added as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda report.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 11 : After intelligence reports on possible clashes between the RSS and SDPI workers in Kannur, the Kerala Police are on high alert.

Kannur, the politically volatile district of Kerala, which has witnessed several brutal political killings, is tense after the intelligence reports.

The recent provocation is a bomb explosion in front of the residence of an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, Sudeesh, at Chavassery in Mattanur. The incident occurred on Thursday night and the police said that this could be the retaliation to a bomb hurled at the office of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) a few weeks ago nearer to this place.

Sudeesh is arraigned as an accused in the case.

The state intelligence has reported the possibility of escalation in violence and has directed the police to prepare for any eventuality.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, CPI-M state secretary, M.V. Govindan, incumbent Speaker of legislative Assembly A.N. Shamseer, and CPI-M politburo member and former home minister, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan are all from the district. While Kannur district has witnessed brutal political killings in which RSS and CPI-M were allegedly involved, there have also been clashes between the RSS and SDPI workers.

RSS Kannur district leader, Ashwini Kumar was brutally killed in a moving bus by the SDPI cadres on March 10, 2005, while he was travelling from Kannur to his hometown in Iritti in the outskirts of the district. This was alleged to be in retaliation to the murder of Mohammed a local SDPI worker of the area.

Shyamprasad, ABVP leader and RSS shakha shikshak, was killed by SDPI workers on January 18, 2018 and the RSS retaliated with the murder of Salahuddin, an SDPI worker at the same place on September 8, 2020.

Police is worried that such incidents of bombs being hurled at the party offices and residences of active workers of rival parties, would lead to major clashes and hence the state intelligence has already given inputs to the district police on the possibility of clashes in the Chavassery area of Kannur district.

CPI-M leader P. Jayarajan was hacked at his residence on an Onam day by the RSS workers in 1999, and in retaliation to it BJP Yuva morcha state vice president K.T. Jayakrishnan was brutally murdered at the primary school classroom where he was teaching. The incident occurred on December 1, 1999.
Shedding light on women who were instrumental in Montanas history is the goal behind a new documentary that made its Bozeman premiere Wednesday.

The Story of Us: The Women Who Shaped Montana, is a 40-minute documentary diving into the lives of four Montana women: Sarah Bickford, Rose Hum Lee, Maggie Smith Hathaway, and Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail.

The Bozeman-based Extreme History Project helped produce the film, as did North by Northwest. After a screening at the Museum of the Rockies Wednesday, producer Kimberly Hogberg, state Sen. Diane Sands and Crystal Alegria with the Extreme History Project discussed the film.

Hogberg said she hopes the documentary piques peoples interest in the four womens stories and encourages them to learn more.

Theres so many incredible historical stories that are just untold and we should really try to seek them out, and I think that was really the idea was trying to bring some of these stories to life, Hogberg said after the screening.

Sarah Bickford was a black woman who was born into slavery and eventually made her way out to Virginia City. She eventually became the owner of the citys water utility.

I think she is an interesting person to try to understand race in Montana, Montana State University Prof. Mary Murphy said during the film.

Rose Hum Lee was born to a Chinese family in Butte, where she focused on education and eventually earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Lee became the head of a sociology department at Roosevelt University in Chicago and studied Chinese communities in the Rocky Mountain west.

Maggie Smith Hathaway grew up in rural Ohio and moved with her family to Stevensville. She worked in education and eventually became one of the states first female legislators.

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was born on the Crow Reservation in 1903 and eventually became a registered nurse in Massachusetts. After she returned home, she advocated for improvements to the Indian Health Services and ending practices like sterilization of Native women.

I think one thing thats true about all four of these women, is their intentionality to make the world a better place for other people because they recognized their own humanity and the difficulties of other people, Sands said during the talk after the screening.

They are planning for this first documentary to be episode one. Hogberg said they are already fundraising for future episodes in addition to a website to house all the different stories. Hogberg said they plan to air the documentary on Montana PBS sometime early next year.

They are also planning more in-person screenings throughout the state.

Sands said she hopes people see from the documentary that the four women overcame their circumstances to live impactful lives.

So much of our history teaches us that we cant do anything, were not important  and that is just plain bullshit, Sands said to applause. History doesnt just swing back and forth it only moves if you push it.
Kiev, Sep 11 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stressed that Ukraine can see the path to regaining control of all its occupied territories more clearly now than ever before, and added that it cannot stop now, President said at the annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy.

"The path to the return of our entire territory is right here (ahead of us) and it becomes clearer every day. We can see the contours of the restoration of the territorial integrity of our state. We know that it is a difficult path, but we know that it is possible to travel this difficult path, and we are (already) doing it, " Zelensky added.

"We cannot afford to stop. This is my main message to anyone out there who is contemplating anything like that. To those leaders who are pushing (Ukraine) (in that direction), into (Russia's) inappropriate embrace. No, we cannot afford to stop." He said that while the country's path to regaining control of all of its territory will be "difficult", the next phase of the war -- the one that he expects to unfold in the coming winter -- might be decisive, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Lakhimpur Kheri : , Sep 11 (IANS) Five persons have been arrested for the alleged gang-rape of a Dalit minor.

The incident took place late on Saturday night under the Mohammadi police circle when the girl was taking dinner for her grandmother who lives in another house.

The girl reached home in a critical condition and informed her family of the incident.

The girl was first admitted to the community health centre and then referred to Lucknow for treatment while her brother lodged a complaint with the police, naming five persons.

Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Arun Kumar Singh said that the accused were arrested on the basis of the complaint lodged by the victim's brother. All the accused belong to the same village where the incident took place.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : Last rites of veteran Tollywood actor and former Union minister U.V. Krishnam Raju will be performed with state honours here on Monday.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed the officials to make arrangements for Raju's cremation with state honours.

The chief minister asked Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to make the necessary arrangements.

Raju, popular as Rebel Star, died early Sunday at AIG Hospital here. He was 83.

The last rites will be performed Monday afternoon at Maha Prasthanam in Jubilee Hills.

His body was shifted to his residence, where it will be kept till Monday afternoon to enable his fans to pay their last respects.

Meanwhile, leaders of various political parties and film personalities made a beeline to Raju's house to pay their last respects.

Union minister for culture G. Kishan Reddy, mega star Chiranjeevi, veteran actors Murali Mohan, Mohan Babu, Mahesh Babu, directors Trivikram, Raghavendra Rao and others paid tributes to Raju. They consoled Raju's family members including his nephew actor Prabhas.
Karachi, Sep 11 : The Wild Poliovirus Type-1 was detected in an environmental sample collected from a sewage line in Karachi's Landhi area in August, Pakistan's National Polio Laboratory at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, confirmed, Geo News reported.

Officials of the federal ministry of National Health Services said this was the first positive environmental sample from Sindh this year.

As many as 11 positive cases of poliovirus have been reported in Pakistan during August alone, while the total number of cases reported so far this year is 22. Of the 11 cases detected in August, five each were from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab while Sindh reported one case.

The federal ministry's officials said the environmental sample that was found positive in Karachi was collected on August 23 from the Bakhtawar village in the Landhi area of Karachi, Geo News reported.

"This is the first positive environmental sample from Karachi in 2022. The previous positive sample from Karachi was reported in May 2021. The last wild poliovirus case from the district was reported in June 2020. The recent polio campaign in the district was conducted from August 15-21," an official said.

Thirteen positive environmental samples in 2022 have been collected from KP, including seven from Bannu, three from Peshawar, two from Swat and one from Nowshera.

Seven positive samples have been collected from Punjab, including three from Lahore, two from Rawalpindi, and one each from Bahawalpur and Sialkot. One positive sample each has been collected from Karachi and Islamabad.

Of these 22 positive samples, one was collected in April, two in May, one in June, seven in July and 11 in August 2022, the official said, adding that in 2021, 65 positive environmental samples were detected in the country.
Kiev, Sep 11 : Russian forces struck Dnipro and Nikopol cities on the intervening night of September 10 and 11, injuring four people, said Valentyn Reznichenko, Head of Dnipro Oblast state administration, on Telegram on Sunday.

The Russian army have fired a missile on Dnipro city centre as they hit a residential quarter, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

A 72-year-old man was injured and taken to hospital in a critical condition. Administrative buildings, stores, the market, warehouses and residential buildings were severely damaged.

Nikopol was attacked three times during Saturday evening.

The Russian army struck the city with more than 35 projectiles from Grad MLRS and shelled from heavy artillery.

Three people were injured, of which two were men and one woman.

The men were hospitalised as their condition is moderately critical.

Thirty-five multi-storey and private buildings, several educational institutions, an outpatient clinic, an industrial infrastructure facility, cars, gas pipelines and power lines were severely damaged.

The Russian troops also hit Marhanets hromada (administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories), but there, no people were injured and no buildings were destroyed.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : BJP's Telangana unit president Bandi Sanjay is set to launch the fourth phase of his Praja Sangram Yatra at Qutbullahpur near Hyderabad on Monday, though the police is yet to give permission for the same.

The inaugural public meeting to be held at Ramlila Maidan in Qutbullapur of Medchal-Malkajgiri district will be addressed by BJP national general secretary Sunil Bansal.

Sanjay will offer prayers at the Chittaramma Temple in Qutbullapur before launching the fourth phase of the padayatra which will cover eight Assembly constituencies in 10 days.

Praja Sangrama Yatra Pramukh G. Manohar Reddy said the yatra will be confined to 10 days in view of Dasara festivities.

He said though they applied for permission to all three police commissionerates (Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda), they have not yet received the permission. He said they will go ahead with the Padyatra as scheduled as they believe that the permission is deemed to have been given.

Manohar Reddy said that if the state government tries to create any hurdles, they will approach the High Court as they did during the third phase.

The BJP leader claimed that the third phase was successful despite the hurdles created by the government.

Sanjay was arrested in Jangaon district during the third phase and was shifted to Karimnagar, where he was kept under house arrest. The padyatra had to be halted for three days and the police had directed the BJP not to resume it as there was apprehension of breach of peace due to provocative speeches. However, the BJP challenged the police order in the High Court, which allowed Sanjay to resume the Yatra.

Beginning from Qutbullapur, the fourth phase will cover Kukatpally, Secunderabad Cantonment, Malkajgiri, Medchal, Uppal, LB Nagar and Ibrahimpatnam Assembly constituencies.

During this phase Sanjay would focus on civic issues. The non-allocation of Rajiv Swagruha houses, which have been lying vacant, 2BHK houses not being constructed, damaged roads, traffic congestion, encroachment of lakes and pollution will be among the issues to be raised by the BJP leader.

Lack of facilities in the government hospitals, demand for reduction of VAT on petrol and diesel, and hefty fee by private educational institutions will be other issues.

In the three phases of his padyatra, Sanjay walked through 40 Assembly constituencies. He interacted with the people and enquired about the problems faced by them.

BJP president J.P. Nadda, several central ministers, including Amit Shah have addressed public meetings organised as part of the padyatra in the three phases.
Prayagraj : , Sep 11 (IANS) Researchers in the Allahabad University (AU) will conduct a study to identify ways in which microgreens -- vegetables that are just a few inches tall like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, watercress, radish, etc., -- can help improve the health of adolescent girls living in Uttar Pradesh villages.

A research project "Microgreens value addition for advancement towards nutrition and wellness among adolescent girls in rural areas" along with funds of Rs 11.94 lakh has been sanctioned by the Council of Science and Technology, Uttar Pradesh.

As part of this mission, a team led by Neetu Mishra, associate professor and head, department of family and community sciences, AU will undertake in-depth laboratory and field-based studies.

"Microgreens will be extensively studied for their nutritional benefits and will be explored for their micronutrient composition. The lab work will be done in the research lab of the department of family and community sciences and field work will be done in villages of the Koraon development block of Prayagraj," said Mishra.
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : Former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday called on Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao here.

The Janata Dal (Secular) leader met Rao at the latter's official residence Pragati Bhavan. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader hosted lunch for Kumaraswamy.

According to the Chief Minister's Office, the two leaders discussed the development of Telangana, the role of regional parties in national politics, the key role chief minister Rao should play in the national politics in the present situation and other national political issues.

The meeting assumes significance in the wake of Rao's efforts to bring together like-minded parties ahead of 2024 elections.

The TRS leader, who is trying to forge an alliance against the BJP government at the Centre, has been holding talks with leaders of various regional parties.

Rao met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav in Patna on August 31.

The TRS chief had earlier visited Bangalore and called on former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy.
San Francisco, Sep 11 : In a bid to improve the user experience for Teams, tech giant Microsoft is now planning to show users search results within context by navigating to the thread containing a queried item.

According to Windows Central, the new option may arrive in October 2022 to Teams for Windows and Mac.

Currently, when you search for text, Teams takes users to a view of their messages and any directly connected thread, but it is completely out of context, the report said.

Clicking on the search result does not take users to where the chat was sent within a channel or conversation, which is about to change.

"When users search for a chat message in Teams and click on a message result, they are taken to a view that contains only the selected message, rather than the entire chat thread," the company quoted an entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

"This fix will now land the users on the full chat thread once the message search result is clicked, thereby providing the full context of the conversation around the message result," it added.

The report mentioned that the change should make it easier to see messages' context.
Srinagar, Sep 11 : Former senior Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Sunday that he has not promised restoration of Article 370 in his new political agenda because he doesn't believe in making false promises.

Addressing a public meeting in north Kashmir's Baramulla town, Azad said, "To restore Article 370 would need around 350 votes in the Lok Sabha and 175 votes in the Rajya Sabha.

"This is a number no political party has or is likely to ever get. The Congress has shrunken to less than 50 seats and if they speak of restoring Article 370, they are making false promises." He said his political agenda includes restoration of statehood, land and jobs for the locals as these are achievable objectives.

"Some people have blamed me for voting in favour of the Article 370 abrogation motion brought in by the home minister.

"I have voted against the abrogation and these people who have no idea about the working of Parliament are saying that I voted against Article 370," he said.

He said when he was the chief minister of the state, he arrested 13 police personnel for staging a fake encounter in which three persons were killed.

"The arrested persons are in jail for the last 15 years," he said.

He spoke of the developmental works and creation of districts during his tenure as the chief minister.

"Four new districts were created in the Valley and three in the Jammu division during my tenure as the chief minister. I got new medical colleges during that period.

"Whether I get four votes or lakhs of votes during the elections, I will never deceive the people," he assured the public gathering.

This was Azad's first public meeting in Kashmir after he resigned from the basic membership of the Congress party.
A car driven by Jodi Hanson, 62, of Portland, Oregon, collided head-on with a pickup truck about 8 miles north of Manvel, according to the Highway Patrol. The car came to rest in the median and caught fire. Hanson died at the scene.
Lucknow, Sep 11 : Languages connect people and are a means to express one's culture, value system and group affiliations.

Hindi and Urdu are not just mere languages, but are also an integral part of the society. It can also be said that both languages are complementary to each other due to which Urdu has become the second official language in Uttar Pradesh.

Mohammad Harun, a resident of Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, had written a letter to the state government complaining that despite Urdu being recognised as a second official language, it was not being spoken much in various government sectors.

After Harun wrote a letter, the government took cognizance of it and instructions have been given to the Chief Medical Officers of all the districts on behalf of the Medical and Health Department to write the signages of government hospitals in Hindi as well as in Urdu.

Since this government order has been implemented, it remains to be seen how much it will impact Urdu literature. This can be better understood from well-known Urdu writers and litterateur in the country.

Renowned writer Sharib Rudaulvi said that Urdu is the second official language of the province. Earlier, the names of people working in every government department were written in both Hindi and Urdu except in hospitals. The government has recently named the signages at hospitals in both Hindi and Urdu which is a welcome sign.

There is no conflict between various languages. It is a good thing to learn any number of languages. In Europe, children learn foreign languages during holidays.

Writing names in Urdu will become convenient for the people which is a good thing. The intervention of Urdu in the literary world is equal to that of Hindi. Munshi Premchand was an Urdu writer whose stories were written in the same language. When Premchand's books stopped selling in the market, the writer's friend translated his books into Hindi.

As far as literature goes, right from Ghalib, Mir Anees, Mir Taqi Mir, all were renowned Urdu poets in their own right. People all across Europe read them as well.

British and American scholars such as Ralph Russell, David Mathews, etc., were good Urdu scholars. Ralph Russell wrote a book like 'Three Mughal Poets' on Urdu literature in English.

Books have been written on Urdu grammar in Russia. Literature is equal in stature whether in India or across Europe.

The intention behind the government's decision is that Urdu must be preserved in India, there should be no hindrance in its education and writing so the government has recognised it as an official language. The official language has a value of its own.

He said that how much Urdu is spoken, it can be gauged from conducting a census on it. The contribution of Urdu to literature is no less than any other language.

Mirza Khaleel Ahmed Baig, former professor of linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University, said that Urdu is an Indian language. A total of 22 languages have been accorded a place in the Indian Constitution which also includes Urdu.

There are many Urdu speakers in northern India. Both Urdu and Hindi have originated from 'Khari Boli'. Promoting Urdu will have a good impact on society. The purpose behind announcing Urdu as the official language is to promote it in the country.

Hindi-Urdu are not antagonistic to each other. Obviously there are many Hindi speakers, but other languages also have their own importance. Urdu is the second language in Bihar.

There is a lot of Urdu-speaking people in states like Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Bengal. The number of Urdu poets in these states is huge and it is difficult to count them. Both Hindus and Muslims have contributed a lot in promoting Urdu.

Moofi Raza, Research Scholar of Maulana Azad University, said that Urdu is considered as the second language by the Uttar Pradesh government. But right now it is not getting the kind of recognition it is due for. In 1958, 75 per cent of the people knew Urdu. A lot of literature has been written in Urdu. A lot of non-Muslims have coined the words in Urdu. To promote the language, it must also be given priority.

Can a document be filled and accepted in a bank? No. Can an FIR be lodged in Urdu? No. Because in such places the people who are well-versed with Urdu have become quite miniscule and it needs to be made necessary for employability. In addition to literature, there are many religious texts written in Urdu as well. Earlier several books on maths, science, etc., were also written in Urdu.

According to the UP Official Language Act 1951, the most populous state declared Urdu as the second official language in 1989. After Hindi, Urdu is the most spoken language in the state.
Islamabad, Sep 11 : Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday said that the devastation from floods in Pakistan has "overwhelmed" UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who ended his two-day visit to the flood-hit areas of the country.

Taking to Twitter, Sharif thanked the UN Secretary General for his "unprecedented support" to the flood victims in Pakistan.

"During his visit to the flood-affected areas and camps under scorching heat, the UN Secretary General was overwhelmed by the scale of devastation that has engulfed Pakistan," the premier wrote on Twitter.

Guterres expressed solidarity with the flood victims and stressed the need for global support for Pakistan in this time of need, saying that the international body's help is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what is needed to rebuild.

Sharif said that the UN chief's voice has become the voice of flood victims.

Urging the international community to help Pakistan deal with the natural catastrophe and cut carbon emissions, the Prime Minister said that the world should pay heed to what the UN chief said about climate change.

"His (Guterres) two-day visit has been critical in raising awareness about the human tragedy. Deeply touched by his empathy and leadership. Pakistan needs global support to overcome this challenge," he wrote.

Guterres, while visiting the flood-hit areas on Saturday, said that the devastation caused by floods was beyond imagination.

He visited flood-affected areas in Sindh and Balochistan, stressing on developed nations to assist Pakistan as the international body's help is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what was needed to rebuild.

Nearly 1,400 people have died in flooding that covers a third of the country -- an area the size of the United Kingdom -- wiping out crops and destroying homes, businesses, roads and bridges.

Guterres hopes his visit will galvanise support for Pakistan, which needs at least $10 billion to repair the damaged infrastructure.

The UN Secretary-General, in a conversation with journalists in Sukkur, said that there needs to be a serious discussion on loss and damages as "what the UN is doing in Pakistan is a drop in the ocean of what is needed".

"We are perfectly aware of our limited capacity and our resources. But you can absolutely be sure about one thing as we are in total solidarity with the Pakistani people." The UN chief said that he will ask the international community to ensure that they help Pakistan "now" while vowing to raise awareness about the disastrous situation.

Pakistan receives heavy -- often destructive -- rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies. But downpours as intense as this year have not been seen for decades.

"It is not a matter of generosity, but a matter of justice," he said, reiterating the UN's commitment, strong support and solidarity with the flood-affected populace of Pakistan.

Guterres said that huge damages and losses were caused by the floods to human lives and properties. He stressed that the international community must realise the serious impacts of greenhouse emissions as nature was striking back in the form of natural calamities.

Greenhouse gases have accelerated climate change and the nations with larger greenhouse emission footprints must understand these issues, he added.

He said the UN will strongly advocate for "debt swaps", with IMF and World Bank through which developing countries like Pakistan instead of paying a debt to foreign creditors will be able to use that money to invest in climate resilience, investments in sustainable infrastructure and green transition of their economies.

He said: "We will go on strongly advocating for these solutions in the meetings with IMF and World Bank, which will take place soon. And, also in G-20 meeting." Speaking to journalists, alongside Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in Karachi, Guterres said: "We have declared war on nature and thus we see here in Pakistan that nature is striking back with devastating consequences." The UN Secretary-General said that he had seen many humanitarian disasters in the world but "have never seen climate carnage on this scale".

"I have simply no words to describe what I have seen today," he said. He highlighted that the flood-hit area is three times the total area of his country -- Portugal.

Guterres recognised that the needs are enormous, therefore, he urged "massive and urgent financial support" for Pakistan.

"This is not just a question of solidarity or generosity, it is a question of justice. Pakistan is paying the price of something that was created by others," he maintained.

The UN has already launched an appeal for $160 million in aid to help Pakistan cope with the disaster.

In a tweet earlier, Guterres said developing nations are paying a "horrific price" for the world's reliance on fossil fuels.

"Pakistan and other developing countries are paying a horrific price for the intransigence of big emitters that continue to bet on fossil fuels," he added.

"From Islamabad, I am issuing a global appeal: Stop the madness. Invest in renewable energy now. End the war with nature."
Chennai, Sep 11 : Estranged AIADMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on Sunday attacked the state government's decision to hike power tariff rates.

In a statement, he condemned the DMK government for the increase in tariff rates of domestic consumers and demanded an immediate roll back of the rates.

Seeking to remind the DMK of its 2021 Assembly poll promise that it would increase the free electricity to handloom workers by 300 units and by 1,000 units for powerloom units, Panneerselvam said that he had opposed this "anti-people law" of the DMK government when it was mooted in the Assembly in July.

He also said that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission's announcement to people to give up the free 100 units of power was a "major shocker", and that private schools, and private hostels would pass on the hiked charge to public.
Chennai, Sep 11 : A youth, who had reached Tamil Nadu's Paramkudi on Saturday to pay respects to iconic Dalit leader Immanuel Sekaran, was electrocuted to death while he was trying to wave a flag from atop a train engine he had climbed, police said.

The youth, later identified as Vijay, was electrocuted when the pole of his flag got in contact with the overhead high power lines.

September 11 is the death anniversary of Sekaran and people from all walks of life reach Paramkudi to pay respects to the late Dalit leader at his memorial.

Senior political leaders from all parties, including Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin's son and DMK youth leader Udaynidhi Stalin, had reached Paramkudi on Sunday morning to pay respects to Sekaran.

Police and railway officials told IANS that a few youths barged into the Paramkudi railway station and Vijay came forward and jumped on top of the engine of the Tiruchi-Rameswaram Express train that had just reached the railway station but suffered the shock. He was rushed to General Hospital, Paramkudi where he was declared dead.
New Delhi, Sep 11 : A man, who kidnapped a four-year-old girl, was arrested, and the victim was rescued from his possession within 24 hours by the Outer District Police.

A senior police official said that the accused was identified Sunil alias Bhura. He kidnapped the girl as he had no children.

The official said that on September 9 at around 5 p.m. they got a call regarding the kidnapping of a girl. A complaint in this regard was later on lodged with Raj Park Police Station. The official said that they lodged an FIR and formed a team to look into the matter.

"We scanned a number of CCTV footages and in one of the footages a man could be seen taking away a girl. With the help of local intelligence, the man was identified as Sunil alias Bhura who lived in Bagpat district of UP. We sent a team to his village and found that the accused had abandoned in Rogarh area and had fled," the police said.

The police team rescued the girl from a nearby ares of a police station in Bagpat. Later on, the accused was also held from his native place.

"The accused is a divorcee and a drunkard. He kidnapped the girl as he has no children. He wanted to raise her as his own. But he got scared and had abandoned her on the way," the official said.

The girl was handed over to her family and the accused was lodged in judicial custody.
London, Sep 11 : Manchester United's new signing Antony said that he has learnt a lot from Cristiano Ronaldo in just a few days and hailed the Portuguese star as the best in the world.

"Words can't describe Cristiano, the best in the world. In just a few days, I've learnt a lot from him. He has an extraordinary mind and, whenever I talk to him, I take a lot from it. I'm sure that we have a strong attack and it's very promising for the future," Antony said.

The Brazilian star has expressed the great respect he has for Ronaldo and pledged to learn as much as he can from the iconic Portugal international. Antony made way for Ronaldo after marking his Premier League debut against Arsenal with the opening goal in the 3-1 victory last weekend and admits it is such a pleasure to be working with a player he describes as the best in the world.

During an exclusive interview with Manchester United's official website, Antony was asked about the attacking line-up he is joining at Old Trafford and spoke about his excitement at adding to the armoury at Erik ten Hag's disposal for the challenges ahead. The South American forward also pledged to continue entertaining the crowd after his positive start to life with the Reds.

"I've always done this. Not just here but for all the teams I've played for. I've been doing it ever since I was a child. I've always done it - it's one of my characteristics. I am adapting and getting used to things here already. Entertaining is something I've always liked and I'll continue doing it," he said in reference to his skills and tricks.
New Delhi, Sep 11 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Uzbekistan on September 15-16, at the invitation of its President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to attend the 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The SCO Summit will be attended by leaders of SCO member states, observer states, the SCO Secretary General, the Executive Director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), the President of Turkmenistan and other guests.

During the Summit, the leaders are expected to review the organisation's activities over the past two decades and discuss the state and prospects of multilateral cooperation in the future. Topical issues of regional and global importance are also expected to be discussed at the meeting.

The Prime Minister is also likely to hold a few bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Summit.
Kyiv, Sep 11 : Ukraine's military says its forces have retaken over 3,000 sq km (1,158 sq miles) during a rapid counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine, BBC reported.

The remarkable advance, if confirmed, means Kyiv's forces have tripled their stated gains in little over 48 hours.

On Thursday evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky put the figure at 1,000 sq km, and then 2,000 sq km on Saturday evening.

On Saturday, the eastern counter-attack saw Ukrainian troops enter the vital Russian-held supply towns of Izyum and Kupiansk.

But UK defence officials have warned that fighting has continued outside those towns. And officials in Kyiv said Ukrainian forces were still fighting to gain control of a number of settlements around Izyum, BBC reported.

Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed its forces' retreat from Izyum itself and Kupiansk, which it said would allow its forces "to regroup" in territory held by Moscow-backed separatists.

The Russian ministry also confirmed the withdrawal of troops from a third key town, Balaklyia, in order to "bolster efforts" on the Donetsk front. Ukrainian forces entered the town on Friday.

At the same time, the head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kharkiv region recommended that its people evacuate to Russia "to save lives".

Unverified footage on social media appeared to show long queues of traffic building up at border crossings. The Governor of the Belgorod border region in Russia, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said "thousands" of people had crossed into the country.

Gladkov said on Saturday that mobile catering, heating, and medical assistance would be available to people entering Russia, BBC reported.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Vijayawada, Sep 11 : Tension prevailed in Gudivada town of Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district on Sunday during a protest by the leaders of opposition TDP against former minister Kodali Nani over his remarks against TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu, general secretary Nara Lokesh and women leaders of the party.

Police detained Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders who reached Gudivada and were proceeding to the police station to lodge a complaint against Nani, MLA from Gudivada.

Soon after the leaders left the TDP office, the police arrested them. They included former minister Uma Maheswar Rao and former chairman of RTC Varla Ramaiah. The arrested leaders were shifted to Gudur police station.

Some more TDP leaders reached the town either by APSRTC buses or on two-wheelers to stage the protest. They were on their way to One Town police station to lodge the complaint but they were stopped by the police, who had erected barricades.

The police officers told TDP leaders to give them their complaint. However, the TDP leaders insisted that they be allowed to go to the police station and lodge the complaint. There was heated argument between the two sides, leading to pushing and jostling.

In the melee, some of the leaders managed to remove the police barricades. Raising slogans against Nani, they reached the police station but found its gate locked. They questioned the police officers over locking the gate instead of receiving their complaint. The police officers allowed four leaders to enter the premises. They lodged a complaint against the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader and demanded action against him.

The TDP has taken strong exception to certain remarks made by Nani against women leaders of the party and also against Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh.

Earlier, a delegation of TDP leaders from Krishna district lodged a complaint with Tadepalli police against Nani.

Cautioning the YSRCP MLA to control his mouth, the TDP leaders said Nani would be chased away from Gudivada soon.

Women leaders of TDP had also tried to lay siege to the house of Nani in Gudivada on September 6.
Kolkata, Sep 11 : In a late night operation past midnight, the Indian Air Force (IAF) airlifted a seriously injured Border Security Force (BSF) personnel from Krishnanagar in the Nadia district of West Bengal to Kolkata on Sunday.

Constable Shabir Ahmad Wani of the 141Bn BSF was on duty on a Char (large sandbank) along the India-Bangladesh border in Jalangi, Murshidabad, when a tractor toppled on its side, trapping him underneath.

"He was rescued and rushed to the Behrampore Medical College and Hospital. Doctors there detected multiple fractures and spine injury. They said that he should be shifted to Kolkata immediately. It was evening by then. We contacted the IAF immediately. They told us to start moving towards Kolkata by road with the patient while preparations for the airlift were made. When we reached Krishnanagar, the IAF informed us that a helicopter had been assigned to pick him up from there," a senior BSF official of the South Bengal Frontier said.

Meanwhile, a Mi-17V5 helicopter from the 157 Helicopter Unit of the IAF, based at Barrackpore, took off with an air ambulance configuration with a qualified medical team on board.

"This was at night and we had to land and take off from an unfamiliar helipad. The experienced pilots accomplished the mission using Night Vision Goggles (NVGs) and other aids. It was after midnight when Wani was handed over to a medical team waiting at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata. The transfer from Krishnanagar took a few minutes. By road, it would have taken several hours," an IAF official said.

Constable Wani has been admitted to the state-run SSKM Hospital in Kolkata where doctors said that his injuries are serious. He is stable though.
North Dakotas top law enforcement officer on Wednesday offered a glimpse of his plan to curtail a continuing increase in the number of violent crimes in the state, pointing at more law enforcement staffing and stricter sentencing legislation that more closely follows federal guidelines.

Attorney General Drew Wrigley released the 2021 crime statistics, which highlighted increases in the crimes against persons category and several crimes within it. Its a trend that presents clear and very real and present danger to the communities of North Dakota, Wrigley said.

He plans in coming weeks to release a violent crimes legislation package, which he plans to present to the 2023 Legislature should he win election in November. Gov. Doug Burgum appointed Wrigley to the post after then-Attorney General Wayne's Stenehjem's Jan. 28 death due to cardiac arrest. Wrigley must win election over Democrat Tim Lamb in November to keep his job.

Wrigley's plan will include proposals for increased staffing at the Attorney Generals Office and its Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and a push to conduct more missions on the states American Indian reservations.

We going to need more people. Its that simple, he said.

Wrigley said he will push for legislation that adds greater mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes, and a consecutive sentence if a firearm was used in a crime. Some 500 guns are stolen in the state annually, he said, and many of the guns used in crimes are obtained illegally. Its extremely infrequent, he said, that someone who is arrested for armed robbery still has the receipt for a recently purchased gun they later used to commit an armed robbery.

Thats not how this works, he said.

Statutory changes are needed so its certain that violent criminals not only serve time but also sentences of the proper length, Wrigley believes.

It needs to be enhanced. Were going to make that case, he said.

His plan doesnt rule out rehabilitation or treatment programs, but he said punishment and public safety are legitimate and central, important features of the criminal justice system."

We can do both of these things, he said.

Lamb said he disagreed with the approach Wrigley outlined because it takes jurisdiction away from communities and local authorities. The attorney general should instead focus on assisting local jurisdictions if they need additional resources, he believes.

"The Attorney General's Office is not the U.S. Attorney's Office," he said. "If you run it like the U.S. Attorney's Office it will fail."

Wrigley is a former U.S. attorney for North Dakota.

Judges in the state don't want mandated sentences, Lamb said, adding that they already can impose proper penalties based on a person's criminal history.

"To try to usurp that at the state level is counterproductive," he said.

Lamb said nothing in the 2021 report jumped out to him as being a big problem.

By the numbers

The 2021 crime report showed homicides in North Dakota fell from 32 in 2020 to 17 last year. Thirteen of those were committed with firearms.

Overall crimes against persons as reported by national standards increased by more than 10%. When robbery is added in, crimes against persons rose 11.5%, from 10,960 in 2020 to 12,246 in 2021.

Wrigley includes robbery in his stats on crimes against persons, which differs from the FBIs standard method of reporting robbery as a property crime.

When you talk to robbery victims, theyre not talking about the fact that they lost property, he said. Theyre talking about the fact that somebody put a gun to their head and demanded property.

Of the 51,784 crimes reported in 2021, 23% were considered crimes against persons, the report showed. Another 27% were crimes against society and the remainder, 50%, were crimes against property.

Assaults in the state are a continuing upward trend, moving to 8,225 in 2021 from 7,551 in 2020.

DUI arrests fell from 4,175 in 2020 to 4,040 in 2021. Its a trend Wrigley called positive but said its still too high.

That is a completely avoidable crime, he said.

The full report, which includes breakdowns of city and county law enforcement activity, can be seen at https://bit.ly/3exsEZ9.
Gurugram, Sep 11 : Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar while presiding over the District Grievance Redressal Committee meeting on Sunday suspended an additional station house officer (SHO), sub-inspector (SI) Satinder, who was then posted at Sohna Sadar police station over allegations of dereliction of duty.

The SI has been placed under suspension with immediate effect and transferred to police lines, Gurugram.

According to the police, the SI was investigating a case related to the fraudulent extortion of money in the name of a Group-D job in the Prime Minister's Office.

In connection with the matter, a case was filed by one Anil Kumar, a resident of Sohna in which he alleged that he had given Rs 3.5 lakh to the accused person.

Sohna police, during the investigation, had told it to be a case of mutual money transaction saying that there is no evidence or instrument of money transaction between the complainant and the accused.

The Deputy District Attorney (DDA), appointed by the Police Commissioner, Gurugram, had prima facie considered it to be a civil matter between the two parties.

The CM has also ordered to take action against the DDA for giving the wrong opinion to the police in this matter.

The DDA of the Police Commissioner's Office had described the corruption case as a civil case of money transactions.

Apart from this, in the meeting, 19 complaints were placed before the Chief Minister, out of which after hearing all the parties, 16 complaints were settled on the spot.
Patna, Sep 11 : In wake of Prashant Kishor's (PK) attack on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, JD-U national President Lalan Singh retaliated on Sunday, dismissing the political strategist as "a businessman who does not even know Bihar".

"PK is a businessman who is roaming to sell his products like a salesman. He does not have any knowledge of Bihar. He is not a political person. Hence, there is no need to comment on him.

"If a salesman would not roam in the country, how could he sell his products. At present, he is advertising his products in Bihar. He has made no contribution in the development of Bihar in the last 17 years," Singh said.

"Everyone knows he is working for BJP in Bihar. At present he is acting behind the screen. He should come in front of the screen and face us directly. He has nothing to do with Bihar. He is just doing branding for himself. He was taking an appointment to meet the Chief Minister and on the other hand, he is branding himself before a media person as that the Chief Minister wants to meet him," Singh said.

PK is currently doing his 'Jan Suraj' campaign in Bihar and he will start a padyatra from October 2 from Champaran.

Earlier, Nitish Kumar also slammed PK, saying that he has no knowledge of Bihar. "He is a businessman and giving statements against me to stay in the limelight," he had said.
The churn in the opposition camp in view of the general elections that is to happen in less than two years can throw up several possibilities.

It may be too early to predict whether a phoenix emerges or the churn ends in scattering stars. The question is who will challenge Narendra Modi and does any opposition leader have an alternative to 'sabka vishwas' ... and the power of Hindutva? Presently, the opposition is disjointed, with each party in their own realm, weaving their own webs to stay afloat. According to the Election Commission of India, the total number of registered parties is 2,858 -- eight national parties, 54 state parties and 2,796 unrecognised parties. (This data dates back to September last year.) From time to time, some of these parties come together to form one or the other front.

The country has seen several coalition governments at the Centre as well as in the states. At the Centre, the experiment began in 1977 with the short-lived Janata Party government headed by Morarji Desai.

Then there was the National Front government, first headed by V.P. Singh, followed by the United Front government, first headed by H.D. Deve Gowda in 1996, followed by the BJP-led coalition headed by A.B. Vajpayee in 1997, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 1999, which was followed by the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Front in 2004 and 2009. In 2014, the NDA under Narendra Modi took over.

Being out of power for 10 years at the Centre and increasingly losing the states as well, the opposition has been finding itself on the backfoot and almost waning in political influence across the country. But will it be able to come together to take on the BJP? That is the million-dollar question.

After the drubbing in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the opposition was at a loss to figure out how to counter the Modi wave, which remained more or less the same even in the 2019 elections. In between, elections in a number of states have been good off and on for the Opposition. Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and now Maharashtra are examples where the opposition lost despite forming governments initially.

The BJP has been far ahead in its political strategies before and after elections. The opposition, most of the time, has been in a state of utter disarray with weak strategies and also lacking the will to take on the might of Modi or the BJP.

For any thriving democracy, it is essential to have a robust opposition that can make the people see through the government's policies and decisions, and take up issues meaningfully. This may be an ideal situation, but the fact remains that the opposition, most of the time, has failed to rise to occasion. Whether it is inside Parliament or outside, the general feeling is that despite grave issues confronting the government, and the many sticks to beat the government with, the opposition has not been able to do much, except for Modi bashing.

The opposition has several stalwarts and mass leaders who have individual areas of influence. Such as Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, M.K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, K. Chandrashekar Rao in Telangana, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, the Left in Kerala, the Congress in MP and Chhattisgarh, Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra, and the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Besides them, there are the Gandhis and the other dynasts, such as those of Sharad Pawar, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, Deve Gowda, the Abdullahs and the Muftis. The list is long. The majority of them tasted power for a long time and now want the pie at the Centre.

Most of these leaders dream of taking up the top job of the country. Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, KCR, Sharad Pawar, and the latest in the list, Arvind Kejriwal, all have made their aspirations known.

The contenders are many, which has perhaps been one of the big hurdles in the way of opposition unity. There is no political party at the national level which can single-handedly take on the Modi-led BJP. The Congress, over the past eight years, has been going downhill, so much so that other parties are shying away from forming alliances with it.

To recover lost ground, the Congress has been betting on its Bharat Jodo Yatra. Rahul Gandhi is aiming to rebuild his party and salvage his image. But more than creating influence, Rahul Gandhi seems to be generating other controversies that threaten to overshadow the Yatra's intent.

Mamata Banerjee finds herself on shaky ground after ministers and leaders from her party have been caught in scams. As stacks of cash recovered from the premises of the leaders of her party get flashed in the media, her image takes a beating.

KCR and Stalin do not carry the same popularity in the rest of the country as they do in their respective states. Their area of influence outside their states is limited.

That leaves two names -- Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal.

Kejriwal has been gradually increasing his party's footprint across the country. Slowly, he is trying to take over the space vacated by the Congress. His area of influence across the country is rising.

His party is projecting him as PM material, but he may not be ready for the top job in 2024, as a lot will depend upon AAP's performance in Gujarat and Himachal Assembly polls. In case, the BJP takes a hit from the AAP, then Kejriwal will prove to be the biggest contender from the entire opposition.

Nitish Kumar's activism after severing his ties with the BJP in getting the Opposition unified has propelled him to the national stage. Though he has been reluctant to admit that he is a claimant for the top post, his meetings with several other opposition leaders have been enough to make his aspirations public.

It is too early to predict whether the Opposition will get united before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The unity to a large extent depends upon the Congress, which insists on being the centre of the alliance. It has been proving to be a speed-breaker in the unity efforts.

With several opposition leaders trying to make individual efforts towards some sort of unity, the political game has already begun. With less than two more years to go, the country seems to be entering into a poll mode.

(Deepika Bhan can be contacted at deepika.b@ians.in)
Hyderabad, Sep 11 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and and JD-S leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday discussed the agenda of the national party proposed to be launched by the former.

The Janata Dal-Secular leader met KCR, as the Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader is popularly known, at the latter's official residence and they discussed a wide range of issues relating to national politics during the three-hour long meeting.

KCR told Kumaraswamy that the formation of the national party and formulation of policies will soon take place after continuing discussions with intellectuals, economists, and experts from various fields and reaching a consensus on an alternative national agenda.

According to the Chief Minister's Office, they discussed the threat of a political and governance crisis in the country if the BJP's "destructive political moves are not stopped". They felt that people of the country are waiting for an alternative political platform that will carry on the spirit of the Indian Constitution by integrating all communities irrespective of castes, religions and regions, it said.

The two leaders arrived at a consensus that they should put an end to the BJP rule, which is exploiting emotional issues, and use the upcoming general elections as a platform for that.

Kumaraswamy asserted that the immense experience of KCR, who achieved Telangana state by uniting all sections and moving forward in a democratic and peaceful manner, is required by the country in the present situation.

He felt that KCR should move forward to constitute an alternative front in the national politics and play a key role and assured his full support. He added that the country urgently needs a senior leader like KCR in the wake of the space for an alternative in the current national politics.

Kumaraswamy congratulated KCR saying that the entire country is discussing the development achieved by Telangana in just a span of eight years and the whole nation also wants to have similar development.

The TRS leader stressed the need to collectively thwart the conspiracies to create division among people. The two leaders discussed the "dangerous and selfish political path" adopted by the BJP government at the Centre and its consequences and expressed serious concerns.

They arrived at a consensus that they will protect the country from being pushed into dangerous religious hatred in any situation. In this direction, they stressed the need for unity of all alternative political forces to safeguard the spirit of the country's democratic federalism.

The former Karnataka Chief Minister said that people are waiting for an alternative to the BJP across the country. He urged KCR to foray into national politics and contribute his part for the qualitative progress of the country. He said he would extend full support if a political party is established for that purpose The two leaders felt that people have come to an opinion that the Congress is not a strong alternative to the BJP and they lost faith in the Congress leadership. They discussed the urgent need for the unity of regional parties so that the spirit of democratic federation will flourish.

KCR told Kumaraswamy that there is increasing pressure on him to enter national politics and lead the country like Telangana. He said that people are extending their support in public meetings everywhere during his district tours with cheers and slogans to fight against the BJP and Modi's anti-people and autocratic attitude.

He asserted that people are completely against the BJP, which is constantly creating problems in Telangana, which is running on the path of progress.

The two leaders condemned the anti-farmer policies adopted by the BJP government at the Centre, which is acting as "an anti-farmer" government and is indulging in conspiracies to undermine domestic agriculture.
New Delhi, Sep 11 : After a YouTuber claimed on social media that her aunt allegedly died after her Redmi 6A smartphone exploded near her on the bed while sleeping, the company said it was probing the unfortunate incident.

The YouTuber, who goes by the name MD Talk YT, shared screenshots of the exploded phone as well as her aunt lying in a pool of blood on the bed, claiming that an alleged battery explosion killed her relative who was living in the Delhi-NCR region.

"Yesterday in night my aunty was found dead, she was using a Redmi 6A, she was sleeping and she kept the phone near her face on the pillow side & after sometime her phone blasted. It's a bad time for us. It's a responsibility of a brand to support," the tweet read.

Xiaomi replied in a tweet, saying the company is working to reach out to the impacted family and investigate the situation.

"At Xiaomi India, customer safety is of utmost importance and we take such matters extremely seriously. Our team is trying to get in touch with the affected family and determine the cause of the incident".

The YouTuber from Haryana further posted that the victim's son is serving in the Indian Army and the family lives a very simple life.

"Her family is so simple, her son is in the Indian Army. They don't know so much. She only uses her phone just for calling & watching YouTube. Now if brands don't accept their mistakes, don't take responsibility directly, if a family has to fight for justice then what's the use," the YouTuber said in a tweet.
Moscow, Sep 11 : Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, has criticised the Russian armys leadership after it appeared to be caught off guard by Ukraine's fightback against the Russian invasion in the north-east, media reports said.

In a sign that the Kremlin may face serious fallout over the loss of territory that the Russian occupation administrations had repeatedly stated they planned to keep "for ever", Kadyrov also suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might not be aware of the real state of affairs, The Guardian reported.

"They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions," Kadyrov said in an audio message posted to his Telegram channel on Sunday, it said.

"If today or tomorrow no changes in strategy are made, I will be forced to speak with the leadership of the Defence Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground to them. It's a very interesting situation. It's astounding, I would say," said Kadyrov, a former rebel turned Kremlin ally who rules Chechnya - a Russian republic in the Caucasus - with an iron fist and has a paramilitary force at his command, The Guardian reported.

Since the invasion in February, the Kremlin has focused on silencing liberal voices critical of the war, but as things go sour on the battlefield, Putin faces a headache with what to do with former cheerleaders who want Russia to commit more forces to the war to turn the tide.

Many units from Chechnya have taken part in Russia's war effort, and while Kadyrov is ostensibly hyper-loyal to Moscow, he is one of the few Russian political figures whose messaging the Kremlin does not fully control.

All eyes will be on how Putin responds to the retreat. He has previously glossed over claims that he made a terrible miscalculation in February when he thought the Russian Army could overrun Ukraine in a matter of days. In a recent appearance he said Russia had "lost nothing" during the war, but the major losses of recent days could be a harder sell to the Russian population, The Guardian reported.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Colombo, Sep 11 : Visiting USAID Administrator Samantha Power on Sunday urged China, among other creditors, to assist Sri Lanka in restructuring debts to recover from the ongoing economic crisis.

Completing her two-day visit to the island nation that grapples with the worst-ever economic crisis since its independence from British rule in 1948, Power announced that the US was ready to help South Asian island in its debt restructuring process.

"As Sri Lanka seeks to emerge from this economic crisis, the United States, as a creditor and a member of the Paris Club, stands ready to participate in the restructuring of Sri Lanka's debts," Power told journalists here.

"It is imperative that all Sri Lankan creditors, most notably the People's Republic of China, cooperate in this process openly and on comfortable terms with each other.

"When debt becomes unsustainable as it so clearly has in Sri Lanka, the stake of that cooperation can mean the difference between life and or death, prosperity or poverty," Power added.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator, who emphasised that the US is not interested in increasing Sri Lanka's debt, said that her country "provides grants, as it is interested in the US-Sri Lanka relationship becoming a strictly trade related relationship, and not an aid relationship".

"We want to use our resources to unlock the potential that we know is there, without strings attached. And we think this is a really important moment in Sri Lanka for that same mindset of standing with our friends, no strings attached, and in the interest of economic independence and economic stability for this country," Power added.

During her visit, Power announced that $60 million assistance would be given to Sri Lanka - $40 million to help farmers purchase fertiliser and other vital agricultural inputs and another $20 million as emergency humanitarian assistance.

The USAID stated that the complex emergency that has resulted in a severe economic crisis has left nearly 5.7 million Sri Lankan people in urgent need of food, agriculture, livelihood support, protection, and more.

The weekend's USAID financial support has brought the US government's assistance to Sri Lanka at nearly $240 million.

With a colossal $51 billion total debt with the challenge to repay around $28 billion by 2028, Sri Lanka suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debts due for the year 2022.

On September 1, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) struck a deal to provide $2.9 billion over four year to help salvage the country from its worst economic crisis but reiterated that much will depend on the cooperation of the country's existing

creditors including China.

During her weekend visit, Power also met President Ranil Wickremesinghe, famers who were affected by the agricultural crisis and few other stakeholders.
Washington, Sep 11 : Former US President Donald Trump's once staunch ally, ex-Attorney General William Barr, strongly feels Trump may be in serious legal jeopardy over his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, clearly demonstrating the two are drifting far apart since the Florida residence raid.

The divide started with Trump terming the 2020 election as a stolen one which Barr disputed, saying "nonsense".

It's not the first time that prominent conservative Barr, targeted by Democrats as an Attorney General who seemed to act like Trump's lawyer, has broken with the ex President. Nor is he the first former Trump Cabinet member to become critical of him. But Barr has stood out recently for his willingness to undercut not just Trump's own defense but the preferred narrative of his allies and wide swathes of the Republican Party, media reports say.

"Bill Barr has been a real law and order kind of guy and has been strongly protective of national security interests and Department of Justice interests," said Alan Morrison, a law professor at George Washington University. Barr has become a regular presence on Fox News over the past few weeks, weighing in on the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and subsequent court battles over what the Department of Justice (DOJ) can do with what it found.

"And I think he's always seen himself as being on that side: Tough on people who violate criminal laws, and I think his remarks here are in keeping with that. He's trying to protect the Justice Department, which he headed not once but twice," Morrison said.

Barr has, in fact, just done that, offering defences of the Justice Department and the legitimacy of its investigation into Trump in a series of Fox News appearances over the past two weeks. The former Attorney General earlier in the month pushed back on various defences Trump and his team have offered in response to the FBI raid, telling Fox News he was sceptical that Trump had declassified everything he took to Mar-a-Lago as the former President had claimed.

"Let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this (raid) was unprecedented - well, it's also unprecedented for a President to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay," Barr said.

Barr has also been critical of Trump's push for a special master to review the documents taken by the FBI, calling the legal strategy a "red herring" since federal authorities likely had already sifted through most of the seized materials.

He urged the Justice Department this week to appeal Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling in favour of appointing a special master, calling the decision "deeply flawed in a number of ways".

In an appearance on Fox on Thursday, Barr said he believes the Justice Department is "getting very close" to the point where they could indict someone in the case, including potentially Trump.

Coming from a man, who Democrats and some legal experts criticized throughout his latest tenure as Attorney General, accusing him of viewing himself as the President's lawyer rather than the country's, Barr's comments are quite significant.

"I think it's partially a repudiation of Trump but it's much more in wearing his law-and-order hat than a repudiation of Trump," Morrison said.

Barr's Fox News appearances undercutting Trump are the latest example of what has been a steadily growing divide between the two men, media reports said adding, one former Trump administration official said there is no love lost between Trump and Barr, and the relationship had been steadily deteriorating since the 2020 election, when Trump was irked that his Attorney General publicly said he hadn't found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Barr was a key witness for the House committee investigating the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with recordings of his closed-door depositions featuring prominently in the panel's public hearings.

Barr told the panel he believed Trump's claims about election fraud were "bullshit", "nonsense", and "idiotic". One hearing featured a video of Barr saying he worried Trump had become "detached from reality" as he raised the false premise that voting machines were designed to rig the election.

Trump, who has frequently derided his former attorney general as a "RINO", or "Republican in Name Only", used the same insult in response to Barr's commentary on Fox in which he said authorities likely had good evidence to pursue its search of Trump's home.

"Bill Barr had 'no guts', and got 'no glory'," Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. "He was a weak and pathetic RINO [Republican in name only], who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats." While the vast majority of conservatives have lined up behind Trump to offer shifting defences of the former President and criticise the Justice Department as politicised, a few conservatives and former Trump officials have joined Barr in publicly recognising the seriousness of the matter.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is viewed as laying the groundwork for a 2024 bid, said in New Hampshire late last month that he was "deeply troubled" by the search but added the public needs to "let the facts play out" and condemned attacks on law enforcement.

Ty Cobb, who served as a lawyer in Trump's White House during the Russia investigation, told CBS News on Friday he believes Trump is "in serious legal water", not just because of the ongoing investigation into his handling of classified documents, but because of efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Like Barr, Cobb told the news outlet he believes the possibility of Trump being indicted is "very high".
Kiev, Sep 11 : The much-publicised Ukrainian southern offensive was a disinformation campaign to distract Russia from the real one being prepared in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine's special forces have said, the media reported.

Ukrainian forces are continuing to make unexpected, rapid advances in the north-east of the country, retaking more than a third of the occupied Kharkiv region in three days, The Guardian reported.

Much of Ukraine's territorial gains were confirmed by Russia's defence ministry on Saturday.

"(It) was a big special disinformation operation," said Taras Berezovets, a former national security adviser turned press officer for the Bohun brigade of Ukraine's special forces, The Guardian reported.

"(Russia) thought it would be in the south and moved their equipment. Then, instead of the south, the offensive happened where they least expected, and this caused them to panic and flee." On August 29, Ukraine's southern command announced that the long-anticipated offensive in the Kherson region had begun. But soldiers on the Kherson frontline said at the time that they saw no evidence of said offensive or that the active battles taking place were a reaction to an attempted Russian offensive several days earlier.

For the past two weeks, Ukrainian forces in the south took several villages -- no small feat given the reported strength of Russian positions and one which nevertheless resulted in injuries.

But the gains were not remarkably different from the steady but limited progress Ukrainian forces had been making in the Kherson region over July and August.

And yet, the capture of tiny Kherson villages, with populations of a few thousands, suddenly became big international news, The Guardian reported.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's southern command, had insisted on a "regime of silence" and temporarily banned journalists from visiting the frontlines in Kherson.

But Berezovets said the media stir around the southern offensive was a coordinated disinformation campaign by Ukraine, targeted at Russian forces, that had been building for several months, The Guardian reported.

Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 11 : Kerala's Local Self-Government Minister, M.B. Rajesh will hold a high-level meeting on Monday to take urgent measures against the stray dog menace in the state.

The state is witnessing spiralling stray dog attacks and the anti-rabies vaccine have found ineffective in some cases. The minister will be meeting top officials to find a solution to the issue.

While there is a 2001 law that prevents killing of stray dogs, the government has an option for animal birth control and inoculation of stray dogs which is a limited option.

It also wants to prevent any vigilante action against the stray dogs by the irritated locals as many cases of rabies-related deaths have been reported from various areas of the state. Four cases of rabies-related deaths due to suspected vaccine failure are also on the agenda for Monday's meeting.

The state Health Department has already withdrawn one batch of anti-rabies vaccines from circulation and commenced an internal audit on the efficacy of cold chain storage facilities that protect the vaccine's potency.

Talking to media persons at Kannur, Rajesh said: "There is a special drive to curb the stray dog menace and we need the support of voluntary organisations, local bodies, and animal rescue groups in this." The state has already proposed a license for pet dogs, and the Local Bodies Department has also taken measures to remove the garbage that has piled up in many areas of the state.

Stray dog menace and the attacks of a pack of stray dogs on walkers, cyclists, and school-going children have been circulating in the social media accounts of Kerala giving the government a big headache.

Rajesh also said that Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres will be opened in 152 local bodies of the state, in a bid to reduce the stray dog population in an incremental manner.
World Economic Forum official says Canada has bigger issues to discuss than conspiracy theories

Adrian Monck responds to criticism, disinformation campaigns targeting the WEF

Peter Zimonjic  CBC News  Sep 03, 2022 . Peter Zimonjic has worked as a reporter and columnist in London, England, for the Daily Mail, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph and in Canada for Sun Media and the Ottawa Citizen. He is the Author of Into The Darkness: An Account of 7/7, published by Random House.

Adrian Monck, managing director of the World Economic Forum, says the WEF does not prescribe policy but rather acts as a forum for the exchange of ideas. (Facebook/World Economic Forum)

A senior official with the World Economic Forum says Canada should be talking about more important things than conspiracy theories targeting his organization.

Adrian Monck, managing director of the WEF, also argues that politicians espousing those theories should ask themselves whether they're spreading disinformation coming from bad actors.

"Canada should be talking about a lot of things right now. It shouldn't really be talking about the World Economic Forum based here in Geneva," Monck told CBC Radio's The House in an interview airing Saturday. "You know, there are bigger issues, really, for it to be thinking about."

In the course of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the WEF has become a popular target for conspiracy theorists.

It began when an opinion article published in 2016 on the WEF's website  entitled "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better" and intended, its author says, as "a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development"  started getting attention in 2020, after WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab wrote his own opinion piece arguing for something he called "the great reset."

These opinion pieces represent two of a number of diverse viewpoints the WEF commissions and publishes, Monck said.

The "great reset" has since morphed into a conspiracy theory claiming that a cabal of global elites is planning to remake society to eliminate private property and impose an authoritarian global government.

Monck said the "great reset" is really just an idea that grew out of the pandemic, when world governments were pouring billions of dollars into keeping the economy afloat.

"The idea was that we should also try and suggest to people that they think about spending it on the kind of long-term things that would aid climate change combating, that would help jobs re-skilling and all the kinds of bigger, long-term challenges," he told Catherine Cullen, host of CBC Radio's The House.

"One of the things our organization tries to do is say to people, 'Look beyond the one week, three months and think about maybe some of the longer term things you could be doing.' That was what the great reset was aimed to do back in the summer of 2020."

Some Conservative MPs have been accused of spreading anti-WEF conspiracy theories. After Conservative MP Colin Carrie told the House of Commons in February that the WEF had "penetrated more than half of Canada's cabinet," he was accused of spreading disinformation by the NDP's Charlie Angus.

Conservative member of Parliament Michelle Rempel Garner rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, Oct. 2, 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Other Conservatives take a different view. Michelle Rempel Garner, MP for Calgary Nose Hill, earlier this year wrote an opinion piece entitled, 'I went to Davos. The World Economic Forum is not running Canada.'

"Concerns about 'the great reset,' the World Economic Forum and the apparent plan to turn Canada into a communist state is one of the underlying conspiracy theories that motivated some of the protesters who have participated in the truckers protest recently disbanded in Ottawa," she wrote. "It is an increasingly mainstream assumption in Conservative circles."

Monck said that, during the pandemic, the WEF became aware that it was being targeted by state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. He said the false conspiracy theory about the WEF pursuing a 'new world order' borrows its structure from old antisemitic claims about a Jewish plan for global domination.

"It really was something that was picked up by some state-sponsored disinformation actors and it took on a life of its own in some geographies," Monck said.

"Sadly, Canada was one of those places where ... there's a vulnerability to disinformation. It's an open society. And ... that particular strand of disinformation went into the mainstream."

Monck said conspiracy theories about the "great reset" and the WEF are being driven by disinformation agents and politicians should consider where these theories are coming from before espousing them.

"I admire anyone who makes the decision to devote their lives to public life," he said. "It's not an easy road, but I do think politicians of every single stamp need to look very hard at the language that they use and where some of this stuff comes from, and if it's coming from a space of ... disinformation and in particular antisemitism.

"I think they need to have a very hard look at themselves and a very hard look in the mirror."

We do not prescribe policy: Monck

Monck said the WEF does not prescribe policy but rather acts as a forum for exchanging ideas.

Still, the forum has drawn some strong political criticism.

Last week, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre told a crowd of applauding supporters that, as prime minister, he would ban cabinet ministers from attending "that big fancy conference of billionaires with the World Economic Forum" and vowed to remove them from cabinet should they attend.

Listen: World Economic Forum's Adrian Monck speaks to The House:

CBC News: The House15:27World Economic Forum denounces conspiracy theories poisoning public debate Adrian Monck, a managing director at the World Economic Forum, discusses the origins of how his organization has become the target of widespread conspiracy theories.

The WEF hosts a conference in Davos, Switzerland, every January where business leaders and politicians from around the world gather to exchange ideas. Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper  who endorsed Poilievre for the Conservative leadership  have attended the conference twice.

When Harper attended the conference in 2012, he gave a speech describing the WEF as "an indispensable part of the global conversation among leaders in politics, business and civil society" and said that "in the face of continuing global economic instability, the opportunity this gathering provides is now more valuable than ever."

Monck said Poilievre's decision to paint the WEF as he has is confusing.

"I don't know where he differs in his analysis from, say, Stephen Harper," he said. "We're not an advocate on behalf of any particular political viewpoint. We try and remain impartial and neutral.

"We don't stand for big, small, middle-sized governments. We deal with governments of every single stripe ... so I don't really understand where that particular analysis is coming from."

In a statement issued to CBC News, Poilievre said the annual WEF meeting in Davos "is a hypocritical gathering of billionaires, multinationals and powerful politicians" who "lecture working class people to stop buying gasoline."

"There is no apparent benefit to Canadians in being involved in it. Canadian taxpayers should not need to pay to send government leaders to attend such a meeting," Poilievre said in the statement. "Rather, ministers should put their full attention to serving everyday people in Canadian communities."

Danielle Smith, a leading candidate to replace outgoing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in the United Conservative Party leadership, has also criticized the WEF. She described it as a group of "anti-democratic elites" who have been attacking Alberta for years and want Canadians to "own nothing and be happy."
New Delhi, Sep 11 : Army chief General Manoj Pande on Sunday flew a sortie in the Indian Air Force (IAF) Apache attack helicopter in Ladakh, officials said.

The Army chief, who is a visit to Ladakh, was also briefed about the features and characteristics of the attack helicopter brought from the US.

Earlier on Friday, Indian Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal V.R. Chaudhari along with his son Mihir V. Chaudhari, a Sqn Leader, flew a sortie on Rafale fighter jet as part of three aircraft combat training mission at Air Force Station Hasimara, the IAF said in a statement.

"The sortie flown by CAS and his son is a continuation of the finest traditions of the IAF and underlines the importance accorded to grooming and preparing our young leaders for the challenges of the future," the statement said.
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 11 : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir, was caught in another controversy on Sunday after he skipped a function for inauguration of memorials of two noted Gandhians of Kerala.

Both the Gandhians - Gopinathan Nair and K.E. Maman - are highly respected in the state.

Rahul Gandhi was passing near the Noorul Islam Medical Sciences (NIMS) at Neyyatinkara during his Yatra and the organisers of the Kerala leg of the journey had agreed that he would inaugurate the memorials of the two Gandhians, constructed at the hospital building. The hospital had taken care of both the Gandhians in their medical emergencies.

While Gandhi passed in front of the NIMS hospital, he did not stop to inaugurate the memorials.

This led to controversy as families and friends of both the Gandhians, including the wife of late Gopinathan Nair, were waiting at the hospital premises for the function.

Congress's state unit President K. Sudhakaran later apologised for the goof-up and promised the NIMS Managing Director that a separate function would be organised for the inauguration.

MP Shashi Tharoor criticised Gandhi for skipping the event, saying: "Such things affect the credibility."
New Delhi, Sep 12 : A police team, which went to arrest an auto-thief in north Delhi on Sunday, got embroiled in controversy when it fired and hit him in his jaw, instead of his leg, as he pulled out a weapon on seeing them.

The incident happened behind Lakshmibai College.

The thief, identified Rinku Thukral alias Rahul alias Nitin Bhatia, has suffered a bullet injury near his jaw, though he is said to be out of danger. The police said that he was sitting in a car when he was shot at.

A senior police official said that on September 10, the police got a tip off that a stolen Brezza was parked behind Lakshmibai College, and it was to be sold to someone by an auto-thief.

The police team went to the spot and identified the vehicle. The car was found to be stolen from Karol Bagh area on September 2. The police team laid a trap and noticed two persons coming in a Baleno car to pick up the stolen vehicle.

The police said that the car took U-turn and stopped right in front of the said Breeza. After sometime, a man got off from the Baleno and went to sit inside the stolen Breeza.

"Immediately, the police swung into action, seeing the police the driver sitting in the Baleno got alerted and tried to run over the team. He somehow fled from the spot. The other person sitting in the Brezza also got alerted and took out a country made pistol and aimed it at the police team. Based on the imminent threat, one shot was fired in self- defence, which hit him near his jaw," the police said.

The injured was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment. The police said that as per doctor's opinion, his condition was stable.

In this respect a case was filed with Bharat Nagar Police Station.

The police said that the accused was found to be a habitual and dangerous criminal, previously involved in more than 30 cases of snatching, theft, excise, arms act, cheating.

The police said the accused was using many names to hide his identity and an non-bailable warrant was also issued against him.

"His other associate managed to flee away in the Baleno Car, which tried to run over the police team before escaping. A country made pistol alongwith a few live cartridges, the stolen Brezza car, among other things, have been recovered from the criminal's possession," the police said.
New Delhi, Sep 12 : The Customs officials seized 12 kg gold worth Rs 5.4 crore from a group of 23 Sudanese passengers who had arrived at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai from Dubai.

The official said that the group of 23 Sudanese gathered and attempted to clear the green channel by creating ruckus and divert attention of the customs officers.

"The Sudanese passengers deliberately created a ruckus at customs arrival area through visible signs and acts of aggression including shouting at the officers and even indulging in physical bouts," the official said.

The customs officers remained professional and through reasonable force officers were able to restrain the hostile passengers and managed the situation.

The official said that the modus operandi was to create a ruckus at the customs arrival area to facilitate sly escape of passengers carrying gold.

"Effective and swift execution by customs officers resulted in recovery of 12 gold bars of one kg each concealed in a specially designed belt worn by one passenger trying to slip away under the cover of commotion. In this matter, five other passengers who deliberately acted in hostile manner to divert attention of the customs officers were also detained for questioning," the official said.

The customs officials learnt that the six passengers had arrived at Mumbai airport with a pre-planned strategy to create situations to help slipping away of one passenger with the seized gold.

The five passengers have admitted being part of the pre-conceived conspiracy to smuggle gold and have also been arrested along with the passenger from whom the gold was recovered. All have been remanded to judicial custody of 14 days.

"In addition, six other Sudanese passengers who added to the commotion by constantly resisting customs check were apprehended. With the help of Bureau of Immigration, Mumbai Airport office, these six passengers have been blacklisted and sent back to Sudan," the official said.

Further investigation in the matter is on.
Law Office of Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP For more information about the class action lawsuit against Vitalant, call (800) 568-8020 to speak to an experienced California employment attorney today.

The San Mateo employment law attorneys, at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP, filed a class action lawsuit against Vitalant alleging the company violated the California Labor Code. The lawsuit against Vitalant is currently pending in the San Mateo County Superior Court, Case No. 22-CIV-03291. To read a copy of the Complaint, please click here.

According to the lawsuit filed, Vitalant failed to fully relieve Plaintiff for her legally required thirty (30) minute meals breaks. Employees were also allegedly required, from time to time, to work in excess of four (4) hours without being provided the legally required ten (10) minute rest periods. The California Supreme Court defines off-duty rest periods as the time during which an employee is relieved from all work-related duties and free from employer control.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act 15 U.S.C.  1681, et seq. (FCRA), provides individuals with a number of rights. Specifically, pertaining to employment-related background checks, the FCRA provides that a prospective employee must give valid consent to the background check. The FCRA requires a signed authorization and disclosure from the applicant, sometimes referred to as a consent form. Plaintiff completed the background check and authorization form, despite the authorization form being invalid under the requirements of the FCRA.

For more information about the class action lawsuit against Vitalant, call (800) 568-8020 to speak to an experienced California employment attorney today.

Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP is a labor law firm with law offices located in San Diego County, Riverside County, Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, Santa Clara County, Orange County and San Francisco County. The firm has a statewide practice of representing employees on a contingency basis for violations involving unpaid wages, overtime pay, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination and other types of illegal workplace conduct.

***THIS IS AN ATTORNEY ADVERTISEMENT***
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/11/2022



ADVERTISEMENT

RELATED LINK: '90 DAY FIANCE: BEFORE THE 90 DAYS' COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)

ADVERTISEMENT

Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

stars Memphis Smith and Hamza Moknii appear to be in a custody battle, and Hamza has provided an update on his life after the couple's split.Breakup rumors began to swirl in March when Memphis, a nurse practitioner from Muskegon, MI, and Hamza from Kairouan, Tunisia stopped following each other on Instagram and Memphis also deleted all of the photos she had with her husband."Never love a man so much that you ignore the truth about him," Memphis posted on social media at the time, adding in the caption, "Love is not only a word...but an action. Love shouldn't cause pain, hurt, stress, insecurities, anguish, trauma, or self-doubt. Real Authentic Love doesn't hurt...instead it is supposed to HEAL."And then Memphis seemed to confirm her relationship with Hamza was over in April when she called herself a "single mom" on social media and began publicly feuding with Hamza's sister Rawia Moknii -- who claimed Memphis had been treating her brother poorly, was "a cheat," and seemed too close to her ex-husband Justin Sandoval.At the time, Hamza appeared to be spending a lot of time in Chicago, IL.But Hamza took to his Instagram Stories on Wednesday to set the record straight."I get many people with the wrong idea that I left my daughter to have fun in Chicago. Even if you see me smiling on here, behind that smile in a lot of pain," Hamza, 26, claimed."I am really broken inside. I won't be OK until I see my daughter again. I am trying to get through each day. Some of you don't really know my pain."Hamza also added two broken-heart emojis to his post.Several days earlier, Hamza confirmed that he's moving back to Michigan, where his estranged wife and baby girl currently live.Hamza, who began living in Chicago in April, has led fans to believe he and Memphis have been at odds for quite some time.And Rawia seemingly confirmed last month that Memphis and Hamza's are disagreeing over visitation rights amid a custody battle over their daughter."I want to know something, is it normal in America when someone ignored a judge's ruling because in Tunisia this exposes us to [penalties]," Rawia wrote August 15 on Instagram Stories, according to In Touch Weekly."My brother suffers a lot and did not give up on seeing his daughter. Although the judge allowed him to visit, she prevent him and does not send us a picture or video of her," Rawia continued."We have suffered a lot in our childhood and my brother cannot bear the separation of her daughter anymore."After being single for four years and dating around quite a bit, Memphis met Hamza, whom she thought was very "special" eight months prior to filming : Before the 90 Days.When Memphis met Hamza, she was a single mom to a 13-year-old daughter named Kennedi, whom she welcomed from a relationship that took place 14 years prior, as well as her son with her ex-husband Justin.On the spinoff's fifth season, Memphis' trip to Tunisia was documented, and she and Hamza were shown meeting in-person and overcoming a language barrier as well as some adversity.It took some time for Memphis -- who grew up in the foster care system -- to win over Hamza's mother and sister on the series, and Hamza was angry to learn Memphis had spent four nights at her ex-husband's house towards the beginning of Memphis and Hamza's romance.Hamza also reluctantly agreed to sign a postnuptial agreement to make his new wife happy.But the couple relied on love to get them through challenges, and Memphis finally felt like she had become a part of Hamza's family, who welcomed her with open arms once she and Hamza tied the knot."In my heart, I do feel like I'm making the right decision. Hamza gives me a sense of family that I don't think I've ever really felt, and I deserve it," Memphis said on the series. "But ultimately, I don't know what to expect in the future. I just hope and pray I'm not making the wrong decision."During Memphis and Hamza's honeymoon, Memphis revealed she was pregnant.And on the Tell-All special that aired in January, Memphis said she had completed the CR-1 visa process and so Hamza had moved to the United States. He and Memphis were still together, and Hamza was thrilled to be in his baby's life, even though he had missed her birth.Memphis and Hamza were spotted filming in Michigan with their new baby in March, but that's also when the split speculation sparked.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Never mind the media, its the public you cant trust. In short that is the counter-intuitive message of Adrian Moncks controversial new book, Can You Trust The Media? (Icon). [This article is part of this months Carnival of Journalism blogfest  see the other articles at Yoni Greenbaums host-blog]

I agree with much of Adrians argument as he attempts to debunk the self-serving moral fug that surrounds the trust debate. But I draw different conclusions which I outline in my book SuperMedia.

Adrian deploys a series of case-studies and historical analyses to show how the debate around trust has clouded our view of what journalism actually does.

High-minded media commentators tend to assume that there is a crisis of trust. This is because there are frequent surveys where the public tells pollsters or academics that they dont believe what journalists tell them. There is also plenty of evidence from the Hitler Diaries to the McCanns that mainstream journalists often tell lies.

Some analysts such as Nick Flat Earth Davies blame capitalism. Others blame proprietorial influence. John Lloyd blamed the power-crazed arrogance of the journalists. Andrew Keen and Tony Blair say that New Media is making it worse.

They all assume that journalism is about telling the unvarnished truth and that the public want to consume detailed, intelligent and unbiased versions of reality. Adrian Monck disagrees.

He takes on some specific shibboleths. For example, he shows how the media didnt swallow the dodgy dossier in the lead-up to the Iraq War. He shows how media moguls have often failed in their campaigns to use their newspapers to change government policies.

On the other hand he accepts that Murdoch is far more influential than a normal businessman and that public relations companies can get their products higher profiles by manipulating the media. But his deeper point is that the media has never been morally pure and that we are probably wrong to expect that it can be.

He points out that most journalism is fundamentally a way of using information to sell advertising. Throughout history what goes in to the news media tends to be a product of both commercial imperatives and the peculiar culture of the journalists themselves. Journalism is the art of the possible, produced with limited resources against deadlines. It is always flawed and so can never be entirely trustworthy.

The public lies and the public can be stupid. People say they want more serious, objective information but then they resolutely refuse to consume it when it is provided.

In this sense, Adrian is returning to the basic Dewey-Lippman debate about the public utility and social role of the news media. The cynical side of Adrian shares Lippmans assertion that modern life is too complex for the media to explain the whole truth and for the citizen to understand. Lippman wanted the media to manufacture consent based on expert opinion, but Monck says they dont even do that. In fact, he says, the media spends most of its time distracting us rather than informing us.

Even a newspaper like the earnest Guardian/Observer is packed full of lifestyle and human interest content in an effort to make the factual reporting and analysis palatable. Although that didnt stop their Readers Editor taking to the high ground in his review of this book.

Adrian says that the idea that you can create good citizens through good media is a myth:

The idea that the public deserve the news in order for our democracy to flourish has little currency in political theory. Historically it is a radical myth. The informed citizen has replaced the honest worker has replaced the good Christian

But in the end Moncks analysis does give some succour to John Deweys idea of public journalism. His description of the challenge of reporting terror, for example, is an excellent demonstration of why we need better media coverage of community conflict and political extremism. Its just that Adrian doesnt see how the media we have can do that:

I dont really think we can expect reporting as it is currently resourced to provide either the answers of the kind of public scrutiny that these important questions require. (I dont even kow if we can ask the public en masse to be interested)

Adrian is right to insist that if we want a more trustworthy media then society has to help create it. As he says that means policy changes such as opening up government and other institutions like the courts to far greater information transparency.

But the most interesting idea is one that he doesnt quite follow through on. Adrian raises the more fundamental idea that trust isnt the thing we should be worried about:

We are simply measuring the wrong thing. Perhaps trust simply doesnt matter  certainly not in the real world, the world of finance and power. Perhaps trust is a liberal preoccupation for journalists and editors, and certainly not one shared by those who matter in the media world  the owners and consumers.

I would put it less cynically, but I think he is right. People do not use the media in a scientific way. They do not expect it to be empirically correct. They trust a media outlet because generally it reflects or complements their experience of life. They find that it is relevant and useful to their lives. It is part of their imagined and real community. Trust is a relationship not a fact.

I think that the real crisis of mainstream media today is not a moral sense of trust. It is the more practical problem that mainstream media is no longer relevant to people.

The dangerous delusion (peddled in part by Nick Davies, Andrew Keen, John Lloyd etc) is to pretend that we journalists can make the old relationship work without involving the public in the production of news. I believe that this is especially true in a New Media environment where the citizen can create their own media and seek out information with minimal mainstream media packaging. This is where Moncks book ends (and mine begins):

we need to remind ourselves of the limits of the media in providing us with important information. Those boundaries cant be reshaped by some moral revolution, they need to be recognised. Where important information falls outside the medias retreating boundaries we need to think of new ways to keep it available, so that we can access it and act upon it

I think those new ways are exactly what we should be worrying about rather than hoping to regulate or legislate for trust.

Can You Trust The Media is a very accessible history of the media and trust and a provocative attempt to prick some moral balloons. After a series of scandals about impartiality, honesty and accuracy it is a welcome breath of fresh air thinking.

[Professor Adrian Monck heads up City Universitys journalism department and has an excellent blog. Hes an award-winning TV journalist who has worked in America as well as the UK, including a spell at my former employer ITN. I should declare that we are friends but as everyone knows, we are cranky gits who will disagree with each other wherever possible.]
Members of the Brattleboro Police Department and Wilmington Police Department run from the old police station, at the Municipal Center in Brattleboro, to the Dummerston town line for the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics Vermont on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022.
Photographer / Multimedia Editor

Has been working as a photojournalist since 2007, before moving into newspapers, he worked with an NGO called Project HOPE. He then went to work for the Press and Sun-Bulletin in New York, and then in New England working for the Brattleboro Reformer.
You are the owner of this article.
Cambodian psychiatrist Chhim Sotheara (left) meets with physicians from Indonesia in Phnom Penh in an undated handout photo provided by The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation on Aug. 31, 2022.

UPDATED at 1:18 P.M. EDT on 2022-09-12

Cambodian psychiatrist Chhim Sotheara, one of four winners of this years prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, was surprised to learn he had won the award and didnt know he had been nominated to receive it, he told RFA in an interview this week.

At first, I didnt believe it, because I hadnt applied for it, Sotheara said. I thought at first it was an online scam, he said.

This is a valuable award. Only a few people in Asia have received it, and it is an honor for our country, as Cambodia will be recognized through the award, Sotheara said. The award also acknowledges the efforts he and his NGO have made over the last two decades to help the people of Cambodia, he said.

All our employees are so happy, and this will encourage us now to work even harder to deserve having received the award, he added.

Established in 1958 and named after the Philippines seventh president who died in a plane crash a year earlier, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is considered Asias most prestigious prize. It honors people across the region who have done groundbreaking work in their fields.

Also receiving the award this year are Filipina pediatrician Bernadette J. Madrid, French anti-pollution activist Gary Bencheghib, and Japanese ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori. All four are expected to attend an awards ceremony in Manila Nov. 30.

Sotheara, 54, was among the first generation of psychiatrists to graduate in Cambodia after the 1975-79 period of Khmer Rouge rule that killed an estimated 1.7 million people and left many thousands of survivors deeply traumatized, many of them living in remote rural areas of the country.

Now executive director of Cambodias Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO), Sotheara developed the concept of baksbat, or broken courage  a post-traumatic state of fear, passivity and avoidance considered most relevant and particular to the Cambodian experience.

Chhim Sotheara meets with a patient in a rural area of Cambodia, in an undated photo. Credit: Chhim Sotheara Underserved rural areas

Switching to clinical psychiatry after working for a time as a surgeon, Sotheara later quit his job at a state hospital after he was approached for help by a patient coming from a remote community and became aware of the needs going unmet in Cambodias countryside.

Sothearas NGO now delivers treatment directly to peoples homes and communities, he said. When I help one patient, I also help his family and community, because when one person experiences mental issues, we need to treat the whole family.

Many Cambodians experience mental health problems, and Sothearas TPO has not been able to respond to all their requests for help, he said. But since we started, weve improved a lot.

There were only 10 psychiatrists at Sothearas own graduation, he said.

Now we have around 100 psychiatrists, but we cant answer all the demands made of us because many of those experts like working in the city, and not many work out in the communities.

Around 80% of Cambodias population live in rural areas, and service must be provided to those people, he added.

Also speaking to RFA, TPO employee Taing Sopheap said she has worked with Chhim Sotheara for the past 15 years and has seen him sacrifice himself both physically and financially to carry out his NGOs work.

If a case is urgent and important, he will work on it regardless of the cost in time to his team or to other cases, she said.

Chhim Sotheara obtained his MD at the University of Health Science (Phnom Penh) and is a certified psychiatrist from that university and from Oslo University in Norway. He holds a Masters degree in Psychological Medicine from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and a PhD from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

He received the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice's Human Rights Award in 2012 in recognition of his work, and has testified as an expert witness on survivors' trauma at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) set up to try former top leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Richard Finney.

UPDATED: The story was updated to include additional biographical information at the end.
Western diplomats have reacted with shock to the discovery of a mass burial site and evidence of torture in Izyum days after the city was retaken from Russian forces during Ukraine's successful offensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

The diplomats said Russia must be held accountable after officials indicated that most victims at the burial site were civilians.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said on Twitter that the news of the mass burial site in Izyum "should reinforce our collective resolve to hold Russia accountable for its atrocities and to support Ukraine in its efforts to defend its homeland and liberate its citizens suffering horribly under Russia's forces."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia was behaving "horrifically" and was likely responsible for war crimes, while EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the European Union was "deeply shocked" at the discovery of the graves.

"We condemn these atrocities in the strongest possible terms," Borrell said in a statement. "Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has been leaving a trail of blood and destruction across Ukraine."

French President Emmanuel Macron added his voice to the outcry, saying that what happened in Izyum were atrocities.



"I condemn in the strongest terms the atrocities committed in Izyum, Ukraine, under Russian occupation," Macron said on Twitter. Those responsible "will have to answer for their acts. There is no peace without justice."

WATCH: RFE/RL's Maryan Kushnir visited the site and spoke with a missing-persons officer about the process of identifying victims. Subsequent exhumations uncovered bodies with ropes tied around their hands.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said at least 440 bodies had been found at the site in Izyum.

The grim discovery prompted President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to again call on the international community to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

"Russia has already become the biggest source of terrorism in the world, and no other terrorist power leaves behind so many deaths. This must be recognized legally. The world must act. Russia must be recognized as a state sponsor of terrorism," Zelenskiy said in a statement on Telegram.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said 99 percent of the bodies exhumed so far showed signs of violent death.

"There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs, and one person is buried with a rope around his neck," he said on Telegram.

He added that about 200 law enforcement officers were working at the site, and the bodies will be sent for forensic examination to determine the exact cause of death.

Ukrainian police chief Ihor Klymenko said that based on preliminary findings, most of the people buried at the site were civilians.



Asked if the Izyum site contained mainly civilians or soldiers, Klymenko told a news conference: "On a preliminary estimate, civilians. Although we have information that there are soldiers there too, we haven't recovered a single one yet."

Klymenko also said several torture sites were found in the newly liberated areas.

"I can talk about the presence of at least 10 torture centers in settlements" in the Kharkiv region, he said.

He said "two torture centers were found in Balaklia," a town in the northeast.

Thousands of Russian soldiers fled Izyum last week after occupying the city and using it as a logistics hub in the Kharkiv region. They left behind large amounts of ammunition and equipment.

Klymenko also said 204 criminal cases investigating possible war crimes committed by Russian forces had been opened over the past week.

The UN human rights office said it would send a team to Izyum, and the human rights group Amnesty International said the discovery of the mass burial site confirmed "our darkest fears."

There was no immediate comment from Russia on the discovery of the graves. Moscow has previously denied targeting civilians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments on the war since Ukraine's counteroffensive after he attended a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Uzbekistan.

Speaking on September 16, Putin vowed to press on with the war and said the "liberation" of Ukraine's entire eastern Donbas region remained Russia's main military goal.

"We aren't in a rush," Putin said, adding that Russia had only deployed volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine. He also commented publicly for the first time on Kyiv's recent military push in the northeast.

"The Kyiv authorities announced that they have launched and are conducting an active counteroffensive operation. Well, let's see how it develops, how it ends up," Putin said.

He also warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country's infrastructure. Referring to recent strikes on a reservoir dam in Kryviy Rih and electricity supplies in the Kharkiv region, Putin said: "Let's assume they're a warning. If the situation continues to develop like this, then the response will be more serious."

Putin also said Russia was gradually taking control of new areas of Ukraine.

Putin also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the SCO summit. Erdogan told the assembled leaders that efforts were being made "to finalize the conflict in Ukraine through diplomacy as soon as possible."

Putin told Erdogan, who helped broker a deal struck in July to export grain and other commodities through Ukraine's Black Sea ports, that Moscow was interested in building closer ties with Ankara and ready to "significantly increase" all exports to the country.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces repelled three Russian attacks north of the city of Donetsk, the military's General Staff said in a Facebook post.

Sea-based missiles also targeted areas of the Odesa region but were destroyed by antiaircraft units, it said.

Russian forces had launched attacks on several settlements on the Kharkiv front line, the Ukrainian military said.

In its daily intelligence bulletin, the British Defense Ministry said on September 16 that after more than six months of war, "the impact of Russia's manpower challenge has become increasingly severe," prompting Kremlin-linked Russian private military company Vagner Group to attempt recruiting Russian convicts for service in Ukraine "since at least July."

The British intelligence bulletin said convicts were being offered commutation of their sentences as well as cash incentives.

The bulletin said Russian military academies are shortening training courses and bringing cadets graduation dates forward. "This is almost certainly so cadets can be deployed to support the Ukraine operation," it said.

Late on September 15 the White House announced an additional $600 million in military aid for Ukraine as the United States moves to support Kyiv's counteroffensive.

A White House memo said U.S. President Joe Biden would use his Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows him to authorize the transfer of weapons from U.S. stocks.

The Defense Department said the aid consists of equipment and services, as well as training.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
Roger the Rat is a film by artist Roger Ballen that was created during the pandemic lockdown in South Africa. His artwork constantly blows my mind. It excites and terrifies me all at once, and always leaves me hungry for me. You can watch Roger the Rat here for free. It's 25 minutes long, and filled with characters and imagery that crawl deep under my skin. Ballen is one of my favorite living artists, and I'm always looking forward to see what he dreams up next.

From Youtube:
Russia completed its colonization of Central Asia in the late 19th century, and all that territory became part of the Soviet Union after 1917. The people of Central Asia were forced to change centuries-old habits and live as Moscow dictated, including using Russian as their first language. Russias war on Ukraine, and chauvinistic statements from Russian officials about historic Russian lands, have stirred debate and introspection among Central Asians about Russias legacy in their region and in their own lives.
The first day of September should have been a momentous occasion for the children and teachers of Primorsk in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya region.

The date -- the traditional start of the new academic year in former Soviet nations -- is usually marked with cheerful fanfare: boys and girls dressed in their nicest clothing and accompanied by parents to greet their teachers with flowers.

But this year was different for most of them.

With Primorsk under Russian control as Moscow pushes ahead with its military invasion of Ukraine, only half of the dozen local elementary schools opened their doors on September 1.

Many teachers and families in Primorsk have fled the Russian occupation, while others have refused to cooperate with the Moscow-imposed authorities despite threats, pressure, and bribes.

It is a phenomenon across the occupied territories.

As a result, Moscow is struggling to implement its program for Ukrainian children and teachers in these regions, an objective that experts say is necessary if it has any hope of consummating their incorporation into Russia.

The apparent failure to hijack the education system was evident in the list of teachers working at one of the functioning schools in Primorsk. It included a man who had been running a moonshine business for the past few years and a local priest whom locals remember as having been a poor student himself.

In the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhya region, Halina Danilchenko, the Moscow-appointed occupation administrator, admitted she hadn't found enough teachers, especially of history, for the 21 schools she planned to relaunch this year.

Such setbacks were occurring even though Russia has been resorting to tough measures to fill vacancies. Several school directors and teachers in the occupied regions have been detained or threatened in an attempt to force them to collaborate.

On Kremlin-controlled television, which is broadcast in the occupied regions, a Russian "expert" said Ukrainian teachers who refused to cooperate with the Moscow-installed authorities should be sent to labor camps for reeducation.

Viktoria Zibrova, a history teacher in Berestove in the Zaporizhzhya region, told RFE/RL that the pro-Russian authorities regularly harassed the director of the school in the neighboring village, even bursting into her home at one point.

They "wanted to frighten her because September [was] approaching, and they can't find teachers," Zibrova said.

Zibrova said she and most of the other teachers in Berestove fled after Russian authorities warned them not to speak Ukrainian at school.

Some could not leave for personal reasons, such as the need to care for elderly parents, she said. Ukraine continues to pay teachers two-thirds of their salaries so they aren't forced to cooperate out of economic necessity.

Some Ukrainian teachers who agreed or were forced to cooperate with the authorities were taken to Russia for so-called advanced training courses.

The training included not just an introduction to Russia's patriotism-infused school curriculum, but also political indoctrination.

The Russian authorities are resorting to other measures to fill the growing void of educators. They have been preventing teachers from crossing into Kyiv-controlled territory and hiring retired teachers or local residents without teaching qualifications.

Moscow has also offered incentives to Russian teachers to get them to relocate and work in the occupied territories.

Moscow is offering to pay Russian teachers an additional 7,000 to 8,500 rubles ($115-$140) a day, or more than 140,000 rubles ($2,300) a month, to work in the occupied territories.

Such a salary is high by Russian standards outside the main cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Average salaries for teachers in Russia in 2021 were about 43,000 rubles ($710) a month.

Russian government officials have claimed about 600 teachers have agreed to work in pro-Russian schools in the occupied regions.

Serhiy Horbachev, Ukraines ombudsman for education, told Current Time that Russian teachers will be viewed by local residents as part of the occupation force and treated as such, implying they could be targeted for violence.

Payments Or Bribes?

There are between 100,000 and 120,000 Ukrainian children in the occupied regions, according to the government in Kyiv.

Shortly before the academic year began, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his government would pay a one-time lump sum of 10,000 rubles ($165) to all families in the occupied regions who enroll their children in the Moscow-controlled schools, where the new curriculum denies the existence of a Ukrainian history and culture separate from that of Russia.

However, many Ukrainian families are forgoing the sum rather than subject their children to Kremlin indoctrination, several parents told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian children who attend school in the occupied regions are being taught that they are Russians and their region will soon become part of Russia.

They will also be subjected to a weekly lecture titled "Important Conversations" that will promote the Kremlin's false narratives about the war in Ukraine and about the cultures and histories of the two nations.

Russias goal "is to destroy Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian education in the region, and completely rewrite history," Yuriy Sobolevskiy, a top official on the Kherson Regional Council, told RFE/RL.

Those Ukrainian families who cannot flee are choosing to educate their children through online courses offered by Ukrainian schools. Others are schooling their children at home.

Halina, a resident of Russia-controlled Kherson who asked her full name not be used for fear of retaliation against her family, told RFE/RL she recently escaped to Kyiv-controlled territory with her school-age son in part to avoid sending him to a Russian-controlled school.

Her sister, who remained behind in Kherson, will care for their elderly parents while schooling her own two children at home, Halina said. Online education in Kherson is difficult because of disrupted Internet connections, she said.

Some institutions of higher education in the occupied regions, such as the so-called Kherson Medical College, are offering free tuition and scholarships to attract Ukrainian students.

However, diplomas from institutions in the Kremlin-controlled regions are not recognized outside those regions and Russia.

If such incentives are not sufficient, the occupation authorities are also wielding bribes and threats.

In Melitopol, where four vocational schools were combined into one due to a lack of students and teachers, the Russian authorities have allegedly warned that young men who refuse to attend classes will be drafted, said Kyiv-recognized Mayor Ivan Fedorov.

Rumors have circulated in some occupied regions that parents could lose custody of their children if they do not send them to school or face fines, prompting some parents to acquiesce.

The Kremlin has been trying to put a positive spin on the situation for audiences back in Russia. Kremlin-friendly media have reported extensively on the rebuilding and reopening of schools that had been destroyed as a result of Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.

Ukrainian parents and educators say the images of happy Ukrainian children entering functioning schools belies the reality. In some locations, children don't have books, they said. The Russia-installed authorities have destroyed Ukrainian-language textbooks, but Russian-language replacements have yet to arrive.

And even where there are books, not all teachers are familiar with the new Russia-enforced curriculum.

One resident of Melitopol told RFE/RL the school her child had previously attended had only four teachers and one of them teaches nearly every subject.

Making matters worse, Russian National Guard troops patrol school buildings, and parents are not always allowed inside.

Oleksandr Spivakovskiy, the rector of Kherson State University, described the schools as a "Potemkin village," an empty facade meant to deceive Russian citizens.

He told RFE/RL the Kremlin needs to demonstrate its success in the war and is feeding its citizens images of schools being repaired and of teachers instructing students in the new Russian curriculum when the reality is that Ukrainian locals have largely turned their backs on the occupation authorities' schools.

"But to a citizen of Russia, it looks good," he said.
In early August, the signs pointed south: Ukraine stepped up its tempo of long-range artillery and rocket attacks in the Kherson region, pounding Dnieper River crossings and Russian ammunition depots. Russia shifted sizable numbers of units southwest, away from the Donbas, in anticipation of what most observers expected was a major counteroffensive.

Last week, the signs pointed east: Over roughly a six-day period, Ukrainian forces drove east and southeast away from the city of Kharkiv, plowing through what appears to have been undermanned and poorly defended Russian defenses, making a head-snapping counteroffensive to the Oskil River and rewriting the map of the Donbas battlefield.

In doing so, experts say, Ukraine may have rewritten the narrative of the entire invasion, nearly seven months since its launch.

For weeks now, across a roughly 2,400-kilometer front line from the mouth of the Dnieper River in the southwest to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in the northeast, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been pounding each other in what many experts called a stalemated war of attrition.

Over the summer, as Western weaponry began arriving in larger quantities, things began to change. Over the past six days, however, everything changed.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

"The Ukrainians now have the initiative in this war," said Mick Ryan, a retired major general in the Australian Army and fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The Russians will now be fighting where the Ukrainians decide to attack them and not at places of their choosing."

"The loss of equipment and forces in Kharkiv means the Russians have no ability to wage any type of offensive in the short- to medium-term," said Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst for Rochan Consulting.

Ukrainian troops on September 10 claimed control of the city of Izyum, a strategic railway hub in southeast Kharkiv that had been used by Russian forces to supply its forces as they pushed westward earlier in the summer. The city had been attacked just days after the February 24 invasion and besieged for weeks until late March, when Ukraine withdrew.

With Telegram, Twitter, and other social media channels awash in photos of Ukrainian flags hoisted in towns once occupied by Russian forces, Ukrainian officials claim to have wrested more territory from the Russian Army in the past week than all the territory Russia has captured since April.

"We're advancing not only south and east but also to the north," General Valery Zaluzhniy, the top commander of Ukraine's military, said in a post on Telegram on September 11. "There are 50 kilometers to the [Russian] border."

Ukrainian troops have regained control of more than 3,000 square kilometers since the beginning of September, he said.

Later in the day on September 11, unconfirmed reports said Ukrainian forces had advanced all the way to the border with Russia. Serhiy Hayday, governor of the Luhansk region, suggested that troops were also near Lysychansk, a key city on the Siverskiy Donets River whose loss in early July was seen as a substantial defeat for Kyiv.

Punish The Commanders

While Ukrainians are optimistic, if not jubilant, from Russia's perspective it's a split screen.

Officially, there has been no public acknowledgement of the Ukrainian successes or the Russian defeats. The Defense Ministry announced that its forces were being pulled out of Izyum and nearby Balaklia and were "regrouping" elsewhere.

In Moscow on September 10, Muscovites enjoyed fireworks and danced in the streets to celebrate the Russian capital's 875th birthday. President Vladimir Putin spent the day reviewing a new martial-arts facility in Moscow and marking the opening of a new Ferris wheel.

Unofficially, there was dismay and fury, especially among the Russian military bloggers and more rabid nationalist commentators who let loose on Telegram channels, ripping into Russian commanders.

Igor Girkin, a notorious former Russian intelligence officer who played an instrumental role when war first erupted in the Donbas in 2014 and who is now an outspoken critic of the Russian military, sarcastically noted a "brilliantoperation to transfer the cities of Izyum, Balaklia, and Kupyansk to our respected Ukrainian partners."

He also acerbically suggested transferring several border districts in Russias Belgorod region to Ukraine.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the pugnacious Chechen strongman whose "Kadyrovtsy" fighters have played a visible role in several Ukrainian battles, said "mistakes were made" by Russian commanders and appeared to call the Ukrainian advances "amazing."

"If today or tomorrow no changes are made to the conduct of the special military operation, I will be forced to contact the country's leadership in order to explain the situation on Earth to them," Kadyrov wrote in a mocking post on his Telegram channel. "It is very interesting; 'amazing,' I would say."

"I'm no strategist, like at the Defense Ministry. But mistakes were made," he wrote in the post. "I think they will draw conclusions from it. And when you tell the truth to a person's face, they might not like it. But I like to tell the truth."

Its high time to punish the commanders who allowed these kinds of things to happen," another outspoken pro-Russian military blogger named Maksim Fomin said in a video posted on September 9.

WATCH: 'Many Russian Soldiers Flee': How Ukrainian Forces Liberated 20 Towns

Before the war, military experts had discounted the ability of the Ukrainian military to withstand the onslaught of the bigger and better-equipped Russian Army. But Ukrainians thwarted an initial Russian effort from the north, aimed at seizing the capital, Kyiv, prompting Russian commanders to shift forces east to the Donbas, where they made slow, grinding advances with a reported artillery advantage of 10-to-1, wearing down Ukrainian troops.

The thrust into Kharkiv, and the lightning speed with which both Ukrainians advanced and the Russians retreated, surprised even experienced watchers of how the war has unfolded.

Ryan called the Ukrainian advance "well-planned" and part of a two-pronged effort in Kherson and in Kharkiv.

"Kherson was not a feint," he said. "It is a significant operation that has been well-planned and executed against very tough Russian resistance. The operations in the north and south [and whatever comes next] appear to be part of a well-sequenced Ukrainian operational design."

"I think what happened was the Ukrainians went in with about three or four mechanized brigades and obviously didn't know what the expectation was," Muzyka told RFE/RL. "At the bare minimum, to test the Russians defenses and see what would happen. And what actually happened was a total collapse of Russian defensive military positions."

And while credit has been given to the tenacity of their soldiers, Ukrainians have also benefited from a firehose of powerful Western weaponry: U.S. long-range HIMARS artillery systems, M777 howitzers, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, French-made Caesar howitzers, and German-made Panzerhaubitze self-propelled artillery.

That has allowed the Ukrainians to fire, with pinpoint precision, at targets -- for example, bridges over the Dnieper River or command posts in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions -- from distances harder for Russian artillery to reach.

For military planners and experts, the bigger question now is what happens next. Will the Ukrainians keep their momentum, even as the supply lines stretch out and are made vulnerable? Will the Russians be able to regroup and mount a counterattack or even withstand further Ukrainian advances?

'They Can Do A Lot Of Damage To The Russians'

One of the biggest hindrances to Russias war-fighting ability has been personnel; its manpower problems have been well-documented for months now and officials have conducted a stealth mobilization campaign to replace killed and wounded personnel. U.S and Western officials say as many as 80,000 Russian troops and pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas have been killed or wounded since the start of the invasion.

Any sort of recruitment campaign going on within Russia is likely to be severely diminished as news of the Ukrainians' Kharkiv successes trickles down, Muzyka said.

"The rout will have a negative impact on recruitment," he said. "Russia does not have the manpower. The only thing they can do is force people to join, and the only way they can do that is through mobilization."

Putin's reluctance to call for a general mobilization -- effectively declaring all-out war on Ukraine -- has flummoxed experts, who have concluded the Kremlin doesnt want to roil Russian society or undermine the passive support Russians have given the war.

Russian commanders' decision to shift some of their most seasoned units away from Kharkiv, in anticipation of Kherson, further highlights that problem.

"It will depend on how fresh the Ukrainians are and what their level of logistics on wheels is," Ryan told RFE/RL. "I would expect they have been told to go hard for, for a set period -- say, a week or two -- before they can expect relief. They can do a lot of damage to the Russians during this time.

"I think the Russian tempo at the moment is unable to keep up with Ukrainian operations," he said. "Not only are the Ukrainians able to execute operations more quickly, they are doing so in a way, very geographically dispersed, which makes it hard for the Russians to reinforce between the north, east, and south."
Nick Robinson volunteered at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, along with several other Lancaster volunteer firefighters who drove seven hours to reach what remained of the World Trade Center.

"Unfortunately, we were hoping for search and rescue but it was more search and recovery," Robinson said.

Robinson was at Russell J. Salvatore's Heroes & Patriots Memorial Park on Transit Road in Amherst on Sunday for a commemoration of that tragic day, one of many occurring in Western New York and around the country. Robinson was with 10-year-old son Sean and brother Scott, a volunteer with the Twin District Fire Department. The family has had firefighters in Lancaster for some six generations.

"This day has a special meaning to me," Robinson said. "To see a lot of people come out and not forget after 21 years means a lot."

The event was organized, as it has been each year since the tragedy, by Chapter 47 of the Red Knights International Firefighters Motorcycle Club.

The ceremony began with a solemn procession featuring Marley Becker on bagpipes, an honor guard and firefighters, law enforcement and other first responders. The ringing of a fire bell was done three times in a row, followed by the playing of "Taps" to remember those killed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"Duty, honor and courage is right on the front of our new bell," said Dan Curtis, the chapter's chaplain. "That's why we all do what we do."

Curtis recalled how the club held its first 9/11 commemorative ceremony in 2002 "with a dozen people and a bouquet of flowers." Club officers presented Salvatore with a framed plaque thanking him for his support for veterans and first responders.

"This continues the promise made 21 years ago that we will never forget," said Garret Clebersley, the chapter's president.

He recalled "the people that died that day, the first responders that died that day, the military members, and the people who continue to die since they helped at the World Trade Center."

Rachel Jackson of Alden was a freshman in high school when 9/11 hit.

"I remember watching the news coverage with a pit in my stomach and so concerned about what it meant for the next day," Jackson said. "Waking up the next day and seeing our country united gave me hope we can make it through anything."

Army veteran John Miskey felt a need to be there despite a drizzling rain.

"Carrying on that memory and recognizing anyone who served and serves us today is powerful," he said.

A ceremony earlier Sunday at Amherst Memorial Hill Grove honored 27 victims who lived in or had a familial or professional connection to Amherst and Western New York, with the names of each read aloud followed by the tolling of the bell by the Getzville Fire Company.

Two others were also remembered  Ron Smeller of the Ellicott Creek Volunteer Fire Company and Irv Isenberg from the Getzville Fire Company who later died from a form of cancer linked to Ground Zero exposure. They were two of 16 Amherst firefighters from five companies who helped at Ground Zero.

"Sept. 11, 2001, is a day many of us will never forget  the horrific attacks to our beloved country," Supervisor Brian Kulpa said. "It was a tragic time but also a moment where our country united and stood together."

The event, which drew around 80 people, included a tribute to Leonard Castrianno, who died earlier this year and was the driving force behind the creation of the grove and a founding member of the 9/11 Commemorative Committee. His son Leonard died in the inside the World Trade Center North Tower.

"Americans must remember the civilians, firefighters, police officers and dedicated flight crews who died on that terrible day," Amherst Council Member Deborah Bruch Bucki said.

She is the Town Board's liaison with the Amherst 9/11 Commemoration Committee and helped present the event.
Ellen Joncheere, CEO of HRD Antwerp, in an exclusive interview with Rough&Polished told about the history of the HRD Design Awards and its new, 18th edition.

Please tell us about the history of the HRD Design Awards.

This will be the 18th edition of the HRD Design Awards. But the origin of the competition goes back to 1984. Then it was called The Antwerp Diamond High Council awards, aimed to promote diamonds in Belgium. Its only from 2003 that they decided to lift the competition up to an international level. That was a smart decision, because suddenly it gave us a much bigger platform and the ability to build international connections. It also became the biggest design competition. We had more than 800 subscriptions in our latest competition and that number is continuously growing.

For what purpose the nominations of the contest have been expanded?

We wanted to give more opportunities to young designers. We really want to make an effort to give those designers that do not know the competition yet, to participate and to do so in more categories.

Who will be on the jury?

The jury will be announced on the 11th September at Vincenzaoro. But we have some great names that represent the jewelry industry.

How many applicants and from which countries have already submitted their works?

We certainly have a good reputation in Asia and Europe, but we have submissions coming in from more than 38 countries. But for this edition we really want to welcome more entries from the USA and Africa. They are underrepresented in the competition, this is why we are working very hard in including design schools, using local influencers and with our own clients and partners to reach/be the door openers for these young and innovative designers.

Thats why its so important that we get the message out that we have a fantastic opportunity for young people to design a jewel and see it come to life and showcase it to the top of the jewel industry in Italy and globally thanks to our community. At the moment, we have just passed a 1000 entries, so this is already a record year.

But we want to be more ambitious and reach at least 2500 entries.

Are there designers from post-Soviet countries, Africa and Latin America among them?

We have submission from South-Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, . We are very lucky to have such a diverse group of people and Its my goal to expand that more and more. Jewelry design is often linked with culture and values. A Brazilian designer has a very different perception of the world as an Asian designer. The way they interpret a theme like peace will give/generate very different results and this is the strength of our initiative. The world is an eclectic place: designers translate their own experiences into their artistic view/interpretation. It gives you insight in different cultures and brings us together. It makes us understand each other better. Thats the true power of a young jewelry designers community.

How popular is the profession of a jeweler nowadays?

We live in times where creativity is the norm. Our younger generations know how to express themselves and they love to create. So we see a lot of young people, not necessarily with a formal design education, starting their own ateliers. But jewelry design is an expensive business.

Starting as a young designer makes it almost impossible to work with diamonds for example. The cost is simply too high for them to afford. Thats why I am launching on a new initiative to support young designers globally. It would be a big mistake for our sector if young minds would stop designing or need to limit themselves in their creativity. New blood is necessary to innovate our industry, so I want to embrace this challenge and support them. See it as my responsibility to support that.

What will be the reward for the winners and finalists of the contest?

The biggest reward, besides seeing your design come to life when you win in one of the categories, is that you present your creation to the top of the industry at Vicenzaoro in Italy. On top of this I strongly believe in creating a global community where we, at HRD Antwerp, become the platform to support these young minds in building their career and promoting jewellery designs like we will be doing at VO, all over the world.

What is the significance of participation and victory in the competition in the life of young designers?

This can be life changing. This is clearly a once in a lifetime opportunity to get launched in the industry or to build your own brand. The connections you will build at this event, the feedback you will get are priceless/paramount and will set you on your way to make a career profession out of your passion.

Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished
Carlsbad has hired its first chief innovation officer, a role cities across California are using to improve government efficiency and customer service through technological innovation.

David Graham has worked in local municipal government for 20 years, according to a city news release. He comes to Carlsbad from San Diego, where he most recently served as the citys deputy chief operating officer for smart and sustainable communities.

Im excited to work with the team and the community, Graham said Wednesday.

Advertisement

Cities like Carlsbad are the perfect size to quickly adopt new technologies that can save time and money while improving services for residents, he said.

One of his goals is to create sustainable communities, he said. That often means finding innovative ways to reduce energy consumption and increase reliance on renewable resources.

You need to connect the tech community to help solve challenges, Graham said. The war for talent is crucial these days.

Carlsbad recently put technology to work with the installation of an interactive traffic light system, one of the first in the region. Now, instead sending a worker in a truck to change the timing on each individual light, all the signals are interactive and can be controlled from a central location.

Traffic-light control can speed up commutes, but it also can be a matter of life and death, he said. The system can find or create the fastest routes for emergency vehicles, for example.

The more you understand vehicle traffic and pedestrian traffic, you can use that for public safety, he said.

Graham helped create San Diegos first all-electric car-share fleet, developed a streamlined open-data platform for development permits, and deployed the largest municipal network of smart LED streetlights.

With this new role, we have a unique opportunity to redefine what a well-run mid-sized city looks like in the emerging digital age, Carlsbad City Manager Scott Chadwick said in a written announcement. Chadwick was San Diegos chief operating officer before he was hired by Carlsbad early this year.

The news program CBS This Morning interviewed Graham in a recent story about smart cities that focused on San Diego, where he saved the city $2.4 million in energy costs by switching its streetlights to LED bulbs.

That was a turning point, he said, when we realized San Diego could be efficient, green and save money at the same time.

Smart cities use data and technology to improve decision-making and create better lives for people, Graham told CBS. Other helpful technology includes adaptive traffic signals and street-light-mounted sensors that transmit data over cellular connections.

Graham is also a public speaker and writer on civic innovation, sustainability and intelligent infrastructure. He is scheduled to start his Carlsbad job Nov. 26.

His salary in Carlsbad was unavailable. His base salary in San Diego was $195,000 a year in 2017, according to the website Transparent California, which tracks compensation for public officials.

Los Angeles, Sacramento and Davis are among California cities that have created chief innovation officer positions recently.

Borrowing an idea from big business, cities use the position as their new ideas guy to find and implement technologies that.make government run more smoothly.

The position is a stake in the ground for the city offering new value to citizens, usually through technology, said David Ricketts of Harvard University in an article published recently in the online journal Icons of Infrastructure.

The duties of the job often are roughly defined and can vary depending on a citys growth plans and resources, he said.

A three-page description approved Aug. 24 for the Carlsbad job states that the chief innovation officer will work under the city manager to develop smart city initiatives and assist other city departments with innovation and transformation. It lists numerous responsibilities and required qualifications.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
The judge who let former state Supreme Court Justice John A. Michalek walk out of the courthouse in July after sentencing him to jail lacked the legal authority to do so, the state Attorney General's Office said in new court documents.

The ongoing effort by Michalek and his attorney seeking to avoid incarceration for the former judge should not be permitted and is happening only because they're upset by the sentence, Assistant Attorney General Susan H. Sadinsky said in court papers.

What unfolded in the courtroom on July 28 after Acting State Supreme Court Justice Donald F. Cerio Jr. sentenced Michalek to 16 months in jail  a sentence Michalek's attorney describes as "harsh and excessive"  created an unusual scene.

Michalek pleaded guilty to felony charges of bribery and filing a false instrument in June 2016, a case connected to corruption charges against former political power broker G. Steven Pigeon.

But after Cerio pronounced the sentence and Michalek was led from the courtroom in handcuffs, attorneys and the judge had a conference in his chambers. Cerio then returned to the courtroom and announced he was going to "reschedule the matter" for another date.

Cerio said he would give Michalek's attorney, Carrie H. Cohen, a chance to make an application for "any alternative to incarceration." Michalek had not brought his medications with him, Cerio said at the time, also referencing the former judge's health.

Prosecutors from the state Attorney General's Office now call the request from Michalek's attorney "illegal."

"The application is nothing more than an improper attempt to have the defendant resentenced because of the defense's displeasure with the terms of incarceration imposed by the court on July 28, 2022," Sadinsky said in court papers. "Notably absent from the defense application is any legal authority that would permit the court to change what is otherwise a legally imposed sentence."

In pleading guilty, Michalek admitted his involvement in a scheme with Pigeon that lasted from February 2012 to April 2015. As part of the exchange, Michalek asked Pigeon for help with a possible judicial appointment and employment for two relatives, according to prosecutors. He also received Buffalo Sabres tickets and a $1,000 political fundraiser ticket free for a relative.

Pigeon got information from the judge about lawsuits to which he had connections, as well as an attorney appointed as a receiver in a foreclosure case, even though the lawyer wasn't on the court's list of qualified receivers, prosecutors said.

Michalek resigned from the bench after pleading guilty.

Michalek's attorney filed an "application for reconsideration of sentence" on Aug. 22. The Attorney General's Office filed a response on Aug. 30 and Michalek's attorney submitted a response on Tuesday.

Cohen did not return messages requesting comment.

One point of contention between the sides is whether Michalek's sentence had "commenced" when he was led out of the courtroom by an officer.

"You are now in the custody of the officers," Cerio said just before Michalek was led away, according to the court transcript. "We are in recess."

That's when prosecutors say Michalek began serving his sentence, but Michalek's attorney argues state law prohibits a sentence from being changed once a defendant has been "received" at a correctional facility.

Prosecutors argue the court "relinquished any control" over Michalek once he entered police custody.

"While the defendant's and his attorney's dismay about the terms of his jail sentence is certainly understandable," Sadinsky, the assistant attorney general, wrote, "the law does not permit a reconsideration of his sentence by the court."

Cerio also lacked the authority to release Michalek on bail after imposing sentence, prosecutors said.

Michalek's attorney described July's sentence as "not final," and called the court's filing of what's known as a "judgement of conviction," a document certifying the conviction, "an administrative or clerical error."

Cohen requested in court papers Cerio sentence Michalek to community service and home confinement, with the community service being teaching people who themselves are incarcerated.

A few pages of Michalek's initial 14-page submission were redacted by the court, including the entirety of what is the second of four arguments that Michalek should be kept out of jail.

Michalek's attorney cites his age  the former judge is 71  and the Covid-19 pandemic, along with a phrase that's been redacted, in arguing to stay out of jail.

Michalek "would not receive proper medical attention" while locked up, his attorney wrote.

She called the 16-month jail sentence "harsh and excessive" because of the six years that have passed since Michalek pleaded guilty.

The sentencing was "perpetually postponed" since 2016, "through no fault of his own and at the request of the government," Cohen wrote.

Michalek is "significantly less able to withstand any term of incarceration than he would have been had he been sentenced when he pled guilty in 2016 at age 65," his attorney wrote.

She also argues that Michalek's sentence, longer than Pigeon's one-year term, creates an "unwarranted sentencing disparity" because the former judge had a "lower level of culpability" than the former chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party. Pigeon, not Michalek, was the primary target of law enforcement's investigations, Cohen wrote. After he pleaded guilty, Michalek continued to help state and federal authorities with their cases against Pigeon, and he deserves a sentence "significantly below" the year in jail Pigeon got, she wrote.

Michalek's attorney requested a split sentence, in which only part of it would send the former judge behind bars. She also suggested having Michalek serve his sentence in a halfway house, in addition to or in place of home confinement. If the judge ultimately decides on incarceration, Michalek's attorney asked for her client to remain released pending his planned appeal of his sentence.

The next court appearance, initially scheduled for Friday, is now scheduled for Tuesday.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Maia and Mia Bravo stepped outside their Sonoma house on a bright summer day and sensed danger.

A hint of smoke from burning wood wafted through their dirt-and-grass yard anchored by native trees. Maia, 17, searched for the source as Mia, 14, reached for the garden hose, then turned on the spigot and doused the perimeter of the property with water.

The smoky smell sent the sisters back to one gusty October evening in 2017 when wildfire came for their previous home. From the back of the familys minivan that night, the girls watched flames surround their trailer in Glen Ellen, a village in Northern Californias wine country. They abandoned their belongings, including Mias favorite doll, and left without their cat, Misi, who was spooked by the fire. The only thing the family saved was the 3-month-olds baby blanket.

The family drove away, weaving through dark roads illuminated by burning trees and flaming tumbleweeds. Mia was quiet. Maia vomited.

As California wildfires grow more intense, frequent and widespread, many children who live through them are experiencing lasting psychological trauma such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Children may also develop sleep or attention problems, or struggle in school. If not managed, their emotional trauma can affect their physical health, potentially leading to chronic health problems, mental illness and substance use.

Since 2020, the state has asked doctors who participate in the states Medicaid program for low-income people to screen children  and adults  for potentially traumatic events related to adverse childhood experiences. In the states most recent batch of so-called ACEs screenings that took place from January 2020 through September 2021, children and adults were found to be at higher risk for toxic stress or trauma if they live in the states northern counties, a primarily rural region that has been struck by large wildfires in recent years.

While the screenings can help detect neglect, abuse or household dysfunction, doctors and health officials have suggested wildfires contributed to the high ACEs scores in rural Northern California. In an annual report, 70% of children and adults in Shasta County, where the Carr Fire burned in 2018, were found to be at high risk of trauma. In Napa County, where the Tubbs Fire ripped through wine country in 2017, 50% of children and adults were deemed to be at high risk of trauma.

In a supplemental analysis, researchers found that 75% of adults in some counties in Northern California have experienced one or more traumatic event, compared with 60% for the state as a whole. That includes Butte County, where the Camp Fire took the lives of 85 people.

When the population has a high range of trauma to begin with and you throw in environmental trauma, it just makes it that much worse, said Dr. Sean Dugan, a pediatrician at Shasta Community Health Center who has conducted some of the screenings, known as ACEs Aware.

Heidi de Marco/Kaiser Health News 2017

Wildfires disrupt routines, force people to move, and create instability for children who need to be comforted and assured of safety. In recent years, California demographers have attributed some dramatic population shifts to wildfires that destroy homes and displace families.

Theres nothing more stressful for a child than to see their parents freaking out, said Christopher Godley, director of emergency management for Sonoma County, which since 2015 has been hit by five of the states most destructive wildfires.

Children can also be indirect victims of wildfires. According to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 7.4 million kids in the United States are affected annually by wildfire smoke, which not only affects the respiratory system but may contribute to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, impaired school performance and memory problems.

In 2017, the Bravo family escaped the Tubbs Fire, which burned parts of Napa and Sonoma counties and the city of Santa Rosa. At the time, it was the most destructive fire in state history, leveling neighborhoods and killing nearly two dozen people.

They slept in their minivan the first night, then took shelter with family in nearby Petaluma.

I was afraid, in shock, Maia recalled. I would stay up all night.

The sisters were overjoyed to find their cat cowering underneath a neighbors trailer 15 days after they evacuated. Misis paws had been badly burned.

For the first few years after the fire, Maia had nightmares filled with orange flames, snowing ash and charred homes. She would jolt awake in a panic to the sound of fire truck sirens.

Heidi de Marco/Kaiser Health News

Children may respond differently to trauma depending on their age. Younger kids may feel anxious and fearful, eat poorly, or develop separation anxiety from parents or trusted adults. Older kids may feel depressed and lonely, develop eating disorders or self-harming behaviors, or begin to use alcohol or drugs.

When you have these kids who have had these intense evacuations, experienced losses of life, complete destruction of property, its important they have social support, said Melissa Brymer, director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Brymer said children also need coping tools to help them stay calm. These include maintaining routines, playing familiar games, exercising or seeing a counselor. Do they need comfort from their parents? Need to distract themselves? Or do some breathing exercises? she said.

Sarah Lowe, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Yale School of Public Health, said that while a little anxiety can motivate adults, it doesnt do the same for children. She recommends they maintain sleep schedules and eating times.

For kids, instilling a sense of stability and calm is really important and re-establishing some sense of routine and normalcy, Lowe said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Emergency responders have begun to integrate mental wellness, for both adults and kids, into their disaster-response plans.

Sonoma County officials now post resources for people coping with stress during wildfires alongside tips for assembling emergency kits, known as go bags, and developing an escape plan.

And the county will deploy mental health workers during disasters as part of its new emergency operations plan, Godley said. For example, the county will send behavioral health specialists to emergency shelters and work with community groups to track the needs of wildfire survivors.

Heidi de Marco/Kaiser Health News

Many of the more vulnerable populations are going to need specialized behavioral health, and thats going to be especially true for children, Godley said. You just cant pop them in front of a family and marriage therapist and expect that the kids are going to immediately be able to be really supported in that environment.

Maia and Mia moved three times after their trailer burned down. Maia started seeing the school counselor a few weeks after returning to school. Mia was more reluctant to accept help and didnt start counseling until January 2018.

Talking about it with the counselor made me calm, Maia said. Now, I can sleep. But when I hear about fires, I get nervous that its going to happen again.

Their mother, Erandy Bravo, encouraged her daughters to manage their anxiety by journaling, but the sisters opted for a more practical approach to cope with their trauma. They focused on preparation and, over summer break, kept a go bag with their schoolbooks, laptops and personal belongings they would want in case of another fire.

The girls attend workshops on how to handle anxiety at a local teen center and have become leaders in a support group. Maia, who graduated from high school in June, will study psychology when she starts at Santa Rosa Junior College in the fall. Mia, who is in the 10th grade, wants to be an emergency dispatcher.

Still, the Bravo sisters remain vigilant.

At their new home, when the sisters smelled smoke in their yard earlier this year, they soon realized it came from the neighbors chimney. Mia turned off the water and coiled up the hose. The sisters, feeling safe, let down their guard and headed back inside.

Heidi de Marco is a reporter and producer for California Healthline, where this article first appeared. She produces bilingual multimedia stories about Californias ethnic and low-income communities. Email: heidid@kff.org Twitter: @Heidi_deMarco
You've heard of college mascots.

The University at Buffalo has a superhero.

For the past few years, an anonymous UB student has roamed the campus in a head-to-toe, spandex Spider-Man suit.

The UB Spider-Man has chatted with students, hung out at school events and passed out snacks during final exam time.

He's chronicled his adventures on Instagram and has given interviews to the student newspaper and the official university news site. But, much like the original Spider-Man, he zealously guards his true identity.

"They don't know who I am  I'm Spider-Man," he said in an interview conducted, naturally, in the suit. He provided his name to The Buffalo News but spoke on condition he remain anonymous.

The UB Spider-Man said walking around in the suit eases his social anxiety. He said, so far, the university has accepted his web-slinging ways  with the exception of the time he climbed onto a North Campus pedestrian bridge.

The wall crawler graduated last spring, blending in as a regular student at commencement. But that doesn't mean he's giving up his outfit just yet.

He said he's back at UB this fall taking classes to prepare for the Law School Admission Test. And now he's got help.

An incoming freshman reached out to say he wanted to follow in his red-and-blue footsteps.

"He kind of sent me a little resume. And I said, 'You know what? If you want to do this thing, go ahead, man,' " he said. "So, I mean, there might be more than one this semester."

In a pair of interviews, Spider-Man was reluctant to reveal personal details. He said he's from the Buffalo area but wouldn't say where.

He initially declined to say what year he was in before acknowledging he graduated in May. And he wouldn't disclose what he studied beyond saying, "I don't do engineering."

His foray into superheroics began in 2019 when he ordered a form-fitting Spider-Man costume in September that didn't arrive until after Halloween.

So he figured he would put it on and wear it around campus.

"I was like, why don't I just do it, you know? It'll be fun," he said. "And I got  it was very, like, positive reactions from students and professors and stuff."

Including, he recalled, "Nice butt, Spidey."

"I'm pretty sure that's sexual harassment," he said, laughing.

He said wearing the outfit, which covers his face, gave him more self-assurance because he's an introvert with social anxiety.

"The good thing about the costume is that I have a mask. And it, literally, boosted my confidence," he said. "And it's, just  I'm amazed at the person I have become with the suit."

Those first months, he would don the suit once every few weeks.

Once, back in November 2019, he climbed on the roof of an elevated walkway connecting the Student Union and UB Commons buildings.

A UB police officer spotted him and told him to get down. Afterward, Spider-Man said he was required to write a paper reflecting on why the stunt was a bad idea.

In the introspective essay, which he shared with The News, he said he tried to provide a distraction for students stressed out during final exams.

"Maybe dressing up as Spider-Man, a fictional and silly character from Marvel, it can relax people," he wrote. "Everyone needs a break, so why not start doing it in a way I can do it? I like to pass out snacks, give advice, help kids with their homework and just to be a nice guy. I fit the voice and body shape, so I thought I could make a difference."

He acknowledged climbing on the bridge, and the Commons building itself, wasn't smart and thanked the officers who escorted him down. The Spectrum student paper wrote about him soon after the stunt.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the following spring, shutting down the campus, he stepped away from his Spider-Man persona.

When in-person classes returned, so did Spider-Man. He said he wore a Covid-19 face mask over his Spider-Man mask and passed out sanitizer and face masks, along with bags of chips, to students.

He's been invited to a handful of events, including to judge a fraternity and sorority dance contest, and his Instagram account shows him singing a karaoke version of "Fly Me to the Moon."

He said he changes into the suit, which he's upgraded a couple of times, on campus in public bathrooms.

"Baby powder is important," he said dryly.

He said only a couple of close friends know who he is. His family doesn't know and he doesn't attend class as Spider-Man.

"I separate both lives," he said.

Mental health, especially coming out of the pandemic, is a big motivator. He recalled seeing the same student, in the same clothes, in a study area on campus two days running.

"I didn't tell him what to do. I just said, 'Hey, I mean, it would be a good idea to maybe go get some sleep and relax,'" Spider-Man said. "And he was, like, freaking out about this professor that had given him a hard time. And I said, 'Man, just try to pass the class. Because once you pass, you're never going to see him again.'"

Spider-Man is, as he put it, one of the recent "mythical creatures" of UB's campus, along with the "Naked Guy" superfan, "Unicycle Guy" and "Boombox Guy."

It's not unusual for people to dress up as a favorite superhero, whether at Comic-Con conventions or on Halloween, said David Schmid, a UB associate professor of English who studies pop culture.

"There's a weird kind of contradiction, almost, that says by being someone else we find out who we are," Schmid said. "Or, to put it another way, it allows us to express a side of our personality that we ordinarily have to either repress or that we just don't get to explore."

The "Spider-Man" movies produced since Disney acquired Marvel have made the character even more popular, said Emil Novak Sr., owner of Queen City Bookstore, and a lot of teens and young adults can relate to his Peter Parker alter ego.

"So since that period on, a whole generation of young males, and even girls, they love that costume of Spider-Man," Novak said. "And, arguably, it is possibly the best-looking costume there is."

UB has embraced Spider-Man enough that the in-house news publication profiled him in April.

Phyllis Floro, the university's director of student engagement, said her main concerns were making sure Spider-Man was, in fact, a student; he had good intentions; and this wasn't a case of hazing.

"That's just the administrator in me, to be cautious," Floro said. "But I think the more I've heard about him, and then reading about him, I think his kindness was spreading very quickly. And, so, once students know that, I think it was a bit of a comfort."

UB's isn't the only Spider-Man at a college campus in New York. Stony Brook University has had several students fill the role in recent years.

UB's Spidey graduated in May but has returned to campus to take LSAT classes, with a goal of enrolling in UB Law School.

He said he hopes to pass the suit to another student eventually but was glad to hear from someone who's ready to join him now. The freshman sent photos of him in a Spider-Man suit and a note about what the character means to him.

"He was excited. I told him, 'Look, as a freshman, you know, it's hard to fit in,'" the original Spider-Man said. "'If you want to do this, you can. Just don't do anything dumb.'"
ERproductions Ltd/Getty Image

A person was found dead on the San Bruno BART station platform Sunday afternoon, forcing a temporary closure of the station, the transit agency said.

The station reopened around 2:53 p.m.  a little over an hour after it was closed, BART said.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A search for Russell City on Google Maps brings up a street within the city of Hayward. Thats because the East Bay town no longer exists.

Its been almost 60 years since Russell City, a largely Black and Latino farming community, was annexed into Hayward so city leaders could turn it into an industrial park. Roughly 1,400 residents were displaced in the process. Today, what was once the town is buried under paved parking lots, office spaces and distribution centers.

It remains an ugly chapter in Alameda Countys history.

While political apathy and opportunism erased Russell Citys physical footprint, aging former residents and their descendants have spent decades trying to preserve its memory.

I hear the stories from people who lived there about what the town meant to them, how special of a place it was, said Aisha Knowles, whose grandfather owned an automotive shop in Russell City. But for a lot of these people who are in their 70s and 80s, talking about Russell City can be painful because they remember what they lost when it was destroyed.

Who can blame them? Former Russell City residents have had to live with the question of what could have been since 1964.

Scandinavian farmers first settled Russell City in 1853. Following the Great Depression and World War II, there was an influx of Black people from the South looking to work in shipyards; and Latino folks from Southern California seeking employment in agriculture.

It wasnt by accident that they settled in Russell City. Real estate developers were steering these groups there  and away from suburbs that were largely white and affluent.

A proud, blue-collar community bloomed in the face of overt housing discrimination. Residents built homes out of plywood. They erected outhouses since nobody had indoor plumbing. They farmed livestock and opened churches and schools. At its peak, Russell Citys 12 blocks were home to more than 230 families and more than a dozen businesses, including the Honest Abe and Sons auto shop Knowles grandfather ran. Russell City even cultivated a vibrant blues scene that attracted acts from around the country.

But the townsfolk longed for more than a dirt-road, bare-bones existence. For years, local government officials ignored residents calls for improved water, fire and sewer services. And officials dismissed some residents pleas for the unincorporated Russell City to be formally annexed by Alameda County so federal funds could be used to improve the towns infrastructure.

The neglect resulted in dilapidated buildings, which the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Hayward city officials cited in the mid-1950s as justification for a redevelopment plan that would destroy Russell City.

The county began buying Russell City properties in the early 1960s at what was supposed to be market rate. Former residents dispute they were offered fair compensation. Folks who rejected the countys offers were forced from their property through eminent domain.

This was around the same time that Russell City experienced a suspicious rise in house fires. The Oakland Tribune reported that mysterious arsonists had been setting fires to dozens of homes throughout the town.

Russell City was annexed into Hayward in 1964. Alameda County bulldozed the towns last 50 buildings in 1966.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Today, Hayward is trying to atone for its role in Russell Citys demise. In June, Hayward launched its Russell City Restorative Justice Project. The projects goal is to connect with former Russell City residents and their descendants to explore forms of restitution for families who were forced out.

Hayward assistant city administrator Regina Youngblood is one of the projects leads. She told me the city has been in contact with 120 people who claim to have family ties to Russell City. Youngblood also said the project will take years to complete.

But were on the right path, she added.

Haywards project comes at a time when California is two years into studying what reparations could look like for descendants of slaves living in the state. Berkeley and San Francisco are among cities that have taken local approaches to reparations. And Oakland recently became the first city in the state to return land to indigenous people as a form of reparations.

Knowles thinks Hayward officials will have some work to do in building trust with former Russell City residents. As a Hayward native who now lives in the unincorporated community of Ashland, Knowles has spent her life around former Russell City residents. One of those people is Knowles father, who spent his childhood in a town that no longer exists.

Healing from what happened to Russell City might take generations, Knowles said. But it has to start somewhere.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Justin Phillips appears Sundays. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Mosquito Fire update: Despite aid of cooler weather, containment stuck at 10%

Firefighters made progress early Sunday against the Mosquito Fire in the Sierra foothills, aided by lower temperatures and increased humidity  though the pall of smoke also helping to reduce fire activity pushed air quality to hazardous levels north and east of the fire past the Nevada border.

The blaze, which sparked Tuesday near Foresthill and is burning in Tahoe and El Dorado national forests between Sacramento and Tahoe, had consumed 46,587 acres and was 10% contained Sunday morning, Cal Fire said in an online update.

Officials said Sunday that at least 11,260 were under evacuation orders as a result of the fire.

The Mosquito Fire is the largest wildfire Cal Fire has handled so far this year, according to the agencys records  though it is far smaller than the record-smashing blazes of other recent seasons. At No. 1 is the August Complex, which charred more than 1 million acres in 2020.

The Mosquito Fire has forced the evacuation of 11,117 people, the Placer County Sheriffs Office said Sunday on Twitter.

After generating a giant pyrocumulus cloud, the fire continued to pump smoke across a large swath of Northern California.

Air quality Sunday morning ranged from unhealthy to hazardous from Sacramento north to Redding and across the Sierra from Yosemite through Tahoe and past the northern borders of California and Nevada, according to the Sacramento office of the National Weather Service and the online airnow.gov air quality map.

Weather officials on Twitter urged residents to monitor air quality and stay indoors if possible & use an air filter in areas where conditions were unhealthy.

In South Lake Tahoe, the air quality index was at the very unhealthy level Sunday morning.

Its pretty nasty out there, Wendy Davis, a cashier at Heidis Pancake House, said in a phone interview.

The restaurant does not have outdoor seating, but Davis said people in South Lake Tahoe were staying indoors to escape the murky weather conditions.

The smoke was so potent over the weekend that some hotels reported more cancellations.

At the waterfront Beach Retreat & Lodge at Tahoe, managers told The Chronicle there were 100 cancellations over 24-hour period Friday. Guests have been checking out early this weekend as well, or choosing to remain indoors.

Managers said the smoke rivaled last year when the nearby Caldor Fire threatened and prompted evacuations in the South Lake Tahoe area. The Caldor Fire charred more than 221,800 acres southeast of South Lake Tahoe.

While the cloudy, cooler weather this weekend resulting from the remnants of Hurricane Kay after last weeks brutal Western heat wave was working in firefighters favor, the benefits were likely to be slight and brief, Cal Fire said Sunday. Brush, timber and other vegetation in the area that feeds the fire is critically dry, officials said.

Southwest winds Sunday afternoon were expected to lift the smoke inversion, creating better ventilation to fan the flames, fire officials said, and thunderstorms were forecast to the east of the fire along the Sierra Crest  creating the potential for lightning strikes.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

Winds already were picking up Sunday morning, contributing to the fires spread to the north and northeast of communities in Foresthill, and new evacuation orders and warnings were added to those already in place in both Placer and El Dorado counties.

Most of tiny Volcanovilles 231 residents had fled by Saturday, with fire crews remaining to protect structures. The fire destroyed several structures along Volcanoville Road, although official tallies had yet to indicate any lost buildings.

About 5,850 homes remain threatened, according to the Placer County Sheriffs Office.

Evacuation centers were set up in Placer County at Sierra College in Rocklin; and in El Dorado County at Cameron Park Services District in Cameron Park, and Green Valley Community Church in Placerville.

Animal evacuation centers were open in Placer County at the Animal Services Center in Auburn, and the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley; and in El Dorado County, at the Diamond Springs Shelter in Diamond Springs and the Flying M Ranch in Placerville.

No cause has yet been determined for the Mosquito Fire, though PG&E has reported electrical activity on a nearby transmission line around the start of the fire.

Chronicle staff writer Claire Hao contributed to this report.

Anna Buchmann and Jessica Flores are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: anna.buchmann@sfchronicle.com, jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @AnnaBGedit, @jesssmflores
Mount Shasta, the widely recognizable face of Californias far north, has lost almost all its defining snow cover for a second straight year.

Another summer of scorching temperatures, punctuated by the recent heat wave, has melted most of the mountains lofty white crown, typically a year-round symbol of the north states enduring wilds.

The lack of snow not only means unfamiliar views of the bare 14,000-foot-plus giant, it is hastening the demise of the mountains glaciers. While the seven named ice sheets have been retreating for years, if not decades, the diminishing snow, which helps insulate the glaciers and keep them from thawing, has caused an unprecedented melt-off: About 20% of the glaciers ice, and possibly more, is expected to have vanished over the past two summers.

The renowned Whitney Glacier  the longest glacier in California  lost up to 9 inches of ice depth a day during this months record heat, according to Mauri Pelto, director of the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project and a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts.

Scientists say the current rate of decline is simply not sustainable.

Coming soon: Today's weather forecast, in your inbox Get Bay Area forecasts and more weather news daily with our new California Weather Wonks newsletter. Sign up

If we do this a few more years, there wont be any more glacial ice on the mountain, said Phil Dawson, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Surveys California Volcano Observatory, who grew up on the slopes of the now-dormant volcano. Mount Shasta is a visual reminder that were in different times now. The Sierra glaciers are almost all gone. ... Same going north, to Alaska, and the Himalayas.

The loss of snow and ice on Mount Shasta has created a raft of problems. The rocky slopes have become destabilized as the frosty cover has faded, unleashing dangerous mudslides down the mountain. Forests are drying out and inviting more wildfire. Water supplies have shrunk for local communities dependent on springs as well as for residents statewide who rely on the mountains runoff to Shasta Lake.

This year, most of the mountains snow was gone in August, slightly later than last year but still not staying into late summer or fall, which is usually the case, if not remaining year-round. The snowpack was already low after a dry winter, which marked a third year of drought, and was no match for the above-average heat that bore down in the second half of summer.

Some snow lingers on the north side of the peak, but the southern and western flanks visible from Interstate 5 have become mostly barren. Without snow, the glaciers are directly exposed to the sun and more prone to melting.

During this months 10-day heat wave, the roughly 150-acre Whitney Glacier, which averages about 100 feet thick, lost 6 to 9 inches of ice depth a day, according to Pelto.

All of a sudden thats several percent of the glacier melting away in a short span of time, he said. Its like if you had a big pile of ice in your yard in the heat, its going to melt at a pretty good clip.

Pelto estimates that Whitney Glacier will lose up to 10% of its total volume this year after surrendering 10% to 15% last year. The other two major glaciers on the mountain, Bolam and Hotlum, are probably receding at the same pace, he says.

Thats just not a sustainable rate for more than a few years, Pelto said. And this story is being repeated. Maybe next summer it doesnt happen in California, or maybe not the same mountain range, but theres no mountain range thats escaping it over the span of two or three years.

The area that the glaciers on Mount Shasta cover is less than half what it was 20 years ago, according to Pelto.

Perhaps the biggest repercussion of the melt-off, or at least the most visible this year, is the debris flows on the south side of the mountain. As the snow and ice have disappeared, rocks and soil have become untethered.

The small town of McCloud (Siskiyou County), about an hours drive north of Redding, faced a crushing water shortage this summer after repeated mudslides in the aptly named Mud Creek filled a drainage where a critical pipeline crosses. The above-ground line had to be shut down because of the debris pounding it.

It takes us days to clear out the channel and just hours for it to fill back up, said Amos McAbier, general manager of the McCloud Community Services District, who led a futile effort to save the pipe. The mud will come in pulses. Sometimes youll see things relaxed and laid back, but then well get a pulse and well get a big mudflow.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Crews with heavy construction equipment spent weeks trying to clear debris from the creek where the towns water line runs. Fortunately, the community recently won grant money to install a new line in the ground beneath the drainage.

Its just Mother Nature, McAbier said. Its amazing and its beautiful, but it just kind of makes us feel like little ants down here.

A handful of roads around the mountain and parts of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest remain closed because of the risk of slides.

California Weather Wonks Were connecting Californians to the science of weather, explaining the how and why behind heat waves, fires and storms through forecasts, news stories and deep data dives. Through judicious science-forward reporting our team aims to become California's go-to destination for weather coverage. Reach out to us at weatherwonks@sfchronicle.com Where to find more Weather Wonks content

The U.S. Geological Survey this year installed additional seismometers around the mountain, historically used for monitoring earthquakes and volcanic activity, but now for also detecting debris flows.

Dawson, with the agency, said the past several weeks have been quiet, likely because most of the snow on the mountain is gone and whatever debris was loosened has already come down. However, he worries about water in the glaciers. While glacial melt-off normally comes in a steady trickle, the ice sheets can store large deposits of water, which can break free at any time and cause flash flooding.

Mount Shasta, Dawson said, has just changed a lot since his childhood.

Its very different in the West than it was, Dawson said. I grew up with a white mountain. Now I see brown. Its depressing.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Regarding Not everyone can afford to buy an electric car (Letters to the Editor, Sept. 8): Michael Santos accuses me, in my letter (Ready for electric cars, Aug. 28), of assuming that a $20,000 to $30,000 range is affordable for everyone. Evidently, Mr. Santos missed the final line of my letter, mentioning the availability of many used electric vehicles for under $10,000, with many from $7,000 to $9,000.

And EVs are less costly to run and require less maintenance compared to conventional autos. There are also incentive programs available to make new and used EVs more affordable. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., for example, has one.

Also, letter writer Pete Linn states that California residents were advised to not charge their EVs (Power grid not ready, Sept. 8). The truth is, Californians were advised to not charge their EVs during the 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. peak power hours, which as The Chronicle pointed out in a Front Page story (Electric cars dont cause blackouts, Sept. 8), is not really an issue. Most EV owners charge their autos overnight. Kudos to The Chronicle for placing this important report on the Front Page.

Gary Farber, Walnut Creek

Pass the Alzheimers bill

Sept. 11 is National Grandparents Day, and Im writing in honor of my grandmother, who is living with Alzheimers disease. Growing up with her and being a witness to the progression of this disease, from her being my caregiver to me being hers, has shaped my desire to become a geriatrician and help others like her manage their health.

As a recent graduate from UC Berkeley, Id like to share some numbers: There are about 30,000 people living with Alzheimers in Alameda County and more than 6 million nationwide. The number of Californians with Alzheimers is projected to more than double in 20 years.

Fortunately, in 2011, Congress passed the National Alzheimers Project Act to address this looming public health crisis. The law has led to a decade of progress, including rapid advancements in research. The law will expire in 2025, however, unless Congress acts.

I hope your readers will join me in urging Rep. Barbara Lee to join 37 of her colleagues in co-sponsoring the bipartisan NAPA Reauthorization Act, to build on the last decade of progress and help change the trajectory of Alzheimers disease. Its too late for my grandmother, but its not too late for her daughter.

Leena Usman, Oakland

Documents not Trumps

I am confused by the legal fight going on between the Justice Department and Donald Trump.

The Presidential Records Act was passed by Congress in 1978 states that all documents of any presidents administration belong to the United States. No government official or employee can walk off with those documents on their way out. Who owns presidential documents does not change whether those documents are classified or not.

Trump broke the law!

Judy Parsons, Cupertino

RIP Queen Elizabeth

The news about Queen Elizabeth IIs death brought a rush of memories to this aging ex-pat.

Our mother brought my elder sister and me to London for the coronation in 1953 and we spent the night in the small park across the street from Westminster Abbey and had a good view of the dignitaries arriving for the ceremony.

Many years passed and my brother-in-law was knighted by the queen. He told us that she good naturedly used the ceremonial sword to keep him on his knees after he started to stand up too soon.

Later still, as British ambassador to Ireland, he was summoned to the royal yacht to brief the queen on the situation in that country where his predecessor had been blown up by the IRA. He found her to be well-informed, peppering him with questions and showing great concern.

She was not all corgis and the royal wave. She cared deeply about the country, the people and the trials we all face in life. In her own way, she helped us rise above them.

Martin Russell, Mill Valley
WASHINGTON  Someday we may be calling the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station the Niagara Falls Air and Space Reserve Station.

That's because advocates for the base want to bring a Space Force National Guard unit to the Falls  that is, if Congress agrees that the Space Force should have its own National Guard.

There's a behind-the-scenes debate about that, with advocates saying the Space Force will be hampered without its own part-time Guard component and with bean counters saying the creation of a new National Guard would cost too much.

But to John Cooper, chairman of the Niagara Military Affairs Council, creating a Space Guard is important to preserving and growing Western New York's largest military facility.

"The Space Force is the future," Cooper said. "We've been trying to educate lawmakers on the importance of this, especially from the perspective of New York State. There are only seven states and one territory that have this mission in the Air National Guard at this point, so we have our foot in the door for the future with the Space Force."

The Air National Guard's 107th Attack Wing, which is based in Niagara Falls, already handles a space mission. While the Niagara Falls unit flies unmanned aircraft, its 222nd Command and Control Squadron, which operates out of Rome, works with reconnaissance satellites.

Those unmanned spies in the sky are at the heart of the Space Force's mission. Created by a bipartisan act of Congress at the behest of then-President Donald Trump in 2019, the Space Force operates in association with the Air Force in much the same way that the Marine Corps is structurally separate yet allied with the U.S. Navy.

Does the Space Force  the first new branch of the U.S. military since the Air Force was created in 1947  need the same sort of state-based, part-time component that the National Guard provides to the other parts of the military?

Retired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, president of the National Guard Association of the United States, thinks so.

"A Space National Guard is the only efficient, inexpensive way to enhance our Space Force," he said earlier this year. "It requires no new personnel, equipment or facilities  just new uniforms and a few new signs."

Advocates say that without a separate Space Guard, the Air Force National Guard members performing space missions are essentially stranded in an agency that, save for those part-timers, no longer performs space missions. Creating a Space Guard, though, would connect those Guard members with the full-time guardians  yes, that's what enlisted Space Force members are called  and make the overall operation better, said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican.

"Creating a Space National Guard would boost our military readiness and increase efficiency," Rubio said earlier this year when introducing a bill that would create a Space Guard.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who co-sponsored Rubio's legislation, said creating a separate Space Guard would have an additional benefit.

"Without a National Guard component for Space Force, we risk losing many talented individuals who want to keep serving their country and their states after they leave active duty, and that is simply unacceptable," she said.

The proposal for a Space Guard seems stalled at the moment, though, because the Biden administration is opposed to it. The Office of Management and Budget announced its opposition in a statement of administration policy a year ago.

Establishing a Space National Guard would not deliver new capabilities  it would instead create new government bureaucracy, the federal budget office said at the time. The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units with space missions have effectively performed their roles with no adverse effect on DODs space mission since the establishment of the Space Force."

In the end, Congress will decide whether to create a Space Guard, and as is often the case, Congress appears divided.

In July, the House approved a defense authorization bill that calls for the creation of a Space Guard. Both Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, and Rep. Chris Jacobs, an Orchard Park Republican, voted for that measure.

However, the draft Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the defense authorization bill deliberately excludes language creating a Space Guard.

"The committee notes that there are Air National Guard Units conducting space missions and that there is disagreement within the Department of the Air Force on how best to allocate those forces following establishment of the Space Force," the committee said in a statement. "The committee believes that any decision on transferring or reducing those missions should be made only after a full analysis of the costs, benefits, and unit impacts."

Meantime, only a dozen senators have signed onto the bill Rubio and Feinstein authored. Neither Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer nor Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a member of the Armed Services Committee, have signed on to the bill, and spokeswomen for the two New York Democrats did not answer queries about where those lawmakers stand on the issue.

To Cooper, though, the Space Guard issue is hugely important to the future of the Niagara Falls base. He worries that if the Space Force National Guard isn't created, the Air Force could shift that Rome-based space operation out of state and away from the 107th. In that case, the 107th would lose its status as a wing within the Air Force National Guard, a move that could put the base itself in jeopardy.

Cooper said just the opposite could happen with the creation of a Space Force National Guard. Not only could the unit in Rome grow, but the Niagara Falls base could end up with a locally based Space Force Guard unit, too.

"We have the space for it," he said. "We have room to grow, and getting it (a local Space Force unit) has been a goal all along," he said.
Avengers Campus in Disney California Adventure is getting a major new attraction, Josh DAmaro, chair of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, announced at D23 on Sunday.

This has always been our vision for Avengers Campus, DAmaro said. To give our guests more of what they love and then some. We want more stories. We want more heroes. We want more villains, and we want more of the land.

The expansion will include a new ride and a new superhero to meet. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced that the Marvel cinematic multiverse will inform the new ride. The Avengers Multiverse ride will replace the Wakanda-themed Quinjet attraction that was supposed to be the lands original e-ticket ride.

The fun thing about Marvel is the characters, all the characters all of the time, and with the multiverse at Avengers Campus, youre going to be able to do that, Feige said. In this new attraction, youre going to be able to battle alongside all the Avengers against all the foes from anywhere, from every when that you can possibly imagine. And youre going to meet a new villain named King Thanos. This is a new version of Thanos for the very first time coming into the MCU via this attraction.

Artist Concept/Disneyland Resort

This is a Thanos that won, Feige added. The Avengers are not too happy about that. And you have to help them.

Like Star Wars: Galaxys Edge, which opened with Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and later opened Rise of the Resistance, Avengers Campus was always designed to be a two-part rollout. When it first opened in June 2021, the land debuted Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, a virtual reality ride where riders shoot virtual webs out of their hands to defeat Spider-Bots with Spider-Man himself.

The large, empty building across from Pym Test Kitchen was supposed to house the e-ticket ride in Avengers Campus, called Avengers Quinjet Experience (its bigger, more exciting Rise of the Resistance-type ride). But in March, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the ride was in a holding pattern and there were no new developments on when it would actually happen, blaming the financial woes of the pandemic shutdown for the delay.

Details of that ride emerged at Disneyland Paris in its Hotel New York  the Art of Marvel, the worlds first Marvel-inspired hotel. Inside the hotel are 250 pieces of original Marvel art, including one piece of Quinjet ride concept art that was quickly removed.

In the leaked art, a walk-through pre-show area shows Avengers aircraft on a docking bay with cargo crates sitting below an overhead winch system  suggesting an active superhero hangar, Brady MacDonald wrote for the Orange County Register. An interior view of the attraction shows two rows of jetpack seats aligned in front of a glowing tactical display. Overhead, a massive glass ceiling-like screen provides views of the ships command deck and the outside world. A battle scene shows riders in jetpack seats flying toward a domed city engulfed in flames as smoke streams from a crashing jet in the distance.

That ride wasnt to be. As of now, the exterior of the building is used for character appearances and a stunt show.

The concept art for the new Avengers Multiverse ride includes a severe-looking King Thanos surrounded by Avengers like Thor and Spider-Man, but also the Mighty Thor, Moon Knight, both Captain Americas and both Hulks. DAmaro also announced a new character in the land. Hulk will be appearing in Avengers Campus as of next week.

Paul Morse/Disneyland Resort

Because of Universal Orlandos preexisting rights deal with Marvel, Disney cant open Avengers Campus at Walt Disney World  but it did recently open Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Epcot in May.
TORONTO (AP)  Oprah Winfrey was discussing her profound affection for trailblazing actor Sidney Poitier  a longtime friend and mentor to her  when she was overcome by emotion during an interview on the upcoming documentary  Sidney, a life-spanning portrait. She plunged her head into her hands and cried, I just love him so much.

Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman, George Nelson, Robert Redford and Halle Berry were all interviewed in Sidney, and their reflections on the iconic performer and civil-rights activist are often illuminating. But Sidney" means something intensely personal for Winfrey, a producer on the film.

I was trying not to lose it, actually, because my love for him is as deep and as strong as for any human being I know," Winfrey said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sidney premiered Saturday. He was my adviser, my counselor, my friend, my comfort, my balm, my joy.

Sidney, which Apple TV+ will premiere Sept. 23, arrives eight months after the death of Poitier, the groundbreaking actor who paved the way for countless Black actors in Hollywood and single-handedly revolutionized how they were portrayed on screen. Directed by Reginald Hudlin, Sidney was made with the cooperation of Poitier's family. Much of it had been completed before he died in January at the age of 94, including his interview with Winfrey.

But the loss of Poitier  whom Winfrey at the time of his death called the greatest of the Great Trees  has made Sidney only more poignant.

The film is an act of love for me for him, Winfrey said as tears again welled up. I dont know why Im breaking down. My opportunity to do this was my offering to him.

Winfrey has said her life was irrevocably altered when she saw Poitier become the first Black performer to win best actor at the Academy Awards (for 1963s Lilies in the Field). A life in show business suddenly became attainable to her. They later met for the first time when Winfrey's talk show was taking off. Poitier was one of the few who could understand what she was going through as a Black entertainer.

During the early days of navigating fame and all that comes with fame, being assaulted on all sides by Black people, white people, people saying youre not this or you should be doing that, he was the person I turned to, said Winfrey. He said, Its always a struggle and a challenge when you're carrying other people's dreams.'"

It was the first of many conversations over the years.

Remember Tuesdays with Morrie? I could have done Sundays with Sidney,' says Winfrey. He was my person. He was my guy. He was my friend and my brother.

Hudlin, the director of House Party and the Thurgood Marshall drama Marshall," estimates he had completed about 90% of the interviews on the film when Poitier died.

Whatever pressure I was putting on myself basically doubled, Hudlin said. There was a disappointment to know that he would never see it, but I was glad at a time when everyone wanted to touch him and connect with him, we would have this movie.

Interviews with Poitier were conducted earlier, separate of the film, before the stars health deteriorated. But the footage of Poitier speaking directly to camera, and hearing that voice narrate his life story, makes for one last chance to be in his regal presence. Poitier, born in the Bahamas, talks about how his young identity was forged without racisms influence. It wasnt until he left for Miami at 15 that he encountered it.

I left the Bahamas with this sense of myself, Poitier says in the film. And from the time I got off the boat, America began to say to me, Youre not who you think you are."

Sidney, which draws on Poitiers memoir, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, touches on some of his seminal films, including The Defiant Ones (1958), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Guess Whos Coming to Dinner. It also delves into how he connected to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement with Hollywood; his friendship with Harry Belafonte; and his move into directing with Buck and Preacher (1972). Above all, it captures how racism, or anything else, was never a match for Poitiers unshakable integrity.

For me, personally, I look and go: How did he do it, with no role model? marveled Hudlin. Hes looking at a wooded forest and he just carves a path, always making the right choice. How did he always know the right thing to do without a road map? To single-handedly take on decades of racist imagery in cinema, right from its inception, and shatter all of that misbegotten imagery with the truth of who he was.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
In the spring of 2012, portrait artist Ralph Heimans stood on the Cosmati pavement of Westminster Abbey and awaited the subject of his latest commission, Queen Elizabeth II. When she approached, he says, it was an extraordinary moment.

"She was wearing her Robe of State, with four footmen holding it, and as she came down the long corridor it was a very theatrical kind of entrance, Heimans said soon after he had learned that the queen had died Thursday at age 96.

After spending an hour the queen, discussing niceties, he came away with a sense of how thoughtful she was, almost a sense of shyness, an introspective quality. In his oil painting, which hangs in Westminster, he drew her as a solitary, even brooding figure, her eyes cast down, with the vastness of Westminster behind her like so much weight from the past  and present.

I wanted to show her in this private moment, with a certain gravity about her, he says.

Over the past 70 years, authors, filmmakers, playwrights, songwriters and painters have responded to the queen as both symbol and human being, whether commenting on the heights of her position or attempting to tease out the inner life of a woman who spoke infrequently in public and avoided personal revelations. The dual qualities, majesty and mystery, found her imagined in settings ranging from the sobriety of royal art to the rage of punk music to the varied characterizations of film and television.

I think because she was a constant presence who didn't say very much, it allowed people to project on her in different ways, says Elizabeth Holmes, whose HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style was published in 2020. Also, you can very easily make people look like the Queen. You can take that as a starting point and run.

On film, the queen has been fictionalized in everything from Helen Mirren's Oscar-winning portrayal in The Queen to the farcical Naked Gun movies and the grim Spencer, with Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana and Stella Gonet as Elizabeth. But she has been dramatized most fully in the Emmy-winning Netflix series The Crown," which follows her life from the beginning of her reign to recent times  and whose production was suspended Friday after her death.

When played by Claire Foy as a young and glamorous monarch, she is seen as finding her way in her new life, trying to maintain a happy relationship with her husband, Prince Philip. while approaching her royal duties with the sobriety of someone years older. Olivia Colman takes over as Elizabeth ages and becomes more mature and prickly, and flawed, failing initially to travel to the scene of a devastating mining tragedy in Wales and comfort the townspeople, and proving unsympathetic to Diana's troubles with her son Prince Charles.

I emote. The queen is not meant to, Colman told Vanity Fair in 2018. Shes got to be a rock for everyone, and has been trained not to (emote).

The queen herself didn't comment on works about her or always seem aware of cultural trends: Greeting Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page at a 2005 palace reception, she seemed unsure of who he was and what instrument he played. But she sensed her place in world and had enough savvy to appear with Daniel Craig, in character as James Bond, for a 2012 Olympics video, and enough good humor to allow herself to be pictured as parachuting from a helicopter with him (the former was really her, the latter a stunt double).

Fiction writers enjoyed setting the queen off on unusual adventures. In Emma Tennant's The Autobiography of the Queen, the monarch flees to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. S.J. Bennett worked from the premise What if the queen solved crimes? in writing the mystery novels The Windsor Knot and A Three Dog Problem.

She had such a unique perspective on the world. She was always looking out when everyone else was looking at her, so she must see a lot of things the rest of us dont see, Bennett, the daughter of a military veteran who had met the Queen, told The Associated Press.

It was her character that fascinated me, not her position as a symbol," she added. "She was intelligent, frequently underestimated because she wasnt traditionally educated, and endlessly curious about people. In the books I have her eagerly looking out of the windows of Buckingham Palace while being painted for a portrait, to see what was going on outside, because thats what she really did. She had a very wry sense of humor and a huge instinct for fun, but equally an almost supernatural instinct for diplomacy, and a world-class sense of duty.

Musicians have paid tribute, condemned her and invoked her name for a quick laugh.

For punk and New Wave artists, she was a monument to be torn down. The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead mocks the royal family and the succession to power: I say, Charles, dont you ever crave/To appear on the front of the Daily Mail/Dressed in your Mothers bridal veil? The Sex Pistols helped define the punk movement in 1976 with God Save the Queen," in which Johnny Rotten (now Lydon) declares No future as he snarls out some of the most scathing, nihilistic lyrics ever to top the British charts:

God save the queen

The fascist regime

They made you a moron

A potential H bomb

God save the queen

Shes not a human being ...

Songwriters otherwise responded with affection. Duke Ellington met her in the late 1950s and found her so inspiring he soon collaborated with Billy Strayhorn on the pensive The Queen's Suite, for which he arranged a single gold pressing just for her. In the late 1960s, Paul McCartney dashed off the acoustic, 23-second Her Majesty, with its cheeky refrain, Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl/But she doesn't have a lot to say," and the Beatles tacked it onto the end of Abbey Road.

As he explained in Paul McCartney: The Lyrics, published in 2021, he wrote the song in part because the queen really didn't offer many public statements, beyond her annual Christmas address and the opening of Parliament. McCartney would meet the queen numerous times, as a Beatle and a solo performer, and even played the song for her. But, he reaffirmed in his book: She didn't have a lot to say.

____

AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

NEW YORK (AP)  Tourists and New Yorkers alike crowded around the Rockefeller Center roller skating rink on Saturday trying to catch a glimpse of the vibrant statement knits on display at Victor Glemauds latest New York Fashion Week show.

For the Haitian American designer, who grew up in New York, the show held a sentimental meaning but served also as a marker in his career as his brand continues to grow. He launched his label in 2006 and has since collaborated on a collection with Target and forayed into home goods with Schumacher.

Glemauds show opened with roller skaters wearing his signature knits, bursting onto Flippers Roller Boogie Palace rink, laughing and dancing as guests looked on. It continued with models displaying sheer looks, eye-catching cutouts, a few capes and a new collection of eyewear.

Glemaud drew inspiration for his contemporary sportswear looks from a recent trip to Harbour Island in the Bahamas. Glemaud said he wanted his collection to feel effortless, joyful and something you want to wear in the summer. Models strutted around the rink in skin-baring crocheted cover-ups looking like they'd just come from an ocean resort.

Glemauds brand was one of a record-breaking 28 Black-owned brands on display this New York Fashion Week.

We have strived, and we love this industry, Glemaud said of his fellow Black designers. And, you know, our businesses for the majority are independently owned and self-financed. Fashion week means a lot. So, the more the merrier.

During the pandemic, the designer founded IN THE BLK, a nonprofit collective to support Black creators in the fashion industry.

Its about bringing collective creative entrepreneurs together, not just fashion designers, he said.

Glemauds show brought out a handful of TikTok celebrities, among them fashion influencer Brittany Xavier.

I love that his collection is so inspired by summer and being together, she said. The kind of energy that weve been missing for the past two years.

While Glemaud relied on a minimalist color palette and one animal print, that didnt stop the youthfulness of his designs from shining through with his playful cut-outs. They elevated his dresses with a subtle sensuality and gave a stylish update to swimsuits.

The capes emblazoned with the letter V" and form-fitting leopard prints would have been considered showstoppers of the night, had it not been for one moment that stood out from the rest: As the show wrapped, Glemauds mother, Julie, began to tear up with pride.

The vibration, the love, the joy, she said. It is always fun with Victor.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

FAIRFIELD  An employee of the Fairfield Museum and History Center is looking into desecrated headstones at a local Jewish cemetery as a personal project, and he says he is hoping to repair the damage.

The Congregation Shaare Torah Adath Israel Cemetery sits right on the border of Fairfield and Bridgeport on Black Rock Turnpike. While there are hundreds of graves on the site, Alec Lurie said he noticed some disturbing vandalism when he went there.

Some of the headstones, many of which are more than 100 years old, have a ceramic photograph inlaid on the stone. Of those, Lurie noticed that some had clearly been damaged intentionally, with the faces of the dead chipped out.

If you look at the photos of some of these stones from the 1940s or so, the face is just gouged out, he said, noting there are 11 graves he has found that have been defaced. Its pretty clear that it was intentional. It looks like someone took a tool to it.

Lurie, a curatorial assistant at the Fairfield Museum and History Center, said he started looking into the vandalism as a project outside of his job. He said he lives in the area and has an interest in historic cemeteries, adding Shaare Torah Adath Israel Cemetery stood out to him.

The headstones there are kind of unusual in that they have these ceramic portraits sort of inset into some of the stones of the people interred, he said. Some of these stones have photos that go as far back as the 1910s.

Lurie questions whether the damage was done with anti-Semitic intent.

Lurie said the damage is from before 2015, as an online database of headstones and photo records show the damage existed that year, when those entries were made. He said he has also checked news databases about vandalism.

The Fairfield Police Department did not respond to inquiries about whether vandalism has ever been reported at the cemetery.

When he came across the damaged memorials, Lurie said he felt like he needed to look into who those individuals were. He said he was able to trace at least three of them back to their home countries, noting most of them were Eastern European Jewish people.

I was able to get a lot of information about where they were living and their professions, he said. I was even able to find additional photos of them that could potentially be used to restore some of these graves.

One example of a headstone that was damaged was that of Rose Abeson, who was born in modern-day Ukraine in 1876, but moved to the United States in 1914.

Abeson settled in Bridgeport with her husband and their children. They eventually ran their own grocery store and produce company, and owned a home on Madison Avenue.

Lurie said he wrote an article describing the history of the cemetery and discussing the damaged headstones. He traced the lives of three of those people and wrote mini biographies on them.

There could be more interesting stories out there among the eight graves (with damage) I was able to find, he said. Its fertile soil for more research.

The Adath Israel congregation, which met in what is now the Apostolic Worship Center on East Washington Street in Bridgeport, is no longer active. Lurie nor Hearst Connecticut Media were able to make contact with whatever entity currently owns the cemetery.

Notably, there are graves there from as recently as this year.

Lurie said he wants to track down some of the descendants of the individuals with damaged headstones, as well as other stakeholders. He said some of the damage can be remedied, as he has been able to find photos of some of the people.

It would be a fairly simple task, if you knew where to look, to just take those pictures and create a new ceramic portrait for these stones, he said.

joshua.labella@hearstmediact.com
A new family-run Italian deli that's been a staple in Pacifica since 1986 is headed to San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. Colombo's Delicatessen will first offer its signature sandwiches through online orders for pick-up or delivery as early as this fall, according to Nick Colombo, co-owner of the longtime deli, and the grandson of its original founders, Emil and Doris Colombo.

We do plan on offering our most popular sandwiches there, and hoping that we can provide to the community what we provide at our Pacifica and our Redwood City locations, he told SFGATE on Friday afternoon. This fall, we are planning on offering some of our menu just online.

The upcoming location at 1 South Park Ave., Suite 103A, San Francisco, currently houses The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, which the Colombo family purchased from owners Nate Pollak and Heidi Gibson back in March. With an already working kitchen, the space was the perfect opportunity for the family's third deli, which Colombo said will fully transition into Colombo's Delicatessen in early 2023.

Jennifer L./Yelp

Two years prior to the pandemic, the Colombo family operated a commercial kitchen and catering company based in the SoMa neighborhood, where they gained a following for their sandwiches. But as time went on, and catering gigs dwindled due to the spread of the coronavirus, they decided to move away from that business model and refocus on the delis, Colombo told SFGATE.

This spot became available and we decided to take it since it was already in our neighborhood, he said of the soon-to-be deli location. And it was a good opportunity for us to do the same thing that we were already doing in the cloud kitchen.

The family's ties to making delicious sandwiches date back more than 70 years, according to Colombo. The first deli opened in 1958 in Woodside, California, as Woodside Deli, by his uncle Dan and aunt Barbara Gallinetti. Then, his grandparents Emil and Doris Colombo started Colombo's Delicatessen in 1986.

Colombo, 31, has worked for the family deli since he was a kid, and is now a co-owner along with his father, Brian Colombo, his brother and cousin.

So my earliest memories include working with my grandpa making bread and early mornings, he said. Working with my parents in doing large catering orders, and doing book work with my grandma, and just being involved in every aspect of the business with my family.

Courtesy of Colombo's Delicatessen

Colombo said one of the most popular sandwiches at the deli is the Godfather, with mortadella, Toscano salami, pepperoncinis, provolone, artichoke hearts, red onion, oil and vinegar, and prosciutto. His personal favorite, though, is the signature Hobb's Gobbler, featuring Thumann's smoked turkey, creamy havarti cheese with house-made wasabi mustard on fresh-baked Dutch crunch.

Fans of Colombo's Delicatessen would be wise to follow the deli's Instagram page for the latest updates on the new sandwich shop's progress and for the first word on when the Colombo's menu will be available for online orders, delivery and pick-up in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood.

Coming soon: Colombo's Delicatessen, 1 South Park Ave., Suite 103A, San Francisco. Online orders slated for this fall. Official grand opening is expected early 2024. For additional locations in Pacifica and Redwood City and store hours, visit the Colombo's Delicatessen website.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  New Hampshire has agreed to make upgrades at its largest fish hatchery as part of a proposed settlement following allegations that the facility was polluting nearby waterways, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The state will take action to reduce phosphorus in its discharges from the Powder Mill State Fish Hatchery to the Merrymeeting River. As part of the settlement, the state agreed to construct a new wastewater treatment systems. It also agreed to reconfigure the facilitys tanks to promote the settling of solids containing phosphorus so it can meet permit limits by Dec. 31, 2025.
Councilmembers Vanessa Perez and Mercurio Martinez sponsored a proclamation Friday that recognized September 2022 as Ovarian Cancer Awareness month in Laredo.

As the notorious cancer affects women without early detection signs, routine check-ups are encouraged to help with prevention.

At the center of the proclamation was Michelle Marie Romani, whose mother, Marie Beatrice Romani, died from ovarian cancer in 1994 after beginning to experience symptoms in 1992. Through the numerous issues and without the proper resources, specifically a gynecological oncologist in Laredo, the cancer wasnt revealed until 1993.

Ovarian cancer encompasses cancers of the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the primary peritoneum, which is the tissue that lines the abdominal wall and covers the abdominal organs.

Once returning home from her job, Romani was given the news that her mother had cancer and said that no child deserves to hear those words, regardless of age. Still, the devastating news was said and led to aggressive treatment, including a complete hysterectomy. The treatment was debilitating, and due to the lack of the oncologist, Romanis mother had to undergo the two-hour trip to San Antonio suffering the effects of the treatment.

Romani said that her mothers attitude and strength continued to peer through, as the two-hour trips were filled with her mothers singing of Christmas Carols to fight through the pain. Despite the treatment, no progress was seen. However, once again, in a show of strength and prior to her treatment; Romanis mother and father attended an award ceremony to receive an award from the Laredo Police Department as the first couple of civilian volunteers to receive the award.

She still wasnt feeling up to it, but she said you know what, she told my dad, John, 'We are going, and if there is a dance, you are going to dance with me and my tumor.' Thats the kind of woman that she was, Romani said. Her condition continued to deteriorate, even if she still held out hope. It wasnt until November when her doctor told us to make this the best holiday season, best Thanksgiving and the best Christmas, because he wasnt sure if she was going to see next Christmas. That was a very difficult Christmas for us.

After the last Christmas, on Jan. 2, 1994, Romanis mother maintained her hope. During the final daughter-mother phone call, Romani was told that the county's Head Start program requested her mother return to the children she worked with. She wanted to, but she died soon after on Jan. 7.

Throughout the devastation that cancer often leaves in its wake, proclamations like this are held to encourage families to take steps in preventing the progression from reaching critical stages and raise awareness for cancer research and the like.

Laredo Health Department Director Dr. Richard Chamberlain said that the expansion of the spotlight is vital. Ovarian Cancer has caused more deaths than other cancers affecting the female reproductive system, as in 2019, approximately 19,571 new cases were reported among women in the U.S.

Of these cases, 13,445 died from the disease.

With no early detection tests for ovarian cancer, Chamberlain said that the goal is to encourage women to get routine check-ups -- once, twice or thrice a year, the more the better. In the event ovarian cancer signs are found, proper care will then be provided.

Treatment works best when ovarian cancer is found in its early stages. It is equally important to be aware of their family history and recognize warning signs and symptoms, as an early intervention can help prevent the development of certain types of inherited cancers before they start, Chamberlain said.

Perez and Martinez emphasized their the citys commitment to ensure that awareness is brought to a silent killer to women across the country.

Perez said that it cannot be stressed enough that the city supports women and families who know someone who has gone through or is going through cancer.

Martinez echoed the importance of routine checkups, for ovarian or any other type of cancer, and lauded Romanis advocacy to ovarian cancer awareness.

Per the proclamation, ovarian cancer is reported to affect women between the ages 35-74 and is the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths. However, every woman is at risk of developing it regardless of age, heritage, etc. Mayor Pete Saenz read that an estimated 1 out of 78 women will develop ovarian cancer during their lifetime.

An estimated 19,880 women in the United States will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 12,810 are expected to die from the disease in 2022, states the American Association for Cancer Research. They also added that because it often goes untreated until the disease has advanced, the survival rate is low, with a five-year relative survival rate of 49.7%.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

RICHMOND, Va. (AP)  When Annette Marchioli first adopted Gracie, a 4-year-old beagle rescued from the Envigo breeding facility, she was so timid and frightened that she was shaking and losing fistfuls of hair.

She looked so pitiful and puny, Marchioli said of the first time she saw Gracie. Tommy DeSanto from the Richmond SPCA was carrying her in his arms. She was so tiny and timid. Her tail wouldnt come out from between her legs.

But after just a few days at her new familys home in Henrico Countys Lakeside neighborhood, along with the help of new beagle brother Rocky, Gracie has grown leaps and bounds, Marchioli said.

I thought it would take years for her to adjust, but in a matter of days, we saw her tail come out from between her legs. She wags her tail. Shes so loving and cozy. Shes the best cuddler, Marchioli said.

Gracie is one of 4,000 beagles rescued in July from overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at the Envigo breeding facility in Cumberland County.

Described as a house of horrors, Envigo housed thousands of beagles in inhumane conditions. In a lawsuit filed in federal court, authorities said they were kept in filthy conditions, fed moldy food and suffered from untreated medical issues. The dogs spent their lives in cages, never setting their paws on grass. Some beagles were euthanized without pain relief, and others were left for dead.

But in an unprecedented case, Envigo agreed to release 4,000 beagles from the plant and shut down operations. The U.S. government worked swiftly to transfer the dogs to the Humane Society of the United States, which has been working with shelters and organizations across the nation to place dogs and puppies for adoption.

In national news, even Prince Harry and Meghan Markle adopted a rescue beagle named Mia from the Virginia breeding facility.

In the Richmond area, Envigo beagles have arrived at the Richmond SPCA, Richmond Animal Care and Control, Powhatan County Animal Control, the Fredericksburg Regional SPCA and Green Dogs Unleashed, just to name a few.

Richmond Animal Care and Control has received 84 beagles to date, and the shelter has 41 dogs left in late August. Moms and puppies are currently in foster care, with the puppies waiting to be old enough to be put up for adoption, which is typically around eight weeks.

A lot of the puppies we received in July were literally just a day old, said Robin Young, a spokesperson for RACC. Once the puppies hit eight weeks, theyre ready to be weaned, get vaccinated and be scheduled to be spayed or neutered, Young said.

RACC said the shelter will post the dogs on social media when they are available for adoption with directions on how to apply.

Homeward Trails, a rescue based in Alexandria, was one of the first Virginia shelters to receive roughly 500 beagles from the Envigo facility.

The first night after we announced wed have some of the beagles, I woke up to over 1,000 emails. And that continued every day for three weeks. I was getting emails from people as far away as Australia and Puerto Rico wanting to adopt these dogs, said Sue Bell, executive director for the shelter.

Bell said that like the experience of Annette Marchioli and her husband, Ron Stilwell, with Gracie, the adult beagles are often shy and timid at first, but they quickly adapt.

The most rewarding thing is to watch them put their feet on grass for the first time  watching their little brains start to process, put their noses to the ground and run. They were running and leaping like deer. They had never done it before, Bell said.

Homeward Trails gave the dogs a spa day and their first baths. That was followed by a Netflix night, where they called in volunteers to sit and watch Homeward Bound, and snuggle with the beagles in their new beds.

Ive been doing this for 20 years, and it was absolutely one of the best nights of my life, Bell said.

She estimates that the shelter has spent $1,000 per beagle from Envigo to prepare the dogs for adoption. Those costs go to vaccines, spay/neuter, heartworm and medical treatment, and dental care.

The dogs came to us with horrific teeth. Every dog required dental cleaning or extraction, which runs $300 to $800, Bell said. All of those beagles have since been placed for adoption.

Some of the adult beagles have problems with house training, walking on a leash or going up and down stairs. But shelters are encouraging new homeowners to be patient.

We still have some issues with Gracie. She seems to be really worried about food: getting it and protecting it, Marchioli said. She still has accidents in the house, but weve only had her for two weeks. The positives so outweigh anything else.

Christi Hast and her husband, Justin, adopted a 3-year-old beagle named Dita from the Richmond SPCA to join their pack of three other rescue beagles and hound dogs.

Shes an amazing dog, very happy and fun, so easygoing, really sweet and snuggly. Shes super confident, not shy at all, Christi Hast said. Like many of the adult dogs from Envigo, Dita has a green, six-letter serial number tattooed inside one of her ears.

I know a lot of people want the puppies, but I think its important not to forget the mama dogs. Theyre really wonderful, sweet pets, Christi Hast said.

She and her husband live in Gum Spring in Goochland County with plenty of property for the dogs to roam and play. I think having the other dogs around has helped her blossom, she said.

This is truly an unprecedented case and one of the largest dog rescue efforts ever coordinated, Bell said. To know that these dogs will get to have the lives they deserve and not languish in cages for the rest of their lives is just so rewarding.

Another positive is that the public is learning more about how beagles are used in medical research. Envigo is the second-largest producer of dogs for medical research, and breeds roughly 25% of the beagles used in medical and drug research in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles Times.

Ive had so many people tell me they didnt know that beagles were used for medical research, Bell said. Were hoping to harness this momentum and educate the public.

And while interest in the Envigo beagles remains high, Richmond shelters  and rescue dog owners like Hast  urge future pet owners to consider adopting one of the thousands of dogs available at area shelters.

Many thousands more dogs find themselves homeless for any other number of unrelated reasons but are nevertheless in need of good homes, said Tamsen Kingry, CEO of the Richmond SPCA. Visiting a shelter or rescue in search of your next pet is always the best decision you can make.
AMES, Iowa (AP)  Ames Ada Hayden Heritage Park Lake is now home to one of the few accessible kayak and canoe launches in the state.

The launch allows those who use wheelchairs or have other mobility issues to transition more easily into a canoe or kayak to paddle the lake. The Access Ada Hayden project is a partnership between the city of Ames and local outdoor enthusiasts Skunk River Paddlers, and is now open for use.

One of our goals in improving our recreational amenities is to ensure all residents can enjoy being outdoors, Ames Parks and Recreation Director Keith Abraham said in a news release. We continue to seek ways to expand parks, facilities and programs to be inclusive.

The launch will be used by people like David Denhaan, of Ames, who grew up boating at his grandparents cabin on the Au Sable River in Michigan.

Ive always been out in a canoe, he said.

Denhaan has spina bifida, a spinal cord birth defect, and uses a wheelchair. Yet hes managed to still do his favorite activity: kayaking.

Ive always dealt with accessibility issues, but Ive always seemed to make it work for myself, Denhaan said last month.

He met with the Ames Parks and Recreation staff and the group Skunk River Paddlers to evaluate the launchs install on Aug. 26.

The launch includes a new concrete walkway, a floating metal dock and a chute, which is used to transfer a boat from the bank to the water. A bench lays over the boat, allowing a person to transition from the dock into the seat. They then grab a system of overhead ropes to pull themselves into their boat.

The new accessible system is for paddlers with all kinds of mobility issues, from those who use wheelchairs to people using crutches due to an injury or recent surgery, Abraham told the Ames Tribune.

The launch, which cost about $90,000, still needs some work, including leveling the lakes bank and covering a portion of the concrete walkway with outdoor carpeting, which allows wheelchair users to drag their boats without scratching them, he said.

Denhaan said he likes to kayak the Skunk and Des Moines rivers. But finding a boat launch accessible to people with mobility issues in Iowa is not easy.

Calls and emails to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, cities and counties across Iowa turned up only two other accessible boat launches in the state. Thats despite 9% of Iowans having a mobility challenge in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2019, the DNR installed an American with Disabilities Act-accessible canoe and kayak launch at Red Haw State Park near Chariton. Money for the launch was donated by the Clarence Ormond Landrum Trust, which gave $36,000.

And Des Moines installed an EZ-Launch, similar to the one in Ames, at Grays Lake Park in 2013.

Polk County plans a major accessible project at Easter Lake, which includes a similar boat launch, as well as zero-entry ramps, adaptive recreation equipment, wide sidewalks for wheelchair users to access the shorefront, and a de-escalation room for people with sensory disorders, according to a news release. Easter Lake is in southeast Des Moines.

Polk County Conservation Community Outreach Supervisor Jessica Lown said in a news release the county is attempting to make Easter Lake Parks north shore the most accessible park in America. It will be called the Athene North Shore Recreation Area.

This development project at Easter Lake Park will be a unique amenity in Polk County because it was conceived and developed with the singular goal of creating the most universally designed, accessible park in the country, Lown said in the release.

A groundbreaking is scheduled in October, with opening set for spring 2024.

The effort in Ames was started by Skunk River Paddlers, Abraham said.

They came to a public meeting for the parks and recreation improvement plan three years ago and pitched this idea, he said. We took the idea to the Parks and Recreation Commission and the council. They all loved the idea.

Abraham said the city committed up to $50,000 for the project and Skunk River Paddlers, operating under Access Ada Hayden, agreed to raise another $35,000. The local group ended up raising more, at $36,164, with donations from the Story County Foundation, the DNR and an anonymous donor who made a cedar-strip canoe that was raffled off for nearly $4,000.

This particular project was unique to the paddlers, said Rick Deitz with Skunk River Paddlers. Were used to doing river cleanups and water trail development. This was quite a big step up for everyone to do the fundraising part of it. Its quite an accomplishment for us.

Cindy Barrowcliff, also with Skunk River Paddlers, said the group is committed to access for all. Members meet at the Ada Hayden lake every Wednesday from 6:30 p.m. to dusk to build community and teach paddling skills.

Bring your boat and join us, or get ahold of us and well bring a boat for you to learn how to use it. Anybody can do this. This launch isnt meant for only mobility impaired persons, she said.

The groups website is skunkriverpaddlers.org.

Abraham said his department is committed to finding new ways to be more inclusive and accessible at all of the citys parks and facilities.

Ames is installing an accessible splash pad at Daley Park, 340 Wilder Boulevard, which will be complete in 2023. And he said the department is working with a local service group that wants to raise up to $40,000 for an inclusive swing at an Ames park. Those details arent ironed out.

The city also has hired WT Group out of Chicago to conduct an Americans with Disabilities Act audit for the department.

They will put together a transition plan and this fall we will have some public meetings where people will review it and give us some input, Abraham said. So that will really give us an idea of how to make things more accessible or more compliant with the American with Disabilities Act.
The votes have been tallied at the Aquarium of Niagara and its Humboldt penguin chick has a name  Cusco.

Pronounced "kooz-koh," the chick's name honors a city in southwestern Peru, where the Pacific coast is part of the native habitat of the species.

Cusco received 56% of more than 1,600 ballots cast during a six-day voting period, the aquarium reported in a press release. Second place name was Gus, with 30%. The third name, Boldt, got 13%.

The three names were chosen from more than 50 that were submitted along with $23 donations during a fundraising campaign to support the aquarium's penguin colony.

Cusco, the 23rd Humboldt penguin to be successfully raised at the aquarium, hatched in April along with another male chick, P.T., whose name was given by a donor who made a major gift to renovate the aquarium's penguin habitat in 2018.

Their parents, PJ Jr. and Blanca, arrived in Niagara Falls in 2019 from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium's Species Survival Plan for Humboldt penguins, which have been listed as vulnerable to extinction.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had started laying the groundwork for an Australian republic after elections in May, said Sunday that now was the time not for a change but for paying tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

Many regarded Australians respect and affection for the late monarch as the biggest obstacle to the country becoming a republic with its own head of state.

Albanese, who describes himself as the first candidate with a non-Anglo Celtic name to run for prime minister in the 121 years that the office has existed, had created a new position of Assistant Minister for the Republic and appointed Matt Thistlethwaite to the role in June. Thistlethwaite had said there would be no change in the queens lifetime.

Now is not a time to talk about our system of government, Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday. Now is the time for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth, a life well lived, a life of dedication and loyalty including to the Australian people and for us to honor and grieve.

Albanese has said previously that a republic referendum is not a priority of his first three-year term in government.

During her long reign, the queen connected to Australia in ways that no monarch before her had done.

In 1954, she became the only reigning British monarch to visit Australia. Such was her star power, an estimated 70% of Australias population turned out to see her during a punishing two-month itinerary that took her and her husband Prince Philip to 57 towns and cities spread across vast distances. She visited 16 times, the final time in 2011 when she was 85.

Her face is the only monarch to appear on Australian money since decimal currency was introduced in 1966, when Australian dollars and cents replaced British-style pounds, shillings and pence.

Her eldest son, King Charles III, was officially proclaimed Australias head of state Sunday by the monarchs Australian representative, Governor-General David Hurley, at a protocol-heavy ceremony at Parliament House that ended with a 21-gun salute.

Albanese is already planning a referendum in the current term that would enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in Australias Constitution. While details have yet to be finalized, the voice would provide a mechanism that would allow Indigenous representatives to address Parliament about laws that effect their lives.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, a monarchist, has similarly avoided questions about why Australia needs a king.

The Australian Republic Movement, an organization that campaigns for Australia to become a republic and is unaffiliated with any political party, was widely criticized over a political statement issued soon after news of the queens death.

The statement referred to the queens comments surrounding a 1999 referendum that voted to maintain the British monarch as Australias head of state.

The queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum  saying that she has always made it clear that the future of the monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means, the statement said.

That referendum largely failed because Australians were divided about what kind of president they wanted. The monarch is represented in Australia by a governor-general who in recent decades has always been an Australian citizen. The governor-general is appointed by the monarch on the prime ministers advice.

The referendum recommended that the monarch and the monarchs representative be replaced by a president chosen by at least two-thirds of lawmakers in Parliament. But many republicans wanted voters to elect the president as they do in the United States, so joined with monarchists in opposing the republic model then on offer.

The minor Greens party, which is influential in the Senate where no party holds a majority of seats, was also criticized for raising the republic within hours of the queens death.

Now Australia must move forward. We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic, Greens leader Adam Bandt tweeted on Friday. Australia is rare among former British Empire countries in having no treaty with its Indigenous peoples.

Support for the republic movement surged in 1975, when Governor-General John Kerr used Queen Elizabeth IIs authority to dismiss Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to end a constitutional crisis. There were suspicions that the British royal family had instructed Kerr to bring down a democratically elected Australian government.

Historian and Whitlam biographer Jenny Hocking fought a four-year legal battle to have correspondence between Kerr and Buckingham Palace released by the National Archive of Australia in 2020. Lower courts accepted that letters between the monarch and governor-general, two central figures in Australias Constitution, were personal and might never be made public.

But the High Court found in Hockings favor in a 6-1 majority ruling that allowed the letters to be released.

Kerr fired Whitlam to end a month-old Senate deadlock. Kerr appointed Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser caretaker prime minister on condition Fraser immediately called elections, which Labor lost.

While the queen was the monarch at the time, King Charles, then Prince Charles, had also influenced Kerrs decision to fire Whitlam, Hocking said.

Charles had been discussing with Kerr the possibility of sacking Whitlam three months before Kerr became the only governor-general to bring down an Australian government.

Its clearly an influence on Kerrs decision to dismiss the government  no doubt about that, Hocking said. Its an appalling involvement. It doesnt do anyone service to pretend thats not the case. We need to acknowledge that.

Albanese has said the 1975 crisis reinforced the need for an Australian head of state instead of a British monarch.

John Howard, a monarchist who was prime minister when Australians voted against severing their constitutional ties to their former colonial master, said those ties can survive the queens death.

The strength of the monarchy in Australia was immeasurably increased by the personal popularity of the queen, Howard said. Thats not to say it wont continue. It will continue in a different form.
BROOKFIELD  The town hopes to crack down on newcomers to Brookfield who have failed to register their cars in town.

Officials will seek bids from local firms to partner with the towns tax assessors office in order to identify these vehicles as a way to boost revenue collections.

First Selectwoman Tara Carr said Friday she frequently hears from constituents about an uptick in out-of-state license plates spotted around town, in school pick-up lines, and at local sporting fields. The trend seen as a suspected outcome from a well-noted influx of new residents who, during the pandemic, opted to relocate locally, particularly in Fairfield and Litchfield counties.

Data from the United States Postal Service showed that 30,275 people changed their primary address from New York to Connecticut between March and December of 2020.

Our assessors office does a great job, Carr said. But I think through COVID and just people becoming more transient (they need the support.)

The town is the latest locality in the area to seek the collection services, which Carr noted is provided by only a few firms specializing in the practice through the use of technology capable of identifying vehicles owned by local residents but that are not yet registered in Brookfield.

Bethel, New Milford, Stamford and Hartford all work with Municipal Tax Services, a Shelton-based outfit that, in lieu of a fee, collects 50 percent of vehicle and property taxes found in the initial years of service, CT Insider reported in October 2020.

A spokesperson for Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito said this week the city is also pursuing bids to hire a company to perform the work.

In Connecticut, all new residents must register their cars within 60 days of moving with municipalities benefiting from taxes paid on the cars.

According to recent U.S. Census surveys of state and local government finances, property taxes on residential and commercial real property, as well as vehicles, machinery, and equipment  are responsible for 98.5 percent of local tax collections in Connecticut and over half of all local revenues, including transfers from state government.

Carr said the topic has been a discussion in Brookfield for the past couple of years and she has spoken with other local leaders about engaging a firm to provide the work, noting officials in Bethel reported finding $115,000 in tax revenue from a total of 440 vehicles found not to be registered locally since January 2021.

There is a caveat because whichever company you hire to do the work, they take a cut, Carr said at the Board of Selectman meeting last week. But there is no avoiding that, its like paying any vendor to work  its more money than we have right now.
BEIJING (AP)  Almost 500 students at Chinas premier college for broadcast journalists have been sent to a quarantine center after a handful of COVID-19 cases were detected in their dormitory.

The 488 students at Communication University of China, along with 19 teachers and five assistants, were transferred by bus beginning Friday night.

Quarantining anyone considered to have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus has been a pillar of China's strict "zero-COVID" policy. The quarantine centers include field hospitals as well as converted stadiums and exhibition centers that have been criticized for overcrowding, poor sanitation and spoiled food.

As of last week, approximately 65 million Chinese residents were under lockdown despite just 1,248 new cases of domestic transmission being reported on Sunday. Most of those were asymptomatic.

The lockdowns have sparked protests online and confrontations with health workers and police, and have exacted a major toll on the economy, affecting global supply chains for electronics and other products. The weekslong lockdown in China's biggest city of Shanghai over the summer prompted an exodus of migrant workers and foreign business people.

With the release of economic data this week, analysts will be looking for insights into how China's handling of the pandemic is impacting economic activity in the worlds second-largest economy. Lockdowns have been accompanied by nearly daily testing, travel restrictions and the suspension of classes at all levels.

China has pursued the relentless enforcement of the policy, even as virtually every other country has sought to return to normal life with the help of vaccines and drugs to fight the virus.

Zero COVID is closely associated with President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, leading to accusations that the government has politicized a public health crisis. His administration has rejected statements from the World Health Organization that the policy is unsustainable, and has refused to approve foreign vaccines that are widely considered more effective than those produced by Chinese companies.

Xi, who has not traveled abroad since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, has taken control of all levers of power and struck a confrontational tone in foreign policy, while sidelining or imprisoning rivals. He has eliminated term limits on the presidency and is expected to receive a third five-year term as Communist leader at next month's party congress.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)  A few days before middle school teacher Shaun Nielsen joined a work group to develop South Dakota's social studies standards, he got a thick package in the mail.

Sent from Hillsdale, Michigan, home to a conservative private college enjoying outsize influence among top Republicans, it contained materials that would ultimately form what the state's public schools students could be expected to learn about American history and civics.

Whoa -- these are already written, Nielsen remembers thinking as he opened the document this spring.

Hillsdale College, which has sought in recent years to revive the American tradition of K-12 education by fostering a nationwide network of schools, won new prominence when then-President Donald Trump tapped the school to help develop a patriotic education project. Now, in a sign of Hillsdale's growing influence in public education, South Dakota has proposed statewide standards that contain distinct echoes of Hillsdale's material.

While Republican governors such as Tennessees Bill Lee and Floridas Ron DeSantis have embraced Hillsdales education for K-12 students, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has been perhaps the most enthusiastic. Larry Arrn, the school's president, even said in a speech last year that Noem had offered to build us an entire campus in South Dakota.

That doesn't appear to be in the works. But it was Noem, widely seen as a 2024 White House hopeful, who turned to former Hillsdale politics professor William Morrisey to develop the states social studies standards. The state paid him $200,000, and he tapped Hillsdales material, according to members of the standards commission.

The college played an integral part in Trump's 1776 Report," a conservative response to work like the New York Times' 1619 Project," which re-examined the founding of the United States with the institution of slavery at the center. Hillsdale followed up by producing The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum, which offers nearly 2,400 pages of lesson plans on American history.

South Dakotas proposed standards released in mid-August align with the 1776 Curriculum. Both emphasize the ideals of the countrys founders as an argument for American exceptionalism  an idea popular in conservative circles that the U.S. is uniquely worthy of universal praise.

The documents both define patriotism similarly, as preserving the good of the country while correcting its flaws. They teach that progressivism conflicts with the nation's founding ideals, and assert that most of the founders  including such slave owners as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison  wanted to end slavery.

Morrisey declined an interview, and Hillsdale did not grant a request to interview a member of its K-12 Education Office.

Noem's administration referred questions to Ben Jones, who oversees the South Dakota Historical Society and worked on the commission to develop the standards. Jones defended the scholarship at Hillsdale as respected in higher education and said Morrisey brought the commission a generic version of U.S. history that could be found in most textbooks.

Frankly, its a logical fallacy to say that something is bad because its associated with this group that I dont agree with over this other thing, he said of criticism of Hillsdale.

Jones pointed out that Morriseys draft included descriptions of how the first Africans were enslaved and brought to the colonies and how the U.S. broke treaties with Native American tribes.

The good, the bad, the ugly was all there, he said.

Jones added that the group discussed and debated the standards over several meetings and by the end, my sense was that we all made this very much our own.

When Noem's administration formed the 15-person commission, it chose three people, including Nielsen, currently certified to teach in South Dakota public schools. The group decided which grade levels should learn the standards and added South Dakota and Native American components to the proposal, Nielsen said.

As the proposal became public last month, Nielsen said he felt conflicted. He said he is a conservative but is careful to separate his political opinions from his classroom teaching. He said he agreed with Noem's desire to make South Dakota a national leader in social studies education and even with much of the content it covered.

Ultimately, he said, he decided to speak out against the standards because they didn't originate with South Dakota educators.

The 1776 curriculum -- its pretty much close to that," he said.

When youre handed a set of standards to approve, its not a collaborative process at all, he added. The standards, he worried, were not written with the practical needs of a classroom in mind.

Prominent voices among South Dakota educators agree. The standards  which will be subjected to public hearings this fall before the governor-appointed Board of Education Standards decides whether to adopt them  have been greeted coolly by organizations representing teachers, school boards and school administrators.

Its coming from a private, out-of-state college," said Tim Graf, the superintendent of Harrisburg School District outside Sioux Falls. "I just dont want it to be political in any way.

Jennifer Lowery, the superintendent at Tea Area School District, worried teachers for younger grade levels would have to spend more time on social studies at the expense of foundational skills like basic math and reading.

Were not stomping our feet because our feelings got hurt or our profession was disrespected, she said. Youre hearing the outcry because this isnt whats best for our kids.

Several educators said the standards rely too much on memorization and too little on inquiry-based learning that teaches students to question and analyze. Jones, the state historian, countered that memorization at younger grade levels will pave the way for analysis later.

Stephen Jackson, a history professor at the University of Sioux Falls, said that runs counter to criteria for state standards from the American Historical Association, which says inquiry engages students and helps them connect historical events to modern contexts.

Jackson was part of a group that created social studies standards last year, only to have its work scrapped by the governor. As conservatives began pushing back against historical analyses that argued racism and U.S. history are inextricably intertwined, Noem called for teaching how the U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world.

Noem said the new standards are the best in the nation, calling them a true, honest, and balanced approach to American history that is not influenced by political agendas. Hillsdale College used similar language when it launched its curriculum.

Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested high school students could benefit from analyzing the 1619 Project alongside the Trump administration's 1776 Report and learning how to evaluate and debate them. That's unlikely in South Dakota, since Noem has moved to block teachings like the 1619 Project from public schools.

People like Kristi Noem are correct when they say that the fundamental narrative of America is under challenge like never before, Zimmerman said. I just think it's a good challenge.

___

This story has been corrected to show that history professor Stephen Jackson referenced the guidelines of the American Historical Association, not the American Historical Society.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Election officials preparing for the rapidly approaching midterm elections have one more headache: trying to combat misinformation that sows distrust about voting and results while fueling vitriol aimed at rank-and-file election workers.

Some states and counties are devoting more money or staff to a problem that has only grown more concerning since the 2020 presidential election and the false claims that it was marred by widespread fraud. A barrage of misinformation in some places has led election officials to complain that Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and other social media platforms aren't doing enough to help them tackle the problem.

Our voters are angry and confused. They simply dont know what to believe, Lisa Marra, elections director in Cochise County, Arizona, told a U.S. House committee last month. Weve got to repair this damage.

Many election offices are taking matters into their own hands, starting public outreach campaigns to provide accurate information about how elections are run and how ballots are cast and counted. That means traveling town halls in Arizona, Mythbuster Mondays in North Carolina and animated videos in Ohio emphasizing the accuracy of election results. Connecticut is hiring a dedicated election misinformation analyst.

Still, the task is daunting. Despite Oregon putting additional money into joining a national #TrustedInfo2022 campaign, misinformation continues to reach social media and force local election officials to respond, taking time from other duties.

Ben Morris, spokesperson for the Oregon secretary of state's office, cited three recent Facebook posts that Meta allowed to remain on Facebook despite his office providing evidence to them that they were false.

One alleged a candidate's name had been improperly censored from election fliers. Another falsely asserted that one party was purposefully denied access to a local elections office. Yet another claimed inaccurately that election workers in Multnomah County were being required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

Metas policies are too limited to address the misinformation we see at a state and local level, Morris said. Their policies cover big national issues, but false posts about a county clerk or a state law arent removed. When you realize this could be happening at Metas scale, its deeply concerning.

The disconnect may be that Facebook policies prioritize provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential. All three posts Morris referenced were presumably too localized to have trended, though he contends they were still damaging.

They also were posted by candidates for office, a group that includes a growing number of election deniers and whose speech social media companies strive to protect.

Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss said the policies exempt much of what politicians say online because of Facebooks fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, especially in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is the most scrutinized speech there is.

But he said those protections are waived in cases of direct election interference or threats of violence or intimidation.

In Arizona's largest county, Maricopa, candidates shielded by those protections have liberally posted misinformation during this year's election cycle. That has prompted officials to aggressively condemn the false narratives themselves.

When a candidate for county supervisor encouraged supporters to steal ballot-marking pens given to them at polling places on Election Day during the states August primary, the county attorney, Rachel Mitchell, wrote warning her to stop. The candidate pushed false claims that the pens allow election workers to change peoples votes.

And when Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake made unsupported claims of potential fraud ahead of the primary, Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told local reporters her claims were beyond irresponsible.

They never brought any specifics to us, said Gates, a fellow Republican.

He said he has been more vocal on social media and more available to traditional media than ever before this year, in an effort to tamp down false election claims before they get out of hand.

Gates and County Recorder Stephen Richer regularly respond directly to false Twitter posts with the facts. Richer said his department also emails Twitter when it sees a misleading narrative or threats against election workers gathering steam online, though it has disagreed with some of the platforms responses.

When debunked claims about the county deleting election data off a server in 2021 resurfaced at an activist-led election security forum three days before the states August primary, the presenters publicly identified two election workers they claimed were responsible and called their actions a crime. That prompted threats and harassment against the workers online, part of a disturbing trend affecting election offices across the country.

Richer said the county wrote to Twitter in hopes of muting the hate, but the platform didnt always agree that the content violated its policies.

Last month, Twitter activated enforcement of 2022 election integrity policies intended to enable healthy civic conversation on Twitter, while ensuring people have the context they need to make informed decisions about content they encounter. The company's efforts included unveiling state-specific pages with live election updates featuring tweets from election officials and local reporters. The platform didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Video app TikTok, whose growing popularity has made it yet another hub for misinformation this election cycle, announced last month it is launching an election center that will help people find voting locations and candidate information. The platform said it works with over a dozen fact-checking organizations to debunk misinformation and will incorporate artificial intelligence as part of its efforts to detect and remove threats against election workers and push back against voting misinformation.

Not every state or county has Maricopa's command of social media.

Relatively few county election offices have official presences on both Facebook and Twitter, according to a recent report by a pair of scholars who specialize in voter participation and the electoral processes, Mississippi State Universitys Thessalia Merivaki and Connecticut Colleges Mara Suttmann-Lea.

Many more local offices are on just one platform or the other, and the vast majority aren't on either.

Legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year would provide $20 billion over the next decade to help state and local governments support election administration, which includes fighting misinformation.

"Election after election, millions of Americans see inaccurate or misleading information about elections and the voting process on social media, and it is hurting our democracy, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is co-sponsoring the legislation, said during a hearing last spring.

When election officials battle through staffing, funding and personal safety concerns to get more involved on social media, voters of all ages  and particularly younger voters  become more engaged, according to the recent academic report on elections. The electorate benefits, the researchers wrote, as does democracy itself.

That's just what the election supervisor's office in Collier County, Florida, is trying to do.

In one TikTok video on her personal account, office spokesperson Trish Robertson snaps her fingers to the Sicilian song Che La Luna amid images of district maps, portraits of election officials and large windows that allow for public viewing during vote counting.

The lighthearted video from June, playing off a TikTok trend in which users display essential items in their homes and offices, is one of many efforts Robertson is making to restore voters trust. Besides posting to her own TikTok feed, she manages the county supervisors social media channels, hosts transparency tours of the office and responds to piles of public record requests, which often demand information that doesnt exist.

Amid election falsehoods stoked by former President Donald Trump and amplified by his allies, Robertson said fighting misinformation has pretty much become a full-time job.

___

Associated Press misinformation reporter David Klepper contributed to this report.
Rain is possible across Connecticut into the early part of the week, forecasters with the National Weather Service said Sunday.

There is a 20 percent chance of showers in New Haven, Torrington, Norwalk and Bridgeport Sunday, with high temperatures near 80.

The possibility of precipitation is set to increase overnight across the state, then extend into next week, forecasters said.

Warm and muggy conditions Monday. Showers and thunderstorms expected across southern New England on Tuesday. Locally heavy downpours are possible at times (as a) cold front slides through, forecasters said in discussing the regional outlook. High pressure brings drier and cooler temperatures for mid to late in the week.

There will be clouds and a better than even odds of rain in much of the state on Monday and Tuesday, including Hartford and New Haven counties, according to the weather service.

Despite recent rains, the entirety of the state remained in severe drought this week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The drought, which is the states worst in at least two years, has caused soils to dry up and harden, which in turn makes it harder for the ground to absorb heavy rains, forecasters said.

For drought [to clear], you need light, steady rain for a period of time, said Torry Gaucher, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norton, Mass. The reason you need that is so that it has time to absorb into the ground.

Beggars cant be choosers, Gary Lessor, the chief meteorologist at the Western Connecticut State University Weather Center, said. Youve got to take the rain when it comes, because Mother Nature is going to dictate when it returns.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com; reporting from John Moritz is included in this story
LANSING  Michigan school officials are concerned about children going hungry or accumulating lunch debt after Congress recently ended federal funding for free meals for all students.

Families are still struggling with the economic downturn during the pandemic, said Thomas Morgan, a communications consultant for the Michigan Education Association (MEA). Its not over, and we need to make sure children are taken care of.

During the pandemic, Congress passed funding to ensure all students got free meals. That ended in August, although children who would have previously qualified for free or reduced lunches will still be able to get them if their parents fill out paperwork.

There have been instances where a parent did not fill out the paperwork, meaning a child could not get the food they need or goes into lunch debt, Morgan said.

Parents have to shift from automatically having access to free meals to having to fill out paperwork to ensure their children get what they need.

Since paperwork was not needed for the past couple of years, some parents werent aware they had to fill it out for their children to qualify,  said Tom Freitas, the director of food and nutrition services for Traverse City Public Schools. There have been issues with not having paperwork in on time, which affects the amount of pre-ordering for meals.

Traverse City Public Schools are trying to make sure all children who need free or reduced lunches are able to get them, he said.

Were doing our best to serve all our children. Right now, our superintendent is focused on getting donations, Freitas said. Wed never take away food from a child, but we do have policies in place to make sure we get the payment required. After a child is $10 in school lunch debt, the parents are contacted."

This could be a problem for parents who thought that their child was getting free meals and are suddenly confronted with lunch debt.

Funding isnt the only issue affecting free school lunches this fall. A shortage of administrators means delays in processing time for paperwork.

Morgan said, Theres a lot of paperwork that goes into providing free breakfast and lunch. The federal waivers made sure every kid had a meal automatically, meaning the paperwork wasnt necessary and so this burden was removed for administration.

Others say the shift might not be too troublesome for schools.

I dont believe schools will necessarily have any real difficulty going back to the way free lunches were processed a few years ago, said Jennifer Smith, the director of government relations for the Michigan School Board Association. The waivers did make it easier for school administration, but its not as if the infrastructure wasnt already in place.

Midland Public Schools Superintendent Michael Sharrow agrees and added that for the last 10 years, the number of those eligible for meal assistance at school has continued to grow.

"It's back to what it was, prior to the pandemic, which you have to qualify (in order to receive free or reduced-price meals)," Sharrow said in a previous interview. "I believe the qualifying factor has been lowered, so more would qualify."

Schools could take it upon themselves to continue to provide free meals for all students, as several districts across the state do.

Grand Rapids Public Schools have been providing free breakfast and lunches for all students for seven years.

I think this has been extremely beneficial for our students, said Jennifer Laninga, the nutrition services supervisor at Grand Rapids Public Schools. All of the stigma with free or reduced lunches is eliminated. Students who would otherwise avoid using these services for fear of being judged are now on an equal footing with other students.

According to Laninga, schools with over 60% of students using free lunch services can apply for Community Eligibility Provision, federally funded through the Department of Agriculture.

However, schools are not guaranteed funding unless over 80% of their students are a part of the free lunch program. A more universal approach would streamline the process and make sure all students have access to free and healthy lunches, Laninga said.

Congress is reviewing the Child Nutrition Reauthorization, said Alex Rossman, the external affairs director at the Michigan League for Public Policy, and there is a possibility that universal access for free lunches could come back.

However, that isnt likely in an election year, he said. Additional funding would be hard to achieve.

The MEAs Morgan agreed.

I dont believe itll go anywhere. Its not a big priority, even though it should be, Morgan said.

Its incredibly frustrating, especially when you realize that theyre literally taking food away from the kids who need it most.
STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP)  Starkville resident Kait Nolan has been writing since middle school, but in the last decade, she decided to make a career out of her hobby.

She hasnt looked back since, having sold about 300,000 copies of her works in print, e-book and audio formats.

Its that semi-classic story of, Ive been doing it since I was a kid, she said. When I was 12, in sixth grade, I met my best friend at the time.  We decided we were going to write a book. So, we did it that year in our big, fat three-ring spiral notebook and we just had fun writing every year, aging the characters up as we went along and eventually she said it was not her thing and I was like, Oh its mine! That was where I got bitten by the bug I guess.

Nolan, a native of Tupelo, received her undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi, and then she set off for Starkville to pursue advanced degrees at Mississippi State University.

I was finishing up my masters degree and getting ready to go into a Ph.D. program, but I knew it was not going to make me happy. I decided I did not want to spend another six years on a track that was not going to make me happy, she said. So, I stopped with my terminal masters and started treating (writing) as a job on top of all of the other actual jobs.

She was a research psychologist and instructor for MSU. After 15 years, she decided to hang it up entirely in favor of pursuing her true passion full time.

Her first book was published in 2010 when she started a series to gain followers, and it marked the beginning of a series that she would never finish.

Im self-published, she said. My very first book is no longer in print deliberately. I started in the very early days of self publishing and I was writing paranormal romance at the time. I decided I was going to write some novellas just to start building an audience for the series I was pitching to New York. It got some attention at the time and landed me an agent.

After a couple of years, Nolan decided pitching New York wasnt for her.

When I left that track, I ended up changing genres to contemporary romance, she said. So, this series that I had started was never going to be finished and I felt really bad having to tell that to readers, so I took them down.

While that series never saw an official end, Nolan is now working on the final book of her seventh series, having published more than 50 books under the umbrella of contemporary romance.

I ended up switching to contemporary because I was extremely burned out, she said. I love White Christmas with Bing Crosby, its my favorite Christmas movie and I watch it every year. I decided, as a palate cleanser, it would be fun to retell the story of White Christmas against a stage production of White Christmas. That story became Be Careful, Its My Heart, which was the first written book in my Wishful series.

She sets most of her stories in Mississippi, but some branch into surrounding southern states.

She added it was an effort to address preconceived notions that non-Mississippians have about the state.

I have, over my lifetime, been confronted with a lot of prejudice being from Mississippi, Nolan said. People, they dont know Mississippi. All they know, if theyve never been here, is the stuff thats perpetuated on the news. Thats not to say we dont have problems, we do, but everybody else does too, and so I kind of started this series because I wanted to show the good side of Mississippi to the people who have never seen it before.

Nolan was the 2018 RITA Award recipient for the Contemporary Romance: Short category for her book, Second Chance Summer. The RITA Award, now retired, was the highest award offered by the Romance Writers of America.

My RITA Award, it was a fluke, she said. It was a fluke that I entered. I had a buddy who said I should enter, and that I stood a good chance. I thought they were crazy, but I said OK.

Nolan is also going to be part of an Romance Author and Reader Events international book signing event in the spring.

My first book signing ever is actually going to be in Melbourne, Australia of all places, she added with a laugh.

Ultimately, writing is a means of escape for Nolan.

I think my favorite part about writing is also the same thing that I love about reading, its escape, she said. So much of the world is a dumpster fire, and its the thing that I want to give to my readers in the stories. Thats one of the reasons I love romance as a genre because it is an entire genre that is devoted to hope and happy endings.

She said she is often asked if shes afraid of running out of ideas.

I just laugh like a maniac because, no, thats never ever going to be a problem, she said. I am constantly having ideas from literally everywhere all of the time.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP)  Greeces prime minister says that he cannot imagine that tensions with neighboring NATO ally Turkey could ever escalate into armed conflict.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke at a press conference Sunday at the Thessaloniki International Fair, where he gave the keynote speech Saturday outlining his governments economic policy goals.

Asked by The Associated Press whether a recent escalation in rhetoric from Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could be the prelude to an armed conflict, Mitsotakis replied negatively.

I dont believe this will ever happen. And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response. And I think they know it very well. Turkey knows the competence of the Greek (armed) forces, he said.

Erdogan has accused Greece of occupying supposedly demilitarized islands in the Aegean Sea and has threatened that Turkey would take action.

Mitsotakis added that, despite Erdogans unacceptable comments, he was still open to dialogue and a meeting with him.

Mitsotakis linked Greeces unequivocal support for Ukraine to concerns that, if Russia prevails, it could serve as an example to other countries with expansionist designs.

There is a dividing line between the countries that respect the inviolability of borders (and) the rules of international law and those who believe that, based on the law of the strongest, they can target countries they believe are weaker and change the borders on a whim, Mitsotakis said.

Mitsotakis added it is very important to give Ukraine the chance to negotiate a peace with Russia on its own terms and certainly not as the loser in this war.

___

Demetris Nellas contributed from Athens, Greece
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Princes William and Harry - together with their wives - made a rare joint appearance on Saturday, greeting well-wishers gathered outside of Windsor Castle, near London, to mourn Queen Elizabeth II.

The brothers have reportedly been estranged since Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, made their highly publicized split from royal life and moved to North America. Harry and William were last pictured together following the death of Prince Philip in April 2021 and then again in July of that year for the unveiling of a statue of their mother, and the two couples haven't been seen together in public for several years.

When the Sussexes lived in Britain, Meghan had a bitter relationship with much of the U.K. tabloid press that lingers today. They charged that the tabloids had incited racism against the duchess; they also alleged that there was institutional racism within the monarchy and that Buckingham Palace had failed to protect Meghan. In recent days, as the spotlight again intensified over the two couples, Meghan has also been the target of abuse on social media.

Additionally, Harry's arrival at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, alone, before the death of his grandmother on Thursday had become a talking point. British media reported that King Charles III had told Harry it was not appropriate for Meghan to travel with him to Balmoral ahead of the queen's death, as they had apparently intended.

But Saturday's public appearance was the latest sign the royals may be repairing ties as they come together to mourn the death of their family matriarch. In his first televised speech from Buckingham Palace on Friday, Charles expressed his love for Harry and Meghan "as they continue to build their lives overseas."

On Sunday, many of the major British newspapers' front pages featured photos of the couples walking together, with headlines focused on their reunion.

Harry is fifth in line to the throne, despite a controversial decision to step back from royal duties and move to the United States with Meghan and their two children, Archie and Lilibet.

Following the queen's death and the accession of Charles as monarch, the two Sussex children are entitled to the titles "prince" and "princess." That right stems from protocols dating back to King George V in 1917, which state that the children and grandchildren of the sovereign are granted the royal titles automatically. (The official palace succession list still refers to them as Master Archie and Miss Lilibet.)

Among the many jaw-dropping claims the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made in an interview with Oprah Winfrey last year was the allegation that Buckingham Palace planned to refuse Archie the title of prince - a decision that Meghan called hurtful and suggested was driven by institutional racism within the monarchy.

In another interview, Harry said he considered the term "Megxit" - which was coined after he and his wife announced in January 2020 they would be stepping back from their roles as senior members of the royal family and dividing their time between Britain and North America - "misogynistic."

The prince and his wife have frequently highlighted the toll online hatred and misinformation can take on one's emotional health and mental well-being.

A spokesperson for William said he invited his brother and sister-in-law to join him and Catherine in meeting mourners and looking at tributes in Windsor.

The couples spent just over 30 minutes talking with members of the public before leaving in a car driven by William, who became Prince of Wales after his father's accession to the throne.

"The Waleses had always been scheduled to greet well-wishers at Windsor Castle, but royal sources say the decision to invite the Sussexes was made in the eleventh hour," royal watcher Omid Scobie wrote on Twitter. "It is, without a doubt, a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the two brothers."

Royal watcher Camilla Tominey said that in reaching out to Harry to join him on Saturday and "set the rift aside," William - the next in line to the throne - has shown he is living by his grandmother's example.

She described it as "one of the most remarkable walkabouts in modern royal history" and an episode that would make the late queen proud.

"Queen Elizabeth II famously said that it was "often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change," Tominey wrote in Britain's Telegraph newspaper.

- - -

Pannett reported from Sydney. The Washington Post's Jennifer Hassan in London contributed to this report.
A few weeks ago Laura Ingraham, one of the queens of Trumpian vitriol, suggested that it might be time to turn the page on her long-time pal. We might be forgiven for supposing that we can see light at the end of the tunnel. But Ingraham was merely picking up the scent of his rotting popularity, and is poised to move on to the next soulless apologist for bigotry, mean-spiritedness and whatever bizarre lies are required to support him or her. She merely wants to avoid waiting too long to redirect elsewhere the venom she and her ilk have cultivated among the hopelessly gullible Americans whose votes have created the current American dystopia.

If Democrats hold their advantage in the House and the Senate two months from now, you will see Republicans drop Donald Trump and his apologists like the toxic creatures they truly are, and in a matter of days they will have an entirely different message to appeal to the same old set of anti-government rights-but-no-responsibilities nonsense theyve fed to their gullible voters.

It is obvious to those of us who can see, hear, read, and think that Ingraham and her pals have been involved in a nearly decade-long production of The Emperors New Clothes. Sadly, the red hat crowd is not aware, and would have felt just as comfortable in Germany in the first half of the 20th century, easily duped and seduced by the hatred for the other spewed by a dictator and his power-hungry collaborators. Today their heroes still employ intimidation, corruption, and denial which, coincidentally, were used so successfully in America at that time by Prohibition era gangsters, who also were applauded by a significant segment of the public for avoiding taxes and thumbing their noses at the rule of law.

John Nelson

Kenmore
BRIDGEPORT  John Torres remembers when he visited his grandfather in Puerto Rico as a young boy. Many Latinos are encouraged by their parents to speak to their grandparents in their native language, especially Spanish.

But in Torres case, it was his grandfather who requested he speak English, said Torres, the executive director of Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders.

It was the opposite for Carmen Rivera, a New Yorker who grew up speaking English because her father was conscious of discrimination he suffered as a child. He wanted them to assimilate, like many other ethnic groups who saw it as a way towards acceptance in American society.

But when Rivera, who spoke Spanish with an accent, visited Puerto Rico, she was seen as a foreigner.

She took her experiences and made it into the play La Gringa about a Puerto Rican woman from New York grappling with questions about her identity. La Gringa will be performed for the first time in Bridgeport on Sept. 16.

Both Torres and Rivera said the play continues to impact people even as discussions about bicultural identity have changed in the years since the play was first performed in 1996.

La Gringa will be performed at The Klein Memorial Auditorium at 8 p.m., presented by Bridgeport Caribe Youth Leaders and various Latino cultural organizations. Tickets are priced at $25 and can be purchased online. Ticket buyers can give 20 percent of the ticket price as a donation to a local nonprofit of their choice.

Torres said the audience will learn that others have faced the same issues theyre going through.

They're going to understand some of the struggles that existed back then, when the play first came out, still continue to exist, he said.

Gringa or gringo means foreigner in Spanish, but its usually used to describe an American, particularly someone who isnt Latino. The main character of the play, Maria, is a young Puerto Rican woman who travels to the island for the first time expecting to be welcomed as a native. She quickly gets a rude awakening and realizes people on the island see her as just an American. The play details her efforts at navigating her identity.

The production is considered the longest running Spanish language Off-Broadway play, according to the production company, Concord Theatricals.

The play still resonates with Rivera even now. She said she remembered a recent conversation with friends and her husband where she spoke about her and her husbands bout with COVID.

She was jokingly told she spoke Spanish like an American.

Were talking about COVID and the end of the world and climate change, and you still had to say, I sounded like a gringa, OK. Its cool. Im older and it doesnt bother me as much, she said.

Torres said discussions about Puerto Rican identity have changed since the play was first performed. Some members of the diaspora like other diaspora populations have had some friction with native populations who have seen them as too Americanized. Hispanic populations in the United States tend to lose touch with their roots with each new generation, according to the Pew Research Center.

But, people from the diaspora, he said, are now more connected to the island and are more accepted among the population.

Theres no looking at us as any different or theyre better, and especially Puerto Rico, where theyre Americans just like we are. So that gap, I think, has closed, Torres said.

La Gringa has been performed in many places, except in Connecticut, according to a release issued by BCYL. Torres said while there wont be a series of performances, he hopes its not the last.

Performing it in Bridgeport gives families an opportunity to enjoy the play who didnt have the chance to see it otherwise, he said.

Its about bringing a Spanish-based theatrical performance that probably many of our families and youth will not experience at all. Because its being held in Bridgeport, its a lot more convenient for them, he said.

The play came out in 1996 but has since been performed around the world, Rivera said. While she doesnt go to each performance, Rivera said the play continues to resonate with people. Puerto Rican identity is the sole focus of the play but audiences see themselves in there who are also struggling with their identities, she said.

La Gringa was first performed when multiculturalism was beginning to be more mainstream, but that movement took a back seat in the post 9/11 era. Rivera said more people are open about their identities now.

I connected also to the trans movement. I have a student today, he's going to write... about transitioning from female to male, and finding self. So theres something about finding self, that were more open now, Rivera said.

Rivera also said the overseas population is more accepted and a lot of that has to do with a realization many Puerto Ricans in the United States continue to battle injustice, despite being able to move elsewhere. Puerto Rico itself suffers from high poverty rates and mismanagement from the commonwealth government. Despite being recently called a gringa, she said its much less common now than it was back then.

But some groups still learn at the end of each play to be more accepting of others and of themselves, she said.

In Colombia, I had people come up to me after the show and say, Oh my God, we tell all our cousins in Jackson Heights that theyre gringos. We're never going to say that again, she said.

eddy.martinez@hearstmediact.com

Correction  This story has been updated to reflect that John Torres was encouraged to speak English by his grandfather.
DOTHAN, Ala. (AP)  For Marvin Pinckney, running into a burning house was just instinct to do the right thing. His quick action resulted in two women being evacuated safely from an Enterprise home engulfed in flames.

The retired Army command sergeant major is a neighbor of Mary Griffin, whose Bellwood Road home was consumed by flames on Sept. 3.

Pinckney was in his garage when he saw smoke and flames coming from Griffins garage. He ran to the home and discovered that Griffin and her helper were inside.

They didnt know there was a fire at that point, Pinckney said, adding that his first effort was to get Griffin from her stationary chair to her wheelchair and her portable oxygen supply.

As the flames moved from the garage through the home, the electricity in the home went out and smoke filled the rooms, making an exit through the window of the only remaining smoke-free room the only option, Pinckney said. He lifted Griffin through the window into the arms of neighbors who had gathered outside to offer assistance.

She was most concerned about not being able to take her portable oxygen with her, Pinckney said. But I assured her that the rescue squad would have some.

The women were transported to a hospital by Enterprise Rescue Squad.

Family friend Charlene Goolsby has visited Griffin, and said she is recovering from non-life threatening injuries. She is appreciative of Pinckney and the neighbors who came to help. She is just very grateful to be alive, Goolsby said.

The retired command sergeant major declines to be called a hero.

Ive lived in this neighborhood for about year. These are my neighbors, he said. It was just instinct to do the right thing.
PHOENIX (AP)  A New York woman has been sentenced to four months in prison for interfering with crew members aboard a flight from Dallas to Los Angeles last year that had to be diverted to Phoenix, according to federal prosecutors.

They said Kelly Pichardo and another first-class passenger engaged in intimidating behavior on the flight and both women had to be removed from the plane after it landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Feb. 24, 2021.
SEWANEE, Tenn. (AP)  Some folks have a green thumb. Seems like 21-year-old Oliver Hutchens has two of them and maybe eight green fingers to boot.

Entering his senior year at The University of the South, the biology major, who is concentrating in ecology, serves as manager of the Sewanee greenhouse, a place he refers to as his home away from home.

More jungle than home sweet domicile, this 30 foot by 18-foot greenhouse flourishes with flora from around the world, 270 specimens in all, most of them a marvelous gift from Vanderbilt University in late 2019. Previously, this glass building tacked on the side the Woods Center held but three plants: two aloe vera and a blue cereus, one of the few blue cacti.

Hutchens, who grew up in Smyrna and graduated from the Webb School in Bell Buckle in 2019, described the hothouse, saying, Its a world tour of plant diversity: a sea of green, big and small leaves. These are all plants from the other side of the globe. Basically, every single plant in the greenhouse is from outside the country.

Regarding the 13,000-acre Sewanee Domain, which is considered the most plant-diverse campus in the world, he says, Its like a mini-national park, a fantastic place to study ecology and biology.

Hutchens, the son of Robbie and David Hutchens and grandson of longtime Lebanon educators Annabelle and Jim Robinson, began fawning over flora while working on a project his junior year in high school that had him growing tomatoes.

They did amazingly well. They piled up. I had so many I didnt know what to do with them, he recalled. When I started paying attention to plants and how they grow and how theyre doing, I grew interested in plants. When I came to Sewanee in the middle of COVID, I found this beautiful greenhouse waiting for me. I asked Dr. Jon Evans, who runs it, if I could get a tour of the place. He showed me everything, and I never left after that. Now two years later, Im the student greenhouse manager.

This collection came to us two years ago from the Vanderbilt University botany program. It shut down, and the professor there thought, I have hundreds upon hundreds of plants from around the world about to be trashed. And he remembered the Sewanee greenhouse and contacted my professor.

Were still trying to figure out what to do with the whole collection, and thats where I fit in.

When I first came in, I did not know what to do. I decided to give greenhouse tours and build events around it. On Friday afternoons I would be there and talk about carnivorous plants or flowers. The best thing I did was Plant Doctor Fridays. Id tell people to bring in their house plants or plants from their dorm window if youre having trouble with them. I started getting the nickname the Plant Doctor on campus.

About his eager-beaver flora fancier, Sewanee Herbarium director Evans said, I chose Oliver to be a Block Botany Fellow at Sewanee because of his passion for plants. It quickly became apparent to me that he has a special understanding of plants and their care. Based on this I made him the student manager of our fabulous tropical plant collection in the biology department greenhouse. It has been wonderful to see him pour his heart and soul into this responsibility.

Oliver initiated a program in association with our greenhouse called Plant Fridays. Students bring their plants to the greenhouse to get advice about their care. Word has gotten out about this opportunity and students seem to really enjoy connecting with Oliver about their plants.

Hutchens said reaction has been mixed with some days a dozen or more coming for the tour and other days a trickle, but on Plant Doctor days he has lots of other plant lovers coming in to have their sickly plants diagnosed.

As for what ails many of the plants he checks out, quite often it is due to a bad soil mix, too much or too little water or just a matter of repotting the plant in a bigger vase.

Of the scores of exotic plants that surround him here, numerous species draw his attention. Currently, his favorite specimens are three species of air plants called tillandsia from Central/South America that are the same genus as Spanish moss. One of them has three pop-out flowers on a tiny little stalk, which he described as incredibly cute.

Then there is Euphorbia greenwayi from Tanzania, which he says is the most alien-looking plant youve ever seen. It has no leaves. It doesnt need them. Its an unusual combination of shapes and colors.

Four carnivorous plants thrive here including a Venus fly trap, sundews, a purple pitcher plant and a hybrid tropical pitcher plant. The pitchers on the pitcher plant collect rainwater and the plant pumps digestive chemicals into the pitcher. When ants and rainforest insects fall into the toxic brew, the plant feasts on them.

Also fascinating is the ant plant about which Hutchens says, The plant isnt carnivorous, but its a mutualistic relationship between the plant and ants. Ants get housing and the plant gets fertilized by their waste.

Near the center of the greenhouse, Hutchens shows off a Dutchmans pipe vine that runs 20 feet up toward the glass ceiling. This morning he had to trim it back as the vine had crept into the ceiling fan overhead.

Another favorite sits against a glass wall with other sun lovers, a 5-foot-tall blue cactus with three-inch long needles. Dont get too close. And on this day in mid-August, a foxtail orchid blooms and puts out a sweet lemon smell that Hutchens describes as absolutely divine.

The greenhouse manager is on an Herbarium Fellowship with four other students who help tend to the plants. They receive a small stipend for their tasks. With a few volunteers they take turns watering the plants daily, which may take from 20 minutes to an hour.

If just me, it can take an hour: half an hour of watering and half an hour of admiring, said Hutchens, who also works 12 hours a week at Stirlings Coffee House on campus. He doesnt care for a cup of joe himself but would rather smell cardamom in the greenhouse and other tropical spice plants which came from the Vanderbilt collection.

Back in his dorm room, the Plant Doctor tends to about 50 more plants.

I have a whole pop-up table with light dedicated solely to plants, and I have some sitting outside on my little patio, he said.

This past summer, Hutchens spent several weeks in Africa studying plant ecology and biodiversity, mainly in the savannah of South Africas Kruger National Park.

About that experience he said, It touched a little bit on everything, things like how fire affects the landscape, how the elephants are destroying trees and other plants. What I love about ecology is you have to learn about everything. You cant specialize too much.

Anyone wishing to tour in what is practically his private little jungle will find it a tight place crammed with green vines and leaves that will brush against your body and head at almost every step.

If I showed you everything I wanted, we would be here for hours, confessed Hutchens. We have nothing but interesting plants. My goal is to graduate with a mini clone of the collection. I probably have 20 to 30 already. I want to dedicate my career to teaching people about plants and then taking care of plants.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP)  Fishermen, shrimpers and business owners dependent on coastal tourism have filed lawsuits over pollution caused when a cargo ship capsized off the Georgia coast in 2019.

The two federal lawsuits filed last week in Georgia say the pollutants released by the capsize of the Golden Ray and the harm caused by the subsequent salvage operation have damaged the area's sensitive marine ecosystem  and the plaintiffs' livelihoods.

The South Korean-owned Golden Ray capsized with more than 4,200 automobiles in its cargo decks shortly after departing the Port of Brunswick on Sept. 8, 2019. The wreck occurred in the sound between St. Simons and Jekyll Islands. Removal dragged on for more than two years.

The lawsuits accuse the companies connected to the shipwreck of negligence and of violating the federal Clean Water Act and the federal Oil Pollution Act, which was enacted in 1990 following the Exxon Valdez disaster. Plaintiffs are asking the court to order the companies to pay civil penalties, remediate the sound and award compensatory damages.

The Golden Ray was grounded near environmentally sensitive areas that serve as a unique habitat for a variety of species, including, but not limited to, shrimp, fish, migratory birds, crabs, and food sources for all marine life, including, but not limited to, fiddler crabs, the lawsuits stated.

The suits were filed by commercial shrimpers, crabbers, charter boat captains, tour operators, watersports rental companies and others connected to the tourism and fishing industries on the coast.

The defendants named in the lawsuits are the Golden Ray's owner, GL NV24 Shipping Inc., the ships charterer and manager, Hyundai Glovis Co., as well as the salvage company and others.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, in a report on the accident, found that the Golden Ray didnt have enough water in its ballast tanks, which are used to add weight at the bottom of a vessel, to offset that of the vehicles in its cargo decks above.
ANDERSON, S.C. (AP)  A single-engine plane crashed into a lake on Saturday near the border of South Carolina and Georgia, officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration told news outlets that the Beechcraft B55 Baron crashed into Lake Hartwell near Anderson Regional Airport in Anderson, S.C.
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Thousands of opponents of a pan-European LGBTQ event planned for this week in Belgrade marched through the Serbian capital on Sunday despite an announced ban of Europes largest annual gay gathering.

The procession called by the conservative Serbian Orthodox Church and led by its clergy included anti-Western slogans as well as Russian flags and portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After the march, Serbian Patriarch Porfirije held prayers at the main Saint Sava temple in Belgrade, saying evil forces want to "desecrate the purity of the family by imposing anti-God and unnatural unions as a substitute for marriage and family.

Organizers of the EuroPride  which includes a week of events and a Pride march in Belgrade on Sept. 17  have said they will ignore the police ban and hold the LGBTQ festivities.

Members of the European Pride Organizers Association chose Serbias capital three years ago to host the annual event, hoping it would represent a major breakthrough for a Slavic country that is traditionally conservative and under strong influence from the Orthodox Church.

Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership, but has for years been moving closer to Russias political orbit. The Balkan country has voted for U.N. resolutions condemning Russias invasion of Ukraine, but has refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow.

Serbias populist President Aleksandar Vucic, who has announced the ban, said Serbias police cannot cope with possible riots by right-wing groups against the Pride march amid a crisis over Serbias breakaway province of Kosovo as well as the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

Serbias rights groups have urged supporters to join the Pride march as part of struggle for democracy that they say is under threat in Serbia from Vucics autocratic regime.

Several EU officials have said they will join the LGBTQ events, while those calling on the Serbian government to reverse the announced ban include U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken.
RTHK: Exit polls show slim lead for Sweden's left bloc

Two exit polls gave Sweden's left-wing bloc led by Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson a slim lead in Sunday's general election, and also indicated a far-right surge.

The four left-wing parties were credited with 50.6 percent of voter support in an exit poll published on TV4 compared to 48 percent for the four parties on the right.

A second exit poll on public broadcaster SVT gave the left 49.8 percent and the right 49.2 percent.

Both polls, published after voting closed on Sunday, also suggested that the anti-immigration and nationalist Sweden Democrats could for the first time become the country's second-biggest party. They credited the party with 21.3 and 20.5 percent of votes respectively.

The election campaign has been dominated by rising gang shootings, immigration and integration issues, and soaring electricity prices.

If the exit polls are confirmed, the far-right surge would mean they overtook the traditional leaders of the right-wing bloc, the conservative Moderates, whose party leader Ulf Kristersson is challenging Andersson for the post of prime minister.

That would be a heavy blow to Kristersson, who orchestrated a major shift in Swedish politics by initiating exploratory talks in 2019 with the Sweden Democrats, long treated as "pariahs" by other political parties.

The two other small right-wing parties, the Christian Democrats and to a lesser extent the Liberals, later followed suit.

If the final results were to confirm the left bloc's lead, Prime Minister Andersson, a 55-year-old former finance minister, would try to build a government with the support of the small Left, Centre and Green parties.

The Social Democrats have governed Sweden since 2014.

Voter turnout was expected to be high, with more than 80 percent of the country's 7.8 million eligible voters expected to cast ballots.

Andersson, whose party has dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s, enjoys broad support among Swedes.

She consistently led Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson, her challenger for the post of prime minister, by a wide margin in opinion polls.

Yet pollsters also put the two blocs in an almost dead heat.

Both blocs are beset by internal divisions that could lead to lengthy negotiations to build a coalition government.

But for a number of reasons there is "pressure to have a united and effective government" in place quickly, said political scientist Katarina Barrling.

Sweden faces a looming economic crisis, is in the midst of a historic Nato application process and is due to take over the EU presidency in 2023.

The end of the Sweden Democrats' political isolation, and the prospect of it becoming the biggest right-wing party, is "an enormous shift in Swedish society", said Anders Lindberg, an editorialist at left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet.

Born out of a neo-Nazi movement at the end of the 1980s, the Sweden Democrats entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7 percent of votes. They won 17.5 percent in 2018.

The party's surge comes as Sweden struggles to combat escalating gang shootings attributed to battles over the sales of drugs and weapons.

The country now tops European statistics for firearm deaths.

While the violence was once contained to locations frequented by criminals, it has spread to public spaces such as parks and shopping centres, sparking concern among ordinary Swedes in a country long known as safe and peaceful. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-09-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

Stop Denying Political Prisoners the Right to Healthcare in Jails

10 September 2022

On 8th September Vernon Gonsalves, one of the 16 undertrials in the Bhima Koregaon case lodged in the anda cell of Taloja Central Jail, was diagnosed with dengue and likely pneumonia. Gonsalves age 65, had been suffering from fever since 30th August, but it took an appeal from his lawyer and the intervention of the Court for the Taloja Jail authorities to shift him to JJ Hospital for treatment. The fact that he was immediately put on oxygen support at the hospital, points to the apathy of the Jail authorities regarding the health of prisoners lodged in their custody.

The incident marked the two-month anniversary of the Special Court rejecting Gautam Navlakhas petition for a mosquito net. On 20th May the jail authorities had confiscated the mosquito nets of some inmates housed in the anda cell. Sagar Gorkhe and several others had gone on hunger strike expressing apprehensions about contracting malaria and dengue as Taloja is infested by mosquitos. The abysmal jail facilities and hostility of jail staff added to these fears which have all come true.

Vernon Gonsalves present health condition and delayed hospitalisation underlines the vindictive intent of the jail authorities, the NIA and the Special courts towards the Bhima Koregaon accused. The fact that while the Court set aside Gautam Navlakhas plea for restitution of his mosquito net, that the Jail authorities did not oppose the Court granting the Antilia terror case accused ex-policeman Sunil Mane permission to use a mosquito net, further underlines the active bias against political prisoners. The pattern of medical negligence, a facet of state oppression against political prisonsers is all too familiar: Eg Siddique Kappan journalist, UAPA accused was shifted to AIIMS and diagnosed with Covid, 5 days after falling ill, following orders from the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General and Mathura Jail authorities had vehemently opposed bail despite 50 confirmed Covid cases in the over-crowded jail where Kappan was lodged.

The NIA has consistently opposed bail, including medical and temporary bail, on the grounds that the UAPA charges against the Bhima Koregaon accused are very grave, and the court has accepted this logic (most recently in the rejection of Gautam Navlakhas bail petition on 5th September on the same grounds), despite the case not having come to trial more than four years after the first arrests. The denial of bail, coupled with the negligence of the jail staff and paucity of health and sanitation facilities, means that the incarceration of the Bhima Koregaon accused has taken on a murderous turn. Without a trial in sight, the anxiety of an endless wait, the impossibility of bail, Stan Swamys death, and Varavara Raos debilitating health, the incarceration itself has become a punishment.

The fear is real. Previous fatalities like the death of Stan Swamy and more recently of Pandu Narote, a tribal agricultural worker convicted in 2017 under UAPA, who died of swine-flu on 25th August in Nagpur Hospital tell an appallingly familiar story of delayed treatment, not informing the lawyer and family, under-equipped hospital. Political prisoners right to life, whether as an undertrial when yet not proven guilty or as a convict serving his sentence as per law, is almost non-existent.

Three RTIs by PUDR to Taloja Jail authorities asking for information on the number of deaths in Taloja, health and sanitation, medical infrastructure, all within the ambit of the Maharashtra Jail Hospitals Manual, have received no reply. In this context, though Vernon and the others have been forced to go to Court to get medical attention, paradoxically the cases have brought to light the despicable lack of medical facilities for prisoners. One wonders about the unknown many with no access to the courts who have suffered, even died for want of medical aid.

PUDR demands:

 The release of all undertrials in the Bhima Koregaon case

 Prosecution of Ex-Taloja Superintendent

 Kurlekar, responsible for Stan Swamys death

 An inquiry into medical negligence by the Jail staff.

 Providing proper health facilities and immediate medical attention to jail inmates.

 Decongestion of Taloja Jail

 Protecting the rights of political prisoners.

Deepika Tandon and Shahana Bhattarcharya

Secretaries PUDR

Source URL: https://www.pudr.org/stop-denying-political-prisoners-right-healthcare-jails
Student loan forgiveness, announced by the Biden administration, is a regressive upward transfer of wealth from low- and middle-income taxpayers to some very wealthy institutions. Who really benefits? Universities and colleges. If anyone should be paying for forgiveness of student loan debt, it is these institutions, not you and me.

What is really going on? Politics. In July 2021, Nancy Pelosi stated to reporters, People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an Act of Congress. But on August 24, 2022, Pelosi stated she has no problem with the president cancelling student loan debt.

The power of the purse in the Constitution is clear. It lies with Congress. It does not lie with the executive branch. Our Founding Fathers understood that presidents with power of the purse become kings. The president breaching Constitutional restraints by taking power of the purse and forcing taxpayers to pay billionaire educational institutions through student loan forgiveness  is a slippery slope.

These are days in which he who wants a job can find a job. The next generation can  with grit and determination  find adequate employment to keep their word and pay off their debt. Such an accomplishment builds character and makes a person stronger and more independent.

Perhaps independence and strength of the individual citizen is not the goal of the Biden administration.

Brenda Hanson

Delevan
By Tran Nguyen

San Jose Spotlight

A homeless person living at the sprawling camp near Columbus Park is suing San Jose over the monthlong sweep.

Rudy Ortega filed a federal complaint this week against San Jose alleging city officials and the city's partners breached their contracts and violated his constitutional rights--the city is sweeping where Ortega has been staying. The lawsuit, filed with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, also requests a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from breaking down Ortega's camp and seizing the trailer he sleeps in.

U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila took Ortega's case and set a hearing for his temporary restraining order for Tuesday.

Ortega, homeless for a number of years, has lived at his current location for the last year. San Jose started a monthlong sweep last week in an attempt to meet a deadline set by the Federal Aviation Administration. The site is in the flight path of Mineta San Jose International Airport, and the city risks losing millions in federal funding if the camp isn't cleared by Sept. 30. The encampment was home to an estimated few hundred people during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's inhumane," Ortega told San Jose Spotlight, referring to the sweep. "I'm stuck here because the city didn't follow through with what they promised."

Ortega claims the city and nonprofit partner HomeFirst promised to help him fix his trailer before the September sweep, naming two city officials who made the commitment to him. His camper is missing wheels and cannot be towed out of the area. Last week, a police officer told Ortega he needed to leave or face being arrested--though nobody fixed his vehicle or provided him housing, Ortega claims in his lawsuit.

"I am currently under imminent threat of having my home seized and destroyed, and no one has come to assist," Ortega's lawsuit reads, adding he didn't get it fixed himself because of the city's promises.

Ortega said the city also violated his Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights by potentially destroying his home without just compensation or warrant to seize it, denying him due process and potentially arresting him for staying in his trailer. Ortega is representing himself--with the help of Robbie Powelson, a homeless activist who has helped unhoused residents in Northern California stop sweeps through restraining orders.

City Attorney Nora Frimann told San Jose Spotlight Sept. 8 she hasn't seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.

"Our office typically does not comment on pending litigation out of respect to the court and litigants," Frimann said.

Powelson said he hopes the city will allow Ortega to stay at his camp until the hearing next week.

"I'm hopeful for a good outcome on this," Powelson told San Jose Spotlight. "His claim is very reasonable."

Safe for now

San Jose halted the sweep four days this week due to the hot weather. City workers must postpone any abatement if the temperature hits 88 degrees, according to city spokesperson Daniel Lazo. The area broke an all-time heat record in the city this week, when the temperature hit 109 degrees.

Homeless residents in the camp have moved--either to Columbus Park at the corner of Irene and Asbury streets or along the Guadalupe River Park trail--to avoid the sweep.

While waiting for his hearing, Ortega said city officials and police officers came to his camp Thursday to threaten and ask him to leave again. Ortega refused, saying he's waiting for the hearing for his temporary restraining order. Homeless advocate Scott Largent, who used to live in an RV next to Ortega, came to his defense, showing proof of the court case to the officers and city officials.

Ortega also sent an email to the city attorney's office detailing the incident and asking the city to halt sweeping his camp until a judge decides on the matter. He's now fundraising to fix his trailer.

"I'm hoping I can stay," Ortega said. "But a lot of people are trying to fight my case."

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.
WFO LAS VEGAS Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Saturday, September 10, 2022

_____

FLASH FLOOD WARNING

The National Weather Service in Las Vegas has issued a

* Flash Flood Warning for...

Southeastern Inyo County in south central California...

* Until 800 PM PDT.

* At 522 PM PDT, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing

heavy rain across the warned area. Flash flooding is ongoing or

expected to begin shortly.

HAZARD...Life-threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms

producing flash flooding.

SOURCE...Radar.

IMPACT...Life-threatening flash flooding of low-water

crossings, creeks, normally dry washes and roads.

* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include...

Shoshone and Tecopa.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood

deaths occur in vehicles.

...FLASH FLOOD WARNING WILL EXPIRE AT 530 PM PDT THIS AFTERNOON FOR

SOUTHWESTERN INYO COUNTY...

The heavy rain has ended. Flooding is no longer expected to pose a

threat. Please continue to heed remaining road closures including

State Route 136 from Lone Pine to Keeler.

A Flood Watch remains in effect until 1200 AM PDT Sunday for a

portion of southeast California.

_____

Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
WFO PHOENIX Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Sunday, September 11, 2022

_____

FLASH FLOOD WARNING

The National Weather Service in Phoenix has issued a

* Flash Flood Warning for...

Riverside County in southern California...

* Until 615 PM PDT.

* At 207 PM PDT, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing

heavy rain across the warned area. Between 0.5 and 1.5 inches of

rain have fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin

shortly.

HAZARD...Life threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms

producing flash flooding.

SOURCE...Radar.

IMPACT...Life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams,

urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses.

* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include...

Chiriaco Summit and Box Canyon Road.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood

deaths occur in vehicles.

Be aware of your surroundings and do not drive on flooded roads.

...FLOOD ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 315 PM PDT THIS

AFTERNOON...

* WHAT...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues.

* WHERE...A portion of central California, including the following

county, Kern.

* WHEN...Until 315 PM PDT.

* IMPACTS...Minor flooding in low-lying and poor drainage areas.

Overflowing poor drainage areas.

* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...

- At 207 PM PDT, Doppler radar indicated heavy rain due to

thunderstorms. Minor flooding is ongoing or expected to begin

shortly in the advisory area. Up to 1 inch of rain has

fallen.

- Additional rainfall amounts up to 0.5 inches are expected

over the area. This additional rain will result in minor

flooding.

- Some locations that will experience flooding include...

mainly rural areas of East Central Kern County

- http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood

_____

Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
WFO SAN DIEGO Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Sunday, September 11, 2022

_____

FLASH FLOOD WARNING

The National Weather Service in San Diego has issued a

* Flash Flood Warning for...

South Central San Diego County in southwestern California...

* Until 530 PM PDT.

* At 227 PM PDT, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing

heavy rain across the warned area. Between 0.75 and 1.25 inches of

rain have fallen. Additional rainfall amounts of 0.75 to 1.25

inches are possible in the warned area. Flash flooding is ongoing

or expected to begin shortly.

Excessive rainfall over the burn scar will result in debris flow

moving through the Valley Burn Scar and the Border32 Fire. The

debris flow can consist of rock, mud, vegetation and other loose

materials.

HAZARD...Life threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms

producing flash flooding.

SOURCE...Radar.

IMPACT...Life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams,

urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses.

* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include...

El Cajon, Alpine, I-8 Between Pine Valley And Boulevard, Cuyamaca

Rancho State Park, Potrero, Lake Morena, Campo, Pine Valley,

Descanso and Crest.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

This is a life threatening situation. Heavy rainfall may cause

extensive and severe flash flooding of creeks, streams, and ditches

in the Valley Burn Scar. Severe debris flows can also be anticipated

across roads. Roads and driveways may be washed away in places. If

you encounter flood waters, climb to safety.

Move away from recently burned areas. Life-threatening flooding of

creeks, roads and normally dry arroyos is likely. The heavy rains

will likely trigger rockslides, mudslides and debris flows in steep

terrain, especially in and around these areas.

Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood

deaths occur in vehicles.

_____

Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
At the signing ceremony



This event is within the framework of activities of Huawei's ICT Academy with the goal of building a bridge between supply and demand for talents, promoting the transformation and upgrading of human resources in the industry, and improving working efficiency. jobs and improve employment rates in the ICT industry in countries around the world and in Vietnam.

Specifically, under the MOU, Huawei and UCT will cooperate in providing training in the fields of networking, cloud computing, and security to faculty at the campuses. Through the partnership program, UTC University and Huawei also provide industry-level ICT training courses for their students to equip future generations of young workers with skills before entering the real world.

As for UNETI, the two sides cooperate to develop the university's faculty capacity, providing ICT training certification in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of things, networking, cloud computing and security, routers and switches, and storage.





By Kim Thanh  Translated by Anh Quan
At the honoring cermeony of the 17th Vietnam Glory program

Attending the event was Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Head of the Central Commission for Mass Mobilization, Bui Thi Minh Hoai; Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam; President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, Nguyen Dinh Khang.



Honored collectives and individuals are outstanding examples in the nationwide campaigns of national construction and defense, and patriotic emulation.

Seven organizations and six individuals are honored at the 17th Vietnam Glory program.

The organizations include the Management Board of the President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum; the administration and people of Yen Mo Districts Yen Hoa Commune in Ninh Binh Province; the National Population Database Center of the Police Department for Administrative Management of Social Order under the Ministry of Public Security; Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Corporation (Sabeco); Viettel High Tech; PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation and the Fire and Rescue Police Section of the Cau Giay Police District Station in Hanoi.

Individuals are Hero of the People's Armed Forces, Deputy Director of the HCMC Department of Public Security Colonel Mai Hoang; Chief Executive Officer of International Technology Solutions Joint Stock Company, Vu Gia Luyen; Nguyen Duc Thuan, student of the Faculty of Information Technology of Vietnam National University, Hanoi; runner Nguyen Thi Oanh of the National track-and-field team; Director of Tra Vinh Farm, Thach Thi Chal Thi; Ph.D.Do Doan Bach of the National Heart Institute in Bach Mai Hospital.

Speaking at the ceremony, President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang said the honorees are working in different fields and positions. However, they have a desire to devote, bravery, intelligence and extraordinary energy of the Vietnamese people.

President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang (L) hands over Certificates of merit to the Fire and Rescue Police Section of the Cau Giay Police District Station in Hanoi. President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Nguyen Dinh Khang speaks at the event.

By Van Phuc  Translated by Kim Khanh
Photo credit: Max Mumby/Indigo - Getty Images

As the UK  and the world  comes to terms with the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, many of us will be looking back at her remarkable life. From her dedication to the British nation to her accomplishments as a female ruler, there is so much to be celebrated about Britain's longest-serving monarch.

But it's not just serious stuff. Her Majesty's loving relationship with Prince Philip is one that we'll cherish forever, and the Queen's memorable, feminist moments will certainly go down in history. As will her humour  which, although was often kept hidden behind closed doors (such is the way when you're head of state), did slip out from time to time.

In honour of Her Majesty's impeccable wit, we've taken a look back at Queen Elizabeth II's funniest moments...

Queen Elizabeth II's wit and humour

When she said 'reject modernity, embrace tradition' over cutting a cake

After serving as monarch for seven decades, it's no wonder that the Queen wanted to do things her own way. And she proved just that during a royal engagement in 2021 when she decided to cut a cake with a sword  yep, a real sword!  rather than a knife.

"There is a knife there if you want to use it," one of the event's organisers tells Her Majesty as she struggles to cut the cake. "What?" the Queen replies, before quipping back: "I know there is! But this is something that is more unusual."

Unsurprisingly, the crowd erupted in laughter  just as we have every! single! time! we've watched this clip.

When she struggled to contain her laughter at Prince Philip's prank

There is no denying that Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, had one helluva romance. With a relationship that spanned more than 70 years, the couple never let their love waiver  just take a look at the time Prince Philip pranked his wife by dressing up as a guard, if you need evidence of that.

We'd have struggled to keep a straight face too, Your Majesty!

My favourite photo of our Queen, when Prince Philip surprised her dressed as a guard. RIP her Majesty  pic.twitter.com/DzqbebTHfM  Shannen! (@shannen_begley) September 8, 2022

When she made fun of President Bush's slip-of-the-tongue

During a dinner with world leaders in 2007, President Bush aged the Queen by 200 years when he accidentally said she had celebrated the US bicentennial in 1776 instead of 1976.

Story continues

Thankfully, Her Majesty took it all in her stride, opening her own speech by saying: "I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, 'When I was here in 1776...'"

"Your Majesty, I can't top that one," Bush replied.

See a clip of the moment, here.



When she skydived out of a helicopter

Despite being well into what should have been a relaxing few years as an OAP, Queen Elizabeth II shocked us all when she skydived out of a helicopter alongside Daniel Craig (aka James Bond) at the 2012 London Olympics.

Of course, the real Queen didn't actually perform the daredevil stunt  she was replaced by a stunt-double  but the impact of the epic moment landed just the same.

"Queen Elizabeth was very amused by the idea and agreed immediately," royal dressmaker Angela Kelly said of the stunt, which you can watch here.

When she joked about keeping a marmalade sandwich in her handbag

Showing that she really was a woman after our own hearts, Her Majesty jokingly told Paddington Bear during a Platinum Jubilee promo video that she keeps a marmalade sandwich in her purse.

Yep, we too keep an emergency snack in our bag at all times!

When she gave the most iconic answer to being asked 'how are you?'

During a royal visit to Northern Ireland in 2016, Queen Elizabeth II was asked if she was well by Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness. "Well, I'm still alive, anyway!" Her Majesty quipped back in response  proving her certified sass status once and for all.

When a royal fan asked her to take a photo of him

Having been *the* most famous woman on the planet for the best part of a century, you'd scoff at the idea of a royal fan not recognising Her Majesty. But, that's exactly what happened with a couple of fans visiting from the US, according to one of the Queen's former staff members.

Recalling the incident, the monarch's ex protection officer Richard Griffin revealed that the pair stumbled across two American tourists on a walk near Her Majesty's Balmoral Estate. Despite dropping plenty of hints, the tourists did not recognise the Queen  instead asking her to take a photo of them!

Erm, bet they were kicking themselves when the penny eventually dropped...

this remains an all-time story about the queen pic.twitter.com/hI2yNUac0H  David Mack (@davidmackau) September 8, 2022

When she held her own against the world's leaders

Whilst posing for a photo with world leaders last year at the G7 summit, Her Majesty evoked uncontainable laughter when she joked: "Are you supposed to be looking as if you're enjoying yourself?"

LOL!

When she clapped back at Canada's PM for making her "feel so old"



As we all know, mentioning a lady's age is a major faux pas! But it seems that Canada's PM, Justin Trudeau, didn't get that message  much to the disdain of Her Majesty.

ICYMI, back at a gala for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2015, Trudeau pointed out that he was the 12th Canadian Prime Minister to hold office during Queen Elizabeth II's reign. In response, Her Majesty thanked the PM for making her "feel so old".

When she quite literally dropped the mic with Prince Harry

During a promotional video for Prince Harry's Invictus Games, Her Majesty responded to a competitive message from Barack and Michelle Obama.

"Hey, Prince Harry, remember when you told us to bring it at the Invictus Games?" the former First Lady says. "Careful what you wish for," President Barack Obama adds, as a soldier in the background mimes dropping a mic.

The clip then cuts to Prince Harry and Her Majesty, with the monarch replying: "Oh, really, please!"

We'll miss you, Your Majesty!

Our thoughts are with the Royal Family at this emotional time.

You Might Also Like
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Dion Lee had a tough act to follow, with his New York Fashion Week show falling the day after Italian luxury label Fendis headline-snatching 25th anniversary celebration of the popular baguette handbag, featuring recovering recluse and supermodel Linda Evangelista.

In a Tiffany blue cape, Evangelista drew applause after a procession of impressive designs by Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones, which fused the elegance of uptown  think below-the-knee skirts and sequined slip dresses  with downtown slogans and convertible pants.

Models walk the runway during the Dion Lee Spring 2023 fashion show at the Hudson Commons. Credit:Getty

Despite the Botox-stiff competition, there was little need for Lee to worry. Supermodels from the past are not part of the Australian designers youthful, too-cool-to-club-kid aesthetic.

On a vacant floor of the expansive Hudson Commons development, the front-row benches were predominantly filled by guests who were not born, or at least twerking, when Fendis baguette bag launched.
London: King Charles III has confessed to feeling the weight of history after becoming monarch and assured British MPs that he plans to follow his late mothers example in upholding the precious principles of constitutional government.

In a short but elaborate ceremony held before boarding a private jet to inspect the Queens coffin lying-in-state in Edinburgh, the King gave a reply to MPs and Lords who have been paying tribute to the former sovereign in the days since her death last Thursday.

King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, at Westminster Hall in London. Credit:Getty

Charles, accompanied by Camilla, Queen Consort, said that as he stood in the ancient Westminster Hall - built in 1097 by William the Conquerors son and the scene of many historic events including the trial of King Charles 1 - he could not escape the gravity of the moment.

I cannot help but feel the weight of history which surrounds us and reminds us of the vital parliamentary traditions to which members of both houses dedicate yourselves, with such personal commitment, for the betterment of us all, he said.

He said parliament was the living and breathing instrument of democracy.

Read the full story here.
George Manojlovic of Mangerton believes he might be able to assist Peter Miniutti (C8) with the precision of his digital weather forecasts (C8). If you stick a finger out the window and lose sight of it, its a pea-souper. If it comes back blue, its cold; red, its hot; white, its snowing. If it comes back black and smoking, theres an electrical storm about. If it doesnt come back at all, either the neighbours dog got out again or theres simply no forecaster at hand in the first place.

Having lived in Bahrain and Oman for years, Gerhard Engleitner of Hurstville believes that the radio stations there record just one weather report (C8) for the year, which states, And today the weather will be hot and sunny, with rising dust in places. The two or three times a year it rained for a bit, it was THE news story of the day.

Observing that Australia Post is now offering car insurance, Mike Phillips of Mount Coolum (Qld) wonders how long it will be before the NRMA starts delivering our mail?

Following a recent road occurrence (not an incident or accident), Aidan Cuddington of Umina Beach realised that he has missed hearing uncomplimentary references to Volvo drivers. Why are there so few of these nowadays? Have they been replaced by something else? Are there just fewer Volvos on the road, or have their driving performances improved?

Paul Keir of Strathfield once saw a hangover remedy for sale at the front of a pharmacy in Auckland. There can be no doubting its efficacy as it was Tested on Australians.
Public transport will be free across NSW on Sunday to mark an official ceremony naming King Charles III as Australias sovereign.

Travel on buses, trains, ferries and light rail will be free in all metropolitan and regional areas of the state on September 11, with passengers not required to tap on or off until midnight.

An official ceremony will be held at NSW Parliament at 12.30pm, where NSW governor Margaret Beazley will be joined by other dignitaries to proclaim King Charles the sovereign following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth.

Macquarie Street will be closed to allow members of the public to witness the ceremony, which will include the NSW Police band playing the British national anthem, God Save The King, followed by the Australian national anthem and a royal salute.
Thousands of Sydneysiders have gathered at Australias oldest parliament to witness the NSW proclamation of King Charles III, before a 21-gun salute echoed through the city.

Premier Dominic Perrottet left the steps of the NSW Parliament to shake hands with members of the crowd following the short ceremony that proclaimed King Charles as King of Australia.

A crowd gathers at NSW Parliament for the proclamation of King Charles. Credit:Dean Sewell

Perrottet described Queen Elizabeths 70 years of service to the Commonwealth as unprecedented, and said her death last week had brought people together across NSW.

Today continues to be a very difficult day for the people of Australia and I acknowledge the grief and mourning for many people across Australia and around the world, Perrottet said.
Police release new CCTV footage of suspicious Sydney mansion fire

Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later.

Dismiss
Elizabeth IIs impact on the world in the last, difficult half of the 20th and early 21st centuries was nothing short of monumental. She did of course inject new life, energy and meaning into the Commonwealth  a project of former subject nations that was dying a slow death as colonial Britain dissolved in the 1960s and 70s. It was her lifes work. But it was the small, personal interactions with her subjects that often resonated longer and with greater impact than her global outreach.

Forty years ago (almost to the day) a young Queensland journalist found himself being served dainty canapes and finger sandwiches at a reception on the Queens floating palace, the Royal Yacht Britannia. It was late September 1982 and the Queen and Prince Philip were in Brisbane to open the Commonwealth Games. Forty-six nations, 1600 athletes and a 13-metre mechanical winking kangaroo, Matilda, made headlines around the world. And so, as one does, Her Majesty invited 250 of the great and good to drinks on her vessel. To this day, it is unclear why I was invited.

The Royal Yacht Britannia.

Not even my editor was sent the thick, gilt-edged invitation in the mail. Its not every day one gets a card which begins The Master of the Royal Household requests the pleasure of the company of Mr Robert Broadfield

So convinced was I that it was a mistake, I rang Government House to check. I was assured that yes, my name was definitely on the list and would I be joining Her Majesty?
Maayan Ziv, the CEO of accessibility app AccessNow, spoke on Instagram after her Air Canada flight to Tel Aviv. She says upon landing on Thursday, she found her wheelchair damaged. (@maayanziv_/Instagram - image credit)

Maayan Ziv says she did everything she could to make sure her wheelchair would arrive in one piece before she left Toronto for an accessibility conference in Israel.

The accessibility advocate and chief executive says she called Air Canada to confirm they could transport her wheelchair on the trip to Tel Aviv, and arrived four hours before her flight on Wednesday to bubble wrap it and tell airline staff how to safely transport it.

Despite all her precautions, she says her sister found her wheelchair "totally damaged" when their almost 11-hour flight landed Thursday morning.

"No one told me that the wheelchair was damaged. No one told me that anything had happened," said Ziv, who's the CEO of accessibility app AccessNow, and lives in Toronto.

"Imagine someone basically chopping off your legs when you arrive somewhere  that's the equivalent of what it feels like."

Maayan Ziv/Twitter

Ziv, 32, says her wheelchair is an extension of her body  when it's taken away, it strips her of her independence, mobility, health and comfort.

While the experience was traumatic, she says it wasn't her first time a wheelchair of hers has been damaged or completely broken during a flight. In fact, Ziv says this amounts to a kind of discrimination that is a reality for many people with disabilities.

And it needs to change, she says.

"Whether it be Air Canada or any airline, there needs to be a proper and detailed look at how we treat people with disabilities who travel," said Ziv.

Disability advocate criticizes air transit regulation

Ziv says she can stay in her wheelchair in any other mode of transportation, such as buses and trains, but not on passenger planes.

That's because people using wheelchairs are required to sit in an airplane seat during flights, according to federal law  something that disability advocates say needs to be scrapped.

Last month, Air Transat staff dropped a 46-year-old man, who also uses a wheelchair, while transferring him to his airplane seat.

Story continues

David Lepofsky, a Toronto lawyer and chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, says Ziv's case is not unique, and is a failure both of the airline and the Canada Transportation Agency (CTA), which regulates air transit in the country.

"The people who get on an airplane trust the airline to bring them to their destination safely and in one piece, and if they brought them to a destination but destroyed their legs in the process, passengers would be outraged," said Lepofsky.

"If the regulator made it clear that there would be strong, powerful consequences for this kind of foreseeable, predictable and appalling conduct, the airlines would sit up, take notice and fix it," said Lepofsky.

The CTA's website does say carriers must immediately provide the passenger with a temporary replacement that meets their needs until their original mobility device is repaired or replaced, or until the passenger is reimbursed.

Additionally, the airline must:

Reimburse the passenger for any expenses incurred.

Arrange for the repair of the device, but if it cannot be repaired, replace the device with the same model or one that meets their needs.

Reimburse the passenger for the full replacement cost.

The CTA says airlines could pay a penalty of up to $250,000 and the agency says it will award compensation to a person in certain circumstances if they file a complaint.

Air Canada offers 'goodwill gesture'

Ziv says her wheelchair was valued at roughly $30,000 and expects to spend up to a year to source all the parts and customize a new one. Without her chair, she says she has pain throughout her body and might not be able to participate at the conference, titled Access Israel, where she says she was invited to speak.

In an email to CBC Toronto, Air Canada says while the company successfully carries tens of thousands of customers who use mobility aids, in this case they did not meet their "normal service levels."

"We did respond to this customer's concerns immediately at the airport, including arranging for a specialized wheelchair service to fix the damage," the airline's statement reads.

"We offered the customer a voucher as a goodwill gesture, and we remain engaged with the customer to ensure the device is repaired."

Ziv says that "goodwill gesture" amounted to a $300 e-coupon, provided by customer service in the baggage claim department. She calls the move "insulting" and says it shows a lack of attention and understanding.

"That doesn't cover the cost of the tremendous amount of pain and anguish that I'm experiencing, it doesn't cover the damage and the cost done to their brand as an airline, and it definitely doesn't solve any problem that any future traveller would have," said Ziv.

She says the company later told her in an email that it would cover the cost of repairing the wheelchair, or a possible replacement.

"That's not enough," she said.

"We need a better, more inclusive and equitable approach to treating people with disabilities."
Concerningly, however, at the very time Marles was visiting Barrow, one of the most senior figures in the US Navys nuclear submarine program, Rear Admiral Scott Pappano, gave an interview in which he cast doubt on Americas readiness or even capacity to incorporate the supply of submarines to Australia into its production schedule. If we are going to add additional submarine construction to our industrial base, that would be detrimental to us right now, Pappano was quoted as saying. This comes at a time when the US Navy is planning significant increases its fleet size  including its submarine capability  to meet the China challenge. As Johnson and Wallace no doubt told Marles, there is no hesitancy on the part of the British.

The UKs commitment to AUKUS is strong. The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is every bit as enthusiastic for AUKUS as was Johnson. Wallace has been reappointed as Defence Secretary. If, as many expect, he leaves the government next year to become the secretary-general of NATO, his likely successor in the portfolio is the new Security Minister Tom Tugendhat  a strong China hawk and AUKUS enthusiast. The Truss cabinet  indeed virtually the entire Conservative Party  share that sentiment.

We can also be confident that a future UK Labour government will take the same view. Although UK Labour was initially sceptical of AUKUS, its bipartisan support has since been clarified. At the Labour Party conference last year, which took place shortly after AUKUS had been announced, I sought and received firm assurances from both the shadow defence secretary and the then shadow foreign secretary that a future Labour government would fully support AUKUS  a position since reinforced by Labour leader Keir Starmer and the shadow cabinet.

The UKs eagerness to win the submarine contract is palpable. It conforms with one of the key priorities set out in last years Integrated Review of Britains geostrategic objectives, the tilt to the Indo-Pacific. It also reflects an electorally powerful domestic priority which does not feature in American thinking  the rehabilitation of the industrial manufacturing base in the north of England. As a very competitive UK election looms in 2024, the Australian submarine contract would be a huge political trophy.

I dont doubt the US commitment to AUKUS is as strong as Britains. Inevitably, though, Australia has less weight in its relationship with the US than it does in that with the UK. Put simply, we are, as a customer, in a weaker position. And the domestic political imperatives in the UK are entirely absent from Americas priorities. It is inconceivable that anyone of importance in the British system would think as Admiral Pappano does.
On a chilly autumn night in 1966, inside a small boiler room at Geelong Grammars secluded Timbertop campus, Jonathan Jonny Southey had an encounter with the future King Charles III that he would never forget.

Southey, who was 14 at the time, said he was smoking a cigarette  a big no-no at the elite campus in Victorias high country  when he was caught by the then first in line to the throne.

Charles, right, on his first inspection of Timbertop in February 1966. Credit:Ken Wheeler

Charles was 17 when he was sent to study in Australia for two terms, and he was something of a prefect figure, Southey said.

He said, Southey, you should know better than that. I better confiscate that cigarette, Southey recalled. Off he went, and I was about to light up another one when he came back and  my stupidity led to the confiscation of the whole packet.
The Victorian government is being urged to explain when it will deliver the Metro train services to Melbournes outer-west it promised four years ago amid concerns public transport investment is falling severely behind the skyrocketing population growth.

A month before his landslide 2018 state election victory, Premier Daniel Andrews pledged to bring electric Metro trains to Melton and Wyndham Vale and flagged possible new stations as part of a Western Rail Plan.

Commuters waiting to catch a V/Line train from Tarneit to the CBD on Friday morning. Credit:Eddie Jim

But four years on, there is no construction funding nor a timeline for the upgrades, while residents in some of Australias fastest-growing suburbs rely on crowded and infrequent V/Line regional trains to travel to and from the CBD.

Melton mayor Goran Kesic said the councils discussions with the government suggested upgrades to an electric Metro service were not on the cards at the moment.
A gun salute echoed off the hills of Canberra after Governor-General David Hurley proclaimed the accession of King Charles III with a formal pledge from Australia to offer faith and obedience to the new sovereign.

Hundreds of spectators gathered at Parliament House and some called out God save the King when the governor-general swore loyalty to the new monarch, officials raised the Australian flag to full-mast and the Royal Military College band played the royal anthem.

The band of Royal Military College at Duntroon take part in the proclamation ceremony. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But the ceremony itself was an echo of a proclamation made elsewhere when members of the Privy Council had stood before King Charles on Saturday at St Jamess Palace in Westminster.

Every constitutional step taken on the forecourt of Parliament House followed the traditions set in London and, therefore, reminded every onlooker of a debate  muted for now, but inevitable in time  about whether Australia might one day break its bonds with Buckingham Palace.
Australias hidebound immigration system is broken and needs to be fundamentally transformed, Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil says, otherwise the countrys economy will quickly fall behind its global competitors.

Indicating that immigration reform will be a priority for the Albanese government, ONeil said the annual permanent migration increase announced at this months jobs and skills summit was merely a prelude to a more significant reimagining of the nations immigration settings.

Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil says Australias immigration system is totally broken. Credit:James Brickwood

All the rules that we use to decide who comes in and who doesnt arent working, ONeil told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

The way we define skills shortages is totally broken. I think it is universally recognised that this is not serving the countrys needs.
The Queens legacy as a figurehead of colonialism has been condemned by some Indigenous Australians, but senior Aboriginal leaders have come to her defence, saying she inherited her role and was not to blame for past atrocities.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he respected the right of Australians to hold different views as he restated his commitment to hold a referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the constitution during this term.

Members of the Yukembruk dance group perform at the proclamation ceremony in Canberra. Credit:Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

As prime minister, Im not in a position to control peoples feelings, of course, and many of those will, of course, be heartfelt, he told ABC Insiders.

This nation didnt begin in 1788, it goes back some 65,000 years at least. It should be a source of great national pride that we live and share this continent with the oldest continuous civilisation and culture on Earth.
The Queen is dead, long live the King. This oft-repeated phrase, in a practical sense, spells out that the transfer of sovereignty occurs the moment that the previous monarch is pronounced dead. In this instance, Prince Charles became King the moment his mother passed away. It is a powerful symbol that, even at such a moment of grief, the monarchy as an institution never lapses. Loading Yesterday was a reminder that Australia plays its part in this transfer, too, with a ceremony in Canberra to officially proclaim King Charles III the King of Australia, with the cry going out: God Save the King. Does that sit comfortably with Australians, a reminder that our head of state is a distant king? Some people will find it too early to ask such a question, but it will be asked, and we can ponder it while respecting the Queens remarkable service. She lived through an era of enormous change. One of her notable qualities was her ability to embody a sense of constancy and stability, even though the world around her was, at times, altering at dramatic speed. The world is still changing at a frenetic rate and perhaps most Australians might prefer to hold on to the constancy of the monarchy as a symbol, especially as we have a robust parliamentary democracy and make our own national decisions. If the republican movement is to ever gain traction, it must deal respectfully with those who see little practical need to alter our arrangements and who have affection for a monarchy that for some embodies stability.

Elizabeth II visited Australia 16 times, and what changes she would have seen. As the size and heritage of Australias population expanded and diversified, so did the debate over our identity as a nation and, by extension, our ties with Britain. While some have perceived this questioning as a sleight on our British heritage and, more personally, of the Queen, for those who have supported the call for a more independent stance it is best viewed through the lens of Australias natural evolution as it becomes more confident and sure of its place in the world. This culminated, in 1999, with the referendum calling for Australia to become a republic. The blame for its failure was usually placed on the constitutional model chosen and the residual admiration for the Queen. Since then, it had been a given that while the Queens reign continued, the republic was a topic non grata. Former prime minister John Howard recalled yesterday that, at the time of the referendum, the Queen took a great interest but always accepted that the decision was for Australians to make without interference. Loading With King Charles III officially Australias head of state, it is not disrespectful to wonder how this new era will affect Australian sentiment. One can admire the Queen for her service and grieve at her passing, and still discuss whether this country should sever its constitutional  not historical  ties. It is inevitable, too, that while the Queens reign in the main oversaw the decolonisation of the British Empire, some countries, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean, see the monarchy as a symbol of colonial exploitation and brutality. She was a constitutional monarch, not responsible for the decisions of her government, but the monarch is a powerful figurehead. For Indigenous Australians, the arrival of the British convict settlement in 1788 was the beginning of dispossession, the legacy of which lingers today.
London: Charles became King on the death of his mother on Thursday, but will not be crowned until next year, it is understood.

His Coronation will be a streamlined event compared to the service for his mother seven decades ago and will reflect the new Kings vision for a smaller, more modern monarchy.

Britains Prince Charles sits by the The Imperial State Crown in the House of Lords Chamber, during the State Opening of Parliament, in May 10, 2022. Credit:Ben Stansall/AP

King Charles III will be crowned alongside Camilla after his mother announced that it was her wish for her to be the Queen Consort as part of her Jubilee celebrations earlier this year.

It is likely that the Coronation will take place in the spring or summer of next year after a period of mourning.
Edinburgh: The oak casket carrying the late Queen has arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse after a more than six-hour journey from Balmoral filled with emotional tributes from locals throughout the Scottish countryside.

Thousands of mourners lined streets in Scottish towns and cities, as the cortege made the 281km trip from the Queens favourite Highland retreat to the capital. Her daughter, Princess Anne, dropped a curtsy as her coffin was carried into the palace in Edinburgh where her mother had stayed only weeks before.

The cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II passes St Giles Cathedral on its way to Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Credit:Getty

The crown of Scotland will be placed on the coffin and for 24 hours from Monday afternoon Australian time people will be able to pay their respects the first time members of the public will file past the coffin  while a vigil is maintained at St Giless Cathedral by the Royal Company of Archers.

From Aberdeen to Dundee and along the motorway verges around the River Forth, veterans, army cadets, school children and families stood quietly or applauded, clutching flowers and Union flags.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko also suggested troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izium, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometres north of Izium. The Ukrainian Security Service posted a message hours later saying troops were in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized. The military did not immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub that Russia seized in February. The Misto Hotel and Spa in Kharkiv, Ukraine, after it was blasted by a Russian attack on September 9. Credit:Washington Post/Heidi Levine Videos on social media appeared to show Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Izium at a roadside checkpoint. A large statue with the citys name could be seen in the images. Ukrainian forces did not acknowledge holding the city. Britains Defence Ministry said on Saturday that it believed Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 50 kilometres south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izium as increasingly isolated.

Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns, the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines. Loading The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 2500 square kilometres in its eastern breakthrough. The institute said it appeared that disorganised Russian forces [were] caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance, and cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized around Izium and surrounding towns. The same report said Ukrainian forces may collapse Russian positions around Izium if they sever Russian ground lines of communication north and south of the town. Vladislav Sokolov, head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izium had started evacuating residents to Russia.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in the south. Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce the latter area, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line. Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the television channel Ukraina that the Russians had no food or fuel for their troops in the area as Kyiv had cut off their supply lines. It will be like an avalanche, he said, predicting a Russian fallback. One line of defence will shake, and it will fall. The Ukrainian military was more circumspect, claiming to have taken more than 1000 square kilometres from pro-Kremlin forces this week. It said that in some areas, units of the Defence Forces have penetrated the enemys defences to a depth of 50 kilometres, matching the British assessment, but did not disclose geographical details. Officials in Kyiv have for weeks been tight-lipped about plans for a counteroffensive, urging residents to refrain from sharing information on social media.

However, Zelenskyy said on Friday that troops had reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of the counteroffensive. Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region when her home was flattened overnight. Loading The Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, accused Moscow of pummelling retaken settlements. He said via Telegram that five civilians were hospitalised in the Izium district, while nine others suffered injuries elsewhere in the region. In the embattled Donbas, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two were injured in Bakhmut and the neighbouring village of Yahidne.

In the Russian-held city of Enerhodar, home to Europes largest nuclear power plant, electricity and water were restored after a four-day outage due to an explosion, the citys Ukrainian mayor, Dmytro Orlov, said. Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant have come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, which Russia and Ukraine accused each other of committing. The shelling has raised fears of a radiation leak at the plant, which has been cut off from outside power sources; the facility has been forced to rely on power from its only working reactor for systems cooling and other safety measures. Orlov said workers from the plant assisted in restoring Enerhodars power, but it was not clear if the electricity was coming from the plant or from a nearby thermal generating station. Also on Saturday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock paid an unannounced visit to Kyiv and said Europe would not tire of helping Ukraine, despite Russian President Vladimir Putins efforts to raise the pressure by withholding energy supplies. Baerbock said Germany will assist Ukraine in finding and removing mines and other unexploded ordnance left by Russian troops in areas where they have been pushed back.
Horses and a Huey may have drawn the most attention Saturday when Army Heritage Days returned to the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center this past weekend after a two-year hiatus, but veterans and reenactors alike hope the stores of those who served linger in the minds of visitors.

On one demonstration field, reenactors dressed in uniforms ranging from the Revolutionary War to World War I tended their horses between demonstrations of cavalry weapons. At the other field, a fairly constant stream of visitors trekked to the Liberty War Birds UH-1 (Huey) helicopter from the Vietnam War era to get a closer look at the iconic aircraft.

Visitors could also see modern battlefield equipment on display. Children crawled in and around a Pennsylvania National Guard Stryker Medical Evacuation Vehicle while current members of the military told them about the vehicle and the injured soldiers they transport in it.

Tim Lehotsky, a World War II reenactor with Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Division, 101st Airborne, said events like Army Heritage Days are a good tool to connect the public with history and help them to understand that there are faces and stories behind what they read in history books.

People dont realize that when they read 7 December 1941 that theres 2,500 families and names and stories that are all involved with those who were killed on that day, he said.

Lehotskys group typically does airborne re-enactments, but over the weekend they represented the 10th Armored Cavalry that was with the 101st Airborne at Bastogne. They also set up a mechanics display to share the World War II experience, but the real goal was to connect the public with the men behind the stories.

One of those men, Joseph Slosarczyk, was a kind, gentle soul who served with HQ company and was killed in action in Normandy only a week after the D-Day invasion.

The greatest generation were human beings like the rest of us. They fought for a greater ideal, but beneath that exterior they were human beings who had dreams and passions and hopes that they put on the back burner for four years in the name of a better world, Lehotsky said.

Lou Frank used to be one of those reenactors telling the story of soldiers in World War II, but he decided a few years ago to tell his own story and the story of the men he served with in Vietnam. At a meet-and-greet session, Frank was among the men seated at tables with photos and mementos and who were willing to talk to visitors about their experiences.

In a photo dated 1968, Frank was in the drivers seat of a military vehicle at a base in Vietnam. Facing it was a much more recent color photo of Frank in the drivers seat of an identical vehicle at a car dealership. That truck became part of the living history display of a Vietnam-era fire base at the weekend event.

Frank, who served as a staff sergeant with the Air Force in Vietnam from February 1968 to May 1969, said he didnt have the type of experience the public hears about. His war was one of making sure food, ammunition and supplies got to the Marines and soldiers on the battlefield.

I remember those guys treating me like I was the best thing since sliced bread because they knew that if I was there they were going to get food and ammunition, he said. Even as a 19-year-old kid, I had the sense that this is important because people are depending on me.

Some of the soldiers receiving those supplies were classmates from his Philadelphia-area high school. He pointed to a page in his three-ring binder where he listed them by the year of graduation with stars beside his boys, the boys he knew the best in school who, like him, went to Vietnam. They, however, didnt return. His list took up roughly half a sheet of notebook paper.

As people leave events like Army Heritage Days, Frank hopes they have a greater respect for veterans.

Veterans are good. Veterans are what keeps you doing what youre doing. Without veterans, youre not going to have that freedom, he said.

Army Heritage Days will for the first time host a second weekend of events from Oct. 15 to Oct. 16 at AHEC off Soldiers Drive in Middlesex Township. The event is free and runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
Cay Hill:--- It has been one month since the National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA) successfully launched its 8th academic year with a number of students in various age groups.

The year kicked off with a week of introduction to the programs offered. The introduction week was led by the Care Team consisting of the student care coordinator, Mrs. Nakeisha Sammy-Willems, and social worker, Ms. Zeynep Sabahoglu. They gave new students information about the institutes organizational structure, programs, school-related expenses, rules, and regulations, and discussed other relevant matters pertaining to the NIPA.

As the countrys only institute for technical-vocational education, the NIPA aims to continue to contribute to nation-building by providing the people of Sint Maarten with opportunities to further their education locally. NIPA offers day and evening programs ranging from General Property Maintenance to Business Administration. This year, the institute relaunched the Maritime and Licensed Practical Nurse programs and looks forward to continuing with them in subsequent academic years.

We see that now more than ever, it is important that persons develop or improve on skills that may translate into a form of income for them in the future. Investing in your education often leads to a reward that cannot be taken away, which is knowledge. The possession of skills and application of knowledge is key when starting a career. As such, the NIPA is here to guide its students in becoming professionals in various fields and is pleased with the successful start of the academic year.



The National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA) is well aware that it is the key institution for creating professionals in St. Maarten. NIPAs goal is to increase the number of local skilled professionals on the island and in the region. NIPA is confident that it has the human resources necessary to facilitate this need to increase the skilled populace.

NIPA hopes that the St. Maarten community will make use of this opportunity and in turn, use their knowledge and skills to further contribute to nation-building.

Students can signup for any of our programs on the NIPA website www.nipa.sx.

On behalf of the NIPA Supervisory Board of Directors, the Managing Board, faculty, and staff, we wish our students much success this academic year.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

GREENWICH  The Avon Theatre in Stamford was in poor shape and ready for the wrecking ball after it closed its doors in 1999.

The old movie house, which opened in 1939 with a screening of Its a Wonderful Life, was just blocks away from two large new movie multiplexes.

Anyone who looked at it from an economic standpoint would have run screaming, recalled Charles Royce of Greenwich, the savior of the old theater, along with his wife and partner in historic preservation, Deborah Royce.

It had been dark for years. It was in bad shape, she said.

The Avon is a thriving cinema today, screening art-house and independent films, and its success was the first of a number of preservation projects that Royce, an investment executive and chairman of Royce Investment Partners, and his wife, an actress and novelist, have undertaken over the past two decades.

Michael Cummo / Hearst Connecticut Media

For his work in the field of preservation, Charles Royce, known as Chuck to friends, will be honored with the Greenwich Historical Societys David Ogilvy Preservation Award on Sept. 14.

Charles Royce said his restoration work came out of keen interest in community building and a love of architecture. He and his wife are also film lovers who enjoy traveling to old places around the world. The couple have been keen observers into the way older structures can evoke local pride and a sense of place.

The Avon came out of us both feeling it shouldnt go away, it shouldnt be lost, and it would be fun to do together, said Charles Royce. We both love architecture.

Added his wife, Every single project we have taken on, theres a community aspect.

Even now, the work at the Avon is not yet complete. The murals in the old theater are due for restoration, and additional work on the lobby is also contemplated. The couple purchased the Avon through the Royce Family Foundation in 2001.

The couple also worked to restore the original grandeur of the Ocean House in Westerly, R.I., an old Victorian resort from the late 1860s that had become dilapidated through the years. The $140 million in work involved harvesting about 5,000 architectural elements to rebuild and restore the seaside hotel in Watch Hill. The Royces have also carried out historic-preservation projects in Tannersville, N.Y., in the Catskills region.

Jessica Kelly / For the Times Union

The preservationists said they seek to reclaim the sense of place that existed in many communities before urban renewal, highway interstate construction and big-box stores changed the fabric of American towns and cities.

We like main streets  were huge fans of main streets. They were really destroyed by the box stores. It serves people well to have main streets, look at Greenwich Avenue. Its where people come to meet, its the vibrant heart of a community, said Deborah Royce.

Everything weve done is mixed in with a community purpose, her husband said.

Charles Royce will be presented with the award named after David Ogilvy, a Greenwich real estate executive and preservationist who died in 2020 at the age of 77. Peter Malkin, a longtime supporter of the Greenwich Historical Society whose family operates Empire State Realty Trust and Malkin Holdings in New York City, will present the award and carry out a question-and-answer exchange with the Royce at the event.

The Greenwich Historical Society said the Royces are role models in the field.

We are extremely grateful for Chuck and Deborahs continued interest in preservation and the years of support they have provided to the Historical Society, Executive Director Debra Mecky saud.

As to the award, Charles Royce said it was an honor to be in the company of Malkin and Ogilvy, a longtime friend. The honor, he said, was a validation of the work of over 20 years, overseeing one detail at a time  Im thrilled, he added.

The presentation will take place at the annual meeting of the Greenwich Historical Society at the Riverside Yacht Club. Tickets start at $75.
NEW ORLEANS (AP)  Alex Katz has been selling electric vehicles at his luxury preowned car dealership, NOLA Motorcars, since 2013.

EVs have always been a curiosity, but these days, interest is surging at his Metairie showroom.

When people walk in, anything electric is the first one everyone goes up to, Katz said.

Despite the fascination, most buyers still cant bring themselves to take the plunge, even though there are more models, longer-range batteries and an upcoming $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs assembled in the U.S.

The general consensus is, Im not ready yet, Katz said.

The reasons for sticking with gas-powered vehicles are many, but chief among them is a lack of available charging infrastructure, both the standard Level 2 stations that take several hours and the rarer, ultra-quick, DC fast chargers and Tesla Superchargers, which can do the job in 30-45 minutes.

That could begin changing in the next few years, though, as New Orleans adds 30 Level 2 chargers in underserved neighborhoods and the state gears up to spend almost $100 million to put fast chargers along regional interstate corridors.

Experts say both initiatives should help raise the profile of electric vehicles among consumers and ease the omnipresent worry about not being able to find a charge, particularly in a region where people need to evacuate for hurricanes.

Its called range anxiety, and its a very real thing, said Katz, noting he had a customer return a Chevrolet Bolt after spending a day freaking out over where to charge it.

He decided it wasnt for him, Katz said. We definitely need more charging infrastructure, but I tell my customers: treat it like an iPhone, plug it in every night for a full charge the next day.

An estimated 80% of electric vehicle charging takes place at home, and local owners of EVs say that while range anxiety is real, it often looms larger in the imagination than reality.

Chargers can be installed in a garage or along a driveway, and in 2017, the New Orleans City Council created a permit for those without offstreet parking to put a charger in the public right-of-way.

This was the case for Melanie Sheen, who bought a Nissan Leaf almost four years ago and has never regretted it.

Now that we have the charging spot in front of the house, its been great, she said. It hasnt been a problem at all.

Sheen, an Ochsner oncologist who lives Uptown with her husband and two children, said the battery life on her Leaf is more than enough for her daily needs.

I love it, its such a fun little car to drive, she said. But I also like that I dont have to go get gas, and Im doing my part for the environment, reducing my carbon footprint.

Brian Burns, a local chef and restauranteur, said his family got a Leaf in 2014 to save some money on his wifes commute to teach in St. Bernard Parish.

At $13,000, it was the most expensive car they had ever bought, but Burns said the money saved by not buying gas and having essentially no maintenance issues have made it more than worth it.

Its been an absolute dream not to have to deal with any of that, he said.

Both said they charge their EVs overnight and rarely worry about it.

Still, as the number of electric cars in New Orleans creeps up, available chargers at places like Whole Foods and Louis Armstrong International Airport are harder to come by. And Sheen and Burns agree the city needs more.

On that count, there are two developments current and prospective EV owners can take heart in.

The first is the rollout of 30 public, free-to-use chargers the city and Entergy New Orleans are installing in 25 locations by the end of the year. The first was opened late last month in Pontchartrain Park, and the others will be placed at parks, libraries and other public facilities with a focus on putting them in places where Level 2 chargers currently arent available.

The public charging initiative stems from a 2018 agreement between the City Council and Entergy, and council members made up half of the committee that took the public input on where chargers should be located.

Dan Jartres of the citys Office of Resilience and Sustainability said that if the location of chargers is left entirely up to commercial providers, then chargers will only be available where the demand already is. He also said the citys goal is to help encourage more people to consider buying EVs and to have the infrastructure there when they do.

People are going to balance their desire for cost savings or environmental benefits against practical concerns, he said, which includes not only the availability of chargers but whether they are in locations where they can pass the time while they charge.

Unlike fast chargers, Level 2 chargers are not analogous to gas stations and tend to be located where people will spend a lot of time, whether its home, work or shopping and recreation centers.

The second surge in charging capacity will come from the state, thanks to last years federal Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which includes funds for states to install fast chargers along regional corridors.

Tyler Herrmann, co-director of Louisiana Clean Fuels, the nonprofit that is working with the state on the project, said Louisiana will get $73.4 million in federal money that, when combined with local matching dollars, will amount to $95 million for fast charging stations along the I-10, I-12, I-49, I-55, I-20 and U.S. 90 corridors.

Herrmann said the program will put charging stations no more than 50 miles apart and within a mile of the corridor. Once this coverage is achieved, others could be located in underserved areas or places important for hurricane evacuation.

The states five-year plan is awaiting approval by the Federal Highway Administration by the end of the month, but the proposal is for 75 stations with at least four chargers each, with more at chargers at stations nearly highly populated areas.

Fast charging stations, however, arent cheap.

The plan estimates the cost to be between $100,000 and $300,000 per charger, though the actual amount wont be determined until contracts are awarded and will depend heavily on what each applicant wants to build. In addition to the physical infrastructure such as concrete pads, trenches, canopies, bollards and lighting, the stations could include their own transformers, a back-up battery and internet connection for the data transfer required for fast charging a vehicle. The chargers might also include more than one type of input so they can be used by older EVs.

The estimates also include the first five years of maintenance and operation. The stations will be owned and operated by the commercial or public entities that submit qualifying proposals, but the program aims to make sure the costs are covered for the first five years.

Herrmann said the first charging station could be built in late 2023.

He said there is a chicken-and-egg relationship between vehicles and charging capacity  people dont want to buy EVs if there arent enough chargers, but no one wants to build charging stations if there arent enough vehicles to make it worth the investment.

I think this funding is going to go a long way to alleviating that barrier, he said.

Louisiana ranks 46th in the nation based on the market share of EVs among all vehicles sold in 2019. Experts and local EV owners say thats because there are other impediments beyond range anxiety.

Electric vehicles tend to cost a bit more than their gas-powered counterparts, despite some affordable entry-level models like the Leaf and Bolt.

Hermann said a new Bolt costs about $26,000, while Katz, the dealer, said a used 2013 Leaf goes for about $10,000, provided a buyer can live with a battery thats good for only about 80 miles per charge.

For those who can spend more, waiting lists are common, as global demand soars for highly coveted models. Burns has been so happy with his Leaf that hes in line for a Ford Lightning EV pick-up truck, but hes been on a waiting list for well over a year.

The high percentage of renters and older homes without off-street parking present unique challenges as well.

The more a driver pays to charge, the less financial advantage there is to owning an EV, Herrmann pointed out. The Level 2 chargers, which can take 4 to 5 hours to fully charge at a cost of about $14, are twice as expensive as charging from home.

Home charging, he said, is a third of the cost of fueling a gas-powered vehicle.

That home charging piece is pretty crucial, he said.

Tesla argued in a lawsuit filed recently that the states laws prohibiting direct-to-consumer sales of vehicles has been preventing Louisiana from fully participating in the EV revolution. For the time being, at least, Louisiana residents who want a Tesla have to buy it online.

Tesla owner James Miller said he wishes there were more charging stations in New Orleans, and he still considers his other, gas-powered vehicle essential, particularly because of hurricanes. But he has enjoyed his Tesla since he got it about a month ago.

It will be a tough transition, but so was gas when we stopped riding horses, he said recently at the Tesla Supercharger station in Metairie. Everything is tough at the beginning. I still like gas  I wont lie, three or four minutes and Im out. But here I sit. I might as well read a book.


This page requires Javascript.

Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
Max Verstappen tightened his grip on the Formula One drivers championship with victory ahead of Charles Leclerc at the Italian Grand Prix.

It was Verstappens fifth-straight victory and his first at the Italian Grand Prix  much to the displeasure of the Ferrari fans who packed out Monza and were hoping for a Leclerc win.

The Dutchman now leads the driver standings by 116 points and could mathematically wrap up the title at the next race in Singapore.

Boos rang out around Monza as Sundays race finished behind a safety car after Daniel Ricciardo had stopped on the track with five laps remaining.

It meant Leclerc, who trailed Verstappen having taken an extra pit stop, was unable to mount a challenge on his rival in the closing stages.

Throughout the race, however, it became apparent that Verstappen had the superior speed having climbed from seventh on the grid.

It was just controlling the gap at the end when the safety car came out, Verstappen said in his post-race interview. Unfortunately, we didnt get a restart, but overall we had again a really good day.

Spectators look on as Verstappen tops the podium in Monza. - Mark Thompson/Getty Images Europe/Getty Images

The Red Bull driver had to serve a five-place grid penalty after taking a new power unit component, but he quickly made light work of the drivers between him and pole-sitter Leclerc.

He had moved into second place ahead of Mercedes George Russell by the fifth lap and then took the lead as Leclerc pitted when a virtual safety car was deployed on lap 12.

Verstappen swapped tires himself on Lap 26 to hand the lead back to Leclerc, who pitted for a second time seven laps later. That gave Verstappen a lead of around 20 seconds, and his victory was eventually confirmed as the race finished behind the safety car.

The start was very good, I had a clean chicane, Verstappen added. Then I could quickly get back into my rhythm and get into second.

It was really good on the tires, it was really enjoyably to drive today even though it was quite hot out there. A great day for us.

Story continues

A solid race for Russell saw him complete the podium behind Leclerc, while Ferraris Carlos Sainz and Mercedes Lewis Hamilton, both having started at the back of the grid following power unit penalties, surged through the field to finish fourth and fifth.

Despite his gutsy performances, Hamilton is now mathematically unable to win the F1 title as he sits an unassailable 167 points behind Verstappen in the standings.

Williams Nyck de Vries, a late replacement for Alexander Albon who is undergoing treatment for appendicitis, finished ninth on his F1 debut and was awarded the Driver of the Day accolade.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
As many as 109,234 people, Romanian and foreign nationals, entered Romania on Saturday, including 11,541 Ukrainian citizens, up 6.8pct from the previous day, according to a press release sent to Agerpres on Sunday by the General Inspectorate of the Border Police.

A number of 277,500 persons, Romanian and foreign nationals, who either entered or exited Romania, and over 70,500 means of transport underwent border checks at all of Romania's crossing points on Saturday.

The number of Ukrainians who crossed into Romania since the pre-war date of February 10 until September 10 is 2,265,849, the IGPF said.

As part of the specific activities at crossing points and the green border, the border police found 71 illegal acts (38 infractions and 33 contraventions) committed by both Romanian and foreign citizens.

27 foreign citizens who did not meet the legal requirements were denied entry to the country, and 28 Romanian citizens were also not allowed to leave the country for various legal reasons.
President Klaus Iohannis says that the participation of a large number of Romanians in the celebrations in Tebea shows that the new generations perceive the tomb of Avram Iancu and Gorunul lui Horea as a place where they reaffirm their roots, identity, patriotism and respect for the sacrifices of their ancestors.

"Today, we are commemorating 150 years since the passing of one of the most significant heroes of our nation. Avram Iancu, the leader of the Revolution of 1848 in Transylvania, was an emblematic figure of our national consciousness, a hero who dedicated his life and energy to the best interest of his people," reads the president's message, presented in Tebea by Sergiu Nistor, presidential adviser at the Department of Culture, Cults and National Minorities.

Iohannis says that Avram Iancu believed in the power of facts and established himself in history as a fighter for social and national freedom.

He was also known for his fiery patriotic speeches and for the strength with which he promoted the rights of the Romanians in Transylvania, and the power and depth of his words are still alive today.

Klaus Iohannis also referred to Russia's aggression against Ukraine, talking about the revival of an "imperialist mentality."

"Currently, we are facing a difficult context, in which we are witnessing the revival of an imperialist mentality, in the name of which an independent state is subjected to brutal aggression, which seemed impossible to conceive in Europe today. We are facing one of the most major humanitarian crises in the recent history of our continent, which generate an increasing number of victims, destruction and displacement of people inside and outside the borders of Ukraine," the head of state emphasizes.

Klaus Iohannis also reaffirmed Romania's commitment to strengthening the transatlantic relationship and referred to the moral and spiritual milestones left by Avram Iancu.

"I want express my conviction that the joint efforts of the international community, political dialogue, and not confrontation, together with our convergent and complementary objectives, of NATO and the EU, will ensure the strengthening of European security and stability, especially in South-Eastern Europe and in the Black Sea Region. May the moral and spiritual landmarks affirmed through sacrifice and left to us by Avram Iancu guide us and inspire us in affirming and strengthening a modern, prosperous, European and democratic Romania," The president's message also states.
By all accounts, the short, sheltered life of Lucrezia di Cosimo deMedici was not one you would have wanted to live. Born into wealth and power, she had neither. Married off at 13 to the fiance of an older sister who died, she was dead herself by 16. Modern experts speculate the culprit was tuberculosis, not uncommon in 1561. Gossips came to a different conclusion: She was murdered by the Duke of Ferrara, her husband.

This dark supposition persisted long enough to inspire Robert Brownings 1842 poem My Last Duchess, in which a lofty nobleman shows off his dead wifes portrait to the family member of a prospective bride. Now, Maggie OFarrell has written her own version of Lucrezias story, and  as you might expect from the author of Hamnet  she has spun pure gold out of this tragic history.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2021, Hamnet offered a new perspective on a boy in rural 16th-century England whose life and death inspired his grieving playwright father to create one of the most enduring works of all time. Like Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait builds a rich interior world while vividly re-creating an era, in this case the Italian Renaissance, a period overflowing with intrigue and pomp, rustling heavy fabrics and glowing frescoes, blood and lust and the desire for power.

OFarrell takes a few liberties with the story, adjusting Lucrezias age and other realities. Lucrezia is 15, for example, on her wedding day, still small enough to feel imprisoned by her enormous gown, a harbinger of whats to come.

A strange child, fifth in a line of eight  her mothers nickname is La Fecundissima  Lucrezia learns quickly, whether she is studying Greek history, drawing perspective on a page or practicing the subtle art of manipulation. Wildness fascinates her. When her father brings a tigress to his zoo in the bowels of their Florentine palace, she is mesmerized by the beast, certain an understanding passes between them.

That tiger, who dies in her underground prison, haunts the novel, as Lucrezia, caught in her own gilded cage, discovers the truth about her enigmatic new husband. She endures what she loathes: sitting for a marriage portrait, the invasive act designed to produce an heir. When no heir materializes, fear creeps in.

And yet shes aware of an unfurling within. She feels the rise of what she thinks of as her spirit  the unfettered part of herself to which no one, not even she, has access. It lives somewhere deep inside her, under the layers of costly palazzo clothes, mostly hibernating, as if under a covering of leaves, until called into action. Then it might uncurl, crawl out in to the light, blinking, bristling, furling its filthy fists and opening its jagged red mouth.
CORRECTION: The date of the 2009 crash was wrong in an earlier version of this story.

ST. CHARLES COUNTY  A Wright City man died after losing control of his motorcycle early Saturday morning on Interstate 70 in Foristell.

Bryant A. Vetter, 30, was heading west on a 2013 Harley Davidson around 2 a.m. when he ran off the left side of the interstate and hit the median, causing the motorcycle to overturn, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Vetter was rushed by ambulance to Mercy Hospital St. Louis, where he was pronounced dead at 6:21 a.m., authorities said. The crash report indicates he was not wearing a helmet.

A Bryant A. Vetter was also involved in a fatal crash on Jan. 16 more than 13 years ago when he was 16, according to a story in the Post-Dispatch. In that incident, Vetter was driving a 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier when he crossed the center line on North Goodes Mill Road in Franklin County and crashed into another car.

A passenger in the Cavalier, Cory L. Ramsey, also 16, of Washington, Mo., was killed. Vetter suffered serious injuries. Neither Vetter nor Ramsey were wearing seatbelts.
Bill McClellan Bill McClellan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Bill McClellan 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

We are a bright red state. I get that. There is no need for the Biden administration to pay much attention to us. I get that, too.

But cant we at least get a new U.S. attorney?

Kansas City got one. Those folks are in Missouri. Why them and not us?

You probably know how the system works. Each new president is expected to name a U.S. attorney for each of the countrys 93 districts. The professional staff stays the same, but there is a new boss. Maybe he or she brings a new direction to the office. Or maybe not. But there is a new boss.

Nobody expects a new president to actually make the selections himself, and so the privilege of selecting a U.S. attorney traditionally goes to the senior senator of the presidents party in each state. That system worked better in the days of yore when many states had a Republican and a Democrat serving in the Senate. Roy Blunt and Claire McCaskill. Tom Eagleton and Jack Danforth.

That situation is increasingly uncommon. More and more states are all red or all blue.

We are an extreme example. You get outside of the little blue dots and its pure red. Except for lame-duck auditor Nicole Galloway, there are no Democrats holding statewide office.

On the other hand, this how you grow a party. You fill positions with promising young people. How hard is that to figure out?

The Western District of Missouri  thats Kansas City  got a new U.S. attorney early on in the new administration. Her name is Teresa Moore.

Without a senator, or a statewide office-holder, who does the president turn to? Perhaps a member of Congress.

The congressman from Kansas City is Emanuel Cleaver. He is an African American, a liberal and a team player. For instance, he voted for President Joe Bidens infrastructure bill.

St. Louis did not want a team player. We wanted an activist, someone who would poke the establishment in the eye with a sharp stick. Cori Bush voted against the infrastructure bill. She wants to defund the police and the Pentagon.

What is the president supposed to do after he pulls the stick out of his eye? Listen to her?

Bear in mind, too, that we have an alphabet soup of federal law enforcement agencies in town  the FBI, the DEA, the ATF and so on. They are ostensibly nonpartisan, but I have dealt with these people for years and I can tell you that they are politically similar to cops  that is, mostly conservative. Truth is, they are cops. An FBI agent is is exactly like a city cop except the agent has more formal education and less street smarts.

These federal cops know we already have a criminal justice problem in St. Louis. We have a woke prosecutor. We need somebody somewhere in the system who wants to prosecute criminals.

The last thing we need is a woke U.S. attorney.

I expect that gets passed on to higher-ups in Washington. Dont listen to Cori.

The city cops I know liked former U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen very much. He was appointed by then-president Donald Trump. Under Jensen, who was a former FBI agent, the feds worked closely with the locals.

Jensen resigned when Trump lost the election in 2020.

He had to. When Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and then sought to withdraw his plea, the Justice Department gave Jensen the charge of looking into the matter. In a rather curious decision, Jensen decided that yes, Flynn had committed the crime, and yes, he had excellent legal representation when he chose to plead guilty, but his lies had not been material to the investigation  they were untethered to it  and therefore, charges should be dropped.

That decision might have pleased Trump, but it certainly upset the professional prosecutors who had worked on the case, and it seemed to puzzle the judge, who took the matter under advisement. Trump then went ahead and gave Flynn a pardon.

Flynn went on to become a popular speaker at Q-Anon events, and after Trumps defeat in 2020, Flynn suggested Trump declare martial law and have a new election under military authority. Later, he supported the idea of a coup.

I dont know enough about the law to critique Jensens legal argument, but I am quite sure that many defendants would like to be judged under those standards. Yes, theyre guilty, but the cops shouldnt have been looking at them in the first place.

By the way, I am strongly opposed to the notion that lying to authorities should be a crime. They can lie to us. They can tell us they have our DNA at the crime scene, or they can tell us they have a witness putting us at the scene, when neither of those things is true. Why should they be able to lie to us, but not us to them?

At any rate, Jensen resigned, and then Attorney General William Barr appointed Sayler Fleming as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

She is an experienced prosecutor with a fine reputation. She is from southern Missouri and after graduating from law school, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am friends with the judges father.

So this is not to disparage Fleming. She has a great resume for a young Republican.

Under her leadership, the office seems to be chugging along smoothly. They recently nailed three Democratic aldermen  what other kind are there in St. Louis?  but that victory was tempered, I thought, by the fact that had the aldermen bothered to Google the businessman who offered them bribes, they would have seen that he had a federal case pending against him. Never take a bribe from a man who has a federal case pending. There ought to be a law.

At any rate, fine job by Fleming. Its just that a Democrat won the presidency and is expected to name Democrats as U.S. attorneys. Biden has been spectacularly inept in this regard. As of last month, he had only nominated 56 out of the 93 districts. And as I have said, our situation is especially difficult because our Congresswoman is woke and all the federal agencies are probably telling the administration not to listen to her.

But still, the Democratic party has no shortage of lawyers. Some of them have prosecutorial experience and would make fine U.S. attorneys.

Soon it will be mid-terms. If the Republicans take the Senate, Biden will have a hard time getting any appointment through Sen. Josh Hawley. I dont want to even think about that.

So the clock is ticking. Just pick somebody, Joe. If you need help, call me. Ive got a couple of names for you.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story suggested Sayler Fleming is an interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
ALTON  Hunter Jones and Chris Stout are going to have a good fish story to tell this week.

The 65-pounder they pulled out of the Mississippi River on Saturday was the biggest all day at the Alton Catfish Classic, and anchored a 3-fish haul weighing in at more than 147 pounds that won the tournaments overall prize against dozens of other anglers. That was good for a $18,500 payday.

Theyre buying dinner tonight, said tournament director Alex Nagy.

Jones, 36, of East Prairie, Missouri, said he and Stout were fishing downriver of St. Louis around mid-morning when they hooked the big one with skipjack bait.

We were fishing a good area, Stout said. And we were just fortunate.

It didnt go without a fight. But Stout, 48, of Jackson, Tennessee, said he and Jones had a plan of attack forged by years of experience.

Rather than trying to reel in their quarry against the current, they chased the fish downriver with their SeaArk Pro Cat 200, tired it out, and pulled it straight up out of the water.

We take a lot of the fun out of it, Stout said.

But not all of it.

To have a 65-pound fish have you almost peeling your thumbprint off on the reel, thats exhilarating, Stout said.

The fish kept fighting during weigh-in, splashing and thrashing as the anglers submitted them for examination before a court of more than 100 people in Altons Liberty Bank amphitheater, just off the river.

Stout and Jones took the lead, and then watched a parade of competitors come through with less.

Then it was time to collect the trophies and plaques and head home. Stout runs a catfishing guide service in Tennessee; Jones runs a power washing business back home in Missouris Bootheel. The tournaments are a hobby at this point.

You wish you could do it for a living, Jones said.

Saturday marked the third running of the Alton tournament, which aims to promote the river town and area fishing.

The St. Louis region has been home to some of the biggest catfish in the world.

The Missouri state record blue catfish, caught in 2010 by Greg Bernal of Florissant, weighed in at 130 pounds, beating a previous record set in 1991 by 27 pounds. Officials said that beat a world record held since May 2005 by Tim Pruitt of Alton, who caught a 124-pounder on the Mississippi near his hometown.

The next year, a North Carolina man caught a 143-pounder on the Virginia-North Carolina border.
Near final results in Swedens election show that a bloc of right-wing parties prevailed against a left-wing grouping headed by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. The conservative bloc includes a populist anti-immigration party that made its best ever showing. However, the result was so close that the election authority said that the preliminary election result would not be known until Wednesday, when uncounted votes, including those cast abroad, have been tallied. The biggest winner of the evening was the populist anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, which had a strong showing of nearly 21%. It gained on promises to crack down on shootings and other gang violence.
Former Gov. Eric Greitens, second from right, leaves the Boone County Courthouse in July with his attorney, Gary Stamper, masked, after a 7 1/2-hour deposition hearing in the child custody case stemming from his 2020 divorce (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

For almost two weeks, the only thing known about the ruling in the court case over child custody jurisdiction between former Gov. Eric Greitens and his ex-wife, Sheena Greitens, was that a Boone County judge agreed to move it to a Texas court.

Associate Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider put her ruling under a tight seal, limiting access to the Greitens, their attorneys and court personnel.

But when it arrived at the Travis County, Texas, District Court Clerks office Wednesday, it immediately became public.

The most anxiously awaited portion of the ruling was what Schneider would determine about allegations of spousal and child abuse made by Sheena Greitens  which became fodder for an $8 million ad campaign seeking to torpedo Eric Greitens U.S. Senate campaign.

But the un-redacted version of the 14-page ruling obtained by The Independent Friday devoted just a single paragraph to the allegations.

The court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that there has been no pattern of domestic violence by either Mother or Father, Schneider wrote. The children have never been at risk or vulnerable at the hands of either parent.

That finding, Eric Greitens wrote in an email to The Independent Friday evening, should settle whether or not he abused his sons. He blamed the media for publicizing the allegations Sheena Greitens made under oath.

This was a lie, about me and my boys, he wrote. The judge found conclusively that the children were never even at risk or vulnerable. The only harm to my children, as the ruling makes clear, came from these lies and their promotion by a willing press.

But Helen Wade, attorney for Sheena Greitens, said her client never alleged a pattern of abuse  instead claiming instances of abuse when Eric Greitens was angry or stressed.

Dr. Greitens related under oath specific instances over a span of time, which were amply documented with third parties at the time, and she stands by her sworn statements, Wade said in an email.

Sheena Greitens and Eric Greitens were divorced in 2020, two years after he resigned as governor as part of a deal to dismiss a felony charge. The divorce was filed in Boone County, where Sheena Greitens lived while working on the faculty of the University of Missouri.

Sheena Greitens is now on the faculty of the University of Texas and asked the courts in that state to take over supervision of the child custody arrangement soon after Eric Greitens announced in 2021 that he was running for the Senate.

Travis County, Texas, Judge Andrew Hathcock said he needed an order from Schneider to take the case.

In her ruling, Schneider said she agreed to move the case to Texas, because the children spend the majority of their time there, receive their medical care there and it is the most convenient venue. She also, over several paragraphs, cited the extra level of protection from public scrutiny that Texas law provides.

In light of the fact that the laws of the State of Texas provide for more robust alternative dispute resolution, parenting coordination/facilitation, and the closure or sealing of the family court case, the negative allegations made by or between the parties could be made privately thereby diminishing or altogether eliminating the publicity of any response, Schneider wrote.

In another passage, she cited the concerns of the guardian ad litem  a court-appointed representative of the children  to protect the children from seeing bad publicity about their family if the case remained in Missouri.

She has confirmed that there are more options in Texas to protect the privacy of the parties and of the children, Schneider wrote, adding that the guardian ad litem is not confident that a Missouri Court can protect the children from the media interest in Missouri.

But the Boone County clerks letter giving notice to the Texas court of Schneiders ruling does not note that it is not public in Missouri. If it did, former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Wolff said, it would not have had any effect.

She can seal all she wants to in Missouri, but she has no authority to seal in Texas, Wolff said. If somebody wants it sealed, they have to ask the Texas courts to seal it.

Sheena Greitens attorney in Texas has filed a motion to seal the case there, but no hearing date has been set.

Because the judgment had not been made public, The Kansas City Star and Associated Press filed motions to intervene in order to argue that Schneider lift the seal. The Star reported Thursday on the ruling after obtaining a redacted copy and the AP issued a report based on the full ruling available from Travis County.

On Friday, the Star and the AP withdrew their motion to intervene, which had been set for a hearing on Monday. Schneider has set a hearing for Sept. 27 on redaction of judgment and security level to determine what portions of the ruling, other filings and exhibits will be public.

In her ruling, Schneider wrote about the difficulty of presiding over a case with national attention.

When judges follow the law in judging perceived high profile, sometimes highly politicized cases it can be especially challenging, Schneider wrote. When judges follow the law, even against the will of the parties, they have done their job notwithstanding the location of the particular courthouse.

Gary Stamper, Eric Greitens attorney, said that the ruling would not satisfy his clients critics.

A judge has the authority to make a judgment about where a divorce will be heard, with careful consideration of how the parties and children may best be served, he wrote in a statement to The Independent. The court of public opinion weighs in mightily with a rush to judgment with very little information. These days, it is either total support or hatred.

In his email to The Independent, Eric Greitens blamed the media for being quick to report on the allegations and giving his side of the story little attention.

For me, the most important thing to protect my boys are two truths, Greitens wrote. One: they know now and always will that their Dad loves them with all his heart. Two: they will now, mercifully, know the truth about these terrible lies that were told about them and promoted with millions of dollars in media and political ads.
September 11, 2022: Every war Russia has been in has produced epic stories of what those who fought, or were otherwise caught up in the fighting went through. The current war in Ukraine is different in several ways. First, it has been a disaster from the start and the government refuses to give up. To avoid accurate reporting of the disaster, a law was passed making it illegal to report accurately on the war. Only government approved accounts are allowed. This has slowed down but not stopped accurate accounts of what is going on. One such account is a 141-page book called ZOV (A Call) that reported on the experience of sergeant Pavel Filatyev, a Russian paratrooper who had been in continuous action from the start of the invasion until April, when an eye infection put him in a hospital. In May he was released from the hospital and ordered to return to his unit. Filatyev was a contract (volunteer) soldier and sought to resign his contract. His commander would not allow it and ordered him to report for duty. Meanwhile the army had lost his hospital records, which had made it difficult for him to make his case for leaving the army legally. Filatyev was already fed up with the war, the way it was being fought and the fact that Russia appeared to be losing but it was now illegal to report on that. So Filatyev wrote his book and published it, August 1st, on the Russian version of Facebook. That caught the attention of the government and there was talk of sending the author to prison for 15 years. There were already several groups in Russia that helped people like Filatyev get out of the country and obtain asylum. By mid-August Filatyev was in France, applying for asylum.

His book had been a sensation both inside and outside Russia. Now it seemed Filatyev had an opportunity to expand ZOV and get it translated into other languages. The initial version of the book was compelling, as was Filatyevs military career. He was conscripted in 2007 and decided to sign a contract and was a contract soldier until 2010, when he did not renew his contract and got out of the army. He rejoined the army in August 2021 and was sent to Crimea to serve as a sergeant in the 56th Airborne Assault Brigade. Russia had seized Crimea in 2014 and was now massing troops around Ukraine and making threats. No one expected an invasion but suddenly in late February, Filatyevs unit was ordered to invade Ukraine and did so after about a week of preparations in Crimea. His brigade was part of the force that was seeking to take the port of Kherson.

Despite the week of preparation, operations were disorganized and haphazard. His officers had no clear idea of what they were expected to do, except take Ukrainian territory. From the beginning Russian troops had problems with communications and getting supplies. There was not as much resistance in the south as there was in the north and his unit managed to occupy Kherson city but only stayed one day before moving on to another river port city called Mykolayiv, where there was a lot of resistance. This is where Filatyev contracted an eye infection in April and was sent back to Crimea for treatment. Shortly after his unit entered Kherson, his commander told him the war would be over in a few days. That did not happen and as the Ukrainian resistance grew, the ability of Russian troops to cope declined. There continued to be problems with communications, supplies and any clear purpose to Russian operations. While hospitalized in Crimea he heard similar stories from other soldiers, who apparently suffered higher casualties than his brigade. Filatyev has been taking notes and expected to resign his contract and spend time on putting together ZOV. In the hospital Filatyev learned that Russian losses had been much higher than expected and the army was having problems getting new contract soldiers or keeping existing ones. That included not allowing soldiers to break their contract. Filatyev broke the contract anyway, wrote ZOV and published it online, then got out of Russia before he could be arrested.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2022  The U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is issuing a public health alert due to concerns that ground beef products in HelloFresh meal kits may be associated with Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 illness. A recall was not requested because the products are no longer available for purchase. The meal kits containing ground beef for this public health alert were shipped to consumers from July 2-21, 2022. The following products are subject to the public health alert [view label]: 10-oz. plastic vacuum-packed packages containing GROUND BEEF 85% LEAN/15% FAT with codes EST#46481 L1 22 155 or EST#46481 L5 22 155 on the side of the packaging. The ground beef packages bear EST.46841 inside the USDA mark of inspection and on the plastic ground beef package. FSIS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state public health partners are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 and raw ground beef is the probable source of the reported illnesses. Traceback information identified that multiple case-patients received ground beef produced at establishment M46841 and distributed by HelloFresh in meal kits from July 2-21, 2022. Traceback of materials used to produce the ground beef is ongoing and FSIS continues to work with suppliers and public health partners on the investigation. FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers freezers. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them. These products should be thrown away. FSIS advises all consumers to safely prepare their raw meat products, including fresh and frozen, and only consume ground beef that has been cooked to a temperature of 160 F. The only way to confirm that ground beef is cooked to a temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria is to use a food thermometer that measures internal temperature, https://www.fsis.usda.gov/safetempchart. Media and consumers with questions regarding the public health alert can contact [email protected] or by live chat. Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or live chat via Ask USDA from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Consumers can also browse food safety messages at Ask USDA or send a question via email to [email protected] . For consumers that need to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product, the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System can be accessed 24 hours a day at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/.
Seoul, South Korea--(Newsfile Corp. - September 11, 2022) - BaaSid has announced the launch of 'Agendabook', a real-time mobile research & marketing platform service:

New web3.0-based innovation platform for online and mobile research marketing





Unlimited expansion as a marketing promotion platform





Provides real-time statistics and cross-analysis data targeting

Society is becoming more diverse, and users' dependence on mobile is increasing. In particular, the online research and marketing market is rapidly expanding, centering on mobile. Against this background, 'Agendabook' (www.agendabook.io), a service that shows statistical data in real-time through voting on people's various preferences and opinions, was opened.





BaaSid Announces Launch of Agendabook



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8520/136539_2afec62ba4467aab_001full.jpg

"Agendabook" collects various data on an anonymous basis. The collected data can more clearly target customers. In addition, data analysis is possible more conveniently and rationally by using big data algorithms without personal information.

In particular, 'Agendabook' is a direct platform that directly connects voting participants and research writers. In addition to basic research such as corporate market research and preference research, 'Agendabook' is an algorithm called, 'target setting' for small and medium-sized businesses that are burdened with big data operation. Targeting can be set more easily and conveniently.

The Agenda Book Service, operated in a combination of UCC (User Create Content) and SNS, is a community service that allows anyone to write a variety of agendas and obtain statistical data in real-time, through discussion and voting. All voting data generated by Agendabook is securely stored in blockchain and decentralized storage, making it difficult to tamper. This ensures transparent voting results. And by linking MetaMask wallet, it is possible to withdraw the rewards received from Agendabook's activities in cryptocurrency. Through this, BaaSid implemented a complete voting system and research system based on anonymity without storing sensitive personal information based on Web 3.0.

Currently, cryptocurrency that can be withdrawn with rewards obtained through activities is possible with the BaaSid (BAAS) token, and BaaSid plans to gradually increase the types of cryptocurrencies.

BaaSid (www.baasid.com) said, "Agendabook is a social consensus service that helps people think through the collective intelligence of various political, economic, social, cultural, product issues and topics as logical results of voting and real-time statistics."

In addition, BaaSid said, "Social consensus will help to compare my thoughts with those of groups in living in a more complex and pluralistic society, and to have an objective view with statistical results."

"We can grow based on intelligence, social consensus, and statistical logic,"BaaSid said of their vision for the service.

BaaSid (www.baasid.com) is a blockchain-specialized company established in 2018, and it is a company that develops blockchain technology and conducts blockchain interworking services in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Agendabook can be downloaded from Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.agendabook.agendabook) and iOS App Store (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/agendabook-more-fun-than-game/id1614980820).



Company Name: BaaSid (Agendabook)

Contact person Name: Moon Inshic

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.baasid.com | www.agendabook.io

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/136539
Ranked No. 410, Golden Tax Relief has entered the top 500 of Inc. 5000's list of fastest-growing businesses in 2022.

Elmhurst, Illinois--(Newsfile Corp. - September 11, 2022) - Golden Tax Relief has announced that it has been named one of the fastest-growing businesses by Inc. - the prestigious US business magazine. The tax consultancy entered the top 500 of the Inc. 5000 list.

More details about the Inc. 5000 honoree can be found at https://www.inc.com/profile/golden-tax-relief







Golden Tax Relief

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/136655_9b0a0757a4e56b92_001full.jpg

The Alabama company, which assists businesses and individuals in resolving IRS issues and reducing tax liability, has had a 1,487% growth over a three-year period. As such, it has earned its spot among the top 500 most successful American companies that have a median revenue growth rate of 2,144 percent over the last three years - up 1,820 percent compared to the previous year.

Inc. 5000 honors the most successful companies in America. "To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2018," explained an Inc. representative. "They must be US-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent."

Founded in 2017, Golden Tax Relief has been providing tax planning services for individuals and businesses in the Chicagoland area and throughout Clark County, Alabama. Over the course of three years, the firm has experienced accelerated growth - its annual revenue exceeding $100,000 in 2018 and $2 million in 2021.

"At Golden Tax Relief, our values include peace, protection, and posterity," said Ben Golden, Founder and CEO. "Our goal is to help our clients feel at peace by representing them knowledgeably, to protect them by working within the confines of their rights, and to let them know that their posterity will be secure in the years to come."

The firm, a first-time Inc. 5000 honoree, provides custom tax plans to reduce tax liability. Its certified tax planners develop legal strategies and opportunities for tax reduction with the goal of increasing retirement savings for individuals and enabling growth for business clients.

"Taxes are a necessary part of business, but there is no reason you should pay any more than legally necessary," said Ben Golden. "That's why I started Golden Tax Relief - to proactively assist high-income business owners to legally reduce their tax liability."

Interested parties can learn more about Golden Tax Relief at https://www.goldentaxrelief.com

Contact Info:

Name: Jacinta LeDonne

Email: [email protected]

Organization: Golden Tax Relief

Address: 100 South York Street Suite 214, Elmhurst, Illinois 60126, United States

Website: https://goldentaxrelief.com/

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/136655
(Tribune News Service)  The U.S. Coast Guard Foundation will host "Tribute to the 14th Coast Guard District" Sept. 23 at Nico's Upstairs, an event that's expected to bring local leaders and top service brass to an increasingly busy area of Coast Guard operations.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan and District 14 Commander Rear Adm. Michael Day are expected to attend, along with other Coast Guard personnel and community leaders. Coast Guard District 14, headquartered in Honolulu, is the largest of the service's operating districts, spanning 14 million square miles of land and sea.

Coast Guard members assigned to the district are tasked with providing search and rescue services to Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, as well as responding to requests for help from Pacific island nations that often have limited resources of their own.

"Men and women of this U.S. Coast Guard district have a heroic, vital mission that covers an incredibly vast area," said the Coast Guard Foundation's Susan Ludwig in a news release announcing the event. "The service members of the Fourteenth District inspire us every day with their bravery and dedication, and so it is a great privilege for us to be able to honor them."

In recent years, policymakers have pushed for an increased Coast Guard presence in the region as concerns about illegal fishing have become a topic of discussion in national security circles.

In 2020, Fagan's predecessor, Adm. Karl Schultz, wrote in a report that illegal fishing had supplanted piracy as the top security threat on the high seas, warning that "this exploitation erodes both regional and national security, undermines maritime rules-based order, jeopardizes food access and availability, and destroys legitimate economies."

Much of the renewed attention on illegal fishing has focused on China's distance fishing fleet. By far the world's largest, it benefits from government subsidies that allow vessels to stay out longer and collect much more fish than its competitors. But there are also other concerns for military leaders.

In joint report released in December 2020, the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard warned that China "deploys a multilayered fleet" that includes "naval auxiliaries disguised as civilian vessels." Australian and U.S. Navy vessels have reported being followed by mysterious Chinese vessels.

In December, District 14 responded to a request from Palau to assist in tracking Da Yang Hao, a Chinese survey vessel that Palau said illegally entered its waters in late November. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules based out of Barbers Point flew to Palau and made radio contact with Da Yang Hao's crew, which told the Americans they were waiting out a storm.

Before coming to Palau, the ship had been spotted moving through the maritime territories of India, the Philippines and Malaysia.

But it's not just Chinese vessels that the Coast Guard is chasing. Documents obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser earlier this year showed that in 2020, District 14 personnel intercepted Taiwanese vessels illegally fishing in Guam waters. And in February 2020, a Taiwanese fishing vessel attacked a much smaller Honolulu-based tuna longliner just on the edge of Hawaii waters.

In 2019, the Coast Guard Foundation hosted its tribute to District 14 at the Bishop Museum, where celebrity chef Roy Yamaguchi was among those preparing meals. Local Hawaii chefs and Coast Guard culinary personnel will be preparing the meals for this year's event.

Individual tickets start at $450 with different rates for groups and sponsors. For more information go to coastguardfoundation.org.

(c)2022 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Visit at www.staradvertiser.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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.

(Tribune News Service)  The Virginia Department of Health has announced plans to reopen a regional vaccination center at Military Circle Mall in Norfolk to offer monkeypox and COVID-19 vaccinations.

We welcome this joint effort by the City of Norfolk, Virginia Beach Health Department and the Norfolk Health Department, said Norfolk and Portsmouth Acting Health Director Dr. Sulola Adekoya. We encourage those in need of a monkeypox or COVID-19 vaccination, to take advantage of this free opportunity.

The state health department closed the vaccination center on July 7 because of an unexpected funding change.

Monkeypox vaccines

When the Military Circle center reopens on Monday, monkeypox vaccines will be available Mondays and Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m.

You can register for a monkeypox vaccination by visiting https://vase.vdh.virginia.gov and clicking on monkeypox, then enter your zip code.

Monkeypox, a rare contagious rash illness caused by the monkeypox virus, is milder than smallpox, but some symptoms can be severe. It can spread from animals to people and from person to person.

The community risk for getting monkeypox is considered low at this time, according to a release from the Virginia Department of Health.

Monkeypox is spread by close contact with an infected person, and the highest risk activity right now is sex with multiple or anonymous partners, the press release said. Avoiding these activities greatly reduces your risk of catching or spreading monkeypox, the release stated.

COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19 vaccinations will be available Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

New bivalent COVID-19 booster shots will be offered. There is no registration required.

To find a COVID-19 vaccine event near you, contact or check the website of your local health department.

To schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment at a pharmacy or other location, visit vaccinate.virginia.gov or call 877-VAX-IN-VA. Assistance is available in English, Spanish, and more than 100 other languages, the state health department said.

2022 The Virginian-Pilot.

Visit pilotonline.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(Tribune News Service)  Roland Tillman's voice echoed through a thicket of trees Saturday morning on the side of Mount Kit Carson.

"I found a wire!" the 8-year-old called to his family, who'd just trudged, climbed and sometimes stumbled through forested overgrowth in Mount Spokane State Park after traveling from Colorado and Minnesota to be here.

The Tillman family was drawn back to this place, a plot of land on the slope of Mount Kit Carson indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape except by the few scattered metal remains of an Air Force tanker. Sixty years ago Saturday, Air Force 1st Lt. Gray E. Tillman died here along with 43 other men. The crash of Mourn 79 remains the deadliest aviation crash in Spokane County history, yet there are no obvious visual clues guiding potential visitors to this logged expanse where metal met mountain.

Three generations of the family hiked in Saturday morning, bringing remembrances of Gray Tillman and something to leave behind.

For daughter Grace Doumani, who was five months old when her father died, it's a button from his uniform she secreted away from her mother.

"I'm a flight attendant, and I've taken it with me," Doumani said, running her thumb along the button she wears on a necklace around her neck. "I don't wear it when I fly very often. But every once in a while, I'm like, I'm going to take dad with me."

Gray Tillman III sees his father in the two twin boys he brought to the site Saturday. They were born eight weeks prematurely on his father's birthday, May 11.

"I never knew that, until that evening, the day that they were born," Gray Tillman said, looking at his sons Tyler Gray and Jack Eddy Tillman. "I've always felt my father's presence. At that time, I knew he was there, and he's been with us."

A cover of heather and honeysuckle grows over the remnants of the plane, creating an otherworldly scene. Trees shoot out of the ground at odd angles, providing a canopy for what was a scene of carnage decades ago.

The area is so remote, and requires leaving designated trails, that the Park Service asks visitors not to try to reach the area in order to protect the environment and respect the site, said Russell Aldrich, park ranger for the Mount Spokane and Crawford state parks.

"Mother Nature erases her scars," said Frank A. Johnson, the son of the pilot at the controls on Sept. 10, 1962.

The hundreds-of-miles journey to Eastern Washington was one that took decades for Johnson and Randy Tillman. It's not one necessarily of closure, they said, but of seeing what their fathers saw just before the end of their lives.

"It put together a solid history for me," said Tillman. "I was able to stand on the site and say, 'This is it. This is what happened.'"

For Johnson, who took the additional step of flying over the site in a seaplane to simulate the approach, his visits have created an understanding of what his father faced, and what likely happened, in those moments about 10 minutes after 11 a.m. on Sept. 10, 1962.

"It was his mistake that cost 44 people their lives," Johnson said. Among the dead were pilots and flight technicians who had served in World War II and Korea. Many are buried at the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis, South Dakota.

"The impact of that on the number of family, that rippling effect on down the chain, is extensive," Johnson said.

The crash

The fog was so thick that morning in September 1962 that at first rescuers didn't know exactly where to look for the tanker headed to the West Plains from South Dakota.

Fairchild had lost contact with Johnson, the pilot, at 11:10 a.m. Aboard the craft were not just the four men that made up the flight's crew, but another 40 who were being stationed at Spokane's air base as runway repairs were being made at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City.

"Helicopters from the base were searching along the road between Elk, Washington, and Blanchard (Idaho), although fog and clouds were hampering the search planes," the afternoon edition of the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported that Monday afternoon.

The searchers were about a dozen miles too far north, as a trio of Spokane searchers was about to find out.

About seven hours after Air Force officials lost contact, Bert Smith, and Wayne and Irving Hamaan came upon the site down a dirt road used for hunting access on Mount Kit Carson. It was the smell of smoke that drew them in.

"Finally, we came across the first of the wreckage," Smith told The Spokesman-Review in September 1962. "It looked like the forward compartment where the pilot sits. It was smashed to pieces. Then we saw three bodies on the ground  all badly burned. We decided to get out of there."

Fifty years later, Wayne Hamaan recalled that after showing authorities the site, he returned home and realized his clothes had the permanent smell of jet fuel.

Workers were called in to tow the bodies away from the slope so that they could be taken to Fairchild for identification.

"That's the worst sight I've ever seen," an unnamed state patrolman told Spokane County Sheriff William J. Reilly. "I hope those poor devils didn't see it coming."

It would take a team of investigators a little more than three weeks to determine why Mourn 79 had struck the mountain as it did. There were two flight plans for its descent to Fairchild, one that took the plane around Mount Kit Carson and Mount Spokane, and another that took the plane over the crags. Those two paths were charted on opposite sides of a folded map, and investigators concluded that the crew was looking at the side of the map that called for a lower approach altitude around the mountain, rather than the correct angle for where they were above it.

The elevation difference of about 3,500 feet, coupled with the poor weather conditions, could explain why Johnson was flying so low. The answer closed the book for the Air Force, and Fairchild would later change its flight paths to avoid the mountains.

But the children of those who died still had questions.

Putting together the pieces

Frank A. Johnson, who shares the first and last names of his father and captain of the tanker, returned home that Monday afternoon and was told by a waiting Air Force colonel that his dad's plane was missing.

"I think my first question was, had it been found? Were there any survivors?" Johnson, who is now 72 and lives in New Jersey, said by phone earlier this month. "And he said, 'No.'"

Capt. Frank Johnson was among the oldest on the plane, his son said, at 39. After the tragedy, Johnson's mother moved the family from South Dakota to New Jersey to be closer to family.

"I've always kind of regretted that my mother made that move," Johnson said. "But I understand why she did what she did. Her support system was back in Philadelphia.

"My mother didn't even drive," Johnson said. "We left the car, we left the dog with friends, and we headed back east."

Just five years after the crash, the younger Frank A. Johnson began taking flying lessons at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, an hour east of Philadelphia.

"Then college came, and family came, and a career came, I became a police officer," Johnson said.

A chance introductory flight 18 years later, when his son was the same age  12  he'd been when his father died, reignited a desire to learn what happened, Johnson said. An official at Norton Air Force Base in California sent him a redacted version of the crash report, and Johnson sat at the kitchen table in the late 1980s, reading and piecing together the mistake his father had made.

"I can easily understand how they could have misread it," Johnson said of the navigation map error. "Unfortunately for them and his crew, it was a fatal mistake."

Johnson has since been back to the site several times, sometimes easily finding his way to the crash and other times getting turned around on the mountain trails. A decade ago, for the 50th anniversary, he came back to Spokane only to lose his way. Steve Christensen, the now-retired state park ranger in charge of Mount Spokane then, had mapped the crash location on GPS and called Johnson back to help him find it.

"I looked on Google Earth, that's when I found it," Christensen said. "If you look at Mount Kit Carson, on the north side, there's a green patch where the older trees had been mowed down. I thought, well, something made that."

Johnson came back and hiked in to the location once more. Like others, he's taken items from the site  he's converted a piece of the wreckage he gathered in 1990 into the shape of a dog tag, engraved with the call sign and serial number of the aircraft, as well as the date of the crash.

"I think it's important to have that connection with your loved one," Johnson said.

As the 60th anniversary approached, Johnson considered returning to Eastern Washington. But he said he's made his peace with his father, and the circumstances around the crash, and that he'd effectively "passed the baton" to Tillman, 11 years his junior.

"At this point in my life," he said, "I think I have done everything I could do."

A widow and her inquisitive children

Randy Tillman was sitting at his uncle's house in Athens, Ga., about a decade after the tanker crash in Spokane. On his uncle's piano sat a picture of a young man in a flight suit, stepping onto a trainer jet.

"My uncle was looking at me, and said, 'Do you know who that is? That's your dad,'" Tillman said. "That was quite an impact for me at that age."

He'd been just a year-and-a-half old when his father, 1st Lt. Gray "Ed" Tillman, had been aboard Mourn 79, one of the men stationed at Ellsworth who was transferring to Fairchild during the runway work. His older brother, Gray, and Grace all lived in a home near Rapid City.

Helen Hutchinson, Randy Tillman's mother now living in Colorado, said the details of that September day 60 years ago aren't clear in her mind.

"A neighbor came running over, and asked, 'Is Ed flying today? There's been a crash,'" Hutchinson said in a phone interview. "That would be my first indication, but it didn't occur to me that he would have been in a crash."

Tillman had studied mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech University before joining the Air Force, which was always his plan, Hutchinson said. After his death, her family came to South Dakota to help out with the children, and three years later she remarried.

After that visit to his Uncle Murray, Randy Tillman said he stumbled across a box of his father's things, including the flag that had been draped on his coffin. But for the most part, there wasn't much talk of his biological father.

"I know that my mom had mentioned he was either going to reup in the Air Force at that time, or he was thinking about becoming a pastor," Tillman said. Randy's given first name is John, after John the Baptist in the Bible, he said. His mother eventually told him the name was chosen by Gray Tillman.

It wasn't until a few years ago, when Randy Tillman read an article in The Spokesman-Review published on the 50th anniversary of the crash, that he realized he could visit the site.

"Really, for me, it put together a solid history, a factual history for me," Tillman said.

He made preparations to travel from Minnesota to Eastern Washington to visit the crash site. He floated the idea to his mother, whom he didn't expect would want to travel there.

"Initially, I was not going to ask my mom," he said. "She was still somewhat closed about things."

But Hutchinson said yes "without hesitation," Randy Tillman said.

"I wasn't upset or anything like that," she said. "It was just something to go and see."

So in 2019, they drove along the mountain roads to the coordinates of the crash site.

"The road took us right to it," Hutchinson said. "It's a beautiful area."

By that time, Randy Tillman had been speaking with Frank A. Johnson and gathering more details about the crash that killed the father he doesn't remember.

'It's like a splinter in your body'

That's where the Tillmans returned on Saturday, bringing with him a marker to leave at the site. It's a piece of the wreckage he salvaged three years ago, laser-etched to include the call sign, "Mourn 79," mounted on a steel pole.

While the serenity of the crash site moved Tillman on his last visit, he felt there should be something to alert those who pass through that they're standing on a sacred site.

"You can still see pieces of the aircraft, it's like a splinter in your body," Tillman said. "Mother Earth keeps pushing this stuff out."

Randy Tillman dug a small hole and planted the piece in a small clearing on Saturday. The family gathered, with Randy Tillman and his grandson, Roland, alternating reading lines of the Air Force hymn, "Lord, Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly."

Others have hoped there would be a memorial of some type on the site. While there are monuments to the lost men at Ellsworth in South Dakota, and Johnson was able to bury some of the wreckage along with a military ceremony at Fairchild Air Base, there is nothing on the site explaining the events of that day 60 years ago. That's bothered Harold Markiewicz, a retired KC-135 crew chief living in Post Falls who was friends with Airman First Class Ervin Paszek, who was aboard the flight.

"We worked together for not quite four years," said Markiewicz, a retired technical sergeant in the Air Force who later spent six years stationed at Fairchild in the 1970s. Paszek had been discharged and moved back to South Dakota, where Markiewicz learned he re-enlisted before the tanker crash. Markiewicz said he didn't know Paszek was aboard and killed until a year later, when he was traveling back through the area.

"I got orders to go overseas to Okinawa. I stopped off in Boise, and I ran into another fella that worked the same shift with us, Markiewicz said. "He asked me if I heard about Erv, and that's when I knew."

Aldrich said the Park Service plans to discuss a permanent memorial installation on this site with their interpretive team. There are no markers on the mountain for other crashes that occurred in the area, including one on Jan. 19, 1967, that was similar to the Mourn 79 incident. Nine people aboard were killed in that crash, which was following the same approach to Fairchild when it vanished from radar on a snowy evening. Johnson said he, too, supports the effort by Tillman to place something at the crash site remembering those aboard.

"We really wanted something there so that people would know basically that's hallowed ground," Johnson said.

Tillman returned to the site for continued healing, even if that healing defies logical explanation. His family carried out artifacts in 2019. When they counted them, they realized they had 44  exactly the same number of men who died that day.

The return, with the marker, on the 60th anniversary was part of that continued healing, he said.

"I'm taking this, because I think we've earned this," he said. "That's part of our therapy."

Hutchinson's children all huddled at a few minutes after 11, talking to their mother on speakerphone, around the same moment 60 years ago she lost her husband.

"We love you," Gray Tillman, her son, told her.

(c)2022 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.)

Visit The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) at www.spokesman.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Arlington, Va., September 2008: 2,298 flags, representing lives lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, stand in the Pentagon parking lot as part of the dedication ceremony for the Pentagon Memorial. We pray that you will find some comfort among the peace of these grounds, President George W. Bush told 9/11 victims' friends and family members. We pray that you will find strength in knowing that our nation will always grieve with you.
NAIROBI, Kenya  Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire's former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Beyond official condolences praising the queen's longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her father's death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen's reign, and well into Britain's harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

"Movement permit," the document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugo's grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

"Most of our grandparents were oppressed," Mugo tweeted hours after the queen's death Thursday. "I cannot mourn."

But Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queen's rule before becoming the country's first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. "The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries," Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

"This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in," said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

Elizabeth's reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the region's borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gaza's Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to "correct" British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen's perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was "held by many as bearing responsibility" for the island's tragedies.

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

"I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in today's world, because we are the world's largest democratic country," said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

In Kenya's capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion "with a lot of bitterness" and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was "a very young lady" then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

"We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time," Kahindi said.

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering "spiritual connection" in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. "It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia," he said.

The queen's dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: "She's seen more as the mother of the world."

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

"You have contradictory consciousness," said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this year's visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialism's implications, Thame said  during the visit, William expressed his "profound sorrow" for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn't surprising since she was presented by the British as "this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us," but young people aren't awed by the royal family.

"The only thing I noted about the queen's passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery," Spence said. "She should've apologized."

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
Officially, according to WorldReference.com, the line is, Youre known by the company you keep. By that measure, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin acquired a new label traveling to Maine last week to give a campaign speech for Maine Gov. Paul LePage. The Old Dominions absentee chief executive and presidential wannabe is now the known sympathizer of a guy who makes racist statements based on lies.

In 2016, LePage famously called people of color the enemy while blaming them for his states heroin problem. Confronted by reporters at a news conference, LePage elaborated: They come up here, they sell their heroin, and then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.

LePage told reporters that he had evidence that Blacks and Latinos were the problem. He said he had compiled a binder of drug charges that showed over 90% of those arrested were people of color.

Challenged to make the binder public, LePage replied, Let me tell you something: Black people come up the highway and they kill Mainers. You ought to look into that.

Then, he left the news conference, telling journalists: You make me so sick.

This is whom Youngkin endorsed for election in a speech last Wednesday. He backed a loose cannon firing racist stereotypes based on lies.

The Portland Press Herald newspaper checked LePages assertion against FBI crime statistics. The latest available figures showed just 14.1% of those arrested on drug charges in Maine were Black. Almost all the rest were white.

Youngkin sold his own brand of race baiting in Maine. It concerns his false narrative that explaining the legacy of institutional racism in America teaches young people what to think, not how to think. That, like LePages data manipulation, is a lie. Youngkin shrouds his lie in a cloak of parental rights. He reportedly played up this theme in his speech in Maine, which was, typically, closed press, as so many of his activities in Virginia are.

With a population that is more than 94% white, were not sure there are enough Black or Hispanic people in Maine to validate Youngkins version of critical race theory. He claims that teachers explaining how slavery, opposition to lynching laws, legal segregation and financial discrimination created a society that still keeps white people in control somehow discriminates against white children.

Before heading into the closed dinner, Youngkin and LePage praised each others styles of leadership, moving from opposition to teaching divisive subjects to banning library books dealing with racism, sex and gender identity.

At his Maine speech, the Portland Press Herald reported, Youngkin passed out replicas of the signature average guy vest that he wore throughout his campaign for governor in Virginia. Youngkin is as average as the next former financial group guru with a nine-figure net worth. Anyhow, in Maine, LePages name was reportedly inscribed on the vests Youngkin gave away.

So we return to the company Virginias governor keeps.

In 2011, Paul LePage said he would not attend an NAACP dinner celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He tried to deflect charges of racism by pointing out that he has an adoptive son who was born in Jamaica. That doesnt get you off the hook when you do what LePage did and call the group that fought for constitutionally guaranteed civil rights for Blacks a special interest that he was not going to be held hostage to. LePage then told reporters the NAACP could kiss my butt if it wanted to play the race card. In the wake of the outrage that ensued, LePage eventually went to an NAACP breakfast. But his history of racially incendiary and insensitive remarks continues.

If Youngkin finds Paul LePage fit for office, if LePage represents the company Virginias governor chooses to keep, perhaps its time for citizens of the Commonwealth to call him by a new nickname.

How does Massa Glenn sound?
CANBERRA, Australia  Many regarded Australians' respect and affection for the late Queen Elizabeth II as the biggest obstacle to the country becoming a republic with its own head of state.

Now after her death and with a pro-republic Labor Party government in power, Australia's constitutional ties to the British monarchy will again be open to first-order debate for the first time since change was rejected at a 1999 referendum.

During her long reign, the queen connected to Australia in ways that no monarch before her had done.

In 1954 she became the only reigning British monarch to visit Australia. Such was her star power, an estimated 70% of Australia's population turned out to see her during a punishing two-month itinerary that took her and her husband Prince Philip to 57 towns and cities spread across vast distances. She visited 16 times, the final time in 2011 when she was 85.

Her face is the only monarch to appear on Australian money since decimal currency was introduced in 1966 when Australian dollars and cents replaced British-style pounds, shillings and pence.

Her eldest son, King Charles III, was officially proclaimed Australia's head of state Sunday by the monarch's Australian representative Governor-General David Hurley at a protocol-heavy ceremony at Parliament House that ended with a 21-gun salute.

Anthony Albanese, who describes himself as the first candidate with a "non-Anglo Celtic name" to run for prime minister in the 121 years that the office has existed, started laying the groundwork for an Australian republic when Labor was elected in May after nine years in opposition.

Albanese created a new position of Assistant Minister for the Republic and appointed Matt Thistlethwaite to the role in June. Thistlethwaite had said there would be no change in the queen's lifetime.

The prime minister has said that a republic referendum is not a priority of his first three-year term in government.

He is already planning a referendum to be held in the current term that would enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in Australia's constitution. While details have yet to be finalized, the voice would provide a mechanism that would allow Indigenous representatives to address Parliament about laws that effect their lives.

Since news of the queen's death broke Friday in Australia, Albanese has brushed off questions about an Australian republic.

"Now is not a time to talk about our system of government," Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.

"Now is the time for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth, a life well lived, a life of dedication and loyalty including to the Australian people and for us to honor and grieve," Albanese added.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, a monarchist, has similarly avoided questions about why Australia needs a king.

The Australian Republic Movement, an organization that campaigns for Australia to become a republic and is unaffiliated with any political party, was widely criticized over a political statement issued soon after news of the queen's death.

The statement referred to the queen's comments surrounding the 1999 referendum that voted to maintain the British monarch as Australia's head of state.

"The queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum  saying that she has 'always made it clear that the future of the monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means,'" the statement said.

That referendum largely failed because Australians were divided about what kind of president they wanted. The monarch is represented in Australia by a governor-general who in recent decades has always been an Australian citizen. The governor-general is appointed by the monarch on the prime minister's advice.

The referendum recommended that the monarch and the monarch's representative be replaced by a president chosen by at least two-thirds of lawmakers in Parliament.

But many republicans wanted voters to elect the president as they do in the United States, so joined with monarchists in opposing the republic model then on offer.

The minor Greens party, which is influential in the Senate where no party holds a majority of seats, was also criticized for raising the republic within hours of the queen's death.

"Now Australia must move forward. We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic," Greens leader Adam Bandt tweeted on Friday. Australia is rare among former British Empire countries in having no treaty with its Indigenous peoples.

Support for the republic movement surged in 1975 when Governor-General John Kerr used Queen Elizabeth II's authority to dismiss Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to end a constitutional crisis.

There were suspicions that the British royal family had instructed Kerr to bring down a democratically-elected Australian government.

Historian and Whitlam biographer Jenny Hocking fought a four-year legal battle to have correspondence between Kerr and Buckingham Palace released by the National Archive of Australia in 2020. Lower courts accepted that letters between the monarch and governor-general, two central figures in Australia's constitution, were personal and might never be made public.

But the High Court found in Hocking's favor in a 6-1 majority ruling that allowed the letters to be released.

Kerr fired Whitlam to end a month-old Senate deadlock. Kerr appointed Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser caretaker prime minister on condition Fraser immediately called elections, which Labor lost.

While the queen was the monarch at the time, King Charles, then Prince Charles, had also influenced Kerr's decision to fire Whitlam, Hocking said.

Charles had been discussing with Kerr the possibility of sacking Whitlam three months before Kerr became the only governor-general to bring down an Australian government.

"It's clearly an influence on Kerr's decision to dismiss the government  no doubt about that," Hocking said.

"It's an appalling involvement. It doesn't do anyone service to pretend that's not the case. We need to acknowledge that," she added.

Albanese has said the 1975 crisis reinforced the need for an Australian head of state instead of a British monarch.

John Howard, a monarchist who was prime minister when Australians voted against severing their constitutional ties to their former colonial master, said those ties can survive the queen's death.

"The strength of the monarchy in Australia was immeasurably increased by the personal popularity of the queen," Howard said.

"That's not to say it won't continue. It will continue in a different form," Howard added.
THESSALONIKI, Greece  Greece's prime minister says that he cannot imagine that tensions with neighboring NATO ally Turkey could ever escalate into armed conflict.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke at a press conference Sunday at the Thessaloniki International Fair, where he gave the keynote speech Saturday outlining his government's economic policy goals.

Asked by The Associated Press whether a recent escalation in rhetoric from Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could be the prelude to an armed conflict, Mitsotakis replied negatively.

"I don't believe this will ever happen. And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response. And I think they know it very well. Turkey knows the competence of the Greek (armed) forces," he said.

Erdogan has accused Greece of occupying supposedly demilitarized islands in the Aegean Sea and has threatened that Turkey would take action.

Mitsotakis added that, despite Erdogan's "unacceptable" comments, he was still open to dialogue and a meeting with him.

Mitsotakis linked Greece's unequivocal support for Ukraine to concerns that, if Russia prevails, it could serve as an example to other countries with expansionist designs.

"There is a dividing line between the countries that respect the inviolability of borders (and) the rules of international law and those who believe that, based on the law of the strongest, they can target countries they believe are weaker and change the borders on a whim," Mitsotakis said.

Mitsotakis added "it is very important to give Ukraine the chance to negotiate a peace with Russia on its own terms and certainly not as the loser in this war."

Demetris Nellas contributed from Athens, Greece
KHARKIV, Ukraine  Ukrainian troops expanded their territorial gains Monday, pushing all the way to the country's northeastern border in places, and claimed to have captured a record number of Russian soldiers as part of the lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat.

A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian troops were surrendering en masse as they understand the hopelessness of their situation. A Ukrainian presidential adviser said there were so many POWs that the country was running out of space to accommodate them.

Blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered over newly liberated towns across a wide swath of reclaimed land. The Ukrainian military said it had freed more than 20 settlements in 24 hours. In recent days, Kyivs forces have captured territory at least twice the size of greater London, according to the British Defense Ministry.

After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, the momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked rare public criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putins war.

In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation, said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region.

The counteroffensive left the Kremlin struggling for a response to its largest military defeat in Ukraine since Russian forces pulled back from areas near Kyiv after a botched attempt to capture the capital early in the invasion.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the setback in a map that showed its troops pressed back along a narrow patch of land on the border with Russia  a tacit admission of big Ukrainian gains.

Reports of chaos abounded as Russian troops pulled out.

The Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles, Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town near the eastern front line, told Sky News.

Video taken by the Ukrainian military showed soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over battle-damaged buildings. In one scene, a fighter wiped his boots on a Russian flag on the ground. Other videos showed Ukrainians inspecting the wreckage of Russian military vehicles, including tanks.

In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces have liberated more than 6,000 square kilometers (2,300 square miles) in the east and the south since the beginning of September.

Now Ukrainian teams are disarming land mines and other unexploded weapons in the recaptured areas and searching for any remaining Russian troops, officials said.

It was not yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz could signal a turning point in the war. Momentum has switched back and forth before, but rarely with such a big and sudden swing.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich did not specify the number of Russian prisoners but said the POWs would be exchanged for Ukrainian service members held by Moscow. Military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov said the captured troops included significant numbers of Russian officers.

Ukraines deputy interior minister accused fleeing Russian forces of burning official documents and concealing bodies in an attempt to cover up rights violations in the areas they controlled until last week.

The mood was jubilant across the country.

In Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city and the capital of the region where the gains have been made, authorities hailed that power and water had been restored to about 80% of the region's population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked out electricity in many places across Ukraine.

You are heroes!!! Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, referring to crews who restored utilities in Ukraine's second-biggest city. Thanks to everyone who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to normalize the life of the city as soon as possible.

Meanwhile in Russia, signs of disarray emerged as Russian military bloggers and other commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine.

Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion a war, instead describing it as a special military operation and relying on on a limited contingent of volunteers instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and protest.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called mistakes that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.

Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.

People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ... these people really set up all of us, Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. Were now at the point where we have to understand that its absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.

Some in Russia blamed Western weapons and fighters for the losses.

Its not Ukraine that attacked Izium, but NATO, read a headline in the state-supported Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, referring to one of the areas where Russia said it has withdrawn troops.

Elsewhere, residents of a Russian village just across the border from Ukraine were evacuated after shelling by Ukrainian troops killed one person, according to Russias Tass news agency.

The report cited the head of the local administration in Logachevka, who said Ukrainian troops opened fire at a border checkpoint.

Pro-Kremlin separatists reported that Ukrainian troops were approaching the town of Lyman, a rail hub captured by Russia in late May that offers access to bridges over the nearby Siversky Donets river.

Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic, acknowledged that the situation was difficult.

Even amid Ukraine's ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Ukraines presidential office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The U.N. Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians have been killed so far.

Among Monday's attacks were strikes on residential areas in Kharkiv that killed at least one civilian and set multiple fires, local officials said.

In a reminder of the war's toll, a council member in Izium accused enemy forces of killing civilians and committing other atrocities. Maksym Strelnikov told reporters Monday in an online briefing that hundreds of people had died during the fighting and after Russia seized the town in March.

Many died from shelling and could not get a proper burial, he said. His claims could not be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other places captured by Russian forces.

The Ukrainian military also claimed to have found more evidence of human rights violations by Russian occupiers. It did not elaborate.

Izium was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. The first Ukrainian flag was raised over the city on Saturday, according to Strelnikov. Residents, some wrapped in the country's flag, greeted Ukrainian forces and offered them food.

Ukraine said the Russians continued shelling Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia power plant, damaging several buildings there and leaving Europe's largest nuclear facility in a precarious position. The last operational reactor in that plant has been shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as fighting raged nearby.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Kyiv "will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting.

The British Defense Ministry said the retreat would likely further deteriorate the trust Russian forces have in their commanders and put Moscow's troops on the back foot.

Arhirova reported from Kyiv.
KYIV, Ukraine  Europe's largest nuclear plant has been reconnected to Ukraine's electricity grid, allowing engineers to shut down its last operational reactor in an attempt to avoid a radiation disaster as fighting rages in the area.

The six-reactor Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost its outside source of power a week ago after all its power lines were disconnected because of shelling. It was operating in "island mode" for several days, generating electricity for crucial cooling systems from its only remaining operational reactor.

That's considered an unstable way of operating a nuclear plant, which could lead to damage to key equipment including turbines and pumps.

Nuclear operator Energoatom said one of the power lines was restored "to its operational capacity" late Saturday, making it possible to run the plant's safety and other systems on electricity from the power system of Ukraine.

"Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state  cold shutdown," the company said Sunday in a statement.

Energoatom said the risk remains high that outside power is cut again, in which case the plant would have to fire up emergency diesel generators to keep the reactors cool and prevent a nuclear meltdown. The company's chief told The Associated Press on Thursday that the plant only has diesel fuel for 10 days.

The plant, one of the 10 biggest atomic power stations in the world, has been occupied by Russian forces since early in the war, which marked its 200th day on Sunday. Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for shelling around the plant that has damaged the power lines connecting it to the grid.

Energoatom renewed its appeal for Russian forces to leave the Zaporizhzhia plant and allow for the creation of a "demilitarized zone" around it.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that has two experts at the plant, confirmed that external power has been restored there.

However, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he remains "gravely concerned about the situation at the plant, which remains in danger as long as any shelling continues."

He added that "consultations have begun on the urgent need to establish a nuclear safety and security protection zone" at the plant.

The IAEA said it would take 30 hours to bring the sixth reactor to a "cold shutdown state," but it will still require electricity for its safety systems after that. The agency said work is under way to restore other power lines at the plant, which remains occupied by Russian forces but run by Ukrainian engineers.

Also on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops and weapons from the plant and ensure its safety and security in line with IAEA recommendations.

Macron reminded Putin in a phone conversation that the "Russian occupation of the nuclear plant was the cause for concern over its integrity," according to a statement from the French presidency.

Jon Gambrell and Hanna Ahrirova contributed.
DOTHAN, Ala.  For Marvin Pinckney, running into a burning house was "just instinct to do the right thing." His quick action resulted in two women being evacuated safely from an Enterprise home engulfed in flames.

The retired Army command sergeant major is a neighbor of Mary Griffin, whose home was consumed by flames on Sept. 3.

Pinckney was in his garage when he saw smoke and flames coming from Griffin's garage. He ran to the home and discovered that Griffin and her helper were inside.

"They didn't know there was a fire at that point," Pinckney said, adding that his first effort was to get Griffin from her stationary chair to her wheelchair and her portable oxygen supply.

As the flames moved from the garage through the home, the electricity in the home went out and smoke filled the rooms, making an exit through the window of the only remaining smoke-free room the only option, Pinckney said. He lifted Griffin through the window into the arms of neighbors who had gathered outside to offer assistance.

"She was most concerned about not being able to take her portable oxygen with her," Pinckney said. "But I assured her that the rescue squad would have some."

The women were transported to a hospital by Enterprise Rescue Squad.

Family friend Charlene Goolsby has visited Griffin, and said she is recovering from non-life threatening injuries. She is appreciative of Pinckney and the neighbors who came to help. "She is just very grateful to be alive," Goolsby said.

The retired command sergeant major declines to be called a hero.

"I've lived in this neighborhood for about year. These are my neighbors," he said. "It was just instinct to do the right thing."
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden marked the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, taking part in a somber wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon held under a steady rain and paying tribute to "extraordinary Americans" who gave their lives on one of the nation's darkest days.

Sunday's ceremony occurred a little more than a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.

Biden noted that even after the United States left Afghanistan that his administration continues to pursue those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Last month, Biden announced the U.S. had killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the al-Qaida leader who helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks, in a clandestine operation.

"We will never forget, we will never give up," Biden said. "Our commitment to preventing another attack on the United States is without end."

The president was joined by family members of the fallen, first responders who had been at the Pentagon on the day of the attack, as well as Defense Department leadership for the annual moment of tribute carried out in New York City, the Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul's airport, and thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.

Biden on Sunday said an "incredible debt" was owed to the U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan as well as their families. More than 2,200 U.S. service members were killed and more than 20,000 were wounded over the course of the nearly 20-year war, according to the Pentagon.

He also vowed that the nation will "never fail to meet the sacred obligation to you to properly prepare and equip those that we send into harm's way and care for those and their families when they come home  and to never, ever, ever forget."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden's handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has spiraled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. withdrawal.

"Now, one year on from last August's disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden's decision has come into sharper focus," McConnell said. "Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity."

The president also remembered the words of comfort Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week, sent to the American people soon after the 2001 attacks: "Grief is the price we pay for love." Biden said those words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago but the weight of loss also remains heavy.

"On this day, when the price feels so great, Jill and I are holding all of you close to our hearts." Biden said.

Biden has recently dialed up warnings about what he calls the "extreme ideology" of former President Donald Trump and his "MAGA Republican" adherents as a threat to American democracy. Without naming Trump, Biden again on Sunday raised a call for Americans to safeguard democracy.

"It's not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then," Biden said. "It's something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but also is a day for renewal and resolve for each and every American in our devotion to this country, to the principles it embodies, to our democracy."

First lady Jill Biden spoke to a crowd at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where she recalled the concern she had about her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant.

She said the attacks showed that "with courage and kindness we can be a light in that darkness."

"It showed us that we are all connected to one another," said Biden, who was joined by her sister in Shanksville for Sunday's commemoration. "So as we stand on this sacred and scarred earth, a record of our collective grief and a monument to the memories that live on each day, this is the legacy we much carry forward: Hope that defies hate."

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband attended a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial in New York.
Election officials preparing for the rapidly approaching midterm elections have one more headache: trying to combat misinformation that sows distrust about voting and results while fueling vitriol aimed at rank-and-file election workers.

Some states and counties are devoting more money or staff to a problem that has only grown more concerning since the 2020 presidential election and the false claims that it was marred by widespread fraud. A barrage of misinformation in some places has led election officials to complain that Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and other social media platforms aren't doing enough to help them tackle the problem.

"Our voters are angry and confused. They simply don't know what to believe," Lisa Marra, elections director in Cochise County, Arizona, told a U.S. House committee last month. "We've got to repair this damage."

Many election offices are taking matters into their own hands, starting public outreach campaigns to provide accurate information about how elections are run and how ballots are cast and counted. That means traveling town halls in Arizona, "Mythbuster Mondays" in North Carolina and animated videos in Ohio emphasizing the accuracy of election results. Connecticut is hiring a dedicated election misinformation analyst.

Still, the task is daunting. Despite Oregon putting additional money into joining a national #TrustedInfo2022 campaign, misinformation continues to reach social media and force local election officials to respond, taking time from other duties.

Ben Morris, spokesperson for the Oregon secretary of state's office, cited three recent Facebook posts that Meta allowed to remain on Facebook despite his office providing evidence to them that they were false.

One alleged a candidate's name had been improperly censored from election fliers. Another falsely asserted that one party was purposefully denied access to a local elections office. Yet another claimed inaccurately that election workers in Multnomah County were being required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

"Meta's policies are too limited to address the misinformation we see at a state and local level," Morris said. "Their policies cover big national issues, but false posts about a county clerk or a state law aren't removed. When you realize this could be happening at Meta's scale, it's deeply concerning."

The disconnect may be that Facebook policies "prioritize provably false claims that are timely, trending and consequential." All three posts Morris referenced were presumably too localized to have "trended," though he contends they were still damaging.

They also were posted by candidates for office, a group that includes a growing number of election deniers and whose speech social media companies strive to protect.

Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss said the policies exempt much of what politicians say online because of "Facebook's fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, especially in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is the most scrutinized speech there is."

But he said those protections are waived in cases of direct election interference or threats of violence or intimidation.

In Arizona's largest county, Maricopa, candidates shielded by those protections have liberally posted misinformation during this year's election cycle. That has prompted officials to aggressively condemn the false narratives themselves.

When a candidate for county supervisor encouraged supporters to steal ballot-marking pens given to them at polling places on Election Day during the state's August primary, the county attorney, Rachel Mitchell, wrote warning her to stop. The candidate pushed false claims that the pens allow election workers to change people's votes.

And when Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake made unsupported claims of potential fraud ahead of the primary, Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told local reporters her claims were "beyond irresponsible."

"They never brought any specifics to us," said Gates, a fellow Republican.

He said he has been more vocal on social media and more available to traditional media than ever before this year, in an effort to tamp down false election claims before they get out of hand.

Gates and County Recorder Stephen Richer regularly respond directly to false Twitter posts with the facts. Richer said his department also emails Twitter when it sees a misleading narrative or threats against election workers gathering steam online, though it has disagreed with some of the platform's responses.

When debunked claims about the county deleting election data off a server in 2021 resurfaced at an activist-led "election security forum" three days before the state's August primary, the presenters publicly identified two election workers they claimed were responsible and called their actions a crime. That prompted threats and harassment against the workers online, part of a disturbing trend affecting election offices across the country.

Richer said the county wrote to Twitter in hopes of muting the hate, but the platform "didn't always agree" that the content violated its policies.

Last month, Twitter activated enforcement of 2022 election integrity policies intended to "enable healthy civic conversation on Twitter, while ensuring people have the context they need to make informed decisions about content they encounter." The company's efforts included unveiling state-specific pages with live election updates featuring tweets from election officials and local reporters. The platform didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Video app TikTok, whose growing popularity has made it yet another hub for misinformation this election cycle, announced last month it is launching an election center that will help people find voting locations and candidate information. The platform said it works with over a dozen fact-checking organizations to debunk misinformation and will incorporate artificial intelligence as part of its efforts to detect and remove threats against election workers and push back against voting misinformation.

Not every state or county has Maricopa's command of social media.

Relatively few county election offices have official presences on both Facebook and Twitter, according to a recent report by a pair of scholars who specialize in voter participation and the electoral processes, Mississippi State University's Thessalia Merivaki and Connecticut College's Mara Suttmann-Lea.

Many more local offices are on just one platform or the other, and the vast majority aren't on either.

Legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year would provide $20 billion over the next decade to help state and local governments support election administration, which includes fighting misinformation.

"Election after election, millions of Americans see inaccurate or misleading information about elections and the voting process on social media, and it is hurting our democracy," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is co-sponsoring the legislation, said during a hearing last spring.

When election officials battle through staffing, funding and personal safety concerns to get more involved on social media, voters of all ages  and particularly younger voters  become more engaged, according to the recent academic report on elections. The electorate benefits, the researchers wrote, "as does democracy itself."

That's just what the election supervisor's office in Collier County, Fla., is trying to do.

In one TikTok video on her personal account, office spokesperson Trish Robertson snaps her fingers to the Sicilian song "Che La Luna" amid images of district maps, portraits of election officials and large windows that allow for public viewing during vote counting.

The lighthearted video from June, playing off a TikTok trend in which users display essential items in their homes and offices, is one of many efforts Robertson is making to restore voters' trust. Besides posting to her own TikTok feed, she manages the county supervisor's social media channels, hosts "transparency tours" of the office and responds to piles of public record requests, which often demand information that doesn't exist.

Amid election falsehoods stoked by former President Donald Trump and amplified by his allies, Robertson said fighting misinformation "has pretty much become a full-time job."

Associated Press misinformation reporter David Klepper contributed to this report.
(Tribune News Service)  The U.S. government made a deal with the devil and a tireless group of 9/11 loved ones say they are fighting for their day in court to finally prove why that was such a horrifically bad decision.

No public trial over the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has ever been held  though many fought for one  and the last best hope is playing out in federal court in Manhattan now.

The families want to expose how 19 al-Qaida hijackers  15 of them Saudi nationals  crashed four jets, killing nearly 3,000 in one day, got financial help. They are suing Saudi Arabia to force some type of admission.

We want to make history right and correct the narrative, Brett Eagleson told the Boston Herald this week. We want to see Saudi Arabia say it. Say they helped the hijackers.

Eagleson, who was 15 years old when his dad died when the Twin Towers collapsed 21 years ago today, said newly declassified FBI documents state Omar Albayoumi was paid a monthly stipend as a cooptee of the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. That redacted FBI electronic communication shared with the Herald goes on to state the support for that foreign agent came via then Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan Alsuad.

Prince Bandar was Saudi Arabias ambassador to the U.S. from 1983 to 2005.

Omar Albayoumi was a California-based Saudi spy, declassified FBI documents state, according to multiple reports. The 9/11 Commission never knew this.

It is alleged Albayoumi helped 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar, who were the first to arrive in the U.S. when they landed in Los Angeles in January 2000. That Southern California terror cell was exposed years later in an FBI report titled PENTBOMB.

They had to have been helped. They couldnt even find their way out of LAX because they didnt know what an exit sign was, said Eagleson.

Those first two hijackers would move on to San Diego where they attempted to train as pilots  not needing to know how to take off or land  and then ultimately, with a lot of help, boarded Flight 77, slamming it into the Pentagon on 9/11 killing 64 people on the plane and 125 in the Pentagon.

The three other hijacked jets  Flight 11 and Flight 175 out of Logan International Airport in Boston and Flight 93 out of Newark International Airport  slammed into the Twin Towers and a field in Shanksville, Pa., respectively, on 9/11 in the first act of mass murder.

Now the civil action 9/11 families are pursuing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York just finished up limited discovery and now Saudi officials are preparing to seek a second dismissal of the case. Oral arguments could be set for the spring when the 9/11 families  with 10,000 plaintiffs joining in  could witness the first courtroom accounting of whats been dredged up.

Or, possibly not.

The lawsuit could end in some type of agreement, a payoff, or it will go away, said Kirk Lippold, the former commander of the USS Cole who is an adjunct professor at the Naval Academy and an expert on terrorism. His destroyer was attacked by terrorists Oct. 12, 2000, while making a prearranged fuel stop at the port of Aden, Yemen.

Lippold said the lawsuit against the Saudis could keep the pressure on the kingdom to seek more reforms, but the U.S. government remains linked to the nation in the fight against Islamic extremists.

Its a harsh recognition that you occasionally have to deal with an unsavory government, he explained, adding the 9/11 families have suffered an unimaginable loss, but the outcome of the lawsuit is uncertain.

Debra Burlingame, whose brother was one of the pilots killed on Flight 77, said making the Saudi connections public would be historic. But she said another trial should also get going  the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The word were getting is (President) Biden wants to shut the trial down with a plea deal and take the death penalty away, Burlingame said. Its been an extremely long haul.

Those proceedings wont be open to the public. It remains a death-penalty case against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged accomplices.

Its ridiculous its taken this long, said Brian Sullivan, a now-retired Federal Aviation Administration official based in Boston who warned of a terror attack at Logan months before it happened.

They all should have been tried and hanged a long time ago, he told the Herald.

The 9/11 families, however, are seeing this through.

Our government made a deal with the devil and theres something there we dont know, said Eagleson, who seemed tired but resolute. But it aint over yet.

The young Connecticut dad said he will spend today at a local fire station with his senator, Richard Blumenthal, and think back to when his father took him to the World Trade Center a month before the attacks so he could see the city lights from the top of the world.

He pointed out all the landmarks, Eagleson said. It was like the first time, and the last time, I saw that. Ill never forget.

2022 MediaNews Group, Inc.

Visit at bostonherald.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
FORESTHILL, Calif.  Firefighters made progress against a huge Northern California wildfire that was still growing and threatening thousands of mountain homes, while crews also battled major blazes Sunday in Oregon and Washington.

The Mosquito Fire in foothills east of Sacramento spread to nearly 65 square miles, with 10% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

"Cooler temperatures and higher humidity assisted with moderating some fire activity," but higher winds allowed the flames to push to the north and northeast, according to a Cal Fire incident report Sunday.

More than 5,800 structures in Placer and El Dorado counties were under threat and some 11,000 residents of communities including Foresthill and Georgetown were under evacuation orders.

In Southern California, cooler temperatures and rain brought respite to firefighters battling the massive Fairview Fire about 75 miles southeast of Los Angeles after sweltering heat last week.

The 44-square-mile blaze was 45% contained Sunday. The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and other structures in Riverside County. Two people died while fleeing flames last Monday.

The southern part of the state welcomed the cooler weekend weather as a tropical storm veered off the Pacific Coast and faded, helping put an end to blistering temperatures that nearly overwhelmed the state's electrical grid.

Thunderstorms and the risk of flooding persisted in mountainous areas of greater Los Angeles on Sunday. But after Hurricane Kay made landfall in Mexico last week it quickly was downgraded and weakened further until it largely disappeared, forecasters said.

To the north, remnants of Kay caused flooding Saturday that stranded about 40 vehicles and closed a stretch of State Route 190 in Death Valley National Park. The park was still cleaning up from floods five weeks ago that closed many key roads.

In Washington state, fire officials were scrambling to secure resources in the battle against a blaze sparked Saturday in the remote Stevens Pass area that sent hikers fleeing and forced evacuations of mountain communities. There was no containment Sunday of the Bolt Creek Fire, which had scorched nearly 12 square miles of forestland about an hour and a half east of Seattle.

The fire will continue to advance in areas that will be unstaffed. With limited resources, only point protection will be in place while resources continue to mobilize to the fire, said a Sunday morning incident report.

California's Mosquito Fire has covered a large portion of the Northern Sierra region with smoke. California health officials urged people in affected areas to stay indoors where possible. Organizers of the Tour de Tahoe canceled the annual 72-mile bicycle ride scheduled Sunday around Lake Tahoe because of the heavy smoke from the blaze  more than 50 miles away. Last year's ride was canceled because of smoke from another big fire south of Tahoe.

The Mosquito Fire's cause remained under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric said unspecified "electrical activity" occurred close in time to the report of the fire on Tuesday.

Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in state history.

And the rest of the West hasn't been immune. There were at least 18 large fires burning in Oregon and Washington, leading to evacuations and targeted power outages near Portland as the challenge of dry and windy conditions continued in the region.

Sprawling areas of western Oregon choked by thick smoke from the fires in recent days were expected to see improved air quality on Sunday thanks to a returning onshore flow, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

South of Portland, more than 3,000 residents were under new evacuation orders because of the 134-square-mile Cedar Creek Fire, which has burned for over a month across Lane and Deschutes counties. Firefighters were protecting remote homes in Oakridge, Westfir and surrounding mountain communities.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, this weekend there were more than 400 square miles of active, uncontained fires and nearly 5,000 people on the ground fighting them in the two northwestern states.
Debbie Lee typically is an educator, previously a mint farmer, once an Oregon State University graduate and the descendant of ranchers like those who homesteaded her property in Milton-Freewater.

Shes known professionally as Deborah Lee Barker, she said.

But on Saturday, Sept. 10, surrounded by people removed six generations from the first Oregonians, she may as well have been known as wagonmaster.

Today, Im a Shelton, Lee Barker said. All the way.

More than 163 years removed from Oregons establishment as a state, 175 years after the arrival of the first wagon trains of European settlers to what would become the mid-Willamette Valley, the living relations gathered in Scio.

Some families really hadnt gone far.

Early arrivals

Lance and Nancy Shelton uncovered and positioned a thematic cake on a table for sixth-, seventh-generation Oregonians.

The Sheltons live in Terrebonne now, east of the Cascades where some settled before there was an Oregon. But until recently, they were from Scio.

Lance Sheltons family walked out of Oregons spine in late 1847, into what is now the Willamette Valley. They settled in Linn County and took up jobs growing food.

Nancy Shelton said she was born in the U.S. Midwest, but moved with her family to Scio. She grew up there, and met Lance Shelton in grade school. Nancy met many Sheltons, she said, farmers and families of farmers who related to Lance.

They were all from the area, Nancy Shelton said.

But she learned in the last few years theyre really from the area.

The confection featured a conestoga wagon  emblematic, they said, of the rough and sometimes fatal journey that settlers endured in the mid-1800s.

We wanted something identifiable, Lance Shelton said.

Wagons and oxen dotted ridges and valleys on their way west. They followed ruts and floated rivers nearly two centuries ago in a race for faraway land promised by underwriters who had never seen it.

The trip took nearly half a year. Planning how much food, oxen feed, how many crops to plant, what supplies to bring took even longer.

Among the first into Oregon, the Shelton family saw a few additions on the trip over the Great Plains.

There were marriages, Nancy Shelton said. There were births. And there were deaths.

An 18-year-old boy, the son of a family named Fulkerson, became hypothermic in June 1847 swimming across the North Platte River. He had dove into the rushing waters to herd valuable oxen to shore.

He died four days later.

Others died of disease  two died with fevers at a river crossing in Wyoming. Another Fulkerson, Mary Ramsey Miller, died with a fever in July.

Debbie Lee talked about the culture of expansion at their backs, religious missions and patriotic obligations and the dangle of first-come, first-serve land ownership.

It all came together in the mid-1800s, by God, of course, she said.

The first catalyst was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803.

That one encouraged Baptist settlers to flood along rivers and near trade cities like St. Louis in a great swath of land that would become Missouri. It also convinced many in the U.S. that the country was going to reach the West Coast, if only for settlers.

The U.S. government low-balled the people who lived along the Missouri River, purchasing the east bank of the Missouri River for $7,500. Men who wanted their own property, or to add to their holdings in Missouri, rushed in to settle.

And in front of them, more consolidation, another territory and the promise of even more land. The U.S. government convinced mostly Kalapuya languages-speaking people who lived in the Willamette Valley to cede their land to the Oregon Territory.

Anyone who arrived in the territory before Dec. 1, 1850, was promised 320 acres of land or 640 for married couples.

It was a land grab, Debbie Lee said.

Rough road

Most of the people at Saturdays gathering had never met.

They knew one another through emails and online records and the swapping of stories that had been passed down over more than 100 years.

The stories match, Debbie Lee said. Thats how we know theyre true.

Debbie Lee is a sixth-generation Oregonian.

The furthest descended is eight generations removed from European settlement.

Wyatt, Debbie Lee said. Hes my grandson. Hes going to help me run the projector.

The Shelton family was in the wagon train at the front of a train of wagon trains.

She said the families on that train, the Curly train, are named and their exploits recorded in a detailed journal that corroborates family histories, newspaper clippings, and texts found in museums across the state.

The families rarely inter-married, she said, but were all sort of related in a way as a class of traveler. Wagons carried ambition west.

There were no wimps onboard, she told the pioneer families.

She told the assembled families about the risk of going into frontier country with small children, few sources of new supplies, and treacherous terrain in three seasons.

People stole from the camped wagons, robbed settlers, charged $5 to $15 for ferry crossings  a small fortune in 1840s money.

That was it, she said. The end of Missouri was the end of the United States.

Settlers had to guess how many oxen, cows, bulls they needed to feed themselves and breed upon arrival in the west. She said settlers would have seen plumes of ash from Mt. St. Helens as they rounded the northern part of proto-Oregon.

Debbie Lee pointed to some assembled people in sneakers, jeans and polo shirts.

The Fulkerson family ran out of food, she said.

And at the end of the trail, the Barlow Road. Debbie Lee described it as a treacherous and slippery slope.

You walk on down the trail. You risk your life, in the worst possible way. Your animals are half dead, she said.

But then, at last, the Willamette Valley. Land claims, and farming, and the city of Scio.

Debbie Lee called on the families, the Curls and Cyruses and Hubbards, the descendants in the room who had shared family histories and contributed their amassed knowledge, to make one more journey.

She told her grandson, Wyatt, that he'd have to lead the 200-year pioneer reunion in Scio in 2047.

By then, it could be nine generations of settler families.

"I think that's pretty cool," Debbie Lee said.
Sources say Burke was unreceptive to reminders he could achieve his freedom at any time by accepting the terms of the court order and purging his contempt.

The evangelical christian was jailed on Monday after he breached an injunction barring him from attending the school where he works.

He remains locked up in the committal area of Mountjoy Prison but is no longer in isolation after fulfilling the prisons Covid quarantine protocols.

Burke has yet to be moved from cells set aside for new inmates near the prison reception where he has been incarcerated since his arrival.

Its understood he was spoken with by a prison governor after his period of isolation ended.

Sources say Burke was unreceptive to reminders he could achieve his freedom at any time by accepting the terms of the court order and purging his contempt.

Sources have also confirmed that Burke will not now be moved into general population in the Dublin prison until early next week adding the prison is currently at or near capacity.

When the move occurs, the Castlebar teacher will be placed on a landing for prisoners on an enhanced regime.

Prisoners on enhanced regimes are those who have taken on jobs within the prison  and are considered to be at the lowest category of risk in terms of violent behaviour.

In a move that garnered him worldwide publicity this week, Burke chose to go to jail rather than comply with a court order barring him from attending Wilsons Hospital School, a Church of Ireland diocesan boarding school, in Multyfarnham.

The injunction was issued pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings that arose as a result of his strong views on transgenderism.

The school claim Burke vocally and repeatedly objected to a request from his principal that a transgender student be referred to by the pronoun they instead of he.

On Wednesday, having spent two nights in Mountjoy for contempt of court, Burke vowed: I will never leave Mountjoy Prison if in leaving that prison I must violate my well-informed conscience, and my religious beliefs and deny my God.

He continued that given the choice of abiding by the orders or acting in accordance with his religious beliefs, his answer would be the same for the next hundred years.

He claimed the court had stripped him of his liberty and his dignity, but it could not deprive him of his integrity and his religious convictions.

A supporter stands outside Mountjoy Prison

Mr Burke reiterated claims that transgenderism was against the teachings of every major church on the island of Ireland.

He said that during his time in prison he had time to consider whether any of his actions were wrong or amounted to misconduct and concluded that what he had done was honourable.

Burke also criticised the decision to jail him claiming the court had divested itself of all honour and has been mean, contemptible and base.

The tragedy of this case is that by merely stating my opposition to transgenderism, I have paid dearly, he said.

Counsel for the school, Rosemary Mallon rejected Burkes attempt to frame his incarceration as being a consequence of his beliefs or views transgenderism.

It is not about his beliefs, it is about his conduct, she said

The barrister said the case was in court because Mr Burke was a teacher who ignored the nature and effect of the lawful decision of the school's board of management to suspend him on pay pending the outcome of the disciplinary process.

Mr Justice Max Barrett agreed to continue the interlocutory injunction.

He agreed that the matter was not about transgenderism but the breach of an interlocutory injunction.

The judge adjourned the matter to next Wednesday of next week but said Mr Burke could come back to the court before then if he wished to purge his contempt.

Legal sources this week said it is unlikely, regardless of Burkes court statements that he will be allowed to spend 100 years in prison or even one year for that matter.

There is no statutory instrument in relation to contempt, he said.

Contempt is inherent in the powers of the court.

It is within the powers of the Judge to come up with an alternative in the event a transgressor refuses to purge his contempt.

In this instance, once the disciplinary proceedings are complete, it may be the case the judge decides there is no longer any reason to continue with the injunction.

In that event, it is conceivable Mr. Burke may again be asked to purge his contempt.

If he again refuses, the court could then deal with the matter by way of a fixed and defined sentence.

That is one of a number of alternatives that could be explored to end this.
Cops have warned the public not to approach Robert Robbie Flanagan who has been missing since a knife attack on Kinnaird Street

A convicted killer is being hunted by police in connection with the brutal stabbing of a man in north Belfast.

Cops have warned the public not to approach Robert Robbie Flanagan who has been missing since a horrific knife attack on Kinnaird Street.

A man is in a critical condition in hospital after being stabbed multiple times during the early hours of last Monday morning.

Detectives want to speak to Flanagan in connection with the vicious assault, but have so far been unable to locate him.

The 43-year-old served seven years of a life sentence for the 2004 manslaughter of Richard Caldwell (29) on the Antrim Road in Belfast.

The killing occurred just yards away from last weeks Kinnaird Street stabbing which Flanagan is being hunted for by police.

The thug knifed popular Richard eight times, slicing open his victims lungs and liver because he had ended a relationship with his younger sister Jennifer.

Richard Caldwell

Friends of the Caldwell family told how they always warned that Flanagan, who is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, would pose a danger to the public.

One of the reasons why Flanagan was prosecuted for Richards manslaughter and not murder was because he was diagnosed as being a paranoid schizophrenic, said the source.

After he was sentenced the Caldwells warned that he should never be freed because of the threat he posed.

Flanagan is now wanted by police in connection with another stabbing. It looks like what the Caldwells have been saying for years has come true.

The man suspected of carrying out the Kinnaird Street stabbing is understood to have been laying in wait for his victim armed with a knife. The attack is thought to be linked to an earlier row between the men.

PSNI Detective Sergeant McCartan said: At approximately 2.30am, we received a report that a man had been stabbed multiple times in the Kinnaird Street area. He was taken to hospital where he is receiving treatment for his injuries.

I would appeal to anyone who may have witnessed the incident or who may have any footage that could assist with enquiries, to contact detectives.

Robert 'Robbie' Flanagan

Unable to locate Flanagan, police put out an appeal for his whereabouts last Thursday along with CCTV images of the convicted knife killer.

A spokesman said: Police in Belfast are keen to trace the whereabouts of 43-year-old Robert Flanagan and have significant concerns about his well-being.

Robert is 6ft tall and was last seen in the area of north Belfast earlier this week. If anyone is aware of his whereabouts they should not approach Robert but should contact police immediately.

After he stabbed Richard Caldwell to death Flanagan went on the run from police for a week before being found hiding out in the Loughshore area of Newtownabbey.

While behind bars he made numerous criminal contacts and since his release has been linked to drug dealers. Detectives suspect he may be using these links to stay under the radar.

Scene of Kinnaird Street stabbing

Two years ago Flanagan, who grew up in the New Lodge area, suffered a broken leg following a hit and run incident on the Antrim Road.

Video footage of the aftermath of the smash shows a male kicking the killer as he lay on the ground, then leaning over him and screaming youll not hit nobody will ye.

When he was in prison previously Flanagan studied Shakespeare and acted in a short film recorded in Maghaberry jail which was later released on DVD.

In an accompanying documentary about its production, he joked: When I phoned home and said I was doing Shakespeare they said, You, doing Shakespeare?

I said, Yes, Im doing Shakespeare and Im enjoying it and Im going to stick with it.

Anyone with knowledge of Flanagans whereabouts should immediately contact police on the non-emergency 101 number.
Enoch Burke from Castlebar, Co Mayo is of one of ten siblings, all named after religious figures from the Bible

Isaac Burke, brother of Enoch Burke, outside Wilson's Hospital School in Co Westmeath after Enoch was arrested

Enoch Burke from Castlebar, Co Mayo is of one of ten siblings, all named after religious figures from the Bible.

His siblings are Ammi; Elijah; Esther; Isaac; Jemima; Josiah; Keren; Kezia and Simeon.

His father Sean is an electrician while his mother Martina is a qualified teacher who home-schooled all ten of her children.

She runs the Burke Christian School.

The family have found themselves at the centre of a number of newsworthy events in recent years.

Isaac Burke, brother of Enoch Burke, outside Wilson's Hospital School in Co Westmeath after Enoch was arrested

Martina, Josiah and Jemima were removed from Swinford courthouse in April of this year after they loudly protested a coroners verdict of natural causes in the case of the death of 17-year-old Sally Maz.

Also, in April, Ammi Burkes claim for unfair dismissal against law firm Arthur Cox was rejected.

The Work Relations Committee threw out her claim after her summons request for additional witnesses and repeated interruptions by her mother prevented the hearing from proceeding for more than five hours on Friday.

Ms Burke also demanded that senior counsel for the defence withdraw his remark that the Burke family was like a travelling circus  calling it highly defamatory.

Last year, Enochs brother Elijah Burke successfully challenged Education Minister Norma Foleys refusal to grant him calculated grade as his teacher, his mother, would have been the one to award him his grades.

Enoch Burke's father Sean leaving the High Court

In May of 2020, Jemima Burke, a journalism graduate, was asked to leave a Department of Health press conference after questioning former Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan on the circumstances of the death of Sally Maz.

She had gained access to the conference by claiming to be a journalist with The Western News  a Galway based newspaper that ceased publication in 1926.

In 2014, Enoch, Ammi, Isaac and Kezia Burke were banned for life from membership of societies at NUI Galway.

They claimed victimisation on religious grounds.

The University Society Co-ordination Group countered that the siblings had distributed leaflets using the college logo including ones against gay marriage that connected it to paedophilia and incest.

A court case held in November last year concluded with Judge Raymond Groake finding the sanction was within the rules and errors in procedure by the college did not constitute discrimination on religious grounds.
Our pictures show woman abuser Dylan Fogarty flashing a toothy grin as he walked free from Wheatfield Prison in Dublin on Friday

A violent thug who bit his pregnant partner in the face and also bit a stranger in the neck in a separate act of savagery is now back on the streets.

Our pictures show woman abuser Dylan Fogarty flashing a toothy grin as he walked free from Wheatfield Prison in Dublin on Friday where he served two years of his three-year sentence.

Fogartys release came after the Court of Appeal declined last year to extend the amount of time the 28-year-old would spend behind bars.

The court heard how Fogarty was initially sentenced to three years in prison after he was convicted of a range of offences including assault after biting his pregnant partner in the face during a campaign of domestic violence.

Dylan Fogarty

Fogarty had admitted assaulting her at his home on a date in April 2019, criminal damage at the womans home in June 2019, and harassing her at various locations on dates between April and November 2019.

The three-year sentence also covered a separate offence of assault causing harm to a man he had never met before at Dame Street, Dublin on October 15, 2017.

He also bit this man in the neck the court heard.

During last years proceedings, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) told the court three years had been too lenient a term for the offences and that closer to five years would have been more appropriate.

Grainne ONeill BL, for the DPP, said the trial judge had failed to give sufficient weight to aggravating factors, while placing too much emphasis on mitigation

After playing a tape of a phone call to the court in which Fogarty can be heard shouting to his then partner, I will kill ye, I will f**king kill ye, Ms ONeill said: This is one of those instances where the headline sentence should have been at or very close to five years.

Dylan Fogarty being picked up after leaving prison

She said that between April 2019 and November 2019, Fogarty had been involved in a toxic relationship with his former partner and they frequently rowed over money.

Fogarty, counsel said, had been violent towards the woman during that time, and had been a controlling influence over her and had tried to isolate her from friends and family.

One on occasion, when she was pregnant with Fogartys child, the respondent threw an object which hit her in the stomach before pinning her against a wall.

Although Ms ONeill acknowledged that Fogarty had admitted the offences, she said the value of an early guilty plea must be placed in context against the evidence, which she said had been strong and included testimony from independent witnesses and CCTV footage.

In relation to Fogartys expression of remorse, Ms ONeill noted that in both cases there was an insinuation that the victims had in some way contributed towards the respondents offending.

She said any apology tempered by the way the injured party is characterised was reduced in value.

Dylan Fogarty attacked his pregnant girlfriend

In relation to Fogartys biting attack on a complete stranger, the court heard, the male victim was on his way home in the early hours of the morning when he saw a man arguing with another person.

He said the next thing he recalled was being on the ground and shouting at a man to get off his neck. The victim had been punched and bitten with a piece of flesh missing from his neck.

The man initially thought it was a superficial wound but later attended for medical attention where he was treated for a fractured nose and referred to a plastic surgeon.

Fogarty was identified as the assailant from CCTV footage of the incident.

Gda Mitchell agreed with Mr Nolan, defending, that the victim had bumped off Fogarty's companion in a minor way and Fogarty reacted in an unacceptable manner.

The garda agreed alcohol was a significant factor.

Emmet Nolan BL, for Fogarty, argued to the Court of Appeal that although his client had been convicted of very serious offences, it not a case there had been an error in principle in the sentence.

He said the term imposed by Judge Nolan had offered his client some light at the end of the tunnel for rehabilitation.

Fogarty, counsel said, had struggled with drug addiction since he was 14 but was trying to address these issues via counselling.

Mr Nolan said the deprivation of liberty for three years for a man of his clients age was a severe penalty, adding: We no longer lock people up and throw away the key.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge Martin Nolan had erred by not setting a high enough headline sentence.

Quashing the original sentence, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, sitting with Court President Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice Brian Murray handed down a term of four years and six months, with the last 18 months suspended upon the respondent agreeing to enter a bond to keep the peace and remain drug free.

The structure of the new sentence meant that Fogarty was not required to serve any additional time behind bars.

A condition of Fogartys sentence requires that he have no contact with his former partner for a period of ten years.
Brave victim Majellas mother had beaten her and called her a pr**k-teaser" when she told her about the rapes

The target of his deprived sex attacks branded his release as disgusting, telling the Sunday World how Crowe had destroyed my life.

Majella Cahill who bravely waived her right to anonymity at his 2015 trial said: It is very disturbing to think hes out there.

I wasnt aware he was due out - Im disgusted to be honest. The man should have done life in prison for what he did to me.

I wish he had rotted in there.

Predators like that they dont know what evil is. He'll just get back out and go for a meal for himself. Because he didnt continue to rape anyone else hes free to go.

Im sorry, he destroyed my life. He can never tell me he is sorry for what he did. If he had a guilty conscience he would have walked into the police, but he didnt.

Majella Cahill waived her right to anonymity

Crowe had taken advantage of the vulnerable young girl who suffered neglect at her Galway home where she was also sexually abused by her grandfather.

I was raped constantly, every day by these men. I had a mother who just went out drinking and partying and not given a damn she had six daughters inside the house.

I had four predators, not just him. The abuse and the facts that were there, he didnt deny and then he tried to apologise to me. Had he not done enough damage?

He could have done his apologies years ago when I first came out with it.

Why did he have to go and rape me and beat me? I didnt give him no come on, I didnt ask for any of it.

It emerged during Crowes trial how Majellas mother had beaten her and called her a pr**k-teaser" when she told her about the rapes.

After coming forward about the sexual abuse Majella said she became the target of online abuse which forced her to leave Ireland.

I had to leave my home, I had to leave everything in Ireland. I had to come over here and start all over again. I was scandalised all over Facebook, accused of raping my own children and everything.

I put up a scan picture of my daughter, I was only pregnant five months  I had comments they were going to burn me out of it that I was only a skanky dirty whore, that I was going in raping my children at night time, I was a sex crazed woman.

I went onto the steps of the court and thought if I do this people will believe me - it got worse for me from there.

Theres a lot to the story, it is not just Henry Crowe.

Our man Eamon Dillon confronts Crowe as he leaves prison

Even now, Majella admits it is a daily struggle to deal with what she was put through as a child and his ten-year sentence gave her little satisfaction.

There wasnt any - even thinking about it turns my stomach. Every day I look in the mirror and think my god you are an ugly bitch, maybe you gave an eye or gave him a wink or something. Theres no satisfaction there.

Crowe got a ten-year prison sentence in 2015 after a trial at the Central Criminal Court where he pleaded guilty to five sample charges of rape.

The offences happened on dates between November 23, 1988 and December 31, 1992 when Majella was aged between 11 and 15 years old at the time.

In her victim impact report it was heard that she waived her right to anonymity so that Crowe could be named.

Judge Paul Carney declared Crowe a sex offender and said he was taking into account the gross breach of trust, the victims age and the number of offences when passing sentence.

He also took into account that Crowe took advantage of his victims dysfunctional family situation and violated her while she was being abused by other family members.

It was also ordered Crowe undergo 18 months post release supervision and stay away from Ms Cahill on his release from prison.

At a previous sentence hearing, Majella Cahill had begun reading her victim impact statement but became overwhelmed and a garda read the rest of it into the record.

In it she outlined how she was neglected as a child by her mother.

As a three-year-old she went to live with her fathers parents before returning to live in Galway with her mothers parents when she was seven years old.

She said her grandfather, who had since died, sexually abused her in that house.

When she was 11 years old Crowe started a relationship with her mother and he began to rape her on a daily basis after initially being nice to her.

Describing her horrible and disgusting childhood, Majella stated: We were left on our own, hungry and dirty. I was neglected by my mother.

She said social services were involved with the family but her mother would clean and feed us when she knew they were visiting.

When she first told her mother about Crowe raping her, she called the child a pr**k teaser and said that Ms Cahill had wanted Crowe for herself.

She always claimed I was lying. She started beating me when I told her about the abuse.

Ms Cahill said she later became unruly and would get into trouble with the local gardai. She said when Crowe raped her he would start by accusing her of being bold or robbing.

He became a monster in my mind, Ms Cahill said before she described once being raped while her mother was pregnant with Crowes child.

I will have to live with this for the rest of my life, she stated.
Airline was forced to cancel over 50 flights yesterday as boarding software crashed

Hundreds of people lined up outside and inside Terminal 2, as Aer lingus attempts to manually check in passengers for their flights. 10/9/22. Picture by Fergal Phillips   Fergal Phillips

There were chaotic scenes for Aer Lingus passengers yesterday when the airlines boarding software crashed, causing the cancellation of all flights from 2pm.

In total, Aer Lingus had to cancel a total of 51 flights yesterday  mainly to and from Dublin and European and UK destinations.

However, last night a spokesperson for the airline said the break in connectivity had been fully restored, and Aer Lingus had taken steps to bring all its systems back online.

The spokesperson said the Sunday schedule is still planned to operate as normal but warned could be subject to delays. Intending passengers should check the Aer Lingus website for updates, they warned.

Aer Lingus confirmed it will be operating all of its transatlantic services from Dublin today, "albeit with delays and reduced passenger numbers in some instances, due to security restrictions applying as a result of the systems outage"

The statement continued: We have made additional customer service agents available to deal with high call volumes  but please bear with us as we try to service all customer queries.

Yesterday afternoon, fears grew for thousands of Garth Brooks fans who had been due to fly into and out of the city.

The airline has ruled out a hacking incident and confirmed that any customer impacted by the disruptions will be able to change their travel plans, free of charge, either through their call centre or social media channels, or get a refund.

Passengers form long queues at Dublin Airport. Photo: Frank McGrath

It also cancelled all Dublin-bound flights from Europe yesterday afternoon and evening, with the exception of flights from Spain and Portugal.

The cancellations were caused by a major technical problem that prevented thousands of passengers from checking in.

Throughout Saturday afternoon and into the evening, spiralling queues formed as thousands of frustrated passengers lined up outside and inside Terminal Two.

At first, Aer Lingus attempted to check in each passenger manually  but then decided to cancel all short-haul flights, telling remaining passengers not to come to the airport for the rest of the day.

In cities throughout Europe, passengers due to fly to Dublin complained of a lack of any clear information.

An initial statement from Aer Lingus confirmed the issue: Due to a major incident with a network provider, our cloud-based systems enabling check-in, boarding and our website are currently unavailable.

It said a UK network provider servicing its cloud-based system experienced a major break in connectivity.

Throughout Saturday morning, customers reported long queues at the airport, as the Aer Lingus check in for earlier flights was being handled manually.

Tadgh Lynch and Liz Ryan were two of the thousands of people who waited in Terminal Two from lunchtime. They did not know if their planned trip to Vancouver would go ahead, but feared it was "not going to happen".

It was to be their first family holiday with daughter Lilly (three) and son Tadgh Og (one).

The couple, who live in Kilkenny, arrived at 10am for at 1.10 pm flight.

It looks like were going to miss the flight today, so were hoping that they might put us on a flight tomorrow, or else well cancel and just book for another time, Mr Lynch said.
Citizens of Kosovo, Ghana, Nigeria, and the United States were the most likely to have a visa application for travel to Ireland refused last year

Applicants from the United States had a surprisingly low rate of success in their attempts to obtain Irish visas with a little over 30pc of 62 applicants rejected.

However, citizens of Kosovo had just a fifty-fifty chance of success in their applications with 112 decisions made and 56 refusals.

People from the West African nation of Ghana were the next most likely to have a visa refused with a success rate of just 58.4pc among 286 applications.

They were followed by Nigeria from where 2,406 applications were made with 778  or 32.3pc of the total  refused by immigration officials.

Other countries with relatively high rates of refusal included Somalia (27.8pc refused), Cameroon (26pc refused), Afghanistan (25.2pc refused), and Syria (24.5pc).

The nations with the highest rates of success in visa applications were Russia, Turkey, India, and Kuwait, according to data released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

Last year, Russian citizens  prior to the war in Ukraine  had a 98.2pc chance of success when seeking a visa for travel to Ireland.

The rate for people from Turkey was similar with a refusal rate of just 1.9pc while 97.8pc of applications from India also succeeded.

Figures from the Department of Justice also show that female applicants for travel to Ireland were more likely to be granted visas.

Overall, across 40 different countries from which a sizable number of applications were received  a womans chance of being granted a visa was around 87pc.

However, the success rate for men covering the same forty countries averaged at around 83pc.

The differences were sometimes stark with nearly 76pc of all Kosovar women successful in their applications, compared to just 37pc for men.

The Department of Justice would not provide data for countries where figures relating to applications or refusals were in single digits.

They said this was done to avoid the possible identification of individuals where the number of applicants granted or refused visas was very low.

That could mean even higher or lower success rate for certain countries but where the number of applications was small.

A spokesman for the department said: When considering the overall approval rates in visa offices and embassies worldwide, it is important that a number of factors are taken into account. All applications for visas to travel to Ireland are assessed individually, on their own merits, taking all relevant factors into account.

Each application is subject to scrutiny by immigration officials under the criteria relevant to the type of visa being applied for. Any applicant who receives a negative visa decision will be notified of the reasons for refusal and unsuccessful applicants are entitled to submit an appeal of the decision free of charge.
Flowers and teddies were left at the scene of the tragedy, which has plunged the local community into mourning

A vigil will be held this evening in memory of two children aged two and five who died in a car fire last Friday near Multyfarnham in Co Westmeath.

The childrens mother Lynn Egar, was airlifted to hospital and is not believed to have sustained life-threatening injuries. The children were named as Thelma (5) and Michael (2).

Local primary school, St Cremins in Multyfarnham where Thelma was in senior infants has organised a vigil walk which will take place this evening. It will be followed by a short prayer service.

Flowers and teddies were left at the scene of the tragedy, which has plunged the local community into mourning.

Earlier today, prayers for the victims and their families were said at Sunday mass at the Church of St Nicholas in Multyfarnham.

The tragedy was mentioned at the beginning of 11 oclock mass and the priest asked parishioners to keep the families in their minds and prayers, and he also prayed for the children during his Prayers of the Faithful.

In the midland town of Rathowen, the house where Lynn Egar lived with her family remained sealed off by gardai this afternoon.

Little Michael and Thelma

Neighbours did not wish to comment, just to say the family are private people who kept to themselves.

They are a lovely family, keeping to themselves like all of us. Its a terrible tragedy, said one.

A garda statement last night said that gardai at Mullingar continue to investigate all of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a 2 year old infant boy and a 5 year old girl following a fatal car fire in County Westmeath on Friday, 9 September, 2022.

Post mortems have concluded on the bodies of both deceased by the State Pathologist Dr. Sally Ann Collis. Results of the post mortem examinations are not being released for operational reasons.

Forensic examination of the vehicle by the Garda Technical Bureau is continuing.

Read more Gardai probe arson lead after two kids die in horror car blaze in Westmeath

A female in her 40s continues to be treated for serious, but non-life threatening, injuries at a Dublin Hospital, the statement said.

An Garda Siochana continue to appeal to any person with any information in relation to this fatal incident to contact them.

The Incident room at Mullingar Garda Station can be contacted on 044 9384000, or contact the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.
The prestigious festival is the first major event of awards season and is widely regarded as an indicator of who will be among the nominees at next years Oscars.

VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 05: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson attend "The Banshees Of Inisherin" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 05, 2022 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)   Getty Images

His new movie The Banshees of Inisherin - which was filmed on the Aran Islands last summer - won him the best actor award at Venice Film Festival.

The prestigious festival is the first major event of awards season and is widely regarded as an indicator of who will be among the nominees at next years Oscars.

The film and Colin and co-star Brendan Gleesons performances were also widely praised by critics following the movies world premiere this week.

The two stars have reunited with In Bruges director Martin McDonagh for the movie, a black comedy-drama about two friends who have a falling out.

I cant imagine ever passing on anything he writes because hes such an extraordinary writer, Farrell said at the festival. In Bruges was a friendship being built between this odd couple. This is the opposite... such a painful, violent dissolving of a friendship.

The movie was filmed on Achill and the Aran Island of Inishmore last summer, and comes to cinemas this autumn.

Banshees of Inisherin

Film fans are hopeful the two leading men will share the same onscreen chemistry they did when they played hitmen sent to the Belgian city for a contract killing. Its the first time the two Dubliners have worked together since that 2008 film.

The Banshees of Inisherin is set on a fictional Irish island and is set in 1923.

Set on an island off the west coast of Ireland, the movie tells the story of two lifelong friends, Padraic (Farrell) and Colm (Gleeson), who find themselves at an impasse when Colm abruptly decides to end their friendship.

With the support of his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), who along with the local policemans son Dominic (Barry Keoghan) has her own qualms within the small island community, a confused and devastated Padraic attempts to reignite their relationship. But when Colm delivers a shocking ultimatum, events start to escalate.

Its the first time McDonagh has filmed a movie in Ireland, though many of his plays have been set here. The directors last movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, won Oscars for its lead stars Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell.

McDonagh has revealed he wanted to bring his two leading men back together for what he describes as a break up story about their friendship.
When Catherine Daniels struggled to verbalise her experiences of sexual abuse as a child, which shed kept secret for decades, she turned to sculpture  sharing the impacts of carrying hidden trauma in visible form to others.

The Secret Keeper is a sculpture and photographic exhibition created by the artist to raise awareness about sexual abuse.

Its about starting conversations around childhood trauma and sexual abuse and the affects it has long-term on people, says Catherine.

Thoughts made visible

With more than 70 sculptures in the exhibition, Catherine first began creating the sculpted girls eight years ago.

Its taken me eight years of full-time work to process not only my trauma, but work out how to say it in a different form than just verbally  I couldnt say it verbally out loud  I struggled to verbalise what had happened to me.

Catherine says the process of sculpting what she was feeling was cathartic and gave her a visual way to express thoughts that she couldnt express with words.

When I was sculpting I could, put it in a sculpture and I didnt even have to write it or say it; I could just show people and they didnt need an explanation.

The emotions just flowed out like water, pouring out of this damn that had built up over 50 years and once I started, I just couldnt stop.

Creating sculptures helped Catherine Daniels see thoughts caused from traumatic experiences in a tangible form. Photo: Brydie Thompson.

Showing her psychiatrist and psychologist, Dr Jerry Barnard and Elinor Seville, her sculptures, they encouraged Catherine to share her work.

They said: This has to go out in public  its going to help so many people.

Normalising conversations

Catherine believes, as a society, we need to normalise conversations around sexual abuse.

Its a part of so many peoples lives. Its one of those subjects thats never talked about and we need to talk about it, we need to normalise it.

Its the only thing in the world that is non-cultural, non-female or male, rich or poor. there is no barriers to what sexual abuse and childhood trauma doesnt touch.

People that come to the exhibition feel validated and they feel like theyre not alone, says Catherine, who adds the sculptures are for everyone to see.

She believes the exhibition creates greater understanding, empathy and insight into the lives of those who may have experienced trauma.

It gives you a look into a part of a person that you often dont even think about.

The exhibition gives sexual abuse survivors validation says Catherine and helps others to have greater empathy. Photo: Brydie Thompson.

Sharing her exhibition, Catherine says 70-80-year-old men and women have spoken to her after seeing the sculptures and told her of similar sexual abuse experiences in their past.

Thats the amazing power of these sculptures  to open people up that they feel safe enough to talk about their past and what they have kept secret for 75 years, says Catherine.

Held at The Village Hall, in The Historic Village, the exhibition will run from September 5- 26 at 10am-4pm. Entry is free.
Vast areas of Oregon were ablaze as we wrote this editorial, and by the time its published, were guessing the square mileage of wildfires will have grown considerably.

Fires were rampaging through the landscape in Wallowa County, in southwestern Oregon, in Lane County and in other areas of the state, as well as Northern California.

Thankfully, Linn and Benton counties havent felt the devastating impacts of major fires this year at the time were writing this. But were not immune, as many of you recall from when this area looked like a hellscape in September 2020.

The entirety of the mid-Willamette Valley was choked in thick smoke from wildfires, and residents in the Santiam Canyon living near Holley and Crawfordsville along Highway 228 had to evacuate from their homes to flee the flames. Lives were lost. Houses destroyed. Thousands upon thousands of acres burned.

Again, that happened in September, and were still in the heart of fire season. Conditions remain dry and relatively hot  and therefore ripe for blazes. Residents shouldnt breathe easy regarding wildfires for another month.

So wed urge you to use caution, because all it takes is a spark.

Linn and Benton counties each put total burn restrictions in place through Sunday prohibiting all open wood and charcoal fires, including barbecues. It would be wise to follow those recommendations for a few extra days and remain vigilant.

Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Albany Democrat-Herald.

Also, use common sense. Dont park your automobile on tall, dried-out grass, for example.

If youre a smoker, make sure your butts are completely out and clean your ashtrays regularly. Discarded cigarettes are often the cause of fires that start small but grow into something much more serious.

Wildfires, which seem to have become an annual tragedy on the West Coast, also serve as a reminder to be prepared for emergencies.

Coincidentally, September is National Preparedness Month, and you can go online to https://www.ready.gov/september for more information on how to prepare and make a plan for your family.

One simple idea is to create a grab-and-go kit. If you live in an area that might be impacted by wildfires or flooding, you want to be able to evacuate your home as quickly as possible.

Local public safety agencies recommend filling a plastic tub, duffel bag or other container with a 10-day supply of food and water for each family member  freeze-dried foods such as Mountain House meals are perfect because of their light weight and long shelf life.

First aid supplies, toiletries, extra medications and other essentials such as paper plates and cups, a flashlight, toilet paper, plastic bags, cash, spare eyeglasses and more also should be in the kit.

Keep an extra change of clothing, blankets or sleeping bags, hats and gloves, warm socks and other necessities in the kit as well. And remember to prepare for your four-legged and furry family members.

Another way to be prepared is to go to the Benton or Linn County Sheriffs Office website and sign up for the Linn-Benton Emergency Alert Notification System. Its a great way to stay informed about disasters and other emergencies via phone, email or text messages.

The emergency that impacts you might not be a wildfire. It could be the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake that lurks just offshore of Oregon. It could be a massive snowstorm, windstorm or flood, all of which have essentially paralyzed the Willamette Valley in the past.

But the basic idea remains the same. Take steps to protect yourself and your family. Be prepared.
Monday morning is the usual time that Jeanette Hastie and her friend Muriel McFarlane get together with a group of nearly 20 knitters at Bob Owens Retirement Village.

The pair are founding members of the knitting group, which has been running for 10 years.

On Tuesday morning I take a group in the rest home as well, says Jeanette.

Now they are part of a mammoth trans-Tasman bear-making mission to help the children of Ukraine. Theyd love the Western Bay of Plenty community to join in with knitting a Yuri Bear to contribute to the cause.

Aiming for 20,000

The Bob Owens Retirement Village is one of 45 Ryman Healthcare villages participating in making 20,000 knitted teddy bears for some of the five million children displaced or stranded at the Ukrainian-Polish border since Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

Some of the Yuri Bears ready to go to Ukraine children. Photo: Bob Tulloch.

Every resident at Rymans 45 villages and the companys offices in Christchurch, Auckland and Melbourne has been challenged to contribute a bear by the end of this month to the trans-Tasman Ryman Healthcare Yuri Bear project.

They wanted the bears in Christchurch by the first of September but its being extended until the end of September, says Jeanette.

The Bob Owens knitters have been knitting for the last five weeks, with more than 50 Yuri bears made and more to come.

Weve got about 14 regular people in our knitting group. But theres a few extras who have been knitting them in the village too. One lady has knitted nine, says Jeanette.

Theres one lady there, a 100-year-old  Ruth Hawthorn  who has knitted two teddy bears, would you believe, says Muriel. She did all the knitting and I think her daughter Gaylene Johnson helps stitch them up.

All directions

Were getting teddy bears from all directions, we could end up getting 100 by the time weve finished. Theres been a lot of interest, people are quite keen,' says Muriel.

Robyn Nicholson, the activities coordinator at Bob Owens, initially put the Rymans project to the group.

Its a good activity. People in the care centre have time and you can put it down and pick it up, says Muriel.

Bob Owens Retirement Village activities coordinator Robyn Nicholson. Photo: Bob Tulloch. Photo: Bob Tulloch.

The knitting group began a decade ago with seven knitters, thanks to a previous village activities coordinator. We first started knitting strips for Operation Cover Up, says Jeanette.

Operation Cover Up has been sending blankets and clothes to families in Eastern Europe as winter can get as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius.

Muriel does all the crocheting around the blankets.

Rymans Victorian Sales and Community Relations manager Debra Richardson says the project was a tangible way Ryman residents, team members and the wider community could make a small difference to the lives of the youngest members of the war-torn country.

Being so far away it can be difficult to know how we can help, says Debra.

Thousands of Ryman village residents are avid knitters, and this project empowers them to use a skill that they are experts at to send a symbol of love from afar.

The project is a labour of love for Debra, whose former foster son Yuri remains in Ukraine.

Debra and her family fostered Yuri in Melbourne following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s.

He has made the decision to stay and fight for his country and his family have been evacuated to safety, says Debra.

The project emerged from my discussions with Yuri about how we could provide support from Australia and New Zealand.

When I first shared the idea with Yuri he said: Ukraine is stronger with your help, empathy, and love. A million thanks to the millions of people who care.

While Debras contact with Yuri has become sporadic as the war rages on and concern grows that his messages could be monitored, the Yuri Bear project is giving Debra a sense of connection to the man she cared for as a child.

It is easy to feel totally helpless to what is going on, but small gestures like a handmade bear for a child who has lost almost everything can make a meaningful difference, says Debra.

Muriel McFarlane and Jeanette Hastie with Yuri Bears knitted by the Bob Owens Retirement Village knitting group. Photo: Bob Tulloch.

The knitters at Bob Owens have made about 50 Yuri bears so far with plenty more in the wings. And theyd love it if people from the Tauranga and wider community joined them in knitting the teddy bears.

Knitters are given a simple teddy bear pattern, instructions and some creative suggestions to follow. To download the Yuri Bear pattern and instructions click here.

So, even if youre a novice knitter it will be very easy to craft, says Debra.

Many children have had to evacuate without their parents, with little or no time to pack their belongings. Being so far away its difficult to know how to help, but even the smallest gestures can make a huge difference.

The Yuri bear initiative is our way of sending a symbol of love from afar to the Ukrainian children  wed love your help to bring this to life.

Ryman was founded in 1984 and has become one of New Zealands largest listed companies. The company owns and operates 45 retirement villages in New Zealand and Australia which are home to more than 13,200 residents and the company employs 6700 team members.

Not all of those residents and team members are knitters.

We've set ourselves a target to create 20,000 Yuri Bears. Therefore, even if you don't knit, you'll likely know someone who does. So, please help to donate at least one bear from you, a family member, or a friend. This way, we can bring smiles to the faces of as many Ukrainian children as we can, says Debra.

Alternatively, people may wish to donate yarn or toy stuffing instead.

From now until the end of September, needles will be click-clacking across both countries, with speedy knitters already sparking a healthy dose of trans-Tasman competition.

The target deadline is the end of September and the Yuri teddy bears will be despatched to Ukraine after that.

Bob Owens Retirement Village activities coordinator Robyn Nicholson. Photo: Bob Tulloch.

There are also a series of five instructional videos available with Debra demonstrating how to make the bears.

The first video 'Starting your first Yuri bear' can be viewed by clicking here

For the four other instructional videos Joining the head, Sew the sleeves, Sewing up the ends, and Finishing up click on the individual links or click here for all five videos and patterns.

Let the children of Ukraine know theyre in our hearts and minds by putting some time and love into knitting a Yuri Bear, says Debra.

To find out more, or to get involved, click here.

The knitters at Bob Owens would love it if the public joined them in knitting the Yuri teddy bears. Easy-to-follow instructions are available. Alternatively, people can donate yarn or toy stuffing.

From now until the end of September, needles will be click-clacking across both countries, with speedy knitters already sparking a healthy dose of trans-Tasman competition.

The target deadline is Septembers end  Yuri teddy bears will be despatched to Ukraine after that.

A public Yuri bear drop-off point is at Bob Owens Retirement Village, Carmichael Rd, Bethlehem.
Bay of Plentys Hannah Wells has finished second at Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast in Australia, just behind winner Lotte Wilms.

Hannah finished the race in 4:01:53, just over a minute and half behind Dutch athlete Lotte Wilms, with Australias Penny Slater a further minute back in third.

Sundays second place finish made it back-to-back podiums for Hannah on the Sunshine Coast, after finishing third in 2021.

I put together a solid day out there, Lotte obviously put together a better day so congratulations to her, she had a strong swim, bike and run, its always a tough race against her and I knew I was coming into a battle, says Hannah. We all did really well out there, all three of us on the podium, so I think were all really happy.

It was nice and close which kept it interesting, it was a good battle between us all, and it was a fast day out there as well, perfect conditions for us."

Hannah finished the 1.9km swim off Mooloolaba Beach two minutes behind Wilms and slowly ate into her lead over the 90km ride, getting to within 30 seconds of the front of the field as they made their way up the Sunshine Motorway.

Lotte kicked ahead over the closing stages of the ride, and started the run more than two minutes clear of Hannah, but the Kiwi steadily closed the gap, taking the lead about 10kms in. The two front runners we neck and neck from there on, with Lotte retaking the lead with about 5kms to go, powering ahead to take victory.

I felt really good on the run, I was comfortable and surprised myself with the pace, I caught up to Lotte and I think maybe she was holding back a little and then upped the pace as soon as I got to her, I didnt have anything in my legs by that point and she got me at the end there but it was a good battle, says Hannah.

Hannah is enjoying being back on familiar turf after spending time racing and training in America recently.

It feels good to be home, we had a great trip away and a great experience racing over there but nothing beats racing here in Australia and New Zealand, says Hannah. IRONMAN 70.3 Melbourne is next up for me, Im heading back home, will put in a solid training block and then hopefully look to improve again at the next one.

The three winners of the Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast in Australia on Sunday. Photo: Supplied/Sportograf.

New Zealands Mike Phillips also made the trip across the Tasman for IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast, with the Christchurch native finishing sixth overall.

Mike crossed the line in 3:35:02, just over five minutes behind the winner, Brisbanes Max Neumann, with Steve McKenna second and Nicholas Free third.

The 2019 Nutri-Grain IRONMAN New Zealand champion has been recovering from injury in recent months, with the result a strong one as he returns to full fitness.

The 2022 Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast is a sold out event, with more than 2,000 athletes contesting a 1.9km swim starting and finishing on Mooloolaba Beach, a 90km ride taking in the Sunshine Motorway and a 21.1km run finishing on the Mooloolaba Esplanade.

Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast is supported by the Queensland Government through Tourism and Events Queensland and features on the Its Live! in Queensland events calendar.

For more information on Qatar Airways IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast visit https://www.ironman.com/im703-sunshine-coast
Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription.

Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service.
The 4th IFSB Innovation Forum will convene key stakeholders in the international Islamic finance and sustainable finance communities on September 14 in St Regis Doha, Qatar.

The event will be hosted, under the patronage of the Qatar Central Bank (QCB), by the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), a leading onshore financial and business centre in the region, together with the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB).

Themed Innovations for Sustainability and Regulation of Financial Services, the forum will focus on the promotion and development of innovative sustainable finance solutions vital in creating a competitive edge for the Islamic Financial Services Industry (IFSI).

Dr Bello Lawal Danbatta, Secretary-General, IFSB, will address the delegates in his welcome remarks, which will touch on the recent developments around sustainable finance and Sukuk market and how it impacts the IFSI. Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al-Thani, Governor, Qatar Central Bank, will deliver the opening keynote address, and Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, Chief Executive Officer, QFC, will address Qatars initiatives toward mitigating the consequences of climate change, preserving the environment, and how Islamic finance supports the realisation of a socially and economically equitable future.

The event will feature speakers from key international and local institutions such as Bank Negara Malaysia, Saudi Central Bank, United Nation Development Programme, HSBC, Q Invest, Standard and Poors, UK Export Finance, and Global Green Growth Institute, among others.

The IFSB Innovation Forum targets regulators, policymakers, Islamic financial services institutions, academic and research institutions, financial service providers, legal practitioners, Shariah advisors, and other key stakeholders in the IFSI. TradeArabia News Service
Leadership behind Albany's Veterans Day parade is new this year, and it hasn't been the easiest of transitions.

When Christine Ferguson took up the mantle as chief organizer, she didnt know what she was getting into. Sure, she knew that the parade drew thousands of attendees a year and claims to be the largest veterans parade west of the Mississippi.

What she didnt know was that she essentially would be starting from scratch: The Veterans Commemoration Association, which had organized the parade for the past dozen years, had dissolved.

Its been a rough start, and many people are wondering if the parade will carry on this year, Ferguson acknowledged. She even considered resigning, she said. But it will, and she won't.

A nonprofit dissolves

For the past 12 years, the Veterans Commemorative Association has taken on the monumental task of putting on the Veterans Day parade in Albany, Al Severson, former vice president, said. Support, however, has dwindled, and more recently, the association was comprised of only three executive members, including himself.

Part of the problem, former president Patty Louisiana said, is that when she was ready to step down to care for an ill relative sometime in 2020 or '21, there was no clear successor. That's because of a technicality in the association's by-laws.

To be nominated for presidency, one must attend over 51% of the prior years meetings to be eligible and to be considered for nomination to an executive board position, one must have chaired a successful event the prior year, Louisiana wrote March 30 to the Oregon Department of Justice  which oversees the dissolutions of organizations  in letter updating the closeout process for the Veterans Commemorative Association.

At the time, she wrote, no one who fit that bill had stepped forward.

It would be in the best interest of the organization to give a new nonprofit group a clean slate to begin as they see fit, Louisiana wrote.

In an interview, Louisiana said she also attributes some of the upheaval to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the did not operate at full scale for the past two years, opting instead for a reverse parade, spearheaded first in 2020 by the YMCA.

Loss of tax-exempt status

Years before the dissolution, however, came a warning sign: the loss of tax-exemption, the thing that makes a nonprofit a nonprofit  for the most part, that is.

Our records indicate that the organization lost its IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 2017 for failing to file required returns with the IRS," Kristina Edmunson, communications director at the Department of Justice, said by email. "It is possible, although not generally recommended, to operate as a nonprofit corporation without IRS tax-exempt status.

All three core members  Severson, Louisiana and former secretary Marilyn Myers  said they were unaware of the loss of tax-exempt status. They also engaged in some finger-pointing.

Louisiana identified Myers as the person responsible for filing tax information and Severson as a previous treasurer. It was Myers' name and signature on the CT-12, an annual report charities must file with the Department of Justice, separate from the IRS 990 form.

Severson said that although he had previously held the title of treasurer, he had not dealt with anything financial for some time and instead had focused on outreach for the parade.

Denying responsibility, Myers said that money matters were the domain of the treasurer and that third-party tax preparers were used for filing forms with the IRS.

Missing records?

At the time Ferguson volunteered for the committee, she didn't know any of this. But she walked into a storm of feelings about how the parade should be run and general upset over the Veterans Commemorative Association's dissolution.

This year has been a challenge because people dont trust us, Ferguson said.

That distrust went public when in April, the association received a lot of negative feedback on its Facebook page after a GoFundMe campaign was created to solicit financial help for the parade.

People were confused by the change in organization's name, now called the Linn County Veterans Day Parade, and didn't see the post as legitimate, Ferguson said.

Severson said it has been a struggle to let everyone know the event will continue this year even if its organization as it's been known will not.

Compounding the confusion is that some supplies and documents have gone missing. Severson alleges that many years of history were lost.

Among the many documents that accumulated over the years were financial documents and photos from the last 10 years of the parade, Severson said.

Were back to square one, he said.

Although he was aware of the dissolution before it occurred, he said he didnt anticipate losing access to documents and photographs.

When records disappear, it sets off red flags, he said.

Records found?

Louisiana and Myers apparently have those records.

The DOJ requires a process be followed to dissolve an organization. That process includes filling out a closing form, submitting outstanding financial reports and listing organizations or people who will receive the charitys assets upon dissolution, according to the DOJs website.

According to Louisiana's letter to the DOJ, she dispersed remaining funds to Linn County Veterans Memorial Association and Veterans of Foreign War Post 584.

Regarding the association's corporate records, both Marilyn Meyers (sic) and myself have retained these records. First to organize what each has, next to organize the various committee files and lastly to shred old and outdated information," she wrote to the DOJ.

"We will both retain records until they become outdated. Regarding parade and event photographs, we look to digitize what we have and turn them over to the Albany Historical Museum.

According to Edmunson, charitable organizations should either give valuable nonmonetary assets to similar organizations or sell them, with the proceeds going to charitable organizations. Other assets are up to the discretion of the dissolving organization.

"Corporate records, like minutes and financial records, should be kept for a number of years, in case any issues arise," Edmunson said.

Louisiana said by phone the new committee members should have everything they need. Before she left, she handed over parade route maps, a script and names of the event sponsors.

Thats more than what she started with, she said.

There never was a three-ring binder of information, Louisiana said. The new organization should make the parade their own, instead of following what she did.

But to the American Legion, which is helping to organize this year's parade, that isnt enough. Legion members are struggling to figure out who participated in past years. They also wish the Veterans Commemorative Association had given them such supplies as safety vests and walkie-talkies.

As a result, they will have to buy the supplies or rely on donations, Karen Force, the American Legions executive assistant, said.

Marching on

If you want to get in touch with Ferguson, you may find her giving a presentation at a civics club or in a meeting at the American Legion or at her computer at home. She doesnt have an office, and doesnt see the need for one.

Because shes out in the community.

Ferguson joined the the Linn County Veterans Day Parade, which is currently operating under the umbrella of the American Legion, with little experience. She had recently moved from Virginia and was looking for more friends. She previously worked with the Cub Scouts but has never put on a parade.

The more I have learned about what veterans gave up, the more passionate Ive gotten, she said.

Although Severson no longer holds an executive position, he remains active in putting together the parade. He isn't interested in trying to get in touch with old leadership. He wants to focus on the veterans themselves, he said.

It's a chance to close the book and start a new chapter, Severson said.

He just hopes more young people join the cause to replace those who fall out.

Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Lebanon Express.

No young ones are coming in, and its getting smaller, and people are getting older, he said. He worries for the future.

For her part, Ferguson is determined to make sure everyone knows the parade will march on. It's scheduled for 11 a.m. Veterans Day, Nov. 11, just as it has been for many years prior. The procession will start on Pacific Boulevard and march through the downtown before ending at the Linn County Courthouse.

My focus is to get the parade on the street this year, she said. Its about honoring our veterans.

Related stories:
shyampsunder BHPian

Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: Chennai Posts: 96 Thanked: 310 Times

Re: Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation Quote: locusjag Originally Posted by If you do a 5-why analysis for the flooding and indiscriminate growth of Bangalore (and other Indian cities), it will come down to the excessive population inflow to the city. This has to stop.



A simple way to invalidate this "excess population" theory. For 2 years there was reduced traffic on Bangalore roads, did the roads get better? If high usage was the reason, it should have gotten better right?



Roads should be the last place where we see mismanagement because lack of quality is very visible to the common man using them and we all know the state of Bangalore roads. Now imagine how much mismanagement takes place in things like storm water drains where it is not easy to understand if authorities are doing a good job outside of a sudden downpour.



Also, remember Bangalore is at an elevation and flooding is that much easier to prevent if there is a natural gradient to flow, yet we see this. A twitter thread where it is explained in detail: Easy cop-out to take. Cities are engines of growth and there are so many megacities around the world that manage such populations well.A simple way to invalidate this "excess population" theory. For 2 years there was reduced traffic on Bangalore roads, did the roads get better? If high usage was the reason, it should have gotten better right?Roads should be the last place where we see mismanagement because lack of quality is very visible to the common man using them and we all know the state of Bangalore roads. Now imagine how much mismanagement takes place in things like storm water drains where it is not easy to understand if authorities are doing a good job outside of a sudden downpour.Also, remember Bangalore is at an elevation and flooding is that much easier to prevent if there is a natural gradient to flow, yet we see this. A twitter thread where it is explained in detail: link
Alibaba is one of the world's largest retailers and online marketplaces. The B2B marketplace also offers customer-to-customer and business-to-customer sales services. Many small businesses sell their products through this online retail infrastructure.

In addition, the marketplace houses the most unusual products and brands. This is not surprising, given the company's ability to sell almost anything. Despite being one of the industry's leading retailers, Alibaba is known for selling everything from bizarre products to items you had no idea you needed until you saw the listing. An electric-powered military tank? That demonstrates my point.

Weird vehicles have become a standard occurrence on China's largest shopping website. Every visitor to the platform is drawn to the unusual EVs with interesting designs and features. This time, you will learn more about this backyard electric tank that the big boys can use to relive their childhood dreams of riding on a tank in the neighborhood drive.

Alibaba's Mini Electric Military Tank

Electric vehicles (EVs) are slowly taking over the automobile business because of their advanced technologies and lower environmental impact. This might also be the case for miniature toy vehicles for kids, as Alibaba is putting up for sale a mini electric military tank.

Read Also: Weird Alibaba EV 2022: Electric Ice Cream Bike? Check This Combination of Old School Design, Zero-Emission Tech

In the latest product feature by Electrek, it said this miniature EV with a tank cannon could be armed with the best sound effects you can come up with. This vehicle will not require you to regularly check the air inside the wheels as this product does not come with any wheels at all. This mini army tank runs on tank treads, making it an effective all-terrain vehicle.

This rideable toy includes two seats, which means you could bring along a friend to try out this awesome toy. Just make sure not to try to smash other vehicles along the way.

More About the Mini Tank

Why drive in a car when you can drive in a tank? Get your heart racing with the anticipation that comes with purchasing this mini electric tank. Nothing beats cruising through the streets in a vehicle equipped with a PVC cannon. But do not be carried away as its battery only runs along at 12V and 20Ah for a measly 240 Wh of capacity. Do not stray away from home if you want to avoid pushing this big toy back home.

For $2,100, you can purchase this mini tank and be the coolest kid in the neighborhood or perhaps the coolest adult. According to the official listing, you can have $300 off with every $10,000 worth of purchase. I mean, if you are feeling like starting a tank war with friends and family, you can buy a whole fleet of these EV tanks.

When writing, Alibaba offers a 3-day coupon giveaway worth up to $80 off. You can expect the shipment from Henan, China, to arrive in about 30 days.

Related Article: Weird Alibaba Product: Don't Be Fooled by the Appearance of This $600 Chinese Electric Motorcycle

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Back injuries can make people miss work or even force them to give up their jobs. These injuries may be so debilitating that even the smallest movement causes excruciating pain. This is especially true in the military, where personnel must endure strenuous training that lasts for hours on end, as well as tasks that require them to carry heavy loads of equipment.

Low back pain is the most common spinal disorder among soldiers, according to Military Medical Research. The same publication says that load carriage training is seen as the primary cause of these types of injuries. To address common injuries like this, the armed forces have carry out research to win its war against back pain.

Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply (SABER)

SABER was developed as an unpowered light body armor designed to reduce physical demands on soldiers. The project is now getting closer to being implemented.

This is after the US Army, in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, unveiled the Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply (SABER), which might be the army's version of an Iron Man suit.

The Pathfinder project, an initiative to develop Army technology and operations by partnering with universities, produced SABER. The project was boosted by $1.2 million worth of investment from the armed forces. Approximately 100 soldiers have already tested the suit at three different Army bases in the United States.

A report from Forbes tells us that SABER will soon be transferred from the Pathfinder program to the United States Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM). DEVCOM will fund Vanderbilt University and HeroWear to prepare the exosuit for production and field use.

According to the US Army, the lightweight suit design addresses back pain that soldiers get from strenuous lifting tasks such as ammunition resupply. SABER is also aiming to reduce injury and fatigue, both of which are critical to sustained readiness among troops.

Read Also: Chinese Man Sentenced to Four Weeks in Jail in Singapore for Using His Co-worker's TraceTogether Token

The new suit, which weighs only three pounds, is a soft harness that soldiers wrap around their shoulders and legs, as reported by the Washington Post. The exosuit is built with straps that can be activated to support their backs when carrying heavy weapons and equipment. The SABER is designed to help with lifting and help decrease back strain during military logistics operations.

SABER's designers originally intended to create a version of the suit with full-body robotic systems that could serve a variety of functions aside from back support. After realizing that the project was too heavy for both the soldiers' backs and the army's budget, this alleged military mecha was scrapped.

More About US Army's Interest in Wearable Technology

According to a Tech Times report on Sept. 2, the US Army finally gave Microsoft Corp the green light to deliver its first batch of Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) goggles. These are HoloLens mixed-reality headsets that include thermal imagery, sensors, night vision, and other features.

The same report informs us that 5,000 IVAS headsets have been cleared for delivery to military units. This comes after top military officials previously put the delivery on hold due to "concerns about the device's performance."

Related Article: Microsoft Will Supply HoloLens Goggles to US Army Soon, Deal Done Amid Protest

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Scientists have recently brought to light a new understanding of how pollution particles cause lung cancer even to non-smokers. The groundbreaking study provides a new perspective on how pollution poses cancer risks and gives us a glimpse of a possible breakthrough in cancer treatment and prevention.

Most of us are familiar with the fact that other risk factors aside from tobacco smoke can result in cancer. We are reminded time and time again that exposure to secondhand smoke, asbestos, radon, and air pollution can result in an increased risk of getting cancer. All available science currently points to pollution as one of the deadliest causes of lung cancer.

CDC tells us that smoke contains harmful chemicals that can damage or change the DNA of cells. DNA is the cell's "instruction manual," controlling normal cell growth and function. When a cell's DNA is damaged, it can cause it to grow out of control and form a cancer tumor.

Harmful Fumes Can Activate Dormant Mutations to Trigger Cancer Cells

This particular research by a group of scientists from Francis Crick Institute and University College London warns the public that particles coming from car fumes and smoke from burning fossil fuels can activate dormant mutations in the lung cell to develop into full-blown dangerous cancer cells.

The same study claimed that exposure to the said pollution particles accounts for over 250,000 lung cancer deaths globally per year. As reported by the South China Morning Post, the research team from the Francis Crick Institute and University College London examined the health records of over 460,000 people in England, South Korea, and Taiwan before arriving at these groundbreaking findings.

Read Also: COVID-19 Face Mask's Titanium Dioxide Particles Cause Cancer? Experts Say They Should Be Regulated

Swanton's team emulated the effects of pollution particles in the mutation of dormant EGFR genes in lab rats. This revealed an increased possibility of developing cancer when exposed to pollutant particles.

Findings Suggest New Ways Prevent Cancer

The researchers discovered that exposure to tiny PM2.5 pollution particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter) increased the risk of EGFR gene mutations. This proves that air pollution might be deadlier than scientists previously thought.

This finding led to another discovery that might accelerate lung cancer treatment and prevention development. PM2.5 particles can trigger the body to release interleukin-1 beta (IL1B), which is an antibody that can prevent antigens from starting developing cancer cells. This immunoglobulin can make humans less vulnerable to risks caused by PM2.5 exposure. This finding could pave the way for better and more enhanced ways to prevent exposure to carcinogens.

Prof Charles Swanton of the Francis Crick Institute said at the European Society for Medical Oncology's annual conference in Paris, "The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from smoking, but we have no control over what we all breathe."

According to the WHO, exposure to air pollution levels have increased significantly in some parts of the world, primarily in low and middle-income countries with large populations. These new findings might spark more Clean Air movements and a basis to forward zero-emission industries.

Related Article: Biotech Startup Uses Machine Learning Algorithms to Predict the Progress of Cancerous Tumors | How Does it Work

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Inspired after finding a new lunar mineral, China is now headed toward three more visits to the Moon in the next decade, with a few steps ahead of U.S space missions.

China's Next Moon Missions

Established in 2004, China's lunar exploration program launched its first spacecraft three years later. The Chang'e program, named after the Chinese moon goddess, has recently concentrated on gathering samples from the lunar surface.

In 2020, during the discovery of a new lunar mineral after the Chang'e-5 mission, China's National Space Administration, its counterpart of NASA, gained authority to send three orbiters to the Moon as part of the Chang'e lunar program, according to Bloomberg.

This mineral in question is known as Changesite- (Y). The Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology identified it from Chang'e-5 samples. The same report from Bloomberg reports that it has been found to have "an isotype [sic] that's been theorized as a potential energy source" called helium-3.

According to the European Space Agency, it is considered that this isotope might supply safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor because it is not radioactive and would not create toxic waste products. In return, it was making nuclear energy more sustainable in the long run.

PC Mag reports that China's next unmanned mission, Chang'e-7, will aim for the South Pole. According to Liu Jizhong of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, the government also intends to create an international research outpost on the Moon's surface at some time.

Also Read: China's Chang'e-5 Mission Moon Rock Sample Shows New Lunar Mineral-A Breakthrough in Mineralogy Research

Chinese vs. Western Space Explorations

The Chang'e-7 program will aim for the Moon's the South Pole, which experts believe is the ideal spot to look for water. But it seems they're not the only ones after it, as NASA is also interested in this area of the Moon.

China has increased its space aspirations in recent years, launching probes to the Moon, establishing its own space station, and placing its sights on Mars, putting it in direct conflict with the United States. In comparison, NASA has a rover on Mars and hopes to return people to the Moon this decade. Both countries are interested in the Moon's resources, and space mining is predicted to be the next cause of conflict.

However, the two countries have been trading insults in recent weeks following the postponement of the United States Artemis I mission, the country's first significant drive to return to the Moon in half a century. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson accuses of stealing space technology and has blasted the country for space debris.

Despite the continued disagreements between the two countries, China is determined to outpace NASA. Bloomberg reports that Liu, a government official in China, confirms their plans to build a moon-based international research station eventually. This will be the world's first expedition and may one day serve as a center for lunar study and discoveries.

Related Article: China Moon Rover Finds 'Milestone' Rock on Far Side Believed to be From Meteor Impacts!

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Thea Felicity

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
5 movies (that have succeeded in theaters) and you can see in Movistar Plus +
The destination was marked only by a pin on her GPS map, a pin that landed her on a levee in the middle of nowhere.

Leslie Charleville glanced behind her, where a bayou flowed to who-knows-where. In front of her were the murky waters of a Louisiana swamp with no breeze to stir it.

So, she waited.

Thoughts swarmed like mosquitoes in the Louisiana heat. Was she in the right place? What was she doing out there? Would the alligator hunter find her?

And the man coming for her was, indeed, a Louisiana alligator hunter, the same kind as seen on the History Channel's "Swamp People" series. He'd heard that Charleville was an artist who made alligator prints and wanted one for himself.

He also knew that Charleville's prints aren't representations made in a studio. They involve actual alligators, which require them to be created on site.

Her medium is called gyotaku, or "fish rubbing," an old Japanese method of documenting sea catches. The first gyotaku print was made in the mid-19th century from a red snapper caught by a Japanese emperor.

There were no cameras, and the sumi ink gyotaku print on rice paper was the only way the emperor could authentically prove that he caught a fish "this big."

Why? Because the print was lifted directly from the fish, just as Charleville now makes her prints from alligators. But to her, the process is more than art.

"It's a tribute to the animal," she said. "It's a way to honor the animal and its creator. The print not only preserves the animal's image, it preserves the animal's DNA in this print."

The process is part of a mission spelled out on her website, lcharlevillestudios.com.

"If you look at our statement, the mission of the studio is to elevate the natural world and the one that created it," Charleville said. "And what I set out to do is to elevate the natural world. Whether it's a fish or an alligator or a spider web or botanicals of some sort or a bird or feather, I want to look at God's creation and honor it through printing."

+18 Photos, video: Artist Leslie Charleville makes gyotaku prints from Louisiana alligators Artist Leslie Charleville discovered the Japanese "gyotaku" printmaking technique while watching a fishing show on television.

Charleville isn't merely paying lip service to the spiritual side of her mission. She openly gives God credit for her studio's success.

"My faith is strong, and this road did not start off easily," she said. "I made tons of mistakes, and I made poor decisions with it. But in that time where it was a little bit more difficult, I was praying, and God gave me promises and said, 'You know, this is what I'm going to do, this is what I'm going to do through your art.' And that's what's happening, and that's what's unfolding now."

Which is why she can't help pinching herself when taking a day off from her full-time job as the Louisiana Art & Science Museum's special events manager to ride with an alligator hunter.

"I ask myself, 'Is this real?'" Charleville said. "And it is. I do love seeing how those things I felt were put in my heart are unfolding in the here and now. It's almost like I'm watching it happen in real time, because, yes, I do trust what God says."

Which was why she didn't panic when the alligator hunter's GPS pin location led her to a remote levee. The hunter eventually pulled up in his boat and told her to load up her supplies.

After the hunt, he and two other hunters met at his houseboat, where Charleville spread out her supplies and made the print from one of his catches. The print was to be a gift for the hunter's wife, a memory made in the very swamp where he and the gators thrived.

That was a couple of years ago. Fast forward to Aug. 31, the first day of alligator season in 2022. Charleville has booked a hunt with hunter Logan Davis, whose camp stands along Chef Menteur Highway approaching The Rigolets strait near Slidell.

The arrangement is a win-win for both Charleville and Davis. She has the opportunity to cut down on her four-week backlog of alligator commissions, after which Davis walks away with a morning catch of tagged reptiles.

And among a pile of 7- and 8-footers is a prized monster the crew has labeled "Sweetie," measuring 10 feet, 3 inches.

The beast reminds Charleville of her first attempted alligator print at Duffy's Market in Pierre Part. That's the place owned by Louisiana's best-known alligator hunter, Troy Landry, of "Swamp People" fame. It's also where Landry and other area hunters bring their tagged gators each day for measuring, weighing and processing during Louisiana's monthlong alligator season.

Explore BR Each week we'll highlights the best eats and events in metro Baton Rouge. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Charleville had been making gyotaku prints of fish, crabs and Louisiana's other aquatic creatures since 2012. Her medium was more traditional brushes and canvases before then, having earned her bachelor of fine art degree in 2008 from LSU. But her art of choice changed while watching a fishing show on TV.

The setup was familiar. The host was fishing and talking. But his guest was lifting prints from the host's catches.

Was Charleville just channel surfing at the time? Maybe not. With her love for the outdoors cultivated by a family of hunters and fishermen in Rosedale, fishing shows naturally appealed to her.

Besides, the idea of creating gyotaku prints in Louisiana's waterways replete with wildlife, aquatic creatures and botanicals was especially attractive. There definitely was fate in the show's timing.

Charleville began reading everything she could find and watching YouTube videos on the art form. Then a friend offered to start her off with a flounder from his recent catch.

The result was disaster.

"It was my first try," she said. "The fish was slimy, and I realized there was so much to learn."

The fish are still slimy, but Charleville now wipes them down with towels. Her print repertoire has grown to include marlons, a duck-billed catfish, a scorpion fish and even an octopus.

News of her work spread by word-of-mouth. Fishermen throughout the state began calling with "Hey can you meet me here?" requests for on-site prints.

Then came the alligator hunters.

"I was thinking, 'I live in Louisiana, so I should be doing alligators,'" Charleville said.

So, she drove down to Pierre Part and waited for the hunters to drive up to Duffy's with their catches. Charleville spotted Landry and asked if she could try making a print.

"He was all for it," Charleville said. "He said, 'Which one do you want?' I said, 'The biggest one you have.' For me, it's either go big or go broke."

That was in 2014, and Charleville quickly realized that her first-time alligator would attract a large audience of hunters and "Swamp People" fans. As was the case with the flounder, there was lots of room for error with the gator.

"I didn't call them ahead of time, and it was really crazy of me to choose the biggest one," she said. "I had a lot to learn on that one, because I got what I call the butterfly effect on that print."

The butterfly effect, she'll point out while making the gyokatu prints on Logan Davis' dock, happen when she spreads the paint over the entirety of the alligator's sides.

Acrylic paint is what she uses to make the prints, by the way. She spreads it with rollers, painting the alligator's face, back, tail and legs before covering it with cotton duck. She rolls the paint only halfway down the sides to get a more realistic effect.

Otherwise, the sides will protrude, much like butterfly wings. Which is what happened on that first gator in front of her audience at Duffy's.

But Charleville didn't let failure stop her. She continued her visits to Duffy's, and Landry kept supplying her with alligators. And when she finally conquered the technique, she gifted Landry with one of the prints.

Now, standing on Logan Davis' dock with one of the smaller gators captured earlier that morning, Charleville wipes down the animal with paper towels, clearing blood away from the kill shot in the head.

"We'll make at least two prints from this alligator," said Cindy Verdin, Charleville's business partner. "My goal today is to fill commissions."

Gyotaku prints can be made in different colors. Once the paint is rolled onto the animal, Charleville and Verdin cover the gator. Charleville then presses the heavy fabric on the gator, making sure to slide her fingers in every crevasse.

She does the same on the larger gator, which takes a little more time. Once the fabric is lifted, the paint is hosed off the gators.

"This is what it's all about," Charleville said, looking at the print of the big gator. "This is our way of honoring these animals. But in doing this, we're also doing something more  we're preserving a culture."
While royalists reeled on Friday from the early morning news of Queen Elizabeths death, some of the nations barristers were turning their minds to something of utmost importance to them  their own professional standing.

The Australian Bar Association wasnt mucking around, with an email flying out at 9:16am advising members that anyone who had been a Queens Counsel (QC) was now a Kings Counsel (KC).

More republican-minded silks have for many years enjoyed the option of being plain old senior counsel.

Credit:Benke

Among the first off the mark to embrace the change to KC was Matt Collins, the Melbourne brief with a knack for high-profile matters who represented Rebel Wilson in her defamation battle against Womans Day and who as president of the Victorian Bar had to help pick up the pieces of the notorious Nicola Gobbo Lawyer X scandal.
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Nearly two years ago, Meg Mac disappeared. She was two weeks from releasing the lead single on her new album when she said, No. To the single, the album and all the work that had gone into it. Something didnt feel right. It hadnt for a long time but Mac hadnt been listening to herself. I had a meltdown, she says. For someone with such a powerful voice, Mac is softly spoken in person. Its a voice that often gets her labelled a diva (woman + big voice + big personality = diva, so the equation goes) but Mac is different. Shes early, for starters. And its 11am. On a Tuesday. And shes sipping hot chocolate. With oat milk. Oat milk. Very un-diva-like. What cant be denied, though, is Macs voice. Forceful and soulful at once, it swoops and soars, and puts you back in your seat. Shes been compared to Adele (hence the diva tag) and consistently named an artist to watch since 2013, when her song Known Better launched her on Triple J and she was named the radio stations 2014 Unearthed Artist. Mac closed this years Vivid Festival with a performance at the Sydney Opera House in June. Credit:Daniel Boud Her EP MEGMAC followed and at the 2015 ARIA awards she was nominated for best female artist and breakthrough artist. Then, in 2017, her debut album Low Blows landed at No.2 on release. Touring brought her sold-out shows and a loyal following. The reviews gushed. It all felt right. Mac, whose full name offstage is Megan McInerney, had been singing since she was little, encouraged by her Irish mum who would teach Mac to spell her last name through song or make up silly songs about parking the car.

Advertisement

Its weird, when I think back, that the first thing I did just worked, says Mac, who is now 32. I didnt know what I was doing. I didnt understand what I was doing. So, Id feel like, Did I just get lucky? It was literally the first song Id ever recorded and that got me to where I was going. So, I never learnt how to do it. I thought, Oh, thats just how it goes. Thats how it goes forever. So Mac was set. She knew how to do this. On to the second album she would go. Or so she thought. The first song was about to come out, she recalls. Wed done the music video, the photo shoot and the press release  everything was ready to go. And then I just couldnt do it. It was something that I think I knew for ages but I was too scared and I just let it go on and on. And then it almost felt like it was too late to do it. And thats when I said, I actually cant. I didnt say, Chuck it in the bin, I just needed a break. I knew that I wasnt going to put it out but I didnt have the guts to say that. The problem was that the songs sounded too polished. They didnt sound like her. I didnt put myself 100 per cent in it, she says. The other big clue was that she preferred listening to the early versions of the songs that she kept stored as voice memos on her phone. I dont know if it was demo-itis, she says.

Advertisement

Demo what? Demo-itis, says Mac, laughing. Thats what people call it. The memos just had this raw energy and I would prefer to listen to that than I would the albums recorded version. Somewhere along the way, during all the reworking, the songs just lost that light feeling. So she ran away at the beginning of 2020. Rented a cottage in Burrawang, in the Southern Highlands, with her boyfriend. She adopted two cats, Nina and Billie, and started making sourdough with a starter called Jerry. So far, so pandemic normal. What wasnt normal, though, was that Mac had no idea how to start writing again. Shed walked away from her album with no plan and no new songs. Even finding out that it was quite normal for an artist to quit a whole album  everyone from Prince to MC Hammer has done it  didnt help. My life just went upside-down, she says. And then I was like, I have to actually prove that Ive made the right decision. I had to process that and work really hard and start again. I had to get in the groove. Except nothing was working. Then her friend Peter came up with an idea: what if they challenged each other to a songwriting competition each day?

Advertisement

He would ring me at the start of the day and wed make up a rule, says Mac. And then at 5pm we had to send each other our ideas. The first challenge didnt go anywhere but the second  in which the rule was the song needed a vocal introduction  clicked and Is It Worth Being Sad was born. As soon as I sang, Tell me is it worth being sad about, I was like, Ohh,  she says, taking in a breath. Something just changed. My brain was like, I can do this. I felt like I was just writing before and not getting anywhere. And then this sounded like I had a new energy or something. It also snapped Mac out of the panic that was still swirling around the old album. I was always caught up in the drama, she says. I couldnt get anywhere. And then as soon as I was like, Oh, was it worth being sad about? I was like, No. It set me free. You can get caught in that loop  What went wrong? Why did I do this? Why didnt I say that? I was so angry at myself and sad. What the drama did do, though, was teach Mac to listen to her gut. And that it was OK to say no. Matter of Time  the album was named after one of the two songs that still made the cut from the original second album  feels cinematic in scope, with moody visuals to match. It has the rawness Mac went searching for and the depth of feeling to match.

Advertisement

Its a long process for something that goes for three minutes, says Mac of songwriting. And then someone will just press skip on it. She laughs, miming devastation. And youre like, Oh, what Ive been through.  Now with the new album days away from release  she definitely cant back out of this one  Mac is looking forward to getting back on stage. Shes played a few shows this year, with critics all agreeing her voice sounds stronger than ever but a longer tour is in the works. Loading I just love singing, she says. I dont want to sound like anyone else. Even when I was a little kid, the first song I learnt was Castle on a Cloud from Les Miserables, and even then, I was like, Nah. I always want to just belt stuff out. It just feels so good. For those sitting at the table who cant sing (OK, me), what does it feel like to belt it out? I guess its like an adrenaline rush, she says, laughing. Like exhilarating. And you get this momentum and it feels good. Really good. Meg Macs new album Matter of Time is released on September 16.
Queen Elizabeth II has been remembered for her grace, courage in adversity, and her example of service, in a solemn Choral Evensong service at St Pauls Anglican Cathedral on Sunday evening.

There was barely a seat free in the church as people took the chance to remember the Queen and celebrate her life in song and word with Victorian Governor Linda Dessau, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, and his wife Catherine among those in attendance.

A service at St Pauls Cathedral Melbourne for Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday night. Credit:Wayne Taylor

Dean of Melbourne The Very Reverend Dr Andreas Loewe offered thanks for Queen Elizabeths life and long service in her role.

We give thanks for the life and service of Elizabeth, our late Queen, for her grace, humanity and sympathy, for her courage in adversity, for the happiness she brought to so many, for her steadfast pilgrimage of faith, for her example of service and for the duty which she rendered unflinchingly to this nation and the Commonwealth of Nations, Loewe said.
Watershed moment

The life of Elizabeth II truly exemplified the bygone concept of noblesse oblige and her death is a timely reminder of her, and her antecedents, long connection to Australia. Arthur Phillip claimed the continent in the name of George III at a time when a majority of British citizens had no say in who governed them, aristocratic privilege was entrenched in a hierarchical class order and foreign lands were there for the taking as the spoils of empire.

As a country formed out of conquest, dispossession and ongoing settlement I will rest more easily if our representatives used the period of mourning to reflect on the urgent need to negotiate a just treaty that would compensate and protect the First Nations, a head of state selected in merit not breeding, and the renunciation of all foreign wars not authorised by the United Nations.

David Perkins,

Reid, ACT Beware US example

Those calling for a republic should note that the monarchy in the UK produced 70 years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, whereas in America the republic produced four years of the presidency of Donald Trump, with the threat of another four years.

Tony OBrien, South Melbourne A goal to aim for

The coverage of the Queens death has been broad and deep, but sadly it has pushed football off the front page. Though she may have been our head of state, the Queen was irrelevant to most. Football, however, is the glue that binds us together. It is both our secular religion and our national identity. Now that its finals it is our most religious month of the year. As the days of mourning pass, can we please read more about football and less about a meaningless foreign monarch.

Gabriel Dabscheck, Elsternwick Cynical ploy

Anthony Albanese calls a national public holiday on a random day (Thursday, September 22), that just happens to be immediately before the AFL grand final holiday on the 23rd in Victoria.

It is difficult to see this as anything other than a cynical ploy to garner Labor favour with Victorians ahead of the state election, as a mid-week public holiday is disruptive to most businesses Australia wide  and largely unnecessary, given the state polls.

Why not call the holiday for a Monday or actually on the day of the funeral?

Teresa Dowding,

Hoppers Crossing Death be not cowed

It seems that death has died with the Queen. Can I now be relieved that I will not die but only pass?

Jenny McGuirk, Bundoora

The climate king

Question: Who said the new king cant be apolitical and a climate change warrior at the same time?

Answer: All those with a vested interest in portraying the climate emergency as a political issue rather than a global existential crisis.

Bernd Rieve, Brighton Reflect the present

With the death of the Queen now is the time to talk about and once again push for a republic in Australia. We must take the opportunity to once and for all cut ourselves loose from the anachronistic monarchy that bears no resemblance to modern Australia.

A republic and an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution. Now that would be a fantastic result.

Jack Morris, Kennington Comparing notes

Stephen Bartholomeusz (Comment, 9/9) puts Qantas recent performance into context, by explaining that its operating on par with most airlines around the world. We need to hear many more of those comparisons, particularly regarding Reserve Bank equivalents, hospital systems, ambulance services, vaccination rates and COVID deaths. Hopefully that would make many people that bit happier about life in our great country.

John Groom, Bentleigh Work perspectives

Qantas CEO Alan Joyces salary last year was more than $2 million. Just to put that into some perspective: I have been in the workforce for about 45 years, doing all the hack work that allows people like Joyce to earn the obscene salaries that they do. During that time I would probably not have earned $2 million in total.

Greg Brown, Tarneit Sogavares tactics

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare shows himself to be a master of political manoeuvre and skilled manipulator, not only of Solomons politics, but also of suitor nations  China and Australia  to gain his own political ends and advantage.

The Solomons elections, scheduled for 2023, will be now as Sogavare wanted, delayed until 2024  allegedly to allow for the logistics of hosting the Pacific Games, but styled as a power grab by opposition party members. Australia, after being castigated for foreign interference for offering financial help to hold the elections when they should be held, has now had its offer graciously accepted. And China is building seven venues and stadiums for the Games.

Not only does Sogavare have his cake, but he gets to eat it too.

Susan Caughey, Glen Iris

Social housing needs

Brendan Coates and Joey Moloney (Comment, 9/9) in their article on super funds investing in housing raise an important point on the reform of state land tax. However, they fail to understand the most basic of the objectives of super funds. It is not to maximise returns but to do so against the risks involved and an ethical overlay that is determined by members. That is why super funds have invested in bonds and hold cash. If it was a 101 finance course, their answer would have them fail. From this simple mistake they then confused input and output.

If a super fund invests in social housing, they own the asset and the land. Both are market-based assets. The rents will be subsidised by governments in many areas. This reduces the risk to the investor. In fact, any historical analysis will show that the funds would not be subsidising social housing. There is more likely a need to cap because the investments will return a higher yield.

There is absolutely no reason why governments and super funds cannot work together to deal with a fundamental market failure: a waiting list of 50,000 in search of a house. It is true that a big build may stretch resources over the next few years. But Victoria has fallen behind. Sadly, for a lifelong ALP supporter the truth is that Henry Bolte built a lot more public and social housing per capita than recent generations of governments.

Bill Kelty, Eltham Miles ahead of the game

Such well-deserved recognition for Miles Allinsons In Moonland as The Ages Book of the Year (Prized tales of community and courage, The Age, 9/9).

I know Miles as a helpful seller at my local bookstore, and someone who has given me recommendations for new reads that are always spot on, and have stretched my passion for books. When I wasnt in the mood for a particular genre Miles still showed me his top picks in that field, wanting me to clock them for a future time, when I was ready.

Miles is so passionate about reading and getting the right book in peoples hands. Its great to see things come full circle, with his In Moonland being promoted as a top new read.

Vardit Leizerovitz, Richmond Wrong conclusion

To draw a relevance between the change of government in late May and the increase in the number of COVID deaths in aged care is absurd. Evidence is very clear that winter is the reason for the increases in both COVID cases and deaths.

Judy Kevill, Ringwood Home ground advantage

Greg Baum (11/9) writes that in the past 12 seasons Geelong finished in the top four nine times, winning the premiership only once. Their home grounds size and shape, upon which they have developed their game plan and won 87 per cent of games could be a factor. It is 10 metres longer and 26 metres narrower than the MCG.

Each player has an average of 65 square metres more space to work in at the G. In a high-pressure finals game, small margins of time and space using an oval ball can change the outcome significantly.

Andrew Smith, Leongatha Always next year

In 2021, the Demons had few injuries and only one long term with Adam Tomlinson ably replaced by Harrison Petty. Unfortunately 2022 was totally different, with lots of injuries and other off-field distractions. Many players also played with minor injuries, thus not playing at their most lethal.

Hopefully 2023 will bring them back to their killer best. One sure thing about football, there is always next year.

Marie Nash, Balwyn

He knows what he wants

Non-stop discussion of matters monarchic is driving me towards a system more anarchic.

Greg Curtin, Blackburn South AND ANOTHER THING Royal family

Those pushing the republic agenda among the letters of condolences at the death of Queen Elizabeth II should read Peter Hartchers A republic is way down the list (10/9).

Anne Kruger, Rye Witnessing King Charles IIIs automatic accession to king, its about time we got over all this nonsense about the divine right of kings (and queens).

Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills The Queens body is not even cold and the Australian republicans are already banging on.

Bob Whiteside, Nth Warrandyte

One thing which wont have to change with the elevation of King Charles III, postage stamps. Nobody uses them any more.

Reg Murray, Glen Iris Imagine, one is 73 and today is ones first day at work.

Paul Custance, Highett Cavalier King Charles spaniels seem likely to replace corgis as the in-house dogs at Buckingham Palace.

Ian Powell, Glen Waverley Maybe we should rename ABC2 to QE2.

Alan Inchley, Frankston At 91, Ive lived through five British monarchs: King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III. Long live the king!

Myra Fisher, Brighton East
Training standards have dropped amid a hiring spree of new call takers at Victorias troubled triple-zero call centre, a worker and unions say, sparking fears that mistakes could lead to fatal consequences.

The state government pledged $333 million to hire new recruits at the troubled Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority after it was revealed Victorians died while waiting for an ambulance as their triple-zero calls went unanswered.

Questions are swirling about the quality of ESTA trainees. Credit:Louie Douvis

But Sue Riley, secretary of the Communications Workers Union, said training standards had fallen as new call-takers were rapidly brought on.

Everyone on the floor is complaining about the quality of recruits coming through, Riley said.
Victorian health officials are racing to determine the source of more than 40 locally acquired cases of monkeypox, as doctors warn diagnosis is complicated by symptoms closely mirroring sexually transmitted infections including syphilis and herpes.

More than half of Australias 129 monkeypox cases have been reported in a fast-growing outbreak of the virus in Victoria. Infections in Melbourne grew again recently, and contact tracers using genomic sequencing have determined about two-thirds of the states 67 cases have been transmitted locally since May.

An image showing oval-shaped monkeypox virions (left) under the microscope. Credit:US Centres for Disease Control

Professor Marcus Chen, from Melbournes Sexual Health Centre, estimates his clinic has treated about one-third of Australias monkeypox cases so far. About one-quarter of the more than 40 patients his team have diagnosed have required hospital intervention, including patients with more than 100 painful lesions.

Theyre basically covered in over 100 lumps from head to toe. It can quite be disfiguring and, obviously, highly stigmatising, Chen said. Its actually incredible how painful these ulcers are.
Australia will mark the death of Queen Elizabeth with a public holiday on Thursday, September 22, as part of a national memorial service to be held in Canberra that day, following her funeral in London.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the public holiday on Sunday morning after consulting state and territory leaders on a day of mourning for people to pay their respects.

Albanese said his views on a republic were well known but added that now is not the time to start a new debate over the constitutional change when many Australians were grieving the loss of Queen Elizabeth and marking the accession to the throne of King Charles.

This is a time of national mourning that were engaged with and Thursday the 22nd will be an opportunity for the nation to come together, he said.
Victorian Liberals face a fierce battle to retain two previously safe regional electorates as an appetite for independents and demographic change threaten to erode the partys grip on its traditionally conservative coastal heartland.

The neighbouring seats of Polwarth and South-West Coast each take in popular tourism spots along the Great Ocean Road, farming communities and growing regional centres attracting sea changers.

But a boundary change in Polwarth, which now includes Torquay and extends west past Port Campbell, has reduced the Liberal margin from 5.4 per cent to 2 per cent.

Torquay is now in the Victorian electorate of Polwarth. Credit:Eddie Jim

The new boundary slightly increased the Liberals margin in the South-West Coast to 3.2 per cent, but strong support for teal independent Alex Dyson at the federal election has put the seat under new pressure.
Later this month, diplomats from around the world will assemble in Bucharest, Romania. On September 29, the doors to one of the 1100 rooms within the enormous Palace of Parliament, built at the behest of the countrys former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, will close.

No one will be allowed in or out and voting for what a former US communications regulation chief has described as the most important election you have never heard of will begin.

Romanias Palace of Parliament is the worlds heaviest building and is so vast because it was intended to accommodate the countrys entire federal bureaucracy. Credit:AP

At stake is the position of secretary-general for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that already sets the standards for things like phone calls and radio frequencies and could, if authoritarian states get their way, do the same for the internet. Australia is among its 10 largest financial backers.

Its an election that will determine the future of cyberspace, wrote International Strategy Forum fellow Mercedes Page in a piece for the non-partisan Lowy Institute's Interpreter.
She bought a few trinkets and a crowd started to gather as people slowly realised it was her. In 2014, aged 87, the Queen decided that she had never done a day trip to Europe and wondered if this would be possible. She had received an invitation from Giorgio Napolitano, Italys then-president, who had written to say he greatly admired her and, would she like to come for lunch? Queen Elizabeth II with her husband, Prince Philip, and Pope Francis during their meeting in the Vatican in 2014. Credit:Getty She then remembered that she had not yet met the new Pope  Pope Francis  could we fit that in as well? But two heads of state could not meet informally without the Queen being dressed respectfully in black. Thankfully, the Pope was just as practical, and they agreed to depart from protocol and meet in audience hall in day dress. She presented a basket of treats from the royal estates that included eggs, venison and whisky, which the Pope held up joyously.

Loading Boarding the tiny plane to return to London that evening, she smiled and said: Well, I suppose Rome can be done in a day. Queen Elizabeth II was a wonderful boss. Many of her household served for decades. She was kind but authoritative, and no one wanted to disappoint her. She was a great listener and, if you ever winged a briefing, would listen patiently until you had tied yourself in knots. Christmas was exciting, as she took great pleasure in ordering presents for her private office and hand-writing all the cards. Her gifts were practical and thoughtful. All members of the 400-strong workforce received puddings. Seldom is she acknowledged for her administrative abilities, but she was a brilliant chief executive. She managed to be across the detail of her Head of State work. At the same time, she made sure she had digested all the news for the day ahead and was thinking diplomatically about world events and issues.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and the Queen with Australian Samantha Cohen, this articles author, behind them. Credit:Getty Images Her attention to detail meant she always inspected the tables before a state banquet and approved every menu on every visit. She chose the books for guests when they came to stay at Windsor Castle. She understood the importance of her people, making it her business to be aware of household gossip and the challenges they faced. She was interested in everyones family and their quirks and attributes and was a true matriarch in this sense. Well, I suppose Rome can be done in a day. Queen Elizabeth II, on a day trip to Italy in 2014 Having visited most Commonwealth countries, from Tuvalu to Trinidad, and been immersed in their cultures, humour and their histories, the Queen had an easy way with everyone that transcended all other issues. She treated everyone as equals.

She was acutely intelligent and exceptionally well-adjusted for someone who did not go through the rigours of school life. Her memory was extraordinary  without the use of computers, she could remember dynasties of names across several countries. Loading Her French was fluent, despite never having lived there or practised the language from one year to another. On a state visit in 2014, she declined a translator and was happy to converse with then president Francois Hollande about matters of state in French. The Queens sense of fun and curiosity made it easy for her to embrace change. She once sat through a YouTube demonstration and immediately said yes to a royal channel. When it launched in 2007 with the annual Christmas broadcast, phone calls soon came in from the White House and the Vatican asking if they could follow her lead.
On Sunday the defence ministry said Russian forces had struck Ukrainian positions in the region with airborne troops, missiles and artillery. Loading Neither Putin, who is Russias supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, nor Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had publicly commented on the defeat as of midday on Sunday. We take pride in Moscow, and love this city with its majestic antiquity and its modern and dynamic pace of life, the charm of its cosy parks, lanes and streets and abundance of business and cultural events, Putin told Muscovites, according to a Kremlin transcript of his congratulatory message. Putin, who has described his shock on being told as a KGB spy in East Germany that Moscow is silent as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said those who had fallen in the Ukraine operation had given their lives for Russia.

The defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Theyre taking the piss, wrote one prominent, pro-war military blogger on Telegram, who posts under the name of Rybar. Meanwhile, in Moscow: A man rows an inflatable canoe in a makeshift pool in a street with the Bolshoi Theatre in the background during celebration of the Moscow City Day, celebrating the 875th anniversary of the citys founding. Credit:AP Now is not the time to shut up and say nothing ... this seriously hurts the cause. On Saturday the ministry announced a regrouping that would move troops away from Kharkiv to focus on the Donetsk region further in Ukraines east - a statement that drew further anger from many Russian military bloggers.

Some of the pro-Kremlin war correspondents and former and current servicemen who have amassed large followings on Telegram accused the ministry of minimising the defeat. Loading Igor Girkin, a nationalist militant and former FSB officer who helped launch a 2014 war in Ukraines eastern Donbas region, compared the collapse of one of the conflicts principal front lines to the 1905 Battle of Mukden - a catastrophic defeat in the Russo-Japanese war which triggered Russias 1905 Revolution. Ukraine has hailed its rapid advance, which saw thousands of Russian soldiers flee, leaving behind ammunition stockpiles and equipment, as a turning point in the 6-month-old war. Girkin, who has been unsparing in his criticisms of the countrys top brass, dubbing defence minister Shoigu the cardboard marshal, has said repeatedly that Russia will be defeated in Ukraine if it doesnt declare a nationwide mobilisation.

Nationalist anger at military failure is potentially a far greater problem for the Kremlin than pro-Western liberal criticism of Putin: opinion polls continue to show broad support for what Moscow calls the special military operation. The Cardboard Marshal: Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Credit:Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP As the capital celebrated Moscow Day with street parties and concerts on Saturday, rumblings of disquiet even spread to Russias ordinarily subservient parliament. Sergei Mironov, leader of the nominally opposition but Putin-loyal Just Russia party, said on Twitter that a firework display in honour of the holiday should be cancelled, in view of the military situation. One message reposted on Telegram by the prominent war correspondent Semyon Pegov referred to the celebrations in Moscow as blasphemous and the refusal of Russian authorities to embark on full-scale war as schizophrenic.

Either Russia will become itself through the birth of a new political elite ... or it will cease to exist, it read. Ukrainian forces kept pushing north in the Kharkiv region and advancing to its south and east, Ukraines army chief said on Sunday, a day after their rapid surge forward drove Russia to abandon its main bastion in the area. Ukrainian State Emergency Service firefighters put out the fire after a Russian rocket attack hit an electric power station in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Credit:AP Ukrainian officials accused retreating Russian forces of launching retaliatory attacks on civilian infrastructure, including a thermal power station in Kharkiv, that the authorities in Kyiv said caused widespread blackouts. No military facilities, the goal is to deprive people of light & heat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Twitter of the attacks.

Moscow denies its forces deliberately target civilians. Zelensky has described Ukraines offensive as a potential breakthrough in the six-month-old war, and said the winter could see further territorial gains if Kyiv received more powerful weapons. Ukraines advance against Russia. Credit:Nine/ Institute for the Study of War In the worst defeat for Moscows forces since they were repelled from the outskirts of the capital Kyiv in March, thousands of Russian soldiers left behind ammunition and equipment as they fled the city of Izium, which they had used as a logistics hub. Ukraines chief commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said the armed forces had regained control of more than 3000 square km since the start of this month.

Zelensky said late on Sunday that Russian attacks caused a total blackout in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, and partial blackouts in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions. They are unable to reconcile themselves to defeats on the battlefield, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidents office, posted an image on Telegram of a power station on fire but added power had been restored in some regions. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov described attacks on infrastructure as cynical revenge for the success of Ukrainian troops at the front, particularly in Kharkiv. Ukraines gains are important politically for Zelensky as he seeks to keep Europe united behind Ukraine - supplying weapons and money - even as an energy crisis looms this winter following cuts in Russian gas supplies to European customers.
Donald Trump walks ahead of the Queen during a 2018 Presidential visit. Credit:AP She had mixed luck with Australian prime ministers - some of them, such as Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, were Republicans (Keating famously laid a hand on her when she visited in 1992. Michelle Obama did the same in 2009, but the Queen didnt seem to mind at all). Other Australian PMs were big fans - notably Robert Menzies, John Howard and Tony Abbott. The latter even asked for an audience when he was in London after he was ousted from the prime ministership. Her Majesty did not have room in her diary.

Malcolm Turnbull had a bob each way. Even Republicans like myself can bevery strong Elizabethans, he said. She was the most famous woman in the world (and one of its richest), a matriarch whose copious family laundry was not just aired in public, but secretly recorded, photographed via long-lens, and turned into a Netflix series. She was the ultimate celebrity, but she met her celebrity with reserve and a hard wall of protective protocol. She received people, which is to say she let people come to her - the ultimate power flex.

But so voiceless was she that she had to use handbag placement and brooch selection to signal her true thoughts. Loading Because here was the thing: Elizabeth IIs familiarity and constancy never amounted to intimacy. And therein lies her mystery and the mystique of the monarchy she headed. She was hyper-visible, but we never knew her opinions, her thoughts or her emotions.

We knew an awful lot about what happened to her, but not a lot about how she felt about any of it. The closest we came was when she described 1992 as her annus horribilis, but even then, she could have been talking about her childrens divorces or her sisters health, or the fire at Windsor Castle or maybe something else entirely, like the death of a favourite Corgi. We never knew. As she aged, the Royal family grew more incontinent with its troubles. There was Charles recorded on the phone to his mistress Camilla, relaying his fantasies. There was Fergie on the front page of a tabloid. There was Princess Margarets descent into alcoholism. And there was the tragedy and threat of Diana, who was of the monarchy and yet against it.

Diana was the worst kind of menace - she was beloved, but most importantly, she talked. She turned the tables on the discreet queen, who suddenly found her silence worked against her. The public wanted a response, and as penance for Dianas death in 1997, they wanted the Queen to talk. Eventually, she addressed her grief-struck nation, even if she had to be pressured into it. The calamities eased for a while before ramping back up - the Queens son Prince Andrew, rumoured to be her favourite, was disgraced over his connection to a notorious paedophile who offered him wealth and influence.

Then there was her grandson Prince Harry, who, like his father, married a woman who decided not to play by royal rules; who wanted to strike out on her own terms. Harry and Meghan couldnt have chosen a more American route for their self-expression. The stiff upper lip of the Queens monarchy made way for the lets-talk-it-all-out-ism of an Oprah Winfrey special, aired in 2021. Where Diana had accused The Firm of callousness, Meghan accused it of callousness and racism. Loading The Queen was once again forced to show her feelings, just a little.

She put out a statement saying her family was saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The matter, she said, would be dealt with privately. As she shrank in stature, she appeared less and less. One of her most memorable appearances was at the funeral of her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, in April 2021. She sat alone and bent, isolated by the COVID restrictions, grieving in a pew at St Georges Chapel. She looked very lonely. She looked very much like Our Queen, who always put dignity before candour and form before emotion.
Queen Elizabeth IIs coffin departs Balmoral for Edinburgh

Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later.

Dismiss
Videos

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.
Cheyenne, WY (82001)

Today

Partly cloudy with afternoon showers or thunderstorms. High 72F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 48F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.
Dillon Vakoff, an Arvada police officer who was killed Sunday in the line of duty, served his country and community throughout his life.
An Aer Lingus aircraft at Dublin Airport, in Dublin, Ireland, on March 26, 2021. (Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

Aer Lingus Restores IT System After Cancelling 51 Flights

DUBLINAer Lingus said it had resolved an IT problem that led it to cancel 51 flights between Dublin airport and other European destinations on Saturday as check-in and boarding was disrupted.

The Irish carrier, owned by London-listed IAG, said a major incident with a network provider meant it could not access its cloud-based systems, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded outside the countrys main airport.

Aer Lingus sincerely apologizes to customers for the severe disruption caused today, it said in a statement, adding its operations for Sunday were planned to run as normal.

The airline said it operated all of its transatlantic services from Dublin with delays and reduced passenger numbers in some instances due to security restrictions as a result of the systems outage.

Dublin airport earlier flagged the IT issues facing Aer Lingus, saying other airlines were not impacted.
9th Circuit Panel Vacates Decision After Previously Striking Down California Gun Law

Court gives state a 2nd chance to argue in favor of ban on young adults buying long guns

A federal appeals court last week sent a case challenging Californias ban on long gun sales to people under 21 back to a district court, instead of immediately enforcing the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision saying gun regulations must be based on historical traditions to be constitutional.

Critics say the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and several blue resistance states have been dragging their heels in complying with the Supreme Courts landmark ruling on June 23 in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The decision recognized a constitutional right to bear firearms in public for self-defense and struck down New Yorks law that required an applicant to demonstrate proper cause to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.

The ruling also found that gun restrictions must be deeply rooted in American history if they are to survive constitutional scrutiny.

But weeks before the Bruen decision, on May 11, a panel of the 9th Circuit overturned a federal district court decision and voted 21 in Jones v. Bonta (pdf), finding that Californias ban on 18- to 20-year-olds possessing long guns and semiautomatic centerfire rifles violated the Second Amendment. The ban doesnt apply to police officers or members of the military.

America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army, wrote Judge Ryan Nelson, a Trump appointee. Today, we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.

The Second Amendment protects the right of young adults to keep and bear arms, which includes the right to purchase them.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Kenneth Kiyul Lee, also a Trump appointee, wrote that Californias legal position has no logical stopping point and would ultimately erode fundamental rights enumerated in our Constitution.

Yet when the case returned to the same three-judge 9th Circuit panel for rehearing, the panel declined to immediately resolve the case, instead vacating its May 11 decision and remanding the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with Bruen. The panel didnt provide reasons for its unanimous decision in its Sept. 7 order (pdf).

Although the decision of the panelwhich previously ruled against the lawto return the case to the district court could be an example of judicial meticulousness, it gives California another opportunity to justify its age-specific ban on long gun possession thats now on an even weaker constitutional footing in light of the Bruen opinion.

Attorneys for the state argued the history standard enunciated in Bruen dramatically changed the ground rules for gun law litigation, so the case needed to return to the district court to examine new evidence, including historical records, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The state argues the Bruen ruling was narrow and that the ban on sales of long guns to young adults was still constitutional.

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, told the newspaper it was eager to defend the law to protect the public safety of Californians and so that they can safely live, work, and congregate without fear of becoming a victim of gun violence.

Bonta is known for his opposition to Second Amendment rights.

After the Bruen ruling, Bonta encouraged law enforcement officials in the state to deny firearm carry permits to individuals with a history of hatred and racismwhether expressed in social media posts or elsewhere, The Epoch Times reported.

Days after the Bruen decision, Bontas office acknowledged that it leaked sensitive personal information, including the names and addresses of every concealed carry permit holder in the state. Some permit holders say they now fear for their lives.

On March 24, 2021, the 9th Circuit rejected (pdf) a challenge to Hawaiis tough gun-permitting laws brought by George K. Young Jr. of Hilo.

Young applied twice for a carry license in 2011 but failed to convince officials of his need for one. He sued in federal district court and lost and then appealed to the circuit court and lost again, as The Epoch Times reported.

But on Aug. 19, an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit issued an order (pdf) sending the case back to the district court for a second look, in light of Bruen.

Four of the judges dissented from the remand ruling.

Judge Diarmuid F. OScannlain, a Reagan appointee who authored the dissenting opinion, wrote that the majority was failing to resolve the straightforward legal issues presented by this case.

After Bruen, the question before us is simple. Nevertheless, our Court today declines to answer it. In refusing to do so, our Court delays the resolution of this case, wastes judicial resources, and fails to provide guidance to the lower court of our Circuit. As a judge of this Court, I feel obliged to offer such guidance, even if a majority of my colleagues does not, OScannlain wrote.

We are bound, now, by Bruen, so there is no good reason why we could not issue a narrow, unanimous opinion in this case.

The traditional justifications for remand are absent here. The issue before us is purely legal, and not one that requires further factual development.

Youngs attorney, Alan Alexander Beck of San Diego, told the Los Angeles Times that he agreed with OScannlain.

This case has been in litigation for 10 years, and, in light of the fact that this is a pure issue of law, theres actually no need for the 9th Circuit to remand the issue, Beck said.

They should have issued a ruling on the merits.
Passengers make their way through a security line Thursday, June 30, 2022, at the Pittsburgh International Airport in Moon Township, Pa. The airport saw an influx of travelers departing Pittsburgh before the Fourth of July holiday weekend. (Morgan Timms/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

Airline Chaos Might Persist Until 2024, Aviation Expert Says

After a record-breaking summer of angst, aggravation, and anger at airports across the United States, little relief may be in sight in the short run.

The problem came into sharper focus in recent weeks, with airline complaints in May and June soaring 270 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

While airlines and federal officials recently announced improved customer service and information-sharing practices with travelers, critics say those measures amount to baby steps. They advocate bigger, more meaningful strides to alleviate the chaos and restore order.

When we look at the misery that weve seen this last summer, the thought is: How long could it last? Jay Ratliff, an aviation expert, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 9.

The problems predate the COVID-19 pandemic, are more complex than many people realize, and may persist until 2024, he said.

A sign alerts travelers to the danger of COVID-19 at LaGuardia Airport, during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New York, on June 29, 2020. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Pandemic Exposed Flaws in System

While the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing and air travel slowed to a trickle, consumer complaints and demands for refunds and other compensation burgeoned.

From January 2020 to June 2021, the Department of Transportation (DOT) received 124,823 airline complaints; 83 percent involved refunds. In contrast, the agency received just 15,324 airline complaints in 2019, a DOT analysis says; only about 10 percent of that years disputes focused on refunds.

The number of DOT complaints is especially remarkable because airline passengers would customarily lodge complaints directly with airlines, and were unaware that they could escalate their concerns to the DOT, Ratliff said.

However, the federal agencys ability to intervene is somewhat limited because there currently is no requirement for an airline or a ticket agent to compensate passengers holding non-refundable tickets if they cancel air travel, the DOT said.

When the pandemic hit, airlines systems were overwhelmed with an unprecedented influx of refund requests. The air carriers also didnt have enough money to make good quickly on those requests.

Passengers entitled to refunds who normally would have received them promptly were left waiting or, in other cases, denied refunds and offered vouchers or travel credits instead, the DOT said. Some customers faced circumstances that prevented them from taking advantage of the vouchers or travel credits; the department said they ended up with no compensation at all.

Ripple effects of the refund requests spread as the federal government, ticket agents, and credit card companies mediated disputes with disgruntled airline customers.

Pilots talk after exiting a Delta Airlines flight at the Ronald Reagan National Airport, in Arlington, Va., on July 22, 2020. (Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)

Staff Shortage Woes

Meanwhile, even though the federal government provided emergency funding to keep airlines afloat, the companies were forced to cut costs. They furloughed and laid off tens of thousands of employees. As of last year, U.S. airlines employed 4.8 million full-time employees, compared to the pre-pandemic staffing level of almost 5.4 million employees.

Many highly compensated employees fell off the rosters because they were offered early retirement packages or quit because of stressful conditions.

Airline professionals such as pilots and flight attendants require extensive training; replacing them is therefore time-consuming and challenging, Ratliff said.

Some people theorize that airlines fired large numbers of pilots for refusing to take the government- and airline-mandated COVID-19 inoculations.

But industry sources doubt that. They say solid statistics are hard to come by. But they told The Epoch Times that many pilots remained employed because they either got the jab or avoided it via a religious exemption.

Medical conditions are probably responsible for grounding more pilots than vaccine-mandate firings ever did, the sources said. They blame long-term illnesses, some possibly caused by side effects of the shots or consequences of COVID-19.

In addition, the commercial aviation industry was already facing a pilot shortage several years before the pandemic. Thats because recruiting of pilots from the military, a primary feeder system for commercial airlines, has declined.

An American Airlines jet taxis down a snow-covered runway after a pre-Thanksgiving holiday snowstorm caused more than 460 flight cancellations at Denver International Airport, on Nov. 26, 2019. (Bob Strong/Reuters)

Total Meltdown Could Come in Winter

Airlines have already announced plans to cut tens of thousands of flights from their fall schedules.

Theoretically, such adjustments should result in fewer flight cancellations and more on-time flights. But Ratliff said he thinks the proposed schedules are still too ambitious.

If the industry is already overburdened, and then a significant snowstorm hobbles an airline hub or blankets the Northeast U.S. for two or three days, youre talking about a total meltdown, he said.

Its going to be this summers misery times five if that takes place, he said.

Travelers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport check the status of flights, including a few that were canceled, on displays inside a gate terminal in Seattle, on April 1, 2022. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)

Small Improvements

The DOT on Sept. 1 rolled out its Airline Customer Service Dashboarda webpage comparing how individual airlines handle controllable cancellations and delays.

Across social media, people roundly praised the DOT for the dashboard, which is intended to make it easier for airline customers to know their rights.

In addition, the DOT is accepting public comment on a proposed rule change. The new rule would codify the departments longstanding assertion that it is an unfair business practice for an air carrier to refuse refunding airfares on flights that were either canceled or changed significantly.

The rule also would require airlines to provide non-expiring vouchers or travel credits when passengers cant travel because of public health emergencies or when they are ill with infectious diseases.

A woman named Louise Mount, who favors the rule change, posted a comment on the Federal Register.

It is about time someone thinks of the travelers. We pay cash for a [flight ticket], yet they only offer us a voucher back if they cancel our flight. We only get two weeks vacation a year, save up for it, get the time off, then cant go because the airline canceled our flight.  I cant afford to lose that money and shouldnt have to, Mount wrote.

A screen displays canceled flights is seen at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 31, 2021. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

More Action Needed

Critics say the proposed rule change does nothing to address underlying issues.

In a letter dated Aug. 31, a bipartisan group of 38 state attorneys general complained to Congress that while they forwarded thousands of airline complaints to the DOT, the agency failed to resolve the issues.

Americans are justifiably frustrated that federal government agencies charged with overseeing airline consumer protection are unable or unwilling to hold the airline industry accountable and to swiftly investigate complaints, the letter says.

Over the years, when confronted with airline complaints, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have failed to spur action from the DOT.

Because state attorneys general have little or no authority over airlines, this vacuum of oversight allows airlines to mistreat consumers and leaves consumers without effective redress, the letter says, asking Congress to pass a law granting attorneys general the authority to enforce airline consumer-protection laws.

The group also suggests that Congress consider transferring investigations of airline complaints to an agency more primarily focused on consumer protection, such as the U.S. Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission.

Even if DOT tightens rules as proposed, we remain deeply concerned and frustrated that the agency is unable or unwilling to vindicate the rights of consumers and to hold airline companies accountable for irresponsible actions, the letter says.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the holiday on Sunday.

Thats to allow people to pay their respects for the passing of Queen Elizabeth, he told ABCs Insiders program.

I spoke to all premiers and chief ministers yesterday and Im writing to them formally this morning  they will have received their letters by now. They have all agreed that its appropriate that it be a one-off national public holiday.

The Queens funeral in London has been confirmed for Monday, September 19.
Members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church in China prepare to submit their applications for asylum at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR office in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sept. 5, 2022. (Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo)

Beijing Hounds Chinese Church Seeking Safety Overseas

BANGKOKDays after flying to Thailand to seek asylum, members of a Chinese church huddled in a restaurant to share their stories with journalists. But when they peered over their shoulders, they spotted strangers taking videos of them with cellphones.

In seconds, they scattered, fearing Chinese state security had come for them yet again.

Political pressure is rising, and theres more and more ideological control, said Pastor Pan Yongguang, whose church has been on the run for years. The persecution is growing worse.

The story of the exile of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church illustrates how the Chinese communist regime is going to increasing lengths to control religious faith and its citizens, even far outside its borders.

Since leaving China for South Koreas resort island of Jeju three years ago, Pans 61 congregants have been stalked, harassed, and received threatening calls and messages despite fleeing hundreds of kilometers (miles) away, he said. Relatives back in China have been summoned, interrogated, and intimidated. In one case, Chinese diplomats refused to issue a members newborn child a passport, rendering the baby stateless.

The Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) tactics against the church echo ones used against the Uyghurs and other Chinese ethnic minorities abroad, as well as fugitives accused of corruption, to coerce them to return to China.

In China, Christians are legally allowed to worship only in churches affiliated with CCP-controlled religious groups, but for decades, the authorities largely tolerated independent, unregistered house churches. They have tens of millions of worshippers, possibly outnumbering those in the official groups.

However, in recent years, house churches have come under heavy pressure, with many prominent ones shut down. The CCP have also targeted some believers not explicitly opposed to the CCP.

Most members of Pans church are young, married middle-class couples, with their children making up about half the group.

Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, a Christian group helping Pan, criticized the CCPs tightening controls on religion.

What national security threat? Fu said. Theyre not going to public squares, theyre not trying to shame the Chinese government. Theyre just trying to seek religious freedom.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the matter was not a diplomatic question when asked for comment.

Ministering in China was never easy, Pan said. Since starting the church in 2012, it has had to move from house to house as authorities ordered landlords to turn them away. Police kept close track of church gatherings, recording attendees, and hauling Pan in for questioning from time to time. The questions grew sharper after they discovered he was ordained into the Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, sharper still after new religious regulations in 2018. Police homed in on his ties overseas.

They want to seal off Chinese churches from the outside world, Pan said.

Pan said the church began thinking of leaving after his friend, an outspoken pastor from the same denomination, was arrested.

The final straw came after millions began taking to the streets of Hong Kong in 2019 to protest Beijings tightening grip on the city. Pan said they had no connection to the protests, but authorities in their city of Shenzhen on the mainland bordering Hong Kong were on high alert under quasi-martial law. The church came under excruciating pressure.

Pan decided it was time to put the matter to a vote. Most members elected to leave.

At the time, I thought maybe we could return after things settled down, said Nie Yunfeng, who joined the church months after its founding. I never imagined things would get this bad.

At the beginning of this year, her parents were summoned by police and questioned about Nies faith, as were dozens of relatives of other church members who had left for South Korea. Officers all over the country, from central Hubei province to tropical Hainan island, threatened the relatives with confiscation of state benefits or the closure of their businesses if the congregants didnt return to China.

Your descendants may suffer, they told Nies terrified father. Tell them to come back right now, or else they will face serious consequences.

Officers found Pans brother, sisters, and mother and accused Pan of treason, collusion with foreign forces and subversion of state power. Evidence obtained by Pan and seen by the AP indicates that state security was ordered to investigate the church.

They left South Korea for Thailand after meetings with local and U.S. officials made it clear that prospects for refuge were dim. Despite being home to a large, active Christian population, South Koreas cultural and ethnic homogeneity can make it unfriendly toward refugees. Government statistics show less than 1 percent of asylum seekers were granted refuge there last year.

So, the church decided to flee again. On Monday, church members gathered outside the United Nations refugee office in Bangkok. They piled manila envelopes stuffed with asylum papers on a mailbox hanging by the entrance.

In Bangkok, members have split between different hotels and attend Sunday service on Zoom, wary of being tracked by Chinese police. They spend their days praying, worrying about an uncertain future.

Xie Jianqing, a church elder, said the transition has been tough. The church members, largely white-collar workers in the glittering high-tech metropolis of Shenzhen, had to get used to picking fruit and digging dirt in the volcanic soil of Jeju island. Now, they have no work, and their future is even cloudier.

Still, such sacrifices are worth it, Xie said. In China, he wasnt able to give his children the religious upbringing he wanted because state schools are compulsory and mandate an atheist, communism-infused curriculum. Abroad, he said, his children can learn about the God he believes in.

Were willing to pay this price, he said.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss hosts the first Cabinet meeting with her new Cabinet in Downing Street in London on Sept. 7, 2022. (Frank Augstein/PA Media)

CCP Reacts to UKs Liz Truss and New Cabinet With Silence and Skepticism

New British Prime Minister Liz Truss took office and announced the members of her new cabinet on Sept. 6. Truss is known for her tough stance on Chinas ruling Communist Party (CCP), and so are some of the new cabinet members. CCP leader Xi Jinping hasnt sent congratulations to Truss, while the regime and its media are reacting to the new UK government with skepticism.

In two keynote speeches earlier this year, then-foreign secretary Truss warned that any attempt by the CCP to invade Taiwan would be a catastrophic miscalculation. She called for a global NATO to tackle global threats, including ensuring democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.

During her leadership campaign, Truss also pledged to prioritize trade with Commonwealth countries to counter the growing malign influence from Beijing.

In early August, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan, the CCP held large-scale military exercises around Taiwan, which Truss condemned. She summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain the CCPs actions.

We have seen increasingly aggressive behavior and rhetoric from Beijing in recent months, which threaten peace and stability in the region, Truss said in a statement.

Tom Tugendhat, who was appointed minister for security, is among the new cabinet members who share the same views as Truss. He was sanctioned by the CCP last year for criticizing the regimes human rights abuses of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.

He also founded the British Parliaments China Research Group and co-chaired the group before taking his ministerial position this month.

Former Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat. (Yui Mok/PA)

Tugendhat opposed the use of Huaweis 5G technology in the United Kingdom, which led to the strict Huawei exclusion order. He suggested that Chinese students who pose a potential risk to the UKs national security should be strictly prohibited from entering British universities. He also urged the UK government to hold the CCP accountable for concealing the information about the COVID-19 outbreak.

After the Chinese regime imposed the Hong Kong national security law, Tugendhat called on the British government to further sanction the CCP. After the recent U.N. report on human rights in Xinjiang, he wrote an article for the media saying, China (CCP) Crimes must never go unanswered.

One day before Pelosi landed in Taiwan, The Guardian reported that the UK Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee, which Tugendhat chaired, was also planning a visit to Taiwan later this year, according to an unnamed source.

Chinese Regime Reacts to Truss

Since Truss became the UKs new prime minister and formed the new Cabinet, world leaders have officially expressed their congratulations. However, CCP leader Xi Jinping has remained silent. Xinhua, the CCPs mouthpiece, only reported on Sept. 7 that the regimes premier Li Keqiang had congratulated Truss.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs hasnt sent out any congratulations. Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning only said on Sept. 6 that she hopes relations with Britain will remain on the right track.

Prime Minister Liz Truss and husband Hugh OLeary pose outside Number 10 after giving her first speech at Downing Street on Sept. 6, 2022. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Truss sees China as a serious threat to the rules-based international order and to the UKs national security, as reported by Western media. According to reports, she plans to take a tougher stance on China and impose more restrictions on the regime as prime minister.

Zhao Lijian, another spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said he wouldnt comment when asked about the reports at a press briefing.

Chinese State-Controlled Media React to Truss and New Cabinet

Meanwhile, Chinese official media have sneered at Truss and her Cabinet.

The Global Times, the CCPs official media, has called Truss a radical populist and said she should drop an outdated imperial mentality. Another Global Times article said that Truss urgently needs to repair her poor popularity internationally, calling her a China hawk and saying that she will be the shortest-serving prime minister.

CCTV, the CCPs national TV network, said that the new British prime minister is facing considerable domestic and foreign pressure.

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, commented that China is one of the UKs most important trading partners, and the UK simply doesnt have the capital or courage to make a clean break with China. Hu said that after becoming prime minister, Truss would take a step back in her tough stance, and her attitude toward China would also be swayed.

China Experts: Truss Will Continue Her Tough Stance on China

Chen Weijian, honorary editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring magazine, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 6 that he believed the reason why Truss won the Conservative Party leadership was that she took a very tough attitude toward China during her tenure as foreign minister, and her support for Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Not only in the UK, but also in other Western countries, political parties have recently taken a tough stance in their China policy during election. This has become a global trend, Chen said.

He acknowledged that some of the politicians changed to a slightly more moderate position toward China after being elected. However, he thinks that Trusss stance on China will be consistent.

I believe that after she becomes prime minister, it is very likely that she will continue the same position as when she was foreign minister, Chen said.

Song Guocheng, a researcher at the Center for International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times that Truss sees the CCP as a threat to British national security, which means that her future policy toward China will only be tougher, and the trade relationship between China and the UK will gradually weaken as Truss takes office.

Song added that the CCP poses a threat to the whole world, and individual countries have been unable to change the CCPs aggressive stance. They can only change their countries dependence on the Chinese market by adjusting their own national economic policies.

Lin Cenxin, Luo Ya, and Xu Jian contributed to this report.
The division within the Anglican church is a result of the churchs failure to make a firm stance on same-sex marriage and decades of disagreements on homosexuality, an Australian commentator says.

It comes after conservatives in August formed a breakaway diocese, which they described as a lifeboat for faithful Anglicans who are distressed by the churchs refusal to uphold traditional marriage and sexual ethics.

Peter Kurti, Director of the Culture, Prosperity and Civil Society Program of the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), told The Epoch Times that the church wanted to have a bit of a fudge in order to make living with compromise easier.

However, this, in turn, has forced conservatives, who consider this an issue of great moral importance, to make a response.

Its reached the point where the conservative leaders who are behind this breakaway say were not prepared to live with that kind of ambiguity anymore, he said.

Kurti noted that the split is not a surprise but the result of tensions that have been brewing for a long time.

Peter Kurti, Director of Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program at the Centre for Independent Studies. (CIS)

Conservative vs. Progressive Anglican Bishops

The Diocese of the Southern Cross was announced at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Canberra on Sunday. GAFCON is an international coalition of conservative church leaders, which Tasmanias Anglican Bishop Richard Condie chairs.

Condie told the recent Lambeth Conference, a decennial assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion, that as disciples, we are not told in Scripture to mould Jesus into our image.

To us in our provinces, this is not primarily about gay sexual practices and unions, but rather that Anglicans look first and foremost to be guided in their faith and order by Scripture, and not by the passing cultural waves of Western society, he said.

Meanwhile, an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Adelaide, Matthew Anstey, argued that the progressive vision of the church is one of a broad, comprehensive, open-hearted Anglican church, a community where diversity is welcome and embraced  in theology, liturgy, and importantly, human sexuality.

And we contend that the conservative vision is narrow, exclusive, hegemonic, he wrote in a commentary for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on June 1.

Revisionist Understanding of the Bible

Kurti told The Epoch Times that progressive Anglicans understanding of marriage stems from the revisionist interpretation of love in the Bibles teaching. Some would consider the revisionist bishops as standing up for justice; there are those who will think that actually its a sign that the church is modernizing, he added.

The revisionists insist that theyre right because they say  that God is love. And so they cite the biblical theology and Christian teachings that they think supports their point of view.

The conservatives will say God also requires of us a certain standard of living, and we have to abide by certain practices and certain codes, and they can quote all kinds of scriptural references for that case.

While there can be different views within the Anglican church about the status of homosexual relationships, the traditional view of marriage is that it is between a man and a woman, and that to depart from that teaching on marriage is not only to break with a very important Anglican tradition, but its also to condone some forms of human behavior.

Kurti said the split is not a surprise but the result of tensions that have been brewing for a long time, which can be traced back to the 60s and 70s with the progressive gay liberation movement.

The issues of human sexuality are the most explosive that is blowing things out of the water (among Anglicans), he noted.

So this is behind the same sex marriage debate, which is quite a recent one; this whole issue is about whether or not homosexuality is consistent with Christian teaching.
Cinema Documentary Review: An Invisible Threat

Commentary

Watch An Invisible Threat on Epoch Cinema here

A highly informative documentary about the issues surrounding microwave radiation.

Have you ever stopped to think of how cell phones and cell phone towers may be emitting harmful radiation? Have you ever heard of reports here and there that this may be a scientifically viable theory? Well, a well-produced documentary titled An Invisible Threat is something you may find informative, as it delves into the health impacts of the increasing amounts of microwave radiation inundating the entire planet.

The film begins by showing us American newscasts of anchors in the 1970s reporting on high levels of radiation at the U.S. Embassy in Russia. They posit that the Russians are possibly using microwaves to jam eavesdropping equipment used by the Americans. The scene suddenly shifts to modern times and shows multitudes of people walking around while talking on their cell phones.

While cellphones were unheard of 50 years ago, radiation levelsexcept in the rare cases that the newscasters pointed outwere much, much lower in general. Transpose that with today, where nearly everyone has a cell phone.

A condition known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome, where certain people are particularly vulnerable to radiation, was relatively low even up to the beginning of the 1980s. But throughout the past few decades, with the onset of such things as personal computers and cellphones, people who have electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome account for approximately 10 percent of the population. In the film, that number was projected to rapidly increase in the next 5 to 10 years. Whats so concerning is that projection was given 8 years ago when the film was made back in 2014.



Minerva Palomar discusses how microwave radiation has affected her in An Invisible Threat. (Imago Producciones)

A Spanish woman named Minerva Palomar is one such person who has electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome. She explains that she first started noticing a mix of symptoms that included powerful headaches, spasms, nausea, and a feeling of overall weakness around the time a cell phone tower was installed close to her residence.

Manuel Desco, of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Radio Frequencies and Health, points out that numerous people have reported symptoms similar to those experienced by Palomar, either after cell phone towers were installed, or after using cell phones over extended periods of time.

Olle Johansson, Director of the Department of Neuroscience Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has studied the effects of electromagnetic radiation on humans, plants, and animals extensively. He says that heightened levels of electromagnetic energy arent meant to be in the normal functioning environments on Earth.

As Johansson describes it, the planets various biological systems were never designed to have electromagnetic waves inundating them. But the more that it happens, the more adverse effects these waves have on these biological systemssuch as cancer and other alterations that destroy the very bonds of our DNA molecules.

He adds that the natural levels of microwave radiation on the planet have always been extremely low. But in modern times that has all changed. He likens this change to suddenly turning a knob and ratcheting up these levels to bombard humans, plants, and animals with microwaves that they were never designed to withstand.

The documentary goes on to interview various people who are well-informed on the subject of microwave radiation and electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome. Through these interviews with scientists, investigative journalists, and others, we learn that certain forces in society minimize or altogether ignore the health effects of widespread radiation. Certain organizations that were tasked with studying cell phone use and its relation to microwave radiation were mysteriously manipulated.

The question then becomes, what are we, as a collective society, going to do about this ever-expanding problem?

I found this film to not only be highly informative but also very prescient since we live in an age where most people blindly trust technologyparticularly anything to do with microwavesevidenced by our seeming dependence on cell phones. Part of the problem (and whats so insidious about it) is that the numerous health effects caused by electromagnetic radiation are caused by something that we cant see, hear, or touch, even though these harmful waves are bombarding our bodies all the time.

An Invisible Threat is a well-produced documentary that not only delves into the increasingly severe effects of radiation on all life on the planet, but also the many conflicts of interest among governments, politicians, lobbyists, so-called health organizations, private industries, and the military.

An Invisible Threat

Director: Pablo Coca Stars: Mona Nilsson, Olle Johansson, Minerva Palomar Running Time: 1 hour, 11 minutes MPAA Rating: Not Rated Release Date: 2014 Rated: 4.5 stars out of 5

PG | 1h 11m | Documentary | 2014

Watch An Invisible Threat on Epoch Cinema here.



Follow EpochTV on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus

Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV

Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV

Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus

Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV

Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Visa and MasterCard credit card logos are seen in a store window in Washington on March 30, 2012. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

Credit Card Giants to Categorize Gun-Related Sales Separately, NRA Condemns Erosion of Rights

Visa announced Saturday that it is ready to join other major credit card companies to tag firearms-related purchases, a move that Second Amendment advocates argue would only put lawful gun owners under surveillance.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a Switzerland-based group that sets and monitors quality standards for industries of all types, on Friday confirmed that one of its subcommittees had voted to establish a new merchant category code (MCC) for firearms, which previously fell into the general merchandise category.

Following ISOs decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules, Visa said in a statement.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) denounced the change, calling it an erosion of Second Amendment rights.

The decision to create a firearm-specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans, one transaction at a time, an NRA spokesperson said.

Credit Card Companies Follow Suit

The decision by Visa, the worlds largest payment processor, marks a victory for gun control activists, who claim that categorizing credit card purchases of firearms and ammunition separately could help detect suspicious sales and prevent potential mass shootings.

MasterCard and American Express have already committed to applying the new MCC to their credit cards circulating in the United States and worldwide.

We now turn our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders, a Mastercard spokesperson said.

American Express also pledged that once the ISO develops a new code, it will work with third-party processors and partners on its implementation.

We are focused on ensuring that we have the right controls in place to meet our regulatory and fiduciary responsibilities, as well as prevent illegal activity on our network, the company said.

New York Bank Pushes the Change

The ISO vote on the new merchant code was petitioned by Amalgamated Bank, a New York City-based firm that lists gun violence prevention as one of the issues we care about.

With a unique code for firearm and ammunition sellers, according to Amalgamated CEO Priscilla Sims Brown, law enforcement could run software to flag suspicious purchases that failed to meet the standard.

We could identify and detect where there may be gun sales that are intended for black markets, where we see patterns of gun purchases being made in multiple gun shops, Priscilla Sims Brown said in June in an interview with CBS. We could see the patterns of behavior that would indicate to us that there is something not right here.

The initial petition for a new ISO code was filed by Amalgamated in July 2021 and denied that October. A member of the ISO committee at the time explained, according to CBS, that the system has already been inundated with so many narrowly defined MCCs, and that it would be too burdensome to create a new one for a relatively small number of retailers.
U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) is applauded by House Republicans at a news conference after being sworn in at the Capitol Building in Washington on June 21, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Democrat Candidate Vicente Gonzalez Claims Texas Special Election Was Stolen

Democrat congressman Vicente Gonzalez took aim at his Republican opponent on Sept. 8, saying outside money was flooding Texas congressional races in an effort to steal the election.

Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) won the election for an open seat in the 34th Texas Congressional District on June 14. She is the first Republican elected in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande District in more than 100 years.

Related Coverage Republican Mayra Flores Accuses Democrat Opponent of Paying Blogger for Racist Posts

Gonzalez, a moderate Democrat currently representing the 15th Congressional District, will face off against Flores in the next election in November because of redistricting.

On Thursday, Gonzalez attended the go vote Blue event in Brownsville, Texas, and claimed the special election was stolen.

Theres millions and millions of dollars from outside our region and outside our state that are coming here to try to steal our elections and take away your value and take away the process that we rely on, which is elections, Gonzalez said, according to Fox News.

They stole that last election. They spent $3 million to our $250,000, they campaigned for two years, and they still only won by less than one percent, Gonzalez said. So, the way to turn this around is getting out and vote.

The recording was later posted by the newly elected congresswoman on Twitter late Saturday, where Gonzalez can be seen sitting next to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Just yesterday a Democrat Representative claimed an election was stolen. Thats right, Vicente Gonzalez along with Adam Schiff claimed that our win in #TX34 was stolen, Flores wrote in a Sept. 10 post. Vicente Gonzalez is an election denier and we will earn our win again in November!

Just yesterday a Democrat Representative claimed an election was stolen. Thats right, Vicente Gonzalez along with Adam Schiff claimed that our win in #TX34 was stolen. Vicente Gonzalez is an election denier and we will earn our win again in November! pic.twitter.com/Tkk8CJ8XYr  Mayra Flores (@MayraFlores2022) September 10, 2022

Schiffs Visit

Gonzalez shared an event photo in a Sept. 9 post, where he thanked Schiff for traveling to the state to campaign for him.

Thank you to my friend, @RepAdamSchiff, for visiting the #RGV this week, Gonzalez wrote. Its important for those in Washington to know and appreciate what South Texans have to offer and I was thrilled to show him around.

Flores, in response, called Schiffs visit a desperate attempt by the far left.

The far left is getting pretty desperate when Adam Schiff is coming down to Texas to save Vicente Gonzalez, she said. The swamp is protecting one of its own.

Flores was sworn into office on June 21, replacing former Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned to work for a law and lobbying firm Akin Gump in March. Flore will hold the seat until next January unless she can beat Gonzales to serve for a full term by winning in the fall.

Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to the report.
Afghan refugees line up for food in a dining hall at Fort Bliss' Dona Ana Village, N.M., on Sept. 10, 2021. (David Goldman/AP Photo)

DoD Watchdog to Investigate Potentially Dangerous Afghans Allowed Into US Despite Being on Watchlist

The Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is all set to investigate whistleblower allegations that hundreds of Afghan refugees were allowed into the United States despite appearing on the departments Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL).

As part of our ongoing body of work on Afghan evacuees, we are initiating an evaluation, to commence in the first quarter of FY 2023, to address your questions pertaining to the DoDs role in reviewing DoD databases for information on Afghan evacuees when requested by other agencies, said a Sept. 6 letter by DoD Acting Inspector General Sean W. ODonnell to Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Whistleblower Allegations

The letter was in response to an Aug. 4 letter sent by Johnson and Hawley to ODonnell which brought attention to the whistleblower allegations.

The senators had highlighted ODonnells previous report titled Evaluation of the Screening of Displaced Persons from Afghanistan which said that Afghan evacuees were not vetted by the National Counter-Terrorism Center using DoD data prior to their arrival in the United States.

ODonnells report also revealed that DoD personnel had identified 50 Afghans in the United States with DoD records indicating them as potentially significant security concerns. This number had risen to 65 by the time the senators wrote the letter.

The whistleblower revealed an even darker picture, claiming that 324 Afghan evacuees were allowed into the country despite being listed on the BEWL. This was in addition to the 65 individuals.

The BEWLcommonly known as the watch listidentifies individuals whose biometrics have been collected and determined by analysts to be threats or potential threats to national security, including known suspected terrorists, the letter pointed out.

The defense department did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publishing.

Afghan Migrant Security Issue

The GOP senators letter also highlighted lax security protocols followed by departments responsible for allowing Afghan evacuees into the United States.

Political appointees at the National Security Council and DoD are alleged to have asked personnel to cut corners when processing evacuees.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), tasked with vetting Afghan evacuees, deleted old biometric data, something which the lawmakers called a troubling development for national security.

A recent report issued by the DHS OIG said that the department failed to fully vet around 80,000 Afghans brought into the United States. Many of them did not have full names. Over 11,000 had noted birth dates as Jan. 1.

In a February report, the Pentagons National Ground Intelligence Center had identified 50 Afghans admitted into the country with information in DoD records that indicate them to be potentially significant security concerns.

The Afghan population in the United States has risen rapidly over the decades. At the beginning of the Afghanistan war in 2001, there were around 44,000 Afghans living in the United States. This number jumped to 133,000 in 2019.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz (C) holds a press conference with U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 6, 2022. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)

Dr. Oz Rushes Into Crowd, Stays With Woman Who Collapsed at His Rally: Campaign

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania Senate, jumped over a rail and rushed into a crowd to help a woman who appeared to have collapsed in Bucks County, according to his campaign and reporters on the scene.

Later, Oz told the crowd, Rita, God bless her, is doing okay, referring to the womans name, according to reporters. Photos published online appeared to show Oz with the woman.

A spokesperson for Ozs campaign said the woman fainted and Oz, a retired cardiothoracic surgeon who has long appeared on television, tended to her until paramedics arrived. The woman was conscious and was taken from the event, the campaign told the Philly Inquirer.

On Twitter, Oz wrote that more than 1,200 people turned up for his event in Bucks County on Saturday.

And during the campaign event, Oz again targeted the Democratic Senate nominee, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, for not scheduling a debate. Fetterman has been recovering from a stroke in May, and recent footage taken from events shows that he struggles to speak.

Last week, Fetterman issued a statement saying that he would debate Oz, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans. However, he did not pick a location or date.

Were absolutely going to debate Dr. Oz, and it was always our intent to do that, Fetterman stated, adding that it has simply only ever been about addressing some of the lingering issues of my stroke, the auditory processing, and were going to be able to work that out.

But Oz fired back on Saturday, saying, To actually agree to a debate you have to actually have a date, and a location, according to reporters. Oz has argued that a debate between him and Fetterman should be held before early voting starts in the commonwealth.

Around the same time as the event, Fettermans team criticized Oz for having a home in New Jersey and claimed he doesnt represent Pennsylvanians.

Oz continues to bring in fellow out of staters to try and save his failing campaign because he wants to distract from the fact that hes a complete fraud who doesnt know anything about what Pennsylanians lives are actually like, Jack Doyle, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, told the Inquirer.

On Sunday, Fetterman is scheduled to hold an event in Montgomery County along with a top Planned Parenthood official to emphasize his pro-abortion stance.

The Epoch Times has contacted Ozs campaign for comment.
Epoch Cinema Documentary Review: Farmageddon

Commentary

Watch Farmageddon on Epoch Cinema here

An insightful expose on the war being waged on small farmers.

With all of the recent news about murky organizations and individuals, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Bill Gates, buying up millions of acres of farmland in North America (as well as all of the government-sponsored attacks on farmers), its interesting to come across a film that forecast the predicament were in a little over a decade ago.

2011s Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms marked the directorial debut of Kristin Canty, a Concord, Massachusetts, mother of four. The films catchy title is very prescient for the unfortunate, aforementioned happenings that seem to be intensifying year after year, as agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration wage all-out war on North Americas small farmers, even when the latter can provide evidence that they are contributing healthy foods to the marketplace.

Kristin begins by outlining the difference between the two main food sources in the United Statesindustrial-scale farming and local or artisanal farmers. The latter, which consist of farmers that provide such products as organic and sustainable foods, have been subjected to ridiculous harassment and seizures based on trumped-up violations, no matter how minor. The government frequently uses its multitudinous morass of regulations as tools designed to drive the smaller farmers out of business.

One of the first examples that the film shows us is the case of a Vermont couple who owned over a dozen sheep, some that had been specially imported from New Zealand (worth a cool $5,000 per sheep) who had their entire herd confiscated and summarily slaughtered. This, despite the fact that the farming couple could have proven that their sheep werent infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), as was claimed by the authorities.

Canty describes similar horror stories of government overreach and abuse of powershere, a Mennonite farmer in Pennsylvania; there, a dairy farmer in upstate New Yorkas well as various food co-ops in Georgia, Ohio, and of course, California.

Cantys capable filmmaking chops are on display as we get to see interviews with both farmers and agricultural experts from disparate backgrounds. Through these interviews, we soon learn that industrial food suppliers have access to more funding, which allows them to wield tremendous political power. This enables them to apply pressure on governmental regulation agencies to put the squeeze on small farming operations. The kicker is that the vast majority of food infections in the food supply chain occur within the big industrial food plants.

Canty also provides some pretty alarming film footage of law enforcement raids being carried out on small farms and co-ops that have supposedly been violating various specious state or federal agricultural regulations. The scenes of numerous law enforcement agencieslocal, state, and federaltreating these small farmers as if they are domestic terrorists are startling and somewhat infuriating.

Canty isnt just fighting as an advocate for the little guy; she has some personal experience with the subject matter in her film. When her son was 4 years old, he suffered from severe allergies and Asthma. Since conventional medicine wasnt helping him, she did some research and discovered that raw (non-pasteurized, grass-fed) milk could be a remedy. As soon as she began giving her son raw milk, his health issues faded away.

The governmental actions do seem rather illogical, petty, bullying, and absurd. Sending large groups of armed law enforcement officers to raid a poor dairy farmer at the edge of some small town doesnt exactly seem restrained, let alone fair. I mean, you dont exactly see these kinds of raids being carried out against Tyson Foods, the Archer Daniels Midlands Company, or other large industrial-scale food corporations.

However, after watching this well-meaning documentary, I felt that there was one thing that detracted from it. A common mistake that many amateur documentary filmmakers make is that while they may be effective at calling attention to important topics and shedding light on lesser-known issues, discussions on what to do about these topics and issues arent usually discussed.

In other words, it would have been nice to get more of an idea as to what we can all do to protect the rights of small farmers, or maybe feature discussions based on consumers rights to have easier access to healthful foods, wherever those foods come from. But as it stands, Farmageddon is an insightful expose about the war being waged on small farmers.

Fatal Flaws: Farmageddon

Director: Kristin Canty Running Time: 1 hour, 26 minutes MPAA Rating: Not Rated Release Date: July 8, 2011 Rated: 3.5 stars out of 5

Not Rated | 1h 26m | Documentary, News | 2011

Watch Farmageddon on Epoch Cinema here.



Follow EpochTV on social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus

Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV

Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV

Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus

Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV

Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Federal Judge Blocks Arizona Law That Restricts Filming of Police

A federal judge has blocked a new law in Arizona that restricts the filming of police officers, siding with the Arizona Broadcasters Association, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and multiple media organizations who sued and argued that the law violated the First Amendment.

U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi granted plaintiffs a preliminary injunction to stop the law from going into effect (pdf).

Tuchi gave the Legislature a week to decide whether it wants to defend the law. The ACLU and media groups are seeking a permanent injunction.

Will Not Defend the Law

The law, HB 2319 (pdf), was set to take effect on Sept. 24. It was enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature in June and signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey on July 6.

Text of the legislation says it is unlawful for a person to knowingly make a video recording of law enforcement activity if they are within 8 feet (2.5 meters) and has been warned by a police officer that they are not allowed to film. In a private area, a person who is authorized to be there can take recordings within 8 feet, but must stop if a police officer determines that the person is interfering in the law enforcement activity or that it is not safe to be in the area and orders the person to leave the area.

Violating the law would amount to a class 3 misdemeanor that would be punishable by up to 30 days in jail, $500 in fines, and up to a year of probation.

The legislation also reads: A person who is the subject of police contact may record the encounter if the person is not interfering with lawful police actions, including searching, handcuffing or administering a field sobriety test. The occupants of a vehicle that is the subject of a police stop may record the encounter if the occupants are not interfering with lawful police actions.

The judges decision came after Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the prosecutor and sheriffs office in Maricopa County told the judge they did not plan to defend the law. They were named as defendants in the lawsuit (pdf), which was filed on Aug. 23.

Brnovichs office is charged with defending state laws. But in this case, his spokesperson, Katie Conner, said that because the attorney general does not have enforcement authority in these types of cases, they were the wrong party to sue. But Matt Kelley, an attorney who represented the news organizations that sued, argued in his court papers that Brnovich is not correct. He noted that by law the attorney general can step in and enforce laws that county prosecutors normally would.

A Huge Win

The ACLU, which had called the law a blatant attempt to gut First Amendment protections for recording police, celebrated Tuchis decision. The ACLU of Arizona said on Twitter on Sept. 9 that the court decision is a huge win for Americans First Amendment rights, and will allow Arizonans to continue to hold police accountable.

State Rep. John Kavanagh (R-District 23), a retired police officer who sponsored the law, had argued that allowing people to record police up close while they are doing enforcement, like making arrests or dealing with a disturbed person, could put officers in danger, and noted that he made several changes to address the concerns of the ACLU. Those include changing the restriction from 16 feet (4.8 meters) to 8 feet.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Firefighters with the Los Angeles Fire Department extinguish the flames of a fire in Los Angeles, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Flames Engulf Two-Story Church in South Los Angeles

LOS ANGELESMore than 100 firefighters Sept. 11 morning battled a major emergency fire in a two-story church in the South Park area of Los Angeles for one hour and 40 minutes.

Firefighters were expected to remain on the scene for some time to pour water on hot spots and smoldering debris, said the Los Angeles Fire Departments Nicholas Prange.

The fire was reported at 2:22 a.m. at the Victory Baptist Church, 4802 S. McKinley Avenue, Prange said.

Firefighters ended the offensive battle and took up defensive positions outside the building after the interior structure collapsed, trapping multiple firefighters, he said. One firefighter was taken to a hospital by paramedics with moderate injuries while another injured firefighter was in fair condition and would seek follow-up treatment later.

The defensive fight was aimed at putting out the flames and protecting structures near the burning building.

Video on the Citizen app showed flames lapping up through the roof of the church.
Longtime politico Dick Celeste, former governor of Ohio and ambassador to India who now resides in Colorado, asked me recently to guess which is the biggest and most powerful political party in the country right now.
GOP Leader Says Homes of Trump Supporters May Soon Be Raided by FBI

A top former Republican leader and prominent attorney has said that the homes of more supporters of former President Donald Trump may soon be raided by FBI agentsweeks after the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Harmeet Dhillon, who was the vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, told Fox News that within 24 hours of a Politico reporters Twitter post claiming that the FBI is ready to serve warrants, three of our clients  did either get search warrants or subpoenas. And these subpoenas are extremely broad.

In a Twitter post, Dhillon alleged that someone Department of Justices (DOJ) Jan. 6 team told a Politico reporter that 50 or so search warrants and grand jury subpoenas were being issued to Trump alliesbefore it happened. Clients, already being harassed by House J6 Committee investigators.

Our clients [Women for America First] are among those targeted for their peaceful, First-Amendment-protected, speech about 2020 election, she wrote. These bullying tactics are designed to target [and] intimidate Trump supporters.

She did not elaborate on the other individuals who may be targeted by the FBI, including whether they were Trump administration staffers or associates of the former president. Last week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was arrested and charged by New York state officials for allegedly partaking in a scheme connected to a private border wall construction effort.

Dhillon added that the subpoenas ask for broad categories of documents and ask for all communications dating from a month before the election until a month, two months after the election.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI for comment.

The subpoenas ask for all communications regarding dozens of people and the categories are alternate electors, fundraising around irregularities around the election, Dhillon told host Tucker Carlson, and also a rally that happened before the Jan. 6 situation at the Capitol.

Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on July 19, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Dhillon then speculated that based on the Politico reporters Twitter post, the FBI is leaking information to reporters before theyre executed. For years, Trump and members of his team have accused the agency of passing on confidential information or even disinformation to mainstream outlets in a bid to denigrate his presidency and reelection chances.

Theres no other explanation for this, the lawyer said. And I think the reason for this is to instill fear into Donald Trumps supporters and into those who would challenge election irregularities right before an upcoming election.

She did note, however, that it is illegal for the DOJ to leak this information to the media.

Special Master

In the battle over whether to appoint a special master in handling documents that were taken from Trumps Florida residence last month by FBI agents, a Florida federal judge, Aileen Cannon, last week sided with the former president and argued that leaks to the media would cause him harm. She ordered the appointment of a special master, while the DOJ appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which features six Trump-appointed judges.

Days after Cannons order, both Trump and the DOJ submitted the names of individuals to handle the documents. A special master is a neutral arbiter who can handle certain matters in court disputes and is usually a retired judge or prosecutor.

A warrant and property receipt that was unsealed last month show the DOJ is investigating Trump on possible obstruction of justice and Espionage Act-related charges, pointing to alleged classified materials that were being stored at Mar-a-Lago. The 45th president and members of his team, however, said that he had a standing declassification order and pointed to a memo he issued in early 2021 while he was still president.

Bannon, meanwhile, told The Epoch Times in an interview published this weekend that the charges against him are politically motivatedechoing statements made by his former boss.

They were trying to de-platform me and shut me down. Its not gonna happen, he said, adding, theyve got a populist revolt thats out of control, and theyre trying to take me out of this election.
By Paul F. P. Pogue

From Ask Angi

Lots of household problems and accidents happen due to plain old goof-ups. Heres a rundown of the most common issues or maintenance you might easily miss and a few annoyances you can take care of quickly. Follow these tips so youre not the goof!

Fixing a Clogged Garbage Disposal

Heres one goof you can prevent by making sure it never happens. Most garbage disposal clogs are caused by fibrous foods, grease and fat, eggshells, too much pasta, or nonfood items like tabs and rubber bands.

Clearing out a clogged disposal unit is best left to a pro plumber, but you can approach it as a DIY job if you take careful precautions:

 Turn off the power to the unit. Unplug it if possible.

 Never, ever place your hand into the grinding chamber, even if the power is off.

 Use a flashlight to look inside the disposal for visible blockage. Use tongs or a similar tool to remove any blockage.

 If you cant see anything inside, look underneath your sink. In the center on the bottom of the disposal, insert a quarter-inch hex wrench into the hole. Work it back and forth until you can turn it in a full circle. Look inside and remove any object with tongs.

 If a hole is not present at the bottom of the disposal, use the tongs or a broom handle in the sink hole to work the blades back and forth. Check again for obstructions.

 Check for the reset button on the bottom of the disposal. When you find it, push the button to reset the garbage disposal.

If these steps dont help, call an appliance repair pro for assistance.

Noisy Cabinets and Doors

This is less of a goof than a hassle, but youll undoubtedly appreciate getting rid of it. Newer soft-close hinges and drawers have been offered in recent kitchen cabinets, but homes before the 2000s wont have them. But if youre tired of the constant noise when kids are ransacking the cabinets looking for snacks, you can address the problem without breaking the bank and overhauling your whole kitchen.

Cabinet noises happen because theres nothing but a wood door or drawer hitting the face frame of the cabinet. Many cabinets have rubber bumpers on their edges, but these wear off over time.

The easiest solution is to purchase self-adhesive bumpers and apply them to each corner, minimizing clanking.

You can also add soft-close dampers to the hinges and frames. This requires a little more cost and effort with a screwdriver.

The most complex approach is to install soft-close hinges and drawer glides, which make them perfectly smooth and silent. This approach requires the most money and effort, but its well worth it.

Childproofing

You can hire a childproofing pro to entirely go over your home at an average of $400. But you can also take steps to make your home as safe as possible. You already know to set up baby gates and place childproof plugs in electrical outlets and latches on drawers and cabinets to keep out little fingers. But dont overlook choking hazards, either. Keep children away from drawstrings on window shades  or upgrade to string-free shades. Use toilet locks, pool fencing, and other water-hazard protections to protect against drowning.

Heavy appliances and furnishings are among the most dangerous factors for small children. Use metal brackets, anchors, or specialty straps to secure furniture to the wall. This particularly applies to bookcases  a significant tipping hazard for kids prone to climbing.

Get Scratches out of Hardwood Floors

Heres a fix for a goof thats already happened. Scratches can seriously tarnish the beauty of your hardwood floors and furniture, but there is a way to disguise them  with a walnut!

Simply crack the meat of a walnut in half and run it over the scratch from several angles. Rub it with your finger, then wipe away the excess. The walnut oil will work into the damage and restore the color. Its not a flawless fix, but its a budget-friendly, easy and effective way to restore wood floors.

Tweet your home care questions with #AskingAngi and well try to answer them in a future column.

2022 Ask Angi. Visit at angi.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
An Accession Proclamation Ceremony publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, on Sept. 11, 2022. (Jane Barlow/PA Media)

King Charles III Proclaimed Sovereign in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

The UKs King Charles III was formally declared sovereign on Sunday in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Wellwishers gathered as the accession proclamations were read out across the UKs four nations, but the ceremony was disrupted in Scotland, where God Save the King was met with booing from hecklers and an anti-monarchy protester was arrested for breaching the peace.

Sinn Fein, an Irish republican party aiming to form a united Ireland, which became the biggest political party in Stormont in the last election, stayed away from the ceremony in Northern Ireland.

Party leader Mary Lou McDonald said Sinn Fein would take part in other events to pay respect to the late Queen, but not the accession proclamation ceremonies that are intended for those whose political allegiance is to the British Crown.

King Charles III (R) and Camilla, Queen Consort, look on during his proclamation as king during the accession council at St. James Palace in London on Sept. 10, 2022. (Victoria Jones/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Charles automatically became king when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died on Thursday afternoon. On Saturday, he was formally proclaimed king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other realms and territories, head of the Commonwealth, and defender of the faith in a ceremony at St Jamess Palace in London, England.

Accession proclamations have also been read out in ceremonies in Commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia and across the UK, including at the Mercat Cross and Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, Cardiff Castle in Wales, and Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland on Sunday.

A small child holds a Union Flag ahead of the Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle, Wales, on Sept. 11, 2022. (Ben Birchall/PA Media)

Thousands gathered at Cardiff Castle to hear the proclamation, which was followed by a 21-gun salute and the singing of God Save the King and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Waless national anthem.

More than 2,000 were allowed inside the grounds but hundreds more lined the street outside the castle walls, including two protesters holding signs reading: Not our king!

Two protesters hold placards ahead of King Charles IIIs Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle, Wales, on Sept. 11, 2022. (Ben Birchall/PA Media)

In Scotland, thousands of people lined the Royal Mile near Edinburgh Castle, where the Lord Lyon King of Arms read the proclamation.

Before the proclamation was read, the Lord Lyon King of Arms gave a speech before declaring God Save the King, which the crowd repeated.

One man was heard booing throughout the cheers.

The national anthem was then sung but, afterward, people could be heard calling for a republic.

After Lord Lyon led three cheers, saying hip hip to replies of hooray, booing was heard for a second time.

Some mourners called the hecklers disrespectful, saying they should have avoided the proclamation if they believe in a republic.

Crowds watch an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, on Sept. 11, 2022. (Wattie Cheung/Scottish Daily Mail via PA Media)

In a separate incident, a woman appeared in the crowd opposite the Mercat Cross moments before the proclamation, holding a sign saying [expletive] imperialism, abolish monarchy.

She was taken away by police officers, prompting the crowd to applaud.

One man shouted: Let her go, its free speech, while others yelled: Have some respect.

A police spokesman said a 22-year-old woman was arrested in connection with a breach of the peace.

Members of the public during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Hillsborough Castle, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, on Sept. 11, 2022. (Brian Lawless/PA Media)

In Northern Ireland, around 200 invited guests were on the grounds of Hillsborough Castle, while hundreds more watched from under umbrellas outside the main gates.

A 40-second fanfare was sounded ahead of the reading of the proclamation, which was followed by a 21-gun salute and one verse of God Save the King played by the military band.

Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie, Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister, and the centrist Alliance Party leader Naomi Long were present, but Sinn Fein leader McDonald was missing from the crowd.

McDonald extended condolences on behalf of her party, saying it acknowledges the very positive role the queen played in advancing peace and reconciliation between our two islands, and the two traditions on our island, during the years of the peace process.

In recognition of this, Sinn Fein will attend a number of events during the ten days of mourning, she said, adding that it will not attend any of the Accession Proclamation ceremonies, which are intended for those whose political allegiance is to the British Crown.

PA Media contributed to this report.
Malaysians Rescued From Human Traffickers in Cambodia, Many Still Remain Missing

Taiwanese, Filipino and Vietnamese victims speak of a Chinese connection

Twenty-four Malaysiansvictims of human traffickingwere rescued from Cambodia and brought back to their homes on Friday, but authorities say many are still missing, having fallen for scam networks often run by transnational organized crime groups.

According to Malaysias foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, 118 Malaysians have been rescued from the total captive of 148 citizens. Twenty-nine people are awaiting departure from the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, a coastal city, pending ongoing investigations and related paperwork. However, 30 Malaysians are still reported missing.

Saifuddin appeared in a press conference on Friday along with the recently rescued victims and said that the mostly young people were lured by fraudulent offers of high-paying jobs in Cambodia. They were captured by traffickers and exploited while remaining trapped in the country. Victims were mostly masked and didnt speak to reporters, according to the Associated Press.

What is most important is that they are coming back to Malaysia today safe and sound. We do not want to go into the details, Saifuddin said. There is no guarantee we can stop it (job scams) but we will try our level best.

Prak Sokhonn, the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Cambodia said in a telephonic conversation with Saifuddin that only a small number [of Malaysians] are victims of the job scams, and that these crimes happen in every country, big or small, and the best way to combat them would be through cooperation between the two countries, according to an official press release from the Cambodian government.

Trafficking Ring Spreads Throughout Southeast Asia

The Taiwanese government said in August that hundreds of its citizens were held captive in Cambodia after being promised high-paying tech jobs.

Trafficking syndicates target young Asian people via social media and lure them with promises of well-paying jobs and accommodation in countries such as Cambodia. However, when the people land in the country, their passports are confiscated and theyre forced to work in illegal phone or online scams.

We work more than 15 hours a day. They give us instructions to scam people around the world, one victim told in a press conference held in Kuala Lumpur in April. If we do not perform, they hit us. More than 30 of us have been mistreated because we underperformed.

According to a Guardian report, almost 5,000 Taiwanese have been recorded traveling to Cambodia and not returning. Police say they have identified at least 370 people who are being held captive but victims claim the number is much higher. Forty-six Taiwanese have returned home in recent months and have detailed stories of assault, rape, threats, and other physical abuses.

Rescue efforts have been complicated by the corruption within the Cambodian justice system. The Cambodian interior minister, Sar Kheng, said that nationwide searches would be conducted in hotels, rented properties, and casinos for checking on foreigners and their visit status in the country.

Fifty Filipinos were rescued on Thursday, Sept. 8, from Cambodia, said a report from the Philippines Department of Migrant Workers, cited by Manila Bulletin. According to authorities, the Philippine Embassy in Phnom Penh facilitated the rescue by coordinating with local officials. Last year, 61 Filipino workers were rescued from Cambodia.

The Chinese Connection

Besides Taiwan and Philippines, Vietnam has also witnessed many citizens falling for fake online job offers. Vietnam, like Taiwan, is home to a large Chinese-speaking population. Many victims are taken to work in Chinese-owned casinos in Sihanoukville where the clientele is mostly from the mainland and there is a requirement for Mandarin speakers.

According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese businessmen operating in Cambodia maintain a strong relationship with the local government, and are considered influential and powerful. Sihanoukville was constructed with funds from the Chinese as part of the Belt and Road Infrastructure.

The gambling houses were impacted by the COVID-19 tourism restrictions, and operators, mostly Chinese tycoons, were forced to turn to other sources of income. Over 1,000 realty projects in Sihanoukville are currently unfinished, said Ya Tong, a manager at the Cambodia Pacific Real Estate Company to RFA.
Police officers check peoples information at a roadblock on Sept.1, 2022, amid restrictions due to an outbreak of COVID-19 in Chengdu, southwestern Sichuan Province, China. (CNS/AFP via Getty Images)

CCPs COVID Lockdowns During Mid-Autumn Festival Leave Many Starving

Zoo in southwest China calls for help to feed endangered tigers

On Sept. 10, the day of the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, the Chinese communist regime reported new COVID-19 cases and plunged more cities and districts into lockdown. Many Chinese are now starving from the disruptions in food supply caused by the regimes constant shutdown of cities and transportation.

Authorities in Beijing announced nine new COVID-19 infections in Chaoyang District, all of whom were students with the Communication University of China; another 584 people in the university have now also been identified as close contacts. The university, the nearby Beijing International Studies University, and surrounding neighborhoods have since been locked down, requiring all residents in the areas to take PCR tests.

On the same day in the northwest Gansu Province, local authorities put a whole district in Qingyang city under a three-day lockdown because of the discovery of new COVID-19 cases. In Shandong Province in east China, authorities have restricted entry and exits in five areas in Qingdao city, after declaring them as high-risk zones.

Meanwhile, nearly 300 million Chinese people continue to live under the various strict lockdowns across China because of the regimes zero-COVID policy.

Food Donations Sold Off

In Chinas Xinjiang, an Uyghur Muslim majority region, Ili Prefecture has been under lockdown since the end of July when COVID-19 cases were reported. Some local residents have been out of food for many days. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, they have posted on social media for help.

Uyghur men sit on steps in Urumqi in western Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 21, 2021. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)

Ms. Lin, a resident of Yining City in Ili Prefecture, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 9 that many people have run out of food and other goods from not receiving any supplies from officials despite many donations. She added that most people cant afford the prices posted online.

No one in our community received the food and supplies donated by people in other provinces, she said. They were all taken by the [CCPs] community office and sold to the locals at very high prices. How many families can afford the high-priced vegetables? Many of them havent been paid any wages for more than a month. A lot of people have run out of food and supplies.

We dont dare to post more of this kind of news on TikTok, you cant pass the [CCPs] online censorship, and your account will be suspended.

Ms. Wang from Yining County in Ili Prefecture, who has been in mandatory quarantine for 22 days, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 9 that she isnt allowed to go home and is on the verge of suffering a nervous breakdown.

I was fine originally, and wasnt even a close contact, but I was still pulled here (by authorities) at the Nangyuan quarantine center. People who came here together around the same time all got infected here  Im having a breakdown and feel like I cant go on anymore, she said. I havent eaten for three days, and Im so scared that I really cant eat.

Endangered Animals Facing Feed Shortage

Guizhou Wildlife Park in southwest China has been shut down due to zero-COVID control measures.

The park issued an urgent appeal a couple of days prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival, asking people across the country to help purchase food supplies, including live chicken, live fish, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, to prevent their endangered animals, such as Siberian, white Bengal, and South China tigers, pandas, crocodiles, and zebras from starving to death.

According to the appeal, there are a large number of wild animals in the park70 percent of which are internationally protected. While the park is meant to have enough live feed to last at least 10 days, food is already running low, and nobody knows how long the lockdowns will last. The park has been closed since Sept. 5.

An Indian Bengal tiger in the wild (Derrick Brutel/Wikimedia Commons)

Previously, the regimes lockdown policies also caused feed shortages in July, which led to pig cannibalism in some parts of the country.

Experts pointed out that the feed shortage reflects disruptions to food safety and supply chains across China as COVID-19 control expands, which is also further hurting the Chinese economy.

Ahead of the CCPs Party Congress in October, local authorities nationwide have further tightened their enforcing of the zero-COVID policy, further disrupting trade, transportation, and daily life.

Zhao Fenghua, Hong Ning, Zhang Ting contributed to the report.
The Chinese Renyin calendar year Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival hosted by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) kicked off on Sept. 7. Many sets of Mid-Autumn Lanterns were displayed at three venues (Victoria Park, Man Tung Road Park in Tung Chung, and Tai Po Waterfront Park). The theme of this years Mid-Autumn Lantern Display at Tai Po Waterfront Park is Full Round Moon, Full Moon Wish.

The Mid-Autumn Lantern Display at Tai Po Waterfront Park exhibits large-scale revolving lanterns at its characteristic attractions such as pools, meadows, and the Hong Kong Handover Memorial Tower inside the park. Paper cranes, paper boats, kongming lanterns, and LCSD mascots Enggie Pup and Artti Kitty have been set up, implying a full moon and reunion of people.



Wishing paper crane lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park in Hong Kong on Sept. 7, 2022. (TM Chang /The Epoch Times)

Piglet-shaped lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan /The Epoch Times)

Piglet-shaped lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan /The Epoch Times)

The LCSD mascots Enggie Pup and Artti Kitty lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan /The Epoch Times)

Kongming lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park in Hong Kong on Sept. 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Kongming lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park in Hong Kong on Sept. 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Hot air balloon-shaped lanterns in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Animal-shaped lanterns on the grass in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Animal-shaped lanterns on the grass in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Animal-shaped lanterns on the grass in Tai Po Waterfront Park on Sep 7, 2022. (TM Chan/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)

Autumn Festival at Victoria Park, on Sept. 10. (Adrian Yu/The Epoch Times)
Fenicia Redman (front) protested with supporters in front of Great Valley High School on Sept. 7, 2022. From the left: Former School Board President Bruce Chambers, Retired Policewoman Alfe Goodwin, Grandfather Wayne Dunlop, and Pastor Frank E. Legette III. (Jennifer Yang/The Epoch Times)

Pennsylvania Mother Continues to Fight to Remove Obscene Books From Schools After Injunction Denied

MALVERN, Pa.On Sept. 7, a Pennsylvanian mom, Fenicia Redman, went to Great Valley high school to protest after she received the order that her request for Emergency Injunctive Relief was denied by the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Redman, on behalf of her child, filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas Wolf and the administrators at her childs public school district, Great Valley School District, on Aug. 24. Redman seeks an order to remove obscene sexually explicit publications from the Great Valley School District and all public schools in the United States.

I want to alert all Pennsylvanian moms and grandparents and adults that right here behind us is a scene of a crime. I remind, your children are being exposed to material that no innocent child should see, she told people at the protest.

Redman also filed a motion for a nationwide injunction, which was denied on Aug. 29.

This Court cannot discern from its review of Plaintiffs complaint any claims for which she has shown a better than negligible likelihood of prevailing on the merits, wrote the denying order.

Redman told The Epoch Times that her emergency injunctive relief was denied because she is not a lawyer and had no experience in the lawsuit. She took two weeks to file the 99-page complaint by herself. Now, Redman is looking for more funds through GoFundMe injunction mom to have a lawyer to represent her.

How are we in America allowing this in our schools? It is incomprehensible, Redman told The Epoch Times at the protest, pointing to posters with porn pictures copied from the books from the school library. That is not acceptable. Its actually criminal. But this is sanctioned.

Redmans protest was supported by numerous people in the community, including a pastor who is a Democrat, a former president of the Great Valley school board, a retired policewoman, a grandparent, and a few others. They all held a protesting poster and shared their concerns with The Epoch Times.

Former School Board President: I Will Get Rid of Pornography

Bruce Chambers was the president of the Great Valley School Board for two years. He has been protesting for months against obscene material at school, and said he is not satisfied with the current school board.

The worst part of it is that they pay no attention to people like Fenicia, who come to speak, he told The Epoch Times.

Former School Board President Bruce Chambers came to Great Valley School District to protest, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Jennifer Yang/The Epoch Times)

Chambers said if this had come up when he was on the board 10 years ago, he would have immediately made it an agenda item. We would have had a deep discussion about it. And we would have made a decision and I would have pushed them to get rid of this stuff. Its garbage. We cant have this in the school, as the other people have said its very obvious. Its pornography. Its child pornography.

Chambers said he used to investigate child pornography in his job as a United States Postal Inspector. So I know what it is. And this fits the criteria for pornography.

He thinks the majority of the people in this country dont want obscene materials at school, but the administration here pushed this to happen. They do other things that are very wrong: they have secret meetings with middle school kids who seem to be asking questions about gender nonconformity without telling the parents, Chambers said.

He said hes very grateful for Redmans efforts: I admire her greatly for taking up this cause, and for putting up with what shes had to put up with from the school district and the school board. Its admirable that shes still fighting this fight and shes going to continue on.

Pastor Legette: School Peddles Pornography to Children

Pastor Frank E. Legette III is a life-long Democrat who was one of the protesters at the Capitol in Harrisburg with Fenicia Redman when the Police demanded they remove the obscene posters on June 20, 2022.

Legette recalled the Capitol police officer came in and declared that they had to not only take them down but to put them away. Because this material was offensive. He cannot accept why the school can be allowed to show these pornographic materials to innocent children.

Pastor Frank E. Legette III came to Great Valley School District to protest, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Jennifer Yang/ The Epoch Times)

The worst part about this is that the educational system has decided that parents have no say so in this issue, that the educational system can peddle this pornographic material to our children. But the parents dont have any recourse and they cant push back against it. Because the system has decided that this is acceptable and has literary value. Thats criminal, Legette said. We have lost our moral compass in this country.

Legette said if he offered a sex education class and passed out this material in his church, the parents would call the police, have me arrested and I would be fired from my job. Thats how serious this is. He has been a pastor for 38 years in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Legette treats Redman as a champion, Shes the champion thats going to lead the cause and were following her.

Retired Policewoman: This Would Go to Special Victims

Alfe Goodwin was a police officer in Philadelphia for 14 and a half years. She retired on Feb. 1 this year. She pointed to the poster she held, Its obscene. period. When I was on the job if I had received a call from a parent, saying that another adult without their consent expose their children to this material, definitely it would have been a job that would have gone to special victims, period. Theres no other way to look at it, Goodwin said. Its inappropriate material for children.

Retired Policewoman Alfe Goodwin came to Great Valley School District to protest, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Jennifer Yang/The Epoch Times)

Goodwin expresses her gratitude for what Redman is doing: I think shes a godsend to parents to remind parents, loved ones, and family members why we must continually remain involved in our childrens lives.

Grandfather: People Just Lost Their Morals

Wayne Dunlop has grandchildren in this school. He went to the police department with Redman when she filed the second complaint about the obscene material at the Great Valley High School library three or four months ago.

Wayne Dunlop who has grandchildren in this school came to Great Valley School District to protest, on Sept. 7, 2022. (Jennifer Yang/The Epoch Times)

I said to the police officer if I as an adult showed this to children. I said you would arrest me for pornography, wouldnt you? And there was no response. Just dead silence. So even the police are ignoring this which is unacceptable, Dunlop said while holding a poster. The school board is dead wrong in allowing this to be in the school district.

Dunlop continued: My hope is that we will get someones attention and say yes, this is pornography. Do you realize you have to be 18 years old in this state to buy a Playboy magazine? But a 14-year-old kid can take this out? And thats acceptable to a whole group of people that are managing the school district. Its not acceptable to the parents and grandparents.

Dunlop notices the big changes in the school recently: My four kids went through the school district when it was a great school district. Its deteriorated in the last several years, obviously through bad leadership. And people just lost their morals, quite frankly, lost their morals.

Mom and Son Being Harassed

The journey has been hard for my son, who clearly is made fun of because his mom is a Puritan or just hes harassed. Redman said with tears in her eyes, Im raising my son, to respect women, to respect all people.

I have no control over what the school is showing him. When I send him to school for eight hours a day, they wont let me in the library to see the material. I asked them: can you at least provide a list of sexually explicit material? But she was told they dont have to provide any list other than what they already have. She said, I find myself at a loss of words to ask: how long has my son encountered this without my knowledge?

Redman is also worried about other kids being exposed to this unhealthy stuff. We dont know the impact on our childrens psychological well-being or their mental well-being. Regardless, this material is explicit sex in the hands of minors.

Redman said she believes her phone is being monitored.

Just after she was interviewed on Sept. 7, a police car came to the school parking lot seating area. A policeman walked out of the car and told Redman that the Great Valley School District called the Police to demand she be removed.

Redman said: I have moms who wont come to school board meetings because theyre afraid of retaliation. I dont understand it. But were fighting it.

Redman: Getting Funds to Hire an Attorney to Fight

Redman said she first found out about these materials was November of last year while the kids were home because of COVID-19, all working from home, and parents began to pay attention to what their kids were signing out, or hearing what other parents were sharing at school board meetings.

For the last 10 months, Redman has tried to raise awareness with these board members, the police department, district attorneys, the governor, and the Attorney General. She said: Everyone [is] either silent or the Attorney Generals deputies, the district attorneys say we dont see a crime here.

Redman pointed to the posters which were held behind her. I asked you, Mr. Shapiro, youre Jewish. Take any one of these pictures and books and take it to your synagogue and have your children read it. Tell me if the parents would be okay with that. She referred to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

She continued, And I say to you, Governor Wolf: take any of these books and pictures  and take it to your Episcopalian Church. When you have Sunday school and read it to those children and tell me if thats okay.

If its not okay for your kids in a synagogue or in an Episcopalian Church or a Muslim [Mosque], then its not okay for my child and a government school should remove all these obscene materials.

Redman called, All I am is a mom saying: Can somebody hear us down here in Pennsylvania? She is getting funds to hire local attorney George Bochetto to fight.

Four administrators at Great Valley School District did not respond to Epoch Times request for comment.
Newly elected Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida wave as they take the stage at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa on Sept. 10, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Pierre Poilievre Chosen as New Leader of the Conservatives on the First Ballot

Pierre Poilievre has been elected as the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada with 68.2 percent of the points on the first ballot.

Former Quebec premier Jean Charest took 16.1 percent of the points, followed by Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis with 9.7 percent, former Ontario Independent MPP Roman Baber with 5 percent, and Conservative MP Scott Aitchison with 1.1 percent.

Poilievre opened his victory speech by expressing sorrow for the Queens passing, then immediately shifted his focus to winning the next federal election.

Tonight begins the journey to replace an old government that costs you more and delivers you less, with a new government that puts you first, your paycheque, your retirement, your home, your country, he said. By tackling Liberal inflation, well put you back in control of your life and your money.

Poilievre thanked his family and supporters, as well as the other candidates running in the contest while highlighting their accomplishments. His comments praising Charest, with whom he often exchanged barbs during the campaign, were comparatively more than his comments on the other candidates, including thanking him for his service as former premier of Quebec.

To the supporters of the other candidates, Poilievre said I open my arms to you to unite as one party serving one country, before transitioning his speech again to cost-of-living issues, one of the main themes of his campaign.

Conservative leadership hopeful Jean Charest (2nd R) speaks as (L-R) Pierre Poilievre, Patrick Brown, Scott Aitchison, Leslyn Lewis, and Roman Baber look on during the Conservative Party of Canada French-language leadership debate in Laval, Quebec, on May 25, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz)

Today people feel like theyve lost control of their pocketbooks, of their lives. The government is driving up the cost of living, he said.

Repeating the phrase remove the gatekeepers which became his catchphrase throughout the campaign, Poilievre said thats whats needed to build more homes, grow more food, and produce more energy right here in Canada.

He also criticized the Liberal government for their policies impeding energy projects, while saying the ArriveCAN app and remaining vaccine mandates need to be removed.

In a post on social media, Charest congratulated Poilievre on his win, saying, We must end the internal mudslinging.

Only Liberals benefit from a divided Conservative Party, he said.

Lewis also congratulated Poilievre on Twitter, while adding, Lets work together to make Canada a free, hopeful and prosperous nation once again!

Baber congratulated Poilievre by posting a photo of himself with the winning candidate on Twitter and saying, Lets go on to make Canada the freest country in the world!

In his own congratulatory note on Twitter, Aitchison said Poilievre will be a great leader for our party, and a great Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also congratulated Poilievre on his win.

As parliamentarians, we must work together to deliver results for people across the country. Canadians expectand deservenothing less, he said.

While congratulating Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a social media post that he knows that we will disagree on a lot and rarely find common groundbut its a time to show Canadians that leaders tell the truth and refuse the destructive politics of division.

Poilievre was first elected as an MP in 2004, and served as minister of state for democratic reform and minister of jobs and industry in the Harper government.

In an email to supporters ahead of the results on Sept. 10, Poilievre anticipated that his win would mean he would become the target of Liberals negative attack ads.

Im going to get punched, he said. Trudeaus Liberals are going to unleash a wave of advertising attacking me, trying to scare Canadians before I can punch back.

He said his team will be focusing on launching ads on different platforms to counter the negative ads.

In a statement issued shortly after the winner was announced, Liberal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc and Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan congratulated Poilievre on his win, and expressed hope that the Conservatives will join the Liberals on their priorities for the country, while criticizing him and his party.

While Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party continue to promote American-style politics and try to stand in the way of our progress for Canadians, well remain focused on moving Canada forward, they said.
Father James Collins holds a service in the yard of St Paul's Anglican Church in Burwood with seating observant of social distancing in Sydney, Australia, on March 22, 2020. (Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

Political Developments Influenced Churchs Decision to Support Gay Marriage: Senior Anglican Minister

A senior Australian Anglican minister has said the Anglican churchs stance in the same-sex marriage debate has been influenced by global political trends rather than the authority of the Bible.

The comment comes after Australias General Synod in May saw the majority of bishops refuse to affirm man-woman marriage, with progressive bishops saying it excludes the LGBT community.

Zachary Veron, senior minister of Bayside Anglican Church in Sydney, told The Epoch Times that the traditional concept that marriage is between a man and a woman ought not to be controversial because it has been the case for thousands of years.

Veron argued that while those adhering to such a concept are being criticised as discriminatory, people who wish to dismiss the clear teaching of the Bible are the ones causing the tension [within the church].

It would be unthinkable but here we are; that some sections of the Anglican church wish to bless that the Bible calls sin, Veron said.

As progressivism sweeps through the church and various agencies, the Anglican minister believes that those who propose progressive trends to reform their understandings from the teachings of the Bible usually make themselves the victim to win over undecided public opinion.

Thats consistent with political developments around the world, he noted.

Social ethics around the Western world are folding over all sorts of matters, from equality to abortion, to marriage to education. The rate of social change is quite breathtaking.

And it appears that some sections of some churches, not just the Anglican Church but other denominations as well, are being influenced by those developments.

Australia legalised same-sex marriage in 2017, which saw some individual dioceses move to bless same-sex couples. The move has divided Anglicans, some of whom established a new diocese in August in response to what they called the rejection of marriage ethics and the watering down of standards of behaviour by clergies and church workers.

Debate Over Faithfulness

Tasmanias Anglican Bishop Richard Condie, chair of the new Diocese of the Southern Cross, described the diocese in a press release on Aug. 15 as a new structure for Anglicans in Australia who can no longer sit under the authority of their bishop.

However, Charles Sturt University Theologian Matthew Anstey argued that progressive Anglicans believe they are being entirely faithful to scripture and to God, and that our faith is genuine and authentic.

We also reject the claim that you are able to make a judgment about our faith, he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Aug. 17.

Previously, Anstey wrote in a commentary on June. 1 that for us, the progressive vision is one of a broad, comprehensive, open-hearted Anglican church, a community where diversity is welcome and embracedin theology, liturgy, and importantly, human sexuality.

And we contend that the conservative vision is narrow, exclusive, hegemonic.

Meanwhile, Anglican Minister Veron believes the main reason behind the conflict over the matter of human sexuality can be boiled down to how people perceive the role of religious teaching in their life.

Not many Anglican bishops in Australia will say that it (the Bible) is our primary source of authority and how we should live and think and coordinate and live with other people. They would say that it is one of many authorities and not necessarily the primary authority.

[However] those who see the Bible as the primary authority over matters of faith [think] this is a line we cannot cross, he said.
Not Rated | 1h 37min | Drama, Comedy | 1947

Imagine this scene: Neophyte maid Katie Holstrom (Loretta Young) is serving at her first big party at the household of Congressman Glenn Morley (Joseph Cotten). As she weaves her tray through a floor full of well-heeled guests from the Hill, butler Joseph Clancy (Charles Bickford), whos served the Morleys for 40 years, softly warns, Therell be a lot of talk about politics. Just stay out of it. Katie smiles and nods, Of course!

Does she follow that sage advice? In The Farmers Daughter (1947), the jokes on us. Director H.C. Potters comedy-drama is about a young woman who cant just stay out of it.

Katie (Katrin to her Swedish American farming family) had planned to attend nursing school, but must take up maid duty because shes been duped out of money that shed saved up for school. The guests at the party see more than her beauty and spontaneity, both of which win the Morleys over; they see her warmth, her attention to detail, and her common touch. Lets not forget her sharp eye and ear for politics.

Loretta Young as Katrin Holstrom (R) serves guests in the home of Sen. Morley, played by Joseph Cotten (L), in The Farmers Daughter. (MoviestillsDB)

More Than a Maid

When a congressman prematurely dies, Katies swelling crowd of admirers urges her to run against a candidate propped up by cronyism and expediency. Her journey tests her trust in politicians, speechwriters, campaign managers, pollsters, and voters, but most of all, herself.

Director Potter doesnt quite explain Katies transformation from gullible farm girl to politically astute firebrand, or satisfactorily justify how partisan politicking can ever become bipartisan. Thankfully, he doesnt allow the subplots of Katies bitter electoral campaign, or her blossoming romance with Morley, to overrun the main narrative.

Katie (Loretta Young) speaks to potential constituents, in The Farmers Daughter. (MoviestillsDB)

Instead, Potters guiding theme here is a womans voice, centered around the fact that in a mans world, shes able to speak at all. He focuses on how everyone changes the way they look at Katie, based on what she says, how she says it, why she does what she says she will do, and how well she does what she says she will do.

Even in the moneyed Morley mansion, Katie doesnt hesitate to speak up if someones misrepresenting an issue or getting things plain wrong. Never mind if theyre from the Hill, or if its even Morley himself.

Her voice bears authority because shes neither disagreeing for the sake of being disagreeable nor contradicting just to be contrarian. Shes talkative all right, but thoughtful, too.

(LR) Joseph Cotten, Loretta Young, Charles Bickford, and Ethel Barrymore at the dining table in a scene from The Farmers Daughter. (MoviestillsDB)

Potter cheekily shows us Katies brush with pomp. Shes fascinated but never overawed.

At one point, Morley is climbing up his grand staircase while his mother, Agatha (Ethel Barrymore), goes up with a chair elevator, buzzer on hand. We see Katie gaping at the spectacle and, in the same shot, a giant mirror reflecting mother and son ascending the stairs. Later we spy Katies impish delight as she furtively tries that chair elevator out herself.

Young won a Best Actress Oscar for her spirited portrayal. Shes so fresh-faced here, its hard to believe that, at the time, shed been in films since the silent era.

Loretta Young in a publicity shot circa 1957. The actress starred in The Farmers Daughter and won an Oscar for her fresh-faced performance. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

A Sensitive Screenplay

Potters 1947 film was inspired by the 1937 Finnish play (written by Hella Wuolijoki) and the Finnish film Juurakon Hulda (directed by Valentin Vaala). Years later it inspired the 19631966 Screen Gems TV-ABC sitcom of the same name, built on the same central character but with an altered storyline and unrelated to the 1940 film.

Husband-wife screenwriting duo Allen Rivkin and Laura Kerr wrote several screenplays together, but their work on Potters movie is exceptional because it offers a model of how women and men can relate to each other with dignity, restraint, and humor, but without always feeling threatened or envious.

When guests acknowledge her presence as a maid, Katies more than gracious; when they dont, she makes them aware of it. If they cant be bothered to stop talking for a second, even to look at her, she curtly tucks napkins into their lapels and eases her way to the next guest.

Witness how respectfully Morley and Clancy, with all their clout, treat Katie. Or the way her hulking brothers treat their little sister. The nearly 7-foot-tall James Arness debuts here, as one of the brothers.

In one scene, Clancy confides in Katie how power is double-edged: When you win some of it, you lose some of yourself. He tells her how he was with the senator when the senator made his first million, and how theyd gone to Washington together. Then he pauses before he says, Part of us died together. Bickford was, rightly, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his masterful performance.

Morley falls for Katie in part because of her crusade against cronyism, her vision for victorious House of Representative candidates to truly represent common voters, not just sponsors and campaigners.

Joseph Cotten as Sen. Morley talks politics with Loretta Young as Katrin Holstrom in The Farmers Daughter. (MoviestillsDB)

With a name like Holstrom and a thick Swedish accent, Katie personifies the outsider. So Morley liberally offers her tips to subdue the forcefulness in her speeches, and to be more guarded and less open.

In fact, far from shushing her, men like Clancy and Morley end up helping Katie go up the ladder shes chosen to climb.

It is Katies father who gives the definitive lines as he chides both Morley and Katie: I thought that Katrin was married to the truth.  If you dont want to fight for the truth, then you shouldnt be in Congress! Relevant advice for today.

The Farmers Daughter

Director: H.C. Potter

Starring: Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Charles Bickford, Ethel Barrymore

Not Rated

Running Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Release Date: March 25, 1947

Rated: 3.5 stars out of 5
Mastercard and Ajman Bank have strengthened their commitment to inclusion through a new initiative designed to expand access to the digital economy. The world-first Touch Card is an accessible payment card that will allow blind and partially sighted people to easily facilitate payments and distinguish between their cards.

There are few effective ways for those who are blind or who have reduced vision to quickly determine whether they're holding a credit, debit, or prepaid card, particularly as more cards move to flat designs without embossed names and numbers. Mastercard is addressing this challenge with a simple innovation and has introduced a system of notches on the side of the card to help consumers use the right card, the right way.

The Touch Card has been designed to work with point-of-sale terminals and ATMs, ensuring they can be deployed at scale - the credit cards have a squarish notch; debit cards have a rounded notch; and prepaid cards have a triangular notch. As well as blind and partially sighted consumers, anyone in a low-light environment or reaching into a wallet or purse one-handed can benefit from the Touch Card design.

The Ajman Bank Touch Card further offers benefits to suit each cardholders unique needs, including cash back benefits of up to 10 per cent that can be selected from across four categories: fuel, online spend, groceries and school fees.

According to the latest available data, 15 per cent of the global population experience some form of disability, constituting the largest minority group in the world. The World Health Organization estimates that, globally, at least 2.2 billion people have sight problems.

A recent Mastercard study, Bridging the Disability Gap: An Opportunity to Make a Positive Impact, revealed that digital inclusion is the pathway to financial inclusion for persons with disabilities. It highlights that there is a clear opportunity for the industry to work collaboratively to make a positive impact on the lives of millions of people around the world.

Mastercards concept has been vetted and endorsed by The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the UK and VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired in the US. The card was co-designed by IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, providing trusted solutions in the physical as well as digital space.

At Ajman Bank inclusion is an integral aspect of our corporate culture and social responsibility. Innovation has the power to change the world for the better. We are delighted to partner with Mastercard to be the first movers to help drive this innovative solution that will help us to respond to everyones needs. For visually impaired customers, selecting the right card can very often be a challenging experience. Touch Card allows consumers to quickly distinguish which card they are using through the three distinct notches. Weve always appreciated Mastercards vision for thinking of new ways to innovate and do things differently to serve more people, said Mohamed Amiri, Chief Executive Officer, Ajman Bank.

Moza Al Akraf Al Suwaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Community Development said: Accessibility is a human right and this latest initiative by Mastercard will open new possibilities for the inclusion of individuals with visual impairment into the digital economy. Ajman Banks collaboration with Mastercard will make daily life easier for a lot of people. It aligns with UAEs social and community goals to promote an inclusive environment for everyone by tapping into the infinite power and potential of technology to enrich peoples wellbeing regardless of their capabilities.

It is our firm belief that no one should be left behind in our quest for a digital future. Thanks to the power of innovation, we are driving financial inclusion and access to digital services by connecting everyone to the digital economy. The world is being changed for the better by early adopters, and it is our honor to join hands with Ajman Bank to design a rewarding solution that simplifies life for people in the UAE who are blind or partially sighted, said Khalid Elgibali, Division President, Middle East and North Africa, Mastercard. TradeArabia News Service
The Alabama Republican Party is making a renewed effort to recruit Black voters and other minorities who lean conservative but are mostly on the sidelines when it comes to politics.

Leading the effort is state Rep. Kenneth Paschal of Pelham, who last year became the first Black Republican elected to the Legislature since Reconstruction when he won a Shelby County seat.

Paschal, a retired U.S. Army sergeant, said he wants people to set aside stereotypes and reflect on what matters to them and their families.

Who you are, what you stand for, what you believe in. And then you see which party is more likely to get you where you want to go. And I think its the Republican party, Paschal said.

I want to emphasize its OK to have dark skin and acknowledge that youre a Republican, youre a conservative, you have conservative values, Paschal said.

Paschal, 55, is director of the ALGOP Outreach Coalition, a five-member group spearheading an initiative announced last year. In Montgomery on Thursday night, the Coalition hosted the first of what it plans to be a series of meet-and-greet events to invite conservative or independent minorities and encourage them to become active in the party. The coalition used voting records to help develop its invitation list.

Belinda Thomas, co-director of the ALGOP Outreach Coalition, said the goal is to let people know their votes are appreciated but that there is more they can do. Thomas was part of a strike force of Alabama Republicans who campaigned for President Trump in Sarasota, Fla., two years ago, an effort that helped Trump win the swing state.

We need active members getting out here, getting engaged, working, said Thomas, the only Black member of the Newton Town Council in Dale County.

The Republican Party has been dominant in Alabama for more than a decade and holds every statewide office and three-fourths of the seats in the Legislature. All the partys statewide office-holders are white and Paschal is the only African American among more than 100 representatives and senators.

Paschal acknowledges the significance of being Alabamas first Black GOP lawmaker in more than a century. But he puts more emphasis on a belief that his election in a majority white district was an example of a fulfillment of what Martin Luther King Jr., said in his I Have a Dream speech in 1963, that people be judged on their character and not their skin color.

I want to make sure every county has the opportunity to make sure his dream comes true where people start getting more involved, not because of your color, but because of what you believe in, your values, Paschal said. Faith. Family. Safe communities. Our freedoms. School choice.

Paschal said the party has not done enough to invite Black people and other minorities, including people with Hispanic and Asian backgrounds.

I think our efforts havent been what it should be, Paschal said.

If you go to any Republican group or county meeting, we say were open to all but does it look like were open to all? Paschal said. The answer is no. So my efforts are to make sure people know we are open to all people of different backgrounds. We want to quantify that by doing a better job on our outreach program. And I think of all people in the state of Alabama, Im the best person that can tell people the Republican Party is readily open to all people. I have been embraced by the entire party everywhere I go.

Th Outreach Coalitions mission statement includes a short-term goal, to reach out to diverse voters who vote conservatively and recognize their value. And it includes long-term goals, to seek out individuals with conservative values who have not yet voted Republican and to recruit a diverse group of candidates.

Cedric Coley of Montgomery, the central Alabama regional director for the Outreach Coalition, said the party needs to hear from a greater variety of voices.

We want to know how we can make the party more welcoming to them, and also if there is something such as an idea or suggestion, we want to make sure were hearing that as well, Coley said.

For example, Coley said the Republican Partys support for closing Alabama primaries and requiring party registration might not be popular with some minority voters the party is hoping to recruit.

A lot of these individuals are independent and they lean Republican, Coley said. So are they comfortable with the fact that some members of the Republican Party want to close the primaries? And theres potential legislation coming next year about that. So we want to know how they feel about that.

Coley, who is Black, said the Outreach Coalition hopes to show minority voters the practical benefits of working with like-minded people on political goals.

The main mission of tonight is to show individuals that are active with the party and individuals who arent active but they lean conservative that were not walking this alone, Coley said. If we stand shoulder-to-shoulder together, theres some issues that we can get solved.

Coley, 32, said his move toward the GOP started about 2010 during the debate over the merits of the Affordable Care Act, the signature legislation of President Obama. Coley said he did not support the law, including the requirement that everyone buy health insurance or face a tax penalty.

That got me involved and for the past 12 years Ive been involved with the Republican Party, Coley said.

I actually started in politics as an independent, he said. And Im leaning and now more so in the Republican Party because theyre the biggest network of conservatives. And thats what this is about.

Richard Fording, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, said the Republican Partys goal of attracting more engaged Black citizens can be beneficial for the state. But he does not think an outreach initiative can significantly increase support from Black voters unless the party changes some of its stances on policy.

I think its a good thing that the Alabama Republican Party wants to be more inclusive and reach out to African American voters, Fording said. I think thats a healthy thing. I think thats what both parties should be trying to do especially when were in a two-party system.

But I dont know what the strategy is to do that because theyve got a lot to overcome when it comes to the policy agenda thats been at the forefront of the Alabama Republican Party lately.

Examples include the law passed in 2017 that was intended to preserve Confederate monuments on taxpayer-owned property, a law that passed over opposition from the nearly all-Black Democratic caucus a few years ago. This year, Alabama Republican officials joined a national movement to denounce critical race theory, which some see as an effort to deny the consequences of systemic racism. And the Republican-led Legislature passed a Congressional redistricting plan last year that kept six of Alabamas seven U.S. House districts majority white, declining to consider plans that would have given African-Americans a chance to elect a second Black Congressional member. A three-judge federal court temporarily blocked the use of the plan, finding that it probably violated the Voting Rights Act because Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress. The case is set for arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in October.

I just dont know how the Republican party in Alabama can be doing all these things and position themselves as the friend of African Americans, Fording said. I dont know how that works.

Fording said exit polling showed 89 percent of Alabama Black voters supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Nationally, he said about the same percentage of Black voters supported Biden and Hillary Clinton four years earlier. That loyalty to the Democratic Party has remained stable for decades, Fording said. He said polling that measures party identification gives no evidence that Black voters are moving away from the Democratic Party in Alabama.

I would almost go as far to say that this is never going to change in our lifetimes, Fording said.

Fording said the preeminence of Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again Movement in the Republican Party makes the GOPs outreach to minority voters more difficult. Fordings book, Hard White: The Mainstreaming of Racism in American Politics, co-authored with Sanford F. Schram, says Trump stoked white fear and resentment of minorities, immigrants, Muslims and others characterized as outsiders on his way to winning the White House, going back to Trumps advocacy for the birther movement that sought to discredit Obama with false claims that he was born outside the United States.

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor from Athens State University, said Black voters moved to the Democratic Party because of the economic benefits of the New Deal programs started in the 1930s and the partys support for African American rights in the 1960s with legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Brown said the Republican Partys outreach effort, on the surface, appears to be an effort that could marginally improve the partys image with Black voters. But Brown believes it would take meaningful action by the Alabama Legislature, controlled by a Republican supermajority, to convince a sizeable portion of Black voters that the GOP is their political home.

If the Republican Party wants something to pass the Alabama Legislature, it will pass, Brown said. And I dont think the Republican Party is going to be truly viewed as inclusive unless it starts to enact policies that have an appeal to a pretty wide swath of African American voters. Not necessarily a majority but a respectable share. Thats the litmus test.

Brown said the minority outreach effort could be reassuring to a segment of white Republican voters concerned that the GOP can be characterized as a lily white party. Brown said its important for the party to expand its reach in the long term because of the trend that whites are a declining proportion of the population.

If youre thinking about the future as a party leader, you dont worry about the demographics of the nursing home, Brown said. You look at the demographics of the sixth grade. Go into elementary schools across America and look at the demographics of the people sitting there.

This problem for the Republican Party is going to manifest itself in other states a lot quicker than in Alabama. But even in Alabama, Republicans need to be concerned about the demographic changes that are coming down the pipeline.

Thomas, who campaigned for Trump, said she grew up in a Democratic family but has identified more with the positions of Republicans for as long as she can remember.

Because I believe in the Constitution. I believe in my country. And I believe in my conservative values, Thomas said.

Paschal said the Democratic Party needs to consider its lack of diversity, too. Alabama has only one white Democrat in the state Senate and one in the state House of Representatives.

So both parties need to do a better job and I think our state would benefit from that, Paschal said. My point being, you want to have diversity at the table. That way you get different input, different views.

Paschal said that by getting more Black people and other minorities involved in local Republican organizations and in leadership positions there, the party can strengthen its pitch to minority voters who share similar beliefs and attitudes but have not acted on that by voting Republican.

We say were open to all, Paschal said. The short-term goal is to quantify that by reaching every county in our state just like were doing tonight. And then when we start looking like were open to all, in the long term I think were better able to go into the different communities that might not be voting their values and then explain to them this is why I believe in the Republican Party.
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard speaks at his final media conference for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 9, 2007. (Robb Cox/Getty Images)

Queen Elizabeth Most Accomplished Leader: Former Australian PM

Former Prime Minister John Howard has remembered the late Queen Elizabeth II as the most accomplished leader he dealt with during his long political career.

Howard, who met with the Queen on multiple occasions over 11 years as prime minister, paid tribute to the monarchs sense of duty.

(She was) a great leader, an impeccable constitutional monarch, somebody who had enormous affection for our country, he told Sky News on Sunday.

Ive found her in so many ways the most accomplished leader Ive dealt with in all my years in politics.

The former prime minister said the late Queen was always well informed about events in Australia, describing the monarch as having a wonderful sensitivity towards countries in the Commonwealth.

Whenever I saw her, she was across the recent political developments in Australia  she would ask about them but not in a way that represented any kind of interference, Mr Howard said.

She was very familiar with things that we had done and things wed achieved and the challenges the country had.

Howard attended the funeral of the Queen Mother as prime minister in 2002, and said the Queens funeral on September 19 would be an enormous occasion.

Shes the longest serving monarch by quite a number of years, so its an amazing event in the history of the United Kingdom and a big event, too, in the history of countries like Australia, he said.

Theres probably been a bit of preparation already put into it, but the thing to remember is, most of all, is that we honour somebody today and in the days and weeks ahead who was faithful to us.
Crowds watch as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passes Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on Sept. 11, 2022. (Ian Forsyth/PA Media)

Thousands Line Streets as Queen Elizabeth IIs Coffin Makes Journey to Final Resting Place

Thousands of mourners gathered in the streets of Scotland as Queen Elizabeth IIs coffin began an eight-day journey to her final resting place.

On Sept. 11, the hearse carrying the queens coffin left Balmoral castle in rural Scotland, the 96-year-old monarchs favourite residence, where she died on Sept. 8.

Shortly after 4 p.m., the cortege arrived in Edinburgh, where the coffin will stay for two days before being flown to London ahead of the state funeral, which is scheduled for Sept. 19.

Route of Queens coffin from Balmoral Castle to Edinburgh, Scotland, on Sept. 11, 2022. (PA Graphics)

Thousands lined the streets as the hearse passed through Aberdeen and Dundee and arrived in Edinburgh. When the royal convoy travelled down the Royal Mile near the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the crowd fell silent in respect before a round of applause and cheers broke out moments later.

The oak coffin was draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland. A wreath placed on top was made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peasone of the Queens favouritesdahlias, phlox, white heather, and pine fir.

The queens daughter, Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, and her husband Sir Tim Laurence were accompanying the coffin.

The queens two younger sons, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, received the coffin at the Palace of Holyroodhouse along with Edwards wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing through Ballater as it continues its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral on Sept. 11, 2022. (Andrew Milligan/PA Media)

The coffin will stay overnight in the Throne Room of the palace, which is the official royal residence in Edinburgh.

King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort, who will visit Scotland on Sept. 12 as part of the kings first trip around all four nations of the United Kingdom as sovereign, will accompany the queens coffin in the afternoon in a procession to St Giles Cathedral, where royal family members will attend a service.

The coffin will lie at rest at the cathedral where Scottish people can pay their respects.

On Sept. 13, it will be flown by Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft to Londons RAF Northolt, conveyed to Buckingham Palace by road, and placed in the Bow Room overnight.

The journey is part of Operation Unicorn, a pre-existing contingency plan drawn up in case the queen had died in Scotland.

The plan, which was named after Scotlands national animal, runs in parallel with Operation London Bridge, the main funeral plan for the queen.

Queen Elizabeth II during an audience with President of Switzerland Ignazio Cassis at Windsor Castle in the UK on April 28, 2022. (Dominic Lipinski/WPA Pool via Getty Images)

On Sept. 14, The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery will carry the queens coffin on a gun carriage in a procession to Westminster Hall, where the coffin will stay until the state funeral.

The late monarch will lie in state after a short service on the night of Sept. 14 until the morning of the funeral. Members of the public are invited to pay their respects to the queen during that time.

After the state funeral, the queens coffin will travel to her final resting place at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle, where her parents, sister, and husband are buried.
Chris Sununu, Governor, State of New Hampshire speaks onstage during the 2022 Concordia Lexington Summit - Day 1 at Lexington Marriott City Center on April 07, 2022 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia )

Republican PAC That Backs Sununu Targets New Hampshire Republicans

A mass campaign mailer attacking anti-establishment Republican candidates running in New Hampshires upcoming primaries was sent out by a political action committee formed to support party Gov. Chris Sununu as its purpose.

This is an outrageous and unprecedented attempt to purge as many constitutional conservative Republicans from the state house delegation as possible, State Rep. Paul Terry, one of the Republican candidates targeted by the mailers, told The Epoch Times, He wants us replaced with Rhinos [sic] or Democrats.

Terry is running for re-election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

At least six Republicans are known to have been targeted by the mailers. All of them are running in contested Republican primaries and are called out in the mailers for supporting such Republican initiatives as impeaching Sununu and seceding from the U.S.

Alex Stanford, chairman and treasurer of Granite PAC, which sent out the mailers, told The Epoch Times that Sununu had nothing to do with the mailers, that neither the governor nor his campaign knew about them, and that his committee chose the targeted candidates on their own.

While Stanford would not disclose his ties to Sununu, The Epoch Times learned he was a former intern for Sununus father, John Sununu, a former NH governor who went on to serve as chief of staff for George Bush Sr.

Stanford also counts Paul Collins, Sununus campaign advisor, among his followers and his social media pages, which are riddled with personal posts promoting Sununu.

We chose these candidates because they dont represent Republican values and have taken actions that are not in the best interest of New Hampshire, said Stanford, who refused to elaborate on his political credentials, this has nothing to do with the governors elections.

Sununus campaign did not respond to inquiries about the mailers.

On Stanfords political committee registration filed with the office of New Hampshire Secretary of State on May 12, 2021, the stated purpose of the PAC is To Support Governor Chris Sununu.

The document also lists Sununu on its statement of independent expenditures as the candidate it would be spending its money on. According to its most recent financial filings with the SOS, the PAC spent $27,000 on the mailings.

While denying that Sununus campaign has anything to do with the mailers, Stanford said that his PAC did not send out mailers on any other race, local or federal.

It is so obvious that this is Sununu that it is insulting to say otherwise, State Rep. Norman Silber, another Republican state House representative targeted by Stanfords mailers told The Epoch Times.

The mailer targeting Silber depicts the New Hampshire state flag being shredded with the warning to voters: Dont Let New Hampshire Become Undone by Norm Silbers Divisive Leadership.

Silber, who led party challenges against Sununu for various actions, including his excessive use of his executive powers during COVID, filed a complaint with the NH Attorney Generals office about the mailers. Silbers specific complaint was about the amounts of contributions made to Granite PAC.

According to the PACS financial statements filed with the New Hampshire Secretary of States office, three of its donors made contributions in excess of $50,000. Silver says the donations violate a state law that limits donations to political action committees at $10,000.

The donors include an electrical contractor whose owners appear in pictures posted on social media presenting Sununu with a $25,000 check for a food bank in 2020.

Another $50,000 contribution came from the owner of dozens of McDonalds restaurants in the state. The owner appears in pictures on social media presenting Sununu with a $50,000 check for the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police.

State Rep. Josh Yokela, another Republican targeted by the mailers, told The Epoch Times that he feels Sununu should be investigated for violating the ethical rules of the party.

What Sununu is doing is hurting his own party with the potential of putting Democrats in office over Republicans, said Yokela, this whole mailer thing he has done is so short-sighted and is just obviously personal.

Mike Sylvia, another Republican House member targeted by the mailers, was involved in a recent controversy that Sununu inserted himself into even though it had nothing to do with state affairs.

Sylvia and Silber are members of an all-Republican delegation that oversees the Gunstock Mountain Resort, owned by Belknap County, which Sylvia and Silber represent.

The delegation, which Sylvia chairs, makes appointments to the Gunstock Area Commission, which oversees the resorts finances.

The commission at the time was led by Tom Day, a former general manager of the Waterville Valley Resort, which Sununus own.

When the delegation and Day got into a very public tangle over allegations by the delegation against the commission, Sununu, who, again, has nothing to do with the Gunstock ski resort, released a letter, siding with Day and calling for Silber and Sylvia to be removed from their positions for what he called making bad decisions. Sununu also offered Day, who resigned over the dispute, a job with the state Parks department.

Shortly later, a $500 check written out to Sununus campaign by the commission surfaced. It was signed by Day. Sylvia released the check to the public with a statement that it was discovered in an audit.

One of the Republican candidates running against Silber was a member of the Gunstock commission that signed off on the donation to Sununus campaign in 2020.
1996 | R | 2h 15min | Drama, Mystery, Western

The great American Western may have faded in popularity over the past few decades, but there have been some standouts here and there. This small pool includes a broad range of films, from 1985s crime-drama Silverado, to the phenomenal indie-Western Corsicana, which just recently debuted. Lone Star (1996) is one of these.

Lone Star, directed by John Sayles, a very different kind of Western. It meshes understated performances with gradual, slow-burn pacing, giving its fascinating and mysterious plot due time to build up to its ultimate crescendo. You wont see any over-the-top gunfights or razzle dazzle. Sayles takes a much more subtle approach here, letting the story unfurl naturally.

The movie takes place in the small town of Frontera, aptly named since its just on the Texas side of the Mexican border. The skeleton of a human male is discovered at an Army firing range, and its suspected to belong to the corrupt sheriff Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), who used to run Frontera in the past.

Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey, L) and Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), in Lone Star. (Sony Pictures Classics)

The current sheriff of Frontera, Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), becomes fascinated by the discovery of the remains, because his late father, Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey), once worked for Charlie. But unlike Charlie, Buddy was a beloved member of the local community.

However, when Sam begins to suspect that Buddy may have been the one responsible for Charlies death, he begins his own investigations in order to get to the bottom of the murky mystery.

As Sam begins to delve into the secrets of the past, he crosses paths with a number of characters, including local high school teacher Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Pena), an old flame of his; bar owner Otis Payne (Ron Canada); and Fronteras current mayor, Hollis Pogue (Clifton James), who is also one of Charlies former deputies.

Like any good whodunit, you never know who is responsible for what (if anything) and have to go along for the ride with the protagonist. In this case, each of these characters holds a piece to this decades old mystery.

A number of familial, ethnic, and social-political elements have influenced the towns past and current circumstances. Frontera is a place where blacks, whites, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans have different perspectives on things. For example, we get to see the personal struggles of Pilar, a Mexican-American teacher who is at odds with the school board over her unique depiction of the Battle of the Alamo.

Fortunately, due to Sayless naturalistic style of filmmaking, each of these side stories feels earnest and realistic, as if plucked from real-life situations and histories. The brilliantly understated acting performances also lend a sense of intimacy that draw the viewer into their stories. Chris Cooper, in particular, turns in a nuanced, yet powerful performance as a man desperately struggling to resolve a murder mystery involving his family.

The old flame still burns between Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Pena) and Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) in Lone Star. (Sony Pictures Classics)

Whats also enjoyable about Sayles storytelling method, is that although there are a number of characters in the film, none of them feel shabbily rendered. Instead, we get a surprising amount of depth here, which leads to curiosity about their backstories.

This movie reminds me of a great page-turner, where you almost want to sneak ahead in the book to greedily find out what happens next. But with Long Star, its better to sit back and enjoy this incredibly entertaining (bereft of flash, mind you) ride.

Lone Star

Director: John Sayles

Starring: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Stephen Mendillo

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hour, 15 minutes

Release Date: June 21, 1996

Rated: 4.5 stars out of 5
Rex Murphy: Canadians Stand With the James Smith Cree Community in Their Grief

Commentary

It is far too early to withdraw our consideration from the brutal events which occurred on the James Smith Cree Nation. They were horrible simply in the scale of the slaughter10 dead and 18 variously injuredand made more horrible in that from what we know it was deliberate and calculated and remorselessly pursued, with the murderers going from house to house, indeed door to door, on their vicious rampage.

This was ultimate malice and cruelty without bounds inflicted on a close-knit and innocent community.

Every decent heart in Canada has had a huge response of sympathy to all those people, all those families and friends who experienced the death by violence of their loved ones, and those who had to attend the terrible injuries of their relations and loved ones. An attack of this gruesomeness and magnitude prompted inescapable shock to the whole country, but the shock of the nation cannot in any measure equate to the shock that was delivered to the entire close, small, rural community that was the home of the rampage.

People gather at a vigil to remember the victims of a mass stabbing incident at James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Sask., in front of City Hall in Prince Albert, Sask., on Sept. 7, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Heywood Yu)

When, as is so unhappily the case, large-scale brutality and murder take place in urban centreswhen psychopath or malignant gangs exercise a killing spreealthough the moral and psychological shock felt by families is the same as in any other setting, nonetheless the impact on the full community is necessarily dissipated or diffused by the brute fact of the large populations in which they occur.

This is in no way to suggest they are in any sense less cruel or that somehow the public should or could take less notice of the wantonness of these events.

However, in the case of the James Cree Nation there is superadded the consideration of the tremendous reverberations so horrid an event has played and is playing out on the community itself, the community as a community. In such places where, literally, everyone knows everyone else, where everyone has at one time or another had a personal interaction with one of the killed, one of the injured, with members of the families of those attackedor even has perhaps some acquaintance, meeting, or recollection of one or both of the perpetratorsthe impact of the event is greatly intensified.

I recall when the horrible Ocean Ranger disaster occurred in Newfoundland, when the offshore drilling rig was overwhelmed by a great storm and all 84 crew members on it went to their deaths. Because it occurred in Newfoundland, a small province, and because so many of the workers lost were from the tiny intimate coastal outports, it seemedor perhaps it was not seemed but actually the casethat everyone knew someone who was to some degree connected in a personal way with a friend lost, a family who had lost a member, or who had known, met with, or shared an evening with a man lost.

The grief from that event darkened the whole island, and whole villages and outports were collectively stunned and numbed by the tragedy. When terrible things happen within a concentrated population, the aftermath comes close, in power of impact, to the original event.

Darryl Burns, brother of victim Gloria Burns, speaks during a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations event where leaders provide statements about the mass stabbing incident that happened at James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon, Sask., at James Smith Cree Nation, Sask., on Sept. 8, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Heywood Yu)

The Ocean Ranger disaster, however, came from what we call natural causes. Bitter and bleak as it was, it did not carry the gravity, the immense shadow, of deliberate perpetration byforgive the use of the term herefellow community members. It is impossible to conceive how much the anger and grief of the James Smith Cree community, of only 2,000 people, is magnified, made more intense, by the fact that the enormity was so concentrated.

It has to be something of an insupportable burden for the people of that town to carry so terrible an event, to see in every face they meet the stroke or sorrow and pain, and who have now to begin the insupportable effort of somehow coming to terms with what has happened.

Large world events are, for the moment, eclipsing the response, and all the headlines are in another place. But I believe to a certainty that all Canadians still hold compassion in their hearts for the citizens of James Smith Cree Nation, and are one with the wish that insofar as time can, time will offer some succour to their grief, and that the consciousness of their fellow Canadians giving thought to them offers at least some glimmer of light in a very dark time.

Good wishes and prayers may not change things, but the offer of them has the power at least to colour in a positive way the hard journey forward. All decent Canadians are with you in sympathy and good feeling. May you find the fortitude to bear this terrible stroke upon your peace.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
People wade through flood water in Managil city in al-Gezira state, Sudan, on Aug. 23, 2022. (Ebrahim Hamid/AFP via Getty Images)

South Sudan Declares Disaster in Flood-Affected Areas

JUBA, South SudanSouth Sudans government has declared flood-affected parts of the country as national disaster areas and appealed for assistance.

Fridays appeal came after torrential rains in the Upper Nile and Bahr el-Ghazal regions.

Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said the floods have displaced thousands of people and claimed hundreds of lives.

Earlier this week, President Salva Kiir appealed to humanitarian partners for help.

South Sudan has experienced heavy flooding over the past three years, with more than 800,000 people affected in 2021 alone.

Since the beginning of rainy season in May, flooding in parts of the country has forced some health centers to close and stranded populations, leaving them vulnerable to water-borne diseases and snake bites.

By Deng Machol
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) speaks at a news conference on the infrastructure bill with fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus, outside the Capitol Building in Washington on Aug. 23, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Texas Congressman Presents Released Jan. 6 Prisoner With Flag That Flew Over US Capitol

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) presented Dr. Simone Gold a flag that was once flown over the U.S. Capitol on Friday, following her 45 days in jail for being involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and stepping inside restricted premises.

Dr. Simone Gold is a patriot and an American hero, Gohmert said in a Sept. 9 statement.

The in-person grant upon Golds release from the Miami Federal Detention Center was to honor the Los Angeles-based emergency medicine specialists invaluable work and contributions to public health, medical freedom, and our God-given constitutional rights, according to the Republican lawmaker.

Gold, the founder of non-profit Americas Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), was sentenced on June 16 under a plea deal on one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, a federal misdemeanor. The sentence, meted out by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper on June 16, included 60 days in jail, one year of supervised release, a $9,500 fine, and $500 of restitution.

.@drsimonegold is a patriot and an American hero. https://t.co/APiotH7ve5  Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) September 9, 2022

During the afternoon on Jan. 6, 2021, Gold delivered a speech through a megaphone to a crowd gathered in Statuary Hall, where she voiced her opposition to the vaccine mandates and government-imposed lockdowns, before getting arrested on Jan. 18, 2021. Her non-profit AFLDS had been promoting medicines such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as an alternative to the COVID-19 vaccine, which came under attack from media outlets and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she exposed the world to life-saving early treatment options that undoubtedly saved many lives. Tragically, her sound medical advice was viciously attacked and suppressed by a corrupt media captured by pharmaceutical companies with a clear financial agenda, Gohmert said in the Friday release.

After having her name and reputation shamefully dragged through the mud, the Biden administrations DOJ [Department of Justice] threw her in prison for peacefully walking into the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and delivering a speech, Gohmert continued. Dr. Gold is the definition of what a political prisoner looks likesomething I never thought Id see here in the United States of America.

Gold responded by saying that she was honored to receive the gift and recognition, while calling Gohmert a true believer in freedom and a fierce defender of our constitutional rights.

Golds release date came about two weeks before the 60 days would expire, given credit for teaching and taking classes while incarcerated, along with time served when she was arrested in January 2021, according to the AFLDS.

Over 800 people have been charged with federal crimes over the breach on Jan. 6, with 300 pleading guilty to one or more charges so far and nearly 200 sentenced.
Texas Customs Seize 50 Wheels of Contraband Cheese

An Albuquerque woman has been fined for attempting to smuggle wheels of cheese through the Paso Del Norte border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

On Sept. 6, the woman arrived at the border crossing in a car from Mexico at around 7:00 a.m. The woman declared that she was bringing in 10 wheels of cheese to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer at the border. However, after the officer checked the car, additional 50 wheels of cheese were discovered in the back row, with each wheel weighing around a kilo (2.2 lbs).

The CBP seized and destroyed the cheese, while the woman was slapped with a $1,000 civil penalty and released, according to a Sept. 7 press release.

Travelers can import cheese commensurate with personal consumption levels, said CBP El Paso Port Director Ray Provencio, according to the release. A few wheels would generally be fine but not 60. It was undeclared and that amount would be a commercial quantity and additional reporting requirements would apply.

Dairy items are subject to numerous restrictions in the United States. There are quota administrations for milk, butter, ice cream, cream, and several types of cheese which are administered by the Department of Agriculture and the CBP.

The dairy items are also subject to requirements set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For instance, there is a ban on the import of milk and cream into the country without a permit.

During imports, the origin country must be clearly mentioned on the cartons or wrappers. Dairy products also have to meet Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) requirements.

Cheese Crimes

The United States has seen multiple cheese crimes in the past. In 2012, three men were arrested for buying cheese in the country and smuggling them into Canada, evading duties.

The criminals had brought and distributed over $200,000 worth of cheese and other products, netting an estimated profit of more than $165,000.

One of the most bizarre cheese crimes took place back in 1946 when a police chief received two packages of cheese in a mailbox. The cheese was sent by the thief who had stolen a substantial quantity from a truck. The thief had returned the leftover cheese he didnt use.

Feared mobster Al Capone is said to have pressured pizzerias into buying cheese from his farms during the prohibition era. A rumor claims that a competitor to his dairy products ended up in flames.
Texas Sheriff: Fentanyl Should Be Classified as Weapon of Mass Destruction

Montgomery County Sheriff Rand Henderson in Texas said that fentanyl coming across the U.S.Mexico border should be deemed a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

Fentanyl is poison thats being introduced to our country. The illicit manufacturing of this stuff has just gotten crazy with the potency of it, he told Fox News over the weekend. The deception by the drug dealers to mix it into the pressed pills trying to sell it as a legal drug thats a prescription medication.

Elaborating on the danger, Henderson said that it only takes 2 milligrams of this stuff to kill you and were finding twice, sometimes three times the amount of fentanyl in a pill thats not supposed to contain any fentanyl. The county that he oversees is located in southeastern Texas, although its hundreds of miles from the border.

There is no quality control standard. It is truly a weapon of mass destruction thats killing our population, he added. I thought I would never see anything worse than methamphetamines, which has been a horrible scourge on our population, the sheriff continued, calling for it to be labeled a WMD.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, a WMD is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.

The term gained popularity in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and during reports about whether the Saddam Hussein regime possessed one, launching the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Under the Trump administration, Homeland Security officials reportedly considered labeling fentanyl as a WMD. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) recently introduced a bill to classify the powerful synthetic opioid as one.

Fentanyl is Americas silent killer and is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, she told The Hill in June. The saddest thing about the fentanyl crisis is that it is preventable.

Production and Manufacture

Much of the production of fentanyl starts in China, where laboratories create precursor chemicals that are needed to manufacture the drug, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. The two most common ingredients are N-phenethylpiperidone and 4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine.

The compounds are then shipped to Mexico where cartels manufacture the drug before it is transported illegally across the border into the United States, according to Drug Enforcement Agency (pdf) in a 2020 report. The notorious Sinaloa and the New Generation Jalisco cartels are likely the primary trafficking groups responsible for smuggling fentanyl into the United States from Mexico.

While Mexico and China are the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States, India is emerging as a source for finished fentanyl powder and fentanyl precursor chemicals, the DEA also wrote.
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill.When Agatha Christies first novel was accepted by a publisher, he signed her to an exploitive five-novel deal for a pittance. The publisher believed that Christie was good for only a few books and thought after the five-book deal nothing would be heard from her again. It was the biggest publishing mistake in history because the crime writer went on to write 66 mystery novels and 14 collections of short stories making her the most popular and money-making author of all time (outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare).

Among those works, one of the best loved is Murder on the Orient Express, which is why so many films have been made of it. With that whodunit produced in so many forms, and with so many knowing its ending, is it possible to make a theatrical production of it worthwhile? The answer is a resounding yes, with the triumphant production of it now playing at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook, Illinois.

With an adaptation by Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Crazy for You), which adds humorous touches to the story but remains faithful to Christies novel, along with terrific direction, talented designers, and an exceptional cast, this new take on Christies engaging story makes for an intriguing and compelling production.

If begins with a tale of the very young Daisy Armstrong, who was kidnapped and murdered. The man responsible never paid for his crime, and a number of people are seeking justice. To that end, they come together on the luxurious Orient Express train. The story then unfolds as Samuel Ratchett, the man who supposedly committed the murder of the child, is stabbed to death.

Among the passengers on the train is Hercule Poirot, the legendary Belgian detective; hes on his way to London and just happens to be in the right place at the right time to solve the ghastly murder. Its not a cut-and-dried mystery, though: He is faced with internal conflict as his emotions pull him one way while his devotion to justice pulls him in the opposite direction.

Hercule Poirot (Larry Yando) discusses the crime with Countess Andreny (Diana Coates), in Murder on the Orient Express. (Brett Beiner)

In addition to the Story

With a masterful directorial touch by Jessica Fisch, the show does make one substantial change. The 12 suspects from Christies original story are trimmed down to 8. Furthermore, while Fisch does a nice job of adding comic moments, she is careful to balance the humor with the mystery, leaving the cliffhanger moments intact.

While the story itself is intriguing, a fascinating aspect of this production is the way in which the impression of a train moving through Europe is presented. Scenic designer Andrew Boyce does a remarkable job of suggesting the atmosphere of train travel in 1930s, complete with a moving stage in which one can almost feel the motion of clacking wheels, hear the sound of screeching brakes and high-pitched train whistles, with the huffing and puffing of a train engine, provided by sound designers Mikhail Fiksel and Jeffrey Levin (also the music composers).

The lighting design by Paul Toben also adds to the show. The opening scene plays like a black-and-white documentary, which then is transformed to color as the story moves from yesteryear to the present. Enhancing the suggestion of travel are lights that shine from within train compartments, swirling snow we see through the windows, and Anthony Churchills fascinating projections of the luxurious train moving across a continent.

The highlight of the show, though, that which brings it all together and makes it work, are the great performances by an extraordinary cast. The production r Larry Yando ises and falls on the actor portraying Hercule Poirot, and theres no doubt that Larry Yando is the perfect choice to play the eccentric detective. Indeed, Yando is one of the most mesmerizing actors in the Chicagoland theater scene, and is such a magnetic performer that one hangs on his every word.

(LR) Mr. Poirots helper Monsieur Bouc (Sean Blake), the soon to be murdered Samuel Ratchett (Keith Kupferer), and Hector MacQueen (Sam Boeck), Mr. Ratchetts assistant. (Brett Beiner)

Also contributing outstanding character portraits are Sean Blake as Monsieur Bouc, who is Poirots Watson to whom clues are constantly explained; the exceptional Keith Kupferer as the American gangster Ratchett; Sam Boeck as Hector MacQueen, Ratchetts assistant; Diana Coates as the elitist Countess Andreny; and Peggy Roeder as the Princess.

Even if you already know how the mystery ends, this is such an extraordinary and suspenseful production that youll be sitting at the edge of your seat throughout. And if youve never seen the enthralling Murder on the Orient Express before, be prepared for the escapist thrill of the year.

Murder on the Orient Express

Drury Lane Theatre

100 Drury Ln., Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.

Tickets: 630-530-0111 or DruryLaneOakBrook.com

Runs: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Closes: Oct. 23, 2022
Japanese retailer Aeon launched a new label in Vietnam, focusing on cheap everyday clothing, as an answer to brands like H&M or Uniqlo.

The new lineup, called My Closet, features around 400 items that cost 50%-75% that of its competitors, targeting 16- to 24-year old women, a group of consumers that is growing fast in terms of population and spending.

Its T-shirt, for example, costs around VND150,000 ($6). That of other Western or Japanese brands is usually priced at VND200,000-300,000.

"We aim to make it Aeon's first fast-fashion" foray, Aeon Vietnam General Director Yasuyuki Furusawa told Nikkei Asia.

Vietnam is becoming Aeons "most important market" as it tries to expand beyond Japan, with the local capacity of handling clothing production thanks to a cheap and abundant labor force, which can minimize risk of supply disruption and bring costs down.

It is also considering selling those items on Vietnamese e-commerce sites as well as in neighboring countries, Nikkei reported.

Aeon entered Vietnam in 2014, and has opened around 200 stores in the country, including supermarkets and six malls.

Its rivals, Uniqlo and H&M, entered the market in 2019 and 2017, respectively. They have less locations than Aeon, but are growing fast thanks to the rising middle class that have more money and are eager to shop.

Vietnam has a population of nearly 100 million -- behind only Indonesia and the Philippines in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- with a young average age of 33. Its economy grew at over 7% a year before the pandemic, and has been bouncing back as coronavirus curbs are removed.
Top Senator Wants Briefing on Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) says that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, needs to obtain a briefing on the documents taken from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence.

If some of these documents involved human intelligence, and that information got out, people will die, Warner claimed in an interview with CBS Face the Nation that aired on Sept. 11. If theres intelligence that has been shared with us by allies, and that is mishandled, all of that could be in jeopardy.

Neither the Department of Justice (DOJ) nor the FBI has elaborated on what documents were taken during the Aug. 8 raid. Prosecutors with the DOJ, in a heavily redacted affidavit that was unsealed last month, wrote there was probable cause to believe that allegedly classified materials remained at Mar-a-Lago and included a photo that purported to show TOP SECRET documents strewn about the floor of Trumps Florida home.

In social media posts, Trump said the TOP SECRET documents that appeared in a released photo may have been planted. The former commander-in-chief also indicated that the seized documents may have been declassified while he was still president, pointing to a memorandum that he issued declassifying some FBI Crossfire Hurricane material.

Now, we dont know whats in those documents, Warner conceded, adding that it is essential that the intelligence committee leadership at least gets a briefing of the damage assessment.

Special Master

Among other items, Trump said FBI agents took personal and medical records, tax files, and even his passports during the raid. The former president, who also has accused the bureau of searching former First Lady Melania Trumps closet and clothing, said officials within the DOJ have leaked information to the mainstream media about the case.

A federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, last week sided with Trumps lawyers last week and ordered the appointment of a special master to review the documents, which the DOJ sought to block. On Sept. 9, Trump and the DOJ submitted their special master candidates to Cannon.

Cannon, in concurring with Trumps lawyers, wrote that she has concerns about possible DOJ leaks and said such disclosures would cause damage to Trump.

Lawyers for the DOJ indicated the agency will appeal Cannons ruling on the special master, arguing that the hundreds of documents that were acquired from Mar-a-Lago cant be shielded by executive privilege, since Trump is no longer in office. Those materials, they said in a notification (pdf) on Sept. 8, are not Trumps personal records, and he has no legal right to have them.

Warner signaled to CBS that once we get clarification from the judge in Florida, the Intelligence Committee will make a decision.

I do not think we should have as- as the Intelligence Committee, a briefing on the ongoing investigation, he said. What our responsibility is, is to assess whether there has been damage done to our intelligence collection and maintenance of secrets capacity. That is a damage assessment, that frankly, even the judge in Florida has said, can continue.
One vial of the drug Remdesivir in a file photo. (Ulrich Perrey/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Uninformed Consent: 3 California Hospitals Face Lawsuits for Use of Remdesivir Protocol Attorneys Allege Led to Wrongful Death

Three hospitals in California face lawsuits alleging they treated patients with the controversial antiviral drug remdesivir without receiving informed consent, using a protocol which two attorneys allege led to wrongful death.

Daniel Watkins with Watkins & Letofsky and Michael Hamilton with Hamilton & Associates filed three complaintsone against Saint Agnes Medical Center, Community Regional Medical Center, and Clovis Community Medical Centerin the Superior Court of California in Fresno County on Sept. 7.

Clovis Medical Center Community Medical Center, Community Regional Medical Center, and Saint Agnes Medical Center told The Epoch Times that they couldnt comment on pending litigation.

Watkins and Hamilton discussed the lawsuit the day of the filing at an event called, Remdesivir Death: Landmark Lawsuit, where they were joined by medical advocates such as Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Bryan Ardis, Dr. Angie Farella, and Dr. Janci Linsay, all of whom have spoken out against the use of remdesivir.

Watkins said they filed the lawsuits on the behalf of 14 Fresno-area families who allege that the hospitals engaged in medical deception and failed to provide informed consent in relating the potential side effects, such as kidney failure.

Full informed consent means that patients must be provided with full information about the deadly harm that this dangerous experimental drug causes on its own, the lawsuit states. They must be told that the only time it was ever tested, it was pulled because it killed so many people.

The lawsuit references a study found in the New England Journal of Medicine in which a safety board found it to be the least effective and deadliest drug in the trial before it was suspended after 53 percent of the Ebola patients who took the drug died.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has said its the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat COVID-19.

Remdesivir received Emergency Use Authorization in or around May of 2020, after being recommended by an NIH panel that contained nine individuals with financial ties to its creator, Gilead Sciences, the lawsuit alleges. It is very nearly the equivalent of a death sentence for a COVID patient, or a patient with real Pneumonia (as opposed to covid pneumonia).

Without receiving informed consent before giving remdesivir, the hospitals violated the Nuremberg Code, the lawsuit states, which criminalizes human experimentation performed without informed consent.

In some cases, according to witness testimony, Watkins said in the conference that remdesivir was given even after the patients declined.

The Remdesivir Protocol

The lawsuit alleges that the patients were subjected to what it called The Remdesivir Protocol, which varies in each hospital.

A patient comes to the hospital often for a problem unrelated to COVID-19, the lawsuit says. They are told they have COVID-19 or COVID pneumonia.

From there, they are separated from loved ones and placed in a room where they are told remdesivir is the only option, the lawsuit says.

They are placed on a BiPap machine at a high rate, making it difficult for them to breathe, the lawsuit says. Their hands are often tied down so they cant take the BiPap machine off their face.

In many cases, the lawsuit says a psychiatrist will determine the patient agitated, which results in the sedation of the patient, making it difficult for them to fight the side effects of remdesivir especially as it relates to their ability to breathe against the side effects and against the BiPap machine.

Their phone and the signaling instrument for the nurse are typically placed beyond their reach, the lawsuit alleges.

The patients are also kept malnourished, and eventually intubated, the lawsuit states, where the patient then dies.

It takes a protocol patient about nine days to die on average, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit goes on to address federal financial incentives the hospital gets for each step in the protocol.

Hamilton, who is also a legal strategist with the medical, constitutional, and spiritual rights organization Truth for Health Foundation spearheaded by Dr. Lee Vliet, discussed what he said was the financial reward system for the protocols in the conference.

What Im going to speak about is the average charge rate for three categories of COVID victims, Hamilton said.

If a patient is treated and sent home, the average charge rate in California is $3,200, he said.

If you bring them into the hospital and treat them as a non-complex COVID patient, the average charge rate is $111,000, he said. However, if you treat them as a complex COVID patient, which means you have to either intubate them, or put them in intensive care, by definition they become complex, and for that the average charge rate is roughly $450,000.

On top of these charges, the hospitals get a bonus from the government by way of the International Classification of Diseases code that allows them to charge an extra 20 percent on the entire hospital stay, adding $90,000 to the $450,000.

So, you can see why theres a great incentive not to just give them something that works and send them home, but to actually bring them in, find a way to intubate them, call it a complex case, and get $500,000 instead of $3,200. Thats a tremendous financial incentive.

Personal Autonomy

The four causes of action listed in the lawsuit are fraudulent concealment leading to wrongful death, violation of the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, medical negligence leading to wrongful death, and medical battery leading to wrongful death, all of which are related to the allegation that the hospitals failed to adequately treat the patients.

During the conference, Watkins said they filed the lawsuit in hopes that it will spark the filing of many others because there are healthcare professionals and facilities across [nation] this doing this.

Fundamentally, personal autonomy in medical decisions is a right that we all have, and thats the real issue here, Watkins said.
Biden Delivers Speech as US Marks 21st Anniversary of Sept. 11 Attacks

The United States on Sept. 11 marked the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 dead and launched the United States into the decades-long war in Afghanistan.

In the morning, President Joe Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia.

President Joe Biden participates in a wreath-laying ceremony commemorating the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 11, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

America itself changed that day, Biden told the crowd near the building, which houses the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies. But what we will not change, and never will, is the character of this nation that the terrorists thought they could wound.

We regain the light by reaching out to one another, and finding something all too rare: a true sense of national unity, he added, although it came just over a week after he denigrated tens of millions of Trump supporters in a speech. To me, thats the greatest lesson of September 11th.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a ceremony commemorating the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 11, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A tolling bell and a moment of silence began the commemoration at ground zero in New York, where the World Trade Centers twin towers were destroyed by the hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Victims relatives and dignitaries also convened at Pentagon, which also was attacked that day, and a field in central Pennsylvania.

First Lady Jill Biden attended a memorial for United Airlines Flight 93 at an event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. That airliner crashed as flight attendants and the 40 passengers fought back against the hijackers, thwarting what was presumed to be an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Alleged Al-Qaeda conspirators had seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles.

This is the legacy we must carry forward: hope that defies hate. Love that defies loss. And the ties that hold us together through it all, she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff joined the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, but by tradition, no political figures speak at the ground zero ceremony. It centers instead on victims relatives reading aloud the names of the dead.

Members of New York Fire Department raise a U.S. flag at the 9/11 Memorial in New York on Sept. 11, 2022, on the 21st anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

People pay respects at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York on Sept. 11, 2022. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)

People pay respects at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York on Sept. 11, 2022. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)

Members of the military and first responders stand in salute as an American flag is unfurled on the side of the Pentagon to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 11, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Briefly United

Some commentators and officials offered reminders that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States experienced a period of brief unity.

Twenty-one years ago this morning, terrorists launched a brutal attack on our homeland and changed the course of American history, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. Though they murdered thousands of innocent people, they failed to rip apart the sacred American ideals they intended to destroy. Instead, in the hours, days, and years following the attacks, the American people rallied together, stood by our values, and unleashed our military might.

Smoke pours from the twin towers of the World Trade Center after they were hit by two hijacked airliners in a terrorist attack in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. (Robert Giroux/Getty Images)

Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York at the time, won national praise for his handling of the crisis and steady leadership.

But during a news conference last week, the Republican mayor wondered whether the United States could ever be that united again as it was in the aftermath of the attacks.

With all of the division and all of the turmoil we have, could we do it again? asked Giuliani, who represented former President Donald Trump following the 2020 election. All of a sudden, our country was in mortal peril. And everything stopped and we all came together. I think that would happen again.

One survivor recalled escaping the World Trade Centers North Tower after a plane slammed into the side of the building.

At first I thought it was an earthquake because the building shifted one way and then back the other, and then it started to shake, survivor David Paventi told Fox News Digital late last week. I started to go under the table because I didnt want the light to fall on me, but everyone rapidly started exiting the room.

People run away as the second tower of the World Trade Center crumbles after a plane hit the building in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. (Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images)

In the stairwell, there were not a lot of people coming from upstairs, Paventi recalled. That tells you what was going on a few flights up.

When trying to get down the stairs from the 81st floor, he said that there was a crowd of people who amassed.

A couple of times, wed sit there, and wed look at each other thinking, Should we try another stairwell?' he said of the group. There was one point when everyone got over so the firemen could run up. Here we were all trying to get out and all these guys coming up in full gear, carrying hoses.

I couldnt imagine running up to this fire, running up stairs, and knowing you still have 40, 50 flights to go.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Wisconsin hospital this week said it is withdrawing medical and religious exemptions for some employees from the hospitals COVID-19 vaccine mandate, giving those employees until Sept. 21 to get the Novavax vaccine.

This article was originally published by The Defender  Childrens Health Defenses News & Views Website

A Wisconsin hospital this week said it is withdrawing medical and religious exemptions for some employees from the hospitals COVID-19 vaccine mandate, giving those employees until Sept. 21 to get the Novavax vaccine.

Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, which operates 11 hospitals and more than 45 health centers and clinics throughout the midwest and employs more than 2,000 physicians, in an email said the Novavax vaccine option eliminates conflicts for those who originally declined COVID-19 vaccination for religious or medical reasons.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July granted Emergency Use Authorization of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and up. While the prior COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson used fetal cell lines from unborn fetuses in various stages of development and testing, the Novavax vaccine is made differently and does not use human fetal cell lines.

Froedtert employees who dont get the first Novavax dose by Sept. 21 will be terminated as Froedtert will consider them to have voluntarily resigned, the company said.

The hospital said in a statement:

Froedtert Health requires staff and providers be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a federal requirement that is monitored for compliance. We join many other health systems around southeast Wisconsin and the U.S. that have made vaccination a condition of employment.

The Novavax vaccination for COVID-19 is now available. This protein-based vaccination option eliminates conflicts for those staff with religious or medical exemptions caused by mRNA-based vaccines and other concerns.

Since those staff are now eligible for a vaccination that does not conflict with their religious beliefs or medical situation, their exemption will expire. This affects a small percentage of staff with a vaccine exemption. Eligible staff continue to be exempt from a COVID-19 vaccine for religious and medical reasons.

Froedtert Health respects the right of staff and providers to engage in activity protected by state and federal law.

A Froedtert employee who spoke anonymously to WISN 12 News on Wednesday said Froedterts abrupt demand will have negative repercussions.

Anyone in healthcare knows were very understaffed and overworked right now and this is just going to take away a lot of nurses from the bedside, she said. This will affect patient care and safety.

Although according to Froedtert, as of October 2021  their most recent count  nearly 99% of their employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19, the employee said she thought about 100 nurses would be affected.

The employee, a Catholic, said the previous vaccines were against her religious beliefs because of the ingredients. However, the Novavax vaccine also goes against her religious beliefs, she said.

Now that were two, almost three years into this [COVID-19 pandemic] and we know more, we should be able to make our own educated decision, she said.

She added:

Its my body, my temple. God is within us. If were uncomfortable, or not sure about something, then we shouldnt do it.

The employee said shes presently unsure what she will do.

I carry the health insurance for our family. I have a week to decide if I feel comfortable taking this vaccine otherwise I honestly dont know. I dont know if any other healthcare facilities in this area even take exemptions, she said.

Froedtert officials said their recent exemption withdrawal complies with federal regulations that mandate all employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have legitimate religious or medical exemptions.

Mark Goldstein, an employment lawyer, told WISN 12 News employees affected by the mandate could attempt to recast their religious exemption as a more generalized claim.

Quick frankly, he added, some of it depends on how strident they are in that regard.

The hospitals requirement is that employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but not that they have to get the new Omicron-specific booster shot made by Pfizer and Moderna.

Novavax Pushed on Unvaccinated Despite Safety Concerns

As The Defender reported in late July when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults age 18 and up, Operation Warp Speed in 2020 awarded Novavax  which like Moderna, had never brought a product to market before COVID-19  a secret contract worth $1.6 billion (now being reported as $1.8 billion).

It was one of the largest taxpayer handouts channeled through Operation Warp Speed.

The media characterized the Novavax injection as a game changer in comparison to the mRNA and adenovirus-vectored gene therapy shots, claiming it should be reassuring to those who are hesitant.

In fact, according to the CDCs advisors, the unvaccinated represent the primary target population for Novavax.

Some media outlets claimed Novavax  made with recombinant moth-cell-based nanoparticle technology, the problematic surfactant polysorbate 80 and a never-before-approved nanoparticulate adjuvant called Matrix-M  is free of side effects.

However, the day after the FDA issued its Novavax authorization, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) updated its product information for the Novavax shot to disclose new side effects.

The EMAs list of side effects included severe allergic reaction [anaphylaxis] and unusual or decreased feeling in the skin (called paresthesia and hypoesthesia, respectively).

In addition, the EMA said it would assess myocarditis and pericarditis as Novavax side effects  safety signals that also were on display in the FDAs briefing document on Novavax.

And in clinical trials, older adults who received the Novavax vaccine experienced an increased incidence of hypertension compared to those in the placebo group.

Not as Traditional as Portrayed

The Novavax vaccine relies on a protein-based technology used for decades, leading some media outlets to portray it as a traditional vaccine compared with other COVID-19 vaccines that use newer technologies.

But according to Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist with a special interest in vaccine-induced illnesses, chronic fatigue syndrome and toxicology, the medias portrayal of Novavax as a more traditional vaccine is not accurate.

Nass, a member of the Childrens Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory committee, pointed out that the Novavax shot contains a novel adjuvant, Matrix-M, so it is not really an old-fashioned shot.

Nass raised safety concerns specific to the adjuvant, while others voiced concerns about Novavax being linked to heart inflammation and blood clots, and the fact that the vaccine was designed for use against the original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2  not the Omicron variants that are dominant today.

Adjuvant Used in Novavax Linked to Autoimmune Disease

Because Novavax is a protein subunit vaccine, it uses just the spike protein as the antigen rather than the whole pathogen (an inactivated or attenuated virus). Using the whole pathogen would expose the host to the virus entire protein coat instead of just one protein.

Protein subunit vaccines are often less immunogenic (less likely to provoke the immune system) than vaccines that use whole pathogens as the antigen, and may not generate a strong enough immune response.

Thats why they require the use of an adjuvant  in this case, Matrix-M  in addition to the antigen to get a stronger immune response.

However, few adjuvants are both potent and non-toxic enough for clinical use.

The proposed primary series for Novavax is two intramuscular injections 21 days apart at the dose level of 5 g of the recombinant spike protein and 50 g of the Matrix-M adjuvant.

Matrix-M, originally called QS-21, was one of the saponins derived from Quillaja saponaria, which is the soap bark tree native to Chile.

Some reports point out that the Matrix-M adjuvant  unlike the polyethylene glycol (PEG) lipid used in mRNA vaccines  is not linked to anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction), making it more attractive to people who are allergic to PEG.

But according to Nass, while its true that Matrix-M  which is not found in any other vaccines in the U.S.  isnt linked to anaphylaxis, it is linked to autoimmune diseases.

While touted as a replacement for the PEG lipid found in the mRNA vaccine, Matrix-M is less likely to cause anaphylaxis but more likely to cause autoimmune diseases, Nass said.

Nass voiced other safety concerns about Novavax technology, including the use of moth cells.

According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where Novavax Phase 3 clinical trials were conducted, the Novavax vaccine uses moth cells to create a nanotechnology version of the COVID-19 spike protein.

Nass said insect cells can be used to grow proteins rapidly. There is one flu vaccine made the same way: Flublok, Nass said. Flublok is one of two egg-free flu vaccines licensed for use in the U.S.

How many insect and viral proteins or other molecules are being injected into you when you get the Novavax vaccine  which is a function of how purified the vaccine is  is unknown, Nass said.

Novavax Still Uses the Spike Protein

The SARS-CoV-2 virus encodes 29 proteins, but Novavax  like Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson  chose to target only the spike protein.

As previously reported in The Defender, it is not known if the spike protein itself is safe.

We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein, said Byram Bridle, Ph.D., associate professor of viral immunology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. It is a toxin. It can cause damage to our body if it gets into circulation.

According to Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., CHDs chief scientific officer, If you wanted to pick the most toxic protein, you know what represents the highest virulence, the highest amount of damage on the COVID-19 virus? You would pick the spike protein.

The spike protein has been consistently shown to create clotting issues in the blood, Hooker said.

This article was originally published by The Defender  Childrens Health Defenses News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC

BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Childrens Health Defense.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.
NORWALK  A man was arrested Saturday night after allegedly assaulting a police officer attempting to break up a fight, police said.

Ezekial Syphrette, 31, of Quintard Avenue, was charged with assault of a police officer, interfering with a police officer and breach of peace, officials said in a release.

Officers working at the Oyster Festival were notified of a fight between youths near the Kids Cove just before 10 p.m. Saturday, officials said. They headed over there and broke up two altercations.

While escorting one of the juveniles that had been fighting out to Seaview Avenue, an officer was attacked by two males. One male jumped on the officer, while the second male repeatedly punched the officer in the head. As additional officers ran to assist, one male suspect fled into the crowd, police said. The other male, who was identified as Ezekiel Syphrette, continued his assault on the officer, tearing the officers shirt in the process.

The officer, along with colleagues, brought Syphrette to the ground, police said.

The officers head struck a gate during the process, according to the department.

He was later treated for a head injury and a broken arm at Norwalk Hospital, then released, police said.

Mayor Harry Rilling condemned the alleged assault in a Sunday statement.

I unequivocally condemn the violent actions that occurred last night when two individuals attacked an on-duty police officer and sent him to the hospital. We demand accountability and will do everything possible to identify and charge any persons involved in this senseless act of violence. It's unconscionable that this happened in our community at the Oyster Festival, which is a long-standing community event in Norwalk that brings people together, said Rilling. This act of violence is counter to the principles of community, safety and love that we espouse as Norwalkers and as your Mayor, I will not stand for it.

Syphrette was given a $100,000 bond and scheduled to appear in court on Monday, police said.

Anyone with information regarding the second alleged attacker can contact the Norwalk Police Department at 203-854-3051.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WASHINGTON (AP)  When Jill Biden realized that terrorists had attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001, her husband, Joe, wasn't the only loved one whose safety she worried about.

Biden recalled being scared to death that her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant, was on one of the four hijacked airplanes that were flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people.

After learning that her sister was safe at her Pennsylvania home, I went straight to Bonny's house, Biden told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday as she and her sister remembered that day.

On Sunday, Jill Biden, now the first lady, marked the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by delivering remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania  accompanied by Jacobs.

The 40 passengers and crew aboard that United Airlines flight fought back against their hijackers, thwarting a feared attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

I called Bonny to see where she was because I was scared to death ... I didnt know where she was, whether she was flying, not flying, where she was, Jill Biden recalled in the AP interview. And then I found out she was home.

Biden had gone to teach her class at Delaware Technical Community College, then went straight to her sister's house after school was dismissed.

Joe Biden, then a U.S. senator, was on an Amtrak train barreling toward Washington when his wife got through to him. They were on the phone when she cried out, Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God after an airplane hit the second World Trade Center tower.

Jacobs said she had gotten home around 2 a.m. on Sept. 11 after a late flight. She slept a little, got up to help get her kids, then 11 and 7, off to school, turned off her phone and went back to bed.

So when I got up around noon, it was such a gorgeous day, she said. I had my coffee. I sat outside. I literally said out loud, Im doing nothing today. This day is gorgeous.

She saw the phone when she went inside. Jill had left a message asking if she'd been watching television. She turned it on and saw replays of the attack on the World Trade Center.

I started to shake, Jacobs said, adding that she went upstairs to get dressed and put my clothes on inside out and spent the rest of the day watching TV.

And then the first person that came to the house was Jill, she said. I hadnt called her to come, but she just showed up, and she was there for me, as usual.

Jacobs said she usually flies on the Sept. 11 anniversary to pay tribute to her fallen United Airlines colleagues and as a way of distracting herself because it's so upsetting. But she wanted to be with the first lady in Shanksville to offer the same kind of support her big sister has given her.

It's such a special moment to be together with her," Jacobs said. She was there for me at the time that it happened and she actually is always there for me. She is my rock. Everybody should have a rock in their life, and she is mine.

And its such as special thing to share it with her as a flight attendant and that shes there, you know, supporting us, Jacobs said.

Besides laying a wreath at the memorial and delivering remarks, the first lady was joined by members of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA to honor the Flight 93 crew members.

In her remarks at Shanksville, Jill Biden said that after the shock of 9/11 settled into sorrow and she had spoken with her husband and children, her thoughts turned to her sister, who continues to work as a flight attendant with United Airlines.

Its a job that she has loved for many years, and I knew that the weight of this tragedy would be heavier for her, the first lady said. When I got to her house, I realized that I was right. She hadnt just lost colleagues. She had lost friends.

She added: But I know that, as we learned more about that dark day, she felt pride for what happened here as well, pride that it was her fellow flight attendants and the passengers of United Flight 93 who fought back, who helped stop the plane from taking an untold number of lives in our nations capital."

Joe Biden, now president, commemorated the day at the Pentagon. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were at the New York remembrance.

On 9/11, then-Sen. Biden arrived in Washington to see smoke in the sky from the crash at the Pentagon. He wanted to go to the floor of the Senate, but the Capitol and the surrounding complex of offices and official buildings, including the Supreme Court, had been evacuated.

He was turned away by Capitol police, who said there was a risk that the building was a target.

Jill Biden said in her interview that scores of lives were saved  including possibly her husband's  by the actions of everyone aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

That plane was headed for the U.S. Capitol, and so I think its important that every year we go to Shanksville and we remember those who fought: the flight attendants, the captains, the pilots, all of those who fought to save those lives, the first lady said.

She said her 9/11 message is, We will never forget. We will never forget.

There were so many things swirling that day because I was worried about Joes safety, but I just could not imagine that my sister was on one of those flights," the first lady said.

I dont know what word I want to use. I was so worried and I dont even think thats strong enough," she added.

Jacobs interjected to say 9/11 was surreal.

Jill Biden added: The whole thing was so surreal, but I was just, you know, just really praying that she was not on one of those flights.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and five university students have filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari, asking the court to declare unlawful the refusal by the Federal Government to meet ASUUs demands, which has occasioned the prolonged strike action and violated the students right to quality education.

Joined in the suit as Defendants are the Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Chris Ngige, and Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN.

The suit followed the apparent lack of commitment by the Federal Government to implement the agreements with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and to end the over seven-month-old industrial action by the union, and the threat by the government to implement its no work, no pay policy.

In the suit number NICN/ABJ/269/2022 filed last week at the National Industrial Court, Abuja, SERAP and the students are seeking: an order directing President Buhari and Mr Ngige to immediately implement all the agreements with ASUU in order to end the strike action and violation of the students right to quality education.

According to SERAP and the students: Disruption of classes undermines both the quality and duration of students education. This situation has aggravated existing disparities in access to university education in the country, further marginalizing economically disadvantaged parents and students.

The suit filed on behalf of SERAP and the students by their lawyer Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, read in part: The Federal Government has failed to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the right to quality education, and the right to freedom of association through the principle of collective bargaining.

Although Nigeria has ratified several human rights treaties, which guarantee the right to quality education of Nigerian students, the Federal Government has over the years refused to meet the demands by ASUU, and to address the poor environment in the countrys universities.

The students who are co-claimants in the suit are Dongo Daniel Davou; Oyebode Joshua Babafemi; Ejie Kemkanma; Peter Itohowo Aniefiok; and Imam Naziru. They are students of Plateau State University, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Port Harcourt, University of Uyo, and University of Ibadan, respectively.

The failure to implement the agreements with ASUU is also a fundamental breach of the right to education without discrimination or exclusion, as strike actions continue to penalize economically disadvantaged parents who have no means or capacity to send their children to private schools.

Equal access of Nigerian children and young people to quality and uninterrupted education including at the university level would contribute to producing citizens who are fundamentally equal and people who actively participate in society.

It would enable people to enjoy the rights as well as fulfil obligations that are associated with citizenship.

SERAP had earlier advised President Buhari to recover the N105.7 billion stolen public funds and utilizesame in addition to specified percentages of the N3.6 billion feeding and travels allowances for the President and the N134 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2022 Budget to meet the legitimate demands by ASUU.

Apart from being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education is a public good.

Education creates the voice through which rights can be claimed and protected, and without education people lack the capacity to achieve valuable functioning as part of the living.

Nigerias public tertiary institutions have continued to experience a steady decline. The quality of public education offered is low and standards have continued to drop. The learning environment does not promote effective learning.

The right to bargain freely with employers with respect to conditions of work constitutes an essential element in freedom of association, and trade unions including ASUU should have the right to seek to improve the living and working conditions of those whom they represent.

The Federal Government has continued to ignore the plights of teeming undergraduates, who have been denied access to quality education due to the lingering strike action occasioned by the continued reluctance of the Defendants and their agents to implement the agreements with ASUU.

The breach of the agreements by the Federal Government clearly provides a reasonable basis for ASUU members to exercise their right to strike as a last resort. It is unlawful to punish the members simply for peacefully exercising their right.

Nigerian students in public universities have suffered many years of disruption as a result of the failure of governments to address the root causes of strike action by ASUU and to faithfully implement the agreements reached with the union, leading to devastating consequences on the right to equal and quality higher education.

The Federal Government has breached the explicit right to equal access to higher education of Nigerian children and young people, as provided for by article 13(2)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Providing Nigerian children and young people equal access to education should be the core public service functions of the Federal Government.

Owing to poor funding, poor remuneration system, unconducive learning and training environments in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, ASUU after a protracted strike action concluded the FGN-ASUU 2009 Agreement in October 2009.

According to reports and available evidence, the FGN-ASUU Initialled 2009 Agreement sought among others, the resolution of the following underlyingissues: proper funding of public tertiary institutions to the tune of N1.3trillion to be implemented across a period of 4 years between 2009 and 2013.

It was agreed that the N1.3 trillion funding of Government-owned tertiary institutions would span between years 2014 and 2018. It was also agreed that the sum of N200 billion Naira would be released to public tertiary institutions in 2013 while a tranche of N220 billion Naira was to be paid yearly between 2014 and 2018.

However, according to reports, only the sum of N200 billion Naira was released in 2014 and no other sum, apart from the sum of N20 billion Naira released in 2019 was paid to the institutions.

SERAP and the students are also seeking the following reliefs:

A DECLARATION that the refusal of the Defendants to implement the terms of the FGN-ASUU Renegotiated 2009 Agreements and the 2020 Memorandum of Action which has occasioned the prolonged strike action is unlawful, inconsistent and incompatible with Nigerias human rights obligations and violates the students right to quality education. A DECLARATION that the acts of the Defendants and their agents in withholding the remunerations of the members of ASUU for the period of the strike while at the same time paying members of sister staff unions is discriminatory and in violation of ASUU members right to freedom of association, right to strike and collective bargaining. AN ORDER directing the Defendants and their agents to implement forthwith the terms of the Renegotiated 2009 Agreement and the 2020 Memorandum of Action in order to put an end to the strike action and desist from further violation of the rights of the Nigerian students to quality education. AN ORDER mandating the Defendants and their agents to immediately release and pay all the withheld and outstanding remunerations, salary, allowances and other emoluments both for the period and outside the period of the current strike action to all members of ASUU. AN ORDER OF PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restraining the Defendants and their agents from unlawfully reneging, rescinding and/or refusing to implement the Renegotiated FGN-ASUU 2009 Agreement and the 2020 Memorandum. SUCH FURTHER orders the Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstances of this suit.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.

Kolawole Oluwadare

SERAP Deputy Director

11/9/2022

Lagos, Nigeria

Emails: [email protected] ; [email protected]

Twitter: @SERAPNigeria

Website: www.serap-nigeria.org

For more information or to request an interview, please contact us on: +2348160537202
A man was arrested early Sunday morning, two days after he robbed VND600 million (US$25,450) from a bank in the southern province of Dong Nai using a revolver.

Le Huy Dung, 34, was caught at 1 a.m. near the Long Duc Industrial Zone in Long Thanh District, Dong Nai, said Major General Nguyen Sy Quang, director of the Dong Nai Police department.

"He admitted all wrongdoings and told us where he hid the money, his gun and the vehicle he used to escape, as well as other evidence," Quan said.

"Dung said he needed the money to repay debts he incurred from gambling and betting."

Le Huy Dung and the revolver he used in the robbery. Photo by VnExpress/Quoc Thang

The police have confiscated his gun and all the money he robbed from the bank.

At around 3 p.m. Thursday, Dung walked into a Vietcombank branch near the Tam Phuoc Industrial Park in Bien Hoa Town, around 45 km northeast of HCMC. He pulled out a gun, threatened the staff, and forced them to give him the money.

He put the money in a black plastic bag and ran out. When people chased after him, he fired a few shots to scare them off and managed to escape.
The President Muhammadu Buhari has said the United Kingdom under the late rulership of Queen Elizabeth II backed Nigeria state during the Biafran civil war.

The President made this disclosure, on Saturday, during a condolence visit to the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing at her residence in Abuja.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, who represented the President, said the UK during the Civil War between 1967 and 1970 supported the unity of Nigeria.

He said the Queen on two occasions visited Nigeria where she spent about 20 days visiting different towns adding they are partnering to deal with the insurgency in the country.

Buhari said: We have maintained very close ties with the monarchy. She was a very gracious and elegant queen. For the purposes of remembrance, the fact is that 90 per cent of Nigerians do not know any monarch in the UK other than the queen. We welcome the new king and we look forward to a strong working relationship with the UK.

They have been a very strong ally even in the midst of our difficult time during the Biafran war; they stood for the indivisibility of the Nigerian state, supported and ensured that we overcame that problem.

We are partnering to deal with the insurgency so that it doesnt overwhelm us. They have always stood as a very strong ally.

The head of the commonwealth to which we belong. Not only that, she was the head of state for three years from 1960 to 1963 and when we became a republic she ceased to be. We have had very close ties with the queen. She visited the country twice; first in 1953 when she spent about 20 days visiting different towns, and the second one was in 2003 during president Olusegun Obasanjos tenure.
Awka Development Union, Nigeria, (ADUN,) the umbrella body of indegenes of the Community has commended the Governor of Anambra State, Prof Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, for ensuring that rule of law is entrenched in the state, particularly in Awka.

The Commendation was contained in a letter signed by the Traditional Ruler of the Community, Obi Gibson Nwosu, Traditional Prime Minister of the Community, Chief Engr. Ben Okoye, among others.

The letter came on the heels of the State government's position on an individual who is parading himself as the traditional ruler of Awka.

It reads:

Letter Of Commendation To Mr. Governor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo For Protecting And Preserving Awka Native Laws, Customs And Traditions, Upholding The Rule Of Law And Restoring Order And Sanctity In The Traditional Affairs Of Awka Community

"We write as members of Awka Development Union Nigeria (ADUN), the Eze-In-Council of Awka Traditional stool and on behalf of other progressive indigenes of Awka Community to commend Mr Governor for the proactive actions you deployed towards forestalling the desecration of Awka sacred customs and tradition, upholding the rule of law and restoring order and sanctity in the administration of the traditional affairs of the prestigious Awka community as well as other communities in Anambra State.

We received with immense joy the decisions and executive actions of Mr Governor to nip in the bud the actions of the imposter whom had attempted for years without success to usurp the Traditional Stool of Awka Community. His actions in the past years had become a thorn in the flesh of the good and peaceful indigenes of Awka and had in no small measure cast an untrue image of the customs and traditions of the Awka people.

Our gratitude know no bound with respect to your timely and bold intervention, Mr Governor in these issues. We write to convey our profound gratitude to you. Your good spirited actions have restored hope in the minds of those whom had lost hope in the progress of our community, it has given new strength to the young and old of our community to continue to push forward for the development of our community. Thank you Mr. Governor.

The people rejoice when the righteous come to power; we are doubly confident that Anambra state is in the best hand. The solution is here; Mr Governor must succeed, and the good people of Awka will give whatever it takes to ensure that you achieve your visions for Anambra State and her people. Anambra State will be great again." The letter concluded
Majority not satisfied with Prawits performance as caretaker PM: Poll

BANGKOK: A majority of people are not satisfied with Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwons performance as caretaker prime minister, according to the result of an opinion survey by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll.

politics

By Bangkok Post

Sunday 11 September 2022, 10:29AM

Prawit Wongsuwon speaks during his visit to Krabi last Monday (Sept 5). Photo: PRD

The poll was conducted on Sept 5-7 in telephone interviews with 1,312 people aged 18 of various levels of education, occupations and incomes to compile their opinions on Gen Prawits performance during the past two weeks as caretaker prime minister after the Constitutional Court ordered Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha suspended from duties pending the courts ruling on his 8-year tenure, reports the Bangkok Post.

Asked whether it would be appropriate for Gen Prawit, in his caretaker position, to reshuffle the Cabinet, most of them, 58.92% said no - with 46.34% saying it would not be appropriate at all and 12.58% said it would not be appropriate. On the other side, 21.57% said yes, very much, and 16.00% said it would be quite appropriate.

The rest, 3.51%, had no answer or were not interested.

Asked whether it would be appropriate for Gen Prawit to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a new election, a large majority, 80.34%, said "yes" - with 63.80% saying it would be most appropriate and 16.54% fairly appropriate. On the other side, 13.95% said it would not be appropriate at all and 4.40% not quite appropriate.

The rest, 0.91%, had no answer or were not interested.

Finally, when asked whether they were satisfied with Gen Prawits performance as caretaker prime minister during the past two weeks, a majority, 63.72%, said no  with 41.46% being not satisfied at all and 22.26% not quite satisfied. On the other side, 22.87% said they were fairly satisfied and 8.46% most satisfied.

The rest, 4.95%, had no answer or were not interested.
Phuket Opinion: Taxi cartels losing the turf war

PHUKET: The declaration by Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay Rodkwan Yodrabham on Friday (Sept 9) that Phuket taxi drivers must do better has to be a contender for understatement of the year.

opiniontourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Sunday 11 September 2022, 10:00AM

Photo: The Phuket News / file

Vice Governor Amnuay delivered his message at a meeting of taxi drivers to rehearse the rules and regulations governing taxi drivers, their behaviour and operations.

That meeting was held in response to four tourists arriving from Phi Phi Island being forced to exit a taxi van they had ordered by the Bolt app. The tourists were forced to take a Ratsada VIP taxi operating at the pier under a concession  an act that saw the taxi group branded as mafia in a slew of comments posted online.

If the taxi drivers havent noticed, the Ratsada Pier incident happened only because the tourists, young women from Israel, were already aware of booking a taxi by a phone app, and thus bypassing the organised drivers and their paid-for exclusive rights to passengers at specific locales through a concession.

Even Pol Col Pichetpong Jangklaikom, Chief of the Tourist Police Region 3 branch, based in Phuket, after conducting a very quick investigation of the incident warned, We must be careful because of the use of social media. If there is an incident, there will be an effect.

That message obviously didnt get through to Adcha Buachan, Chief of the Phuket Land Transport Office (PLTO), whose first public response to the incident was to threaten people using private cars as taxis with the full extent of the law.

Dumbfoundingly, Mr Adcha seemed to not have understood that his warning would also make its way across social media, only entrenching peoples understanding of exactly how Phukets taxi groups operate and who protects their interests.

The warning had absolutely no relevance to the Ratsada Pier incident. The van the Israeli tourists had ordered was confirmed by police and the PLTO itself to be fully legally registered as a commercial passenger vehicle complete with yellow and black licence plates.

Ironically, it has been the taxi driver directly involved in the Ratsada Pier incident, Ekachai Decha, who has so far painted a very clear picture of the taxi cartels stranglehold on access to tourists in Phuket.

In Mr Ekachais denial that the Ratsada Pier drivers were mafia, he plainly said, Why dont you call the taxi drivers at the airport mafia? It is a B2,000 fine for any taxi driver not belonging to that group being caught there. Yes, Mr Ekachai, most people do; and yes, not all cartels in Phuket are the same and most do not work in alliance with each other.

Phuket Mai Khao Sakhu Co Ltd (PMK) and Phuket Limousine and Business Services Cooperative (PBC) are the two companies that have rights to operate taxis at Phuket International Airport under a concession with Airports of Thailand (AoT).

With AoT defined this week as a state enterprise, despite shares being traded on the stock exchange, that makes the taxi concession at Phuket airport a state-enforced monopoly. Period. As such, senior Land Transport officials will even fly down from Bangkok to protect the taxi drivers interests. After all, why pay if there is no protection?

That model has been replicated all across the island. As Col Pichetpong confirmed with the Ratsada VIP concession, The concession is fully legal and allowed under the regulations of the Land Transport Office. That means all such taxi concessions in Phuket are fully legal, state-enforced micro-monopolies.

What the money grabbers and taxi cartels have yet to understand is that while they are burying their heads in the sand, everyday people are making the decision for them, turning to apps such as Grab and Bolt to hire taxis, with Phuket taxi cartels losing their turf war. Everyday people are finally achieving what Phukets metered taxis have never been able to do.

However, Phuket airport remains a bastion of taxi concession power on the island, where tourists arriving have no choice but walk to the main road outside to be picked up by Bolt or Grab drivers. Bolt and Grab are allowed at Suvarnabhumi airport. There is no reason why Phuket airport should be any different.

See also:

Phuket Opinion: Being taken for a ride
Police remember fallen officers

PHUKET: National Police Commissioner Lt Gen Suwat Chaengyodsuk was in Phuket today (Sept 11) to officiate the unveiling of a memorial to commemorate 103 officers of the Region 8 Police who have died in the line of duty.

police

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Sunday 11 September 2022, 04:43PM

The event today coincides with the 28th anniversary of the formation of Region 8 Police, which oversees all police operations in the seven Upper Southern Thailand provinces of Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Ranong, Surat Thani, Chumphon and Nakhon Si Thammarat.

Region 8 Police for nearly 22 years were originally based in Surat Thani, but moved to their new headquarters at Tha Chatchai at the northern end of the island in 2015. The new base of operations, covering 185 rai, was built at a cost of B169 million.

As part of the official opening of the memorial today, Lt Gen Suwat laid wreaths to remember the 103 officers of the Region 8 Police who lost their lives while on duty.

Also present for todays officiating was Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn, along with Region 8 Police Commander Amphol Buarabporn and a host of other top-ranking local police officers, their wives and other members from locals groups and the local community.

Lt Gen Suwat praised the fallen officers as brave heroes.

Its hard to find anyone to compare to as such good role models than police officers, he said.

Lt Gen Suwat also read a prayer to commemorate the merits of those who served with dedication and sacrifice of personal happiness for the well-being of the people even at the cost of their own lives.

Your goodness will be etched in our hearts forever. May the souls of all heroes rest in peace in the world," Lt Gen Suwat said.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
This year weve seen a lot of turmoil in the economy, and a hot job market thats presented challenges for employers looking for employees.

In March the number of job openings in the United States went up to 11.86 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thats the highest level in records that date back 20 years, Christopher Rugaber reported in an AP story.

At that level, there are nearly two job openings for every unemployed person, Rugaber wrote. Thats a sharp reversal from the historic pattern: Before the pandemic, there were always more unemployed people than available jobs.

Also, the number of people quitting their jobs remained near record highs at 4.4 million in April.  Nearly all of those who quit do so to take another job, typically for higher pay.

The number of job openings has declined a bit since March, and was at 10.7 million at the end of June.

Like many industries, the mining industry has been faced with challenges in this job market.

When Elko Daily staff spent time at the Elko Mining Expo in June, the most common comments they heard from people in the mining industry were about the problems they were having getting employees.

We visited with Tyre Gray, the president of the Nevada Mining Association, and checked in with Nevada Gold Mines, the largest mining employer in Nevada, for some comments on the employment situation in the mining industry.

NVMA

NVMA President Tyre Gray said the mining industry in Nevada has had roughly 1,000 open positions for a while. He said if mining companies successfully fill those 1,000 positions, there would be many benefits for every single Nevadan.

If a person who is unemployed or under-employed gets a job, that can get them off state programs. That frees up money for others who need help from the social safety net.

If a company fills its vacant positions, that can help it operate more efficiently and profitably, creating more tax revenue.

So its really a win-win-win situation, Gray said.

If the mining industry hired 1,000 more people in Nevada, and those employees made an average income of $100,000, that adds up to an additional $100 million in salaries in the state.

Theres a huge induced benefit, Gray said. Thats $100 million extra flowing into the economy. And thats only through the direct payment in salaries and wages to those folks. Taking into account that the mining industry also provides for employer-paid health care, that means youre going to have 1,000 extra people who have good health care, possibly 1,000 extra families that have good health care. And then we also make contributions toward your retirement, so those are 1,000 extra people who are going to be able to retire with dignity.

The NVMA has been working on a variety of programs to help attract more people to seek employment in the mining industry.

One of the programs, Mining Vegas for Talent, reaches out to people in southern Nevada who may not be familiar with mining, including veterans and people living in lower socioeconomic areas.

The NVMA has been looking to other industries with some similarities to mining to find possible strategies for seeking new employees.

We recognize that employment in the mining space means that youre probably going to be living in a rural community or youre going to be commuting. We see it similar to truck driving. We know long-haul truck drivers will go out for three to four days, and be able to be home for three to four days.

So weve been trying to learn from the truck driving model to help recruit.

Mining is a very lucrative industry. Its going to require you be away from home every now and then, but when youre home, youre home, and theres a lot of value to being able to provide for your family.

Thats what the American dream is all about, being able to make sure that you can take care of you and yours and have a little fun in the process.

One of the interesting changes during and since the pandemic, Gray said, is that more people who live in cities are considering rural living as a positive opportunity. That may inspire some people to give more serious consideration to pursuing a job in mining.

Thats an opportunity to be able to grow our workforce, and were looking forward to it, he said.

Gray said he sees the recruitment of more people into the mining industry as a 2D program. We need to Diversify  consider new approaches to finding new employees  and we need to Demystify.

Theres a demystification that has to happen in mining, Gray said. If you dont know anything about what modern mining looks like, you are subject to thinking that working at a mine site means youre going to be swinging a pickaxe. And we know thats not the case.

So I think as we continue to educate the everyday Nevadan and the everyday American about what modern mining actually looks like here in Nevada and across America, youll continue to see people actually consider mining as an industry that they would want to work for. And thats something that we are squarely focused on at the association.

NGM

Nevada Gold Mines provided answers to some questions about the companys efforts to find more employees.

How many vacancies do you have at this point?

Currently, we have just under 500 vacancies at some stage of the recruiting process; and, given our growth plans, we expect to continue to recruit at about the same rate.

Is Nevada Gold Mines having more difficulty than in years past in finding enough employees to approach being fully staffed?

Along with many other companies during the pandemic-fueled great resignation, Nevada Gold Mines experienced an increase in turnover, and the team has been focused on retaining our current workforce and attracting new talent into the organization. Our current annualized turnover is 19%.

It has been more difficult to recruit post-pandemic. However, despite these obstacles, we are filling our vacancies with hard-working, dedicated employees who want a long-term career with us. To attract the talent we need, we are continuously highlighting the challenging and rewarding career opportunities that are available across our organization. We are also working with our educational and industry partners to emphasize the benefits of working in the mining industry and living in our communities.

While working in mining can be demanding with 12-hour work schedules, often paired with long commutes, it also affords multiple days off in a row. Further, at NGM, we prioritize supporting the aspirations of every individual with ongoing development and learning opportunities. We offer competitive pay, first-class benefits, company-sponsored medical clinics, 401k retirement plans, and much more, all of which allows for a high-quality life  in some of the best, close-knit communities in Nevada.

What kind of programs are you involved in to find more employees?

To ensure a sustainable future, mining as an industry must attract the next generation of workers. That is why NGM is building a talent pipeline to ensure that it has the employees it needs well into the future.

So far this year, NGM has hosted three career fairs and participated in 59 other recruiting events. At these fairs and events, NGM representatives meet with candidates to learn more about them and provide them with information about careers in the mining industry, our communities, our organization, and specific jobs available. At career fairs, we also conduct interviews with attendees and often make offers to join our team.

Each year, NGM offers internships to provide college students an opportunity to work directly with our industry professionals to grow vital skills and knowledge to succeed in their specialty. We hosted 104 interns from our partner universities this summer. We also employ summer students from our local communities and provide scholarship programs.

We also understand the importance of skilled trades training to meet the local workforce demands and offer career development options for new entrants into mining. NGM supports a myriad of programs.

Great Basin College programs:

Welding Lab: Approved through NGMs Community Development Committee process was our $300,000 investment to GBC to support their welding lab expansion. This initiative will allow the college to increase the number of graduates able to complete the program, providing more skilled workers to support the growing needs of the area.

Maintenance Training Cooperative Program: Provides individuals with a unique opportunity to start a career in one of the following technical trades: diesel, welding, electrical systems, instrumentation or industrial millwright. Nevada Gold Mines provides selected students with a $5,000 scholarship to GBC in Nevada to help cover the tuition, fees, and books for one of their fast-paced Certificate/Associate of Applied Science degree programs.

Commercial Drivers License Program: It is critical for our operational success and safety that we have skilled commercial drivers in the region. Commercial haulage is also a strong engine for jobs and growth in local economies. As such, we collaborated with five industry partners in Nevada, GBC, and the Governors Office of Economic Development to launch the CDL program at GBC.

Also, NGM partnered with the College of Southern Nevada and the Clark County School Districts Rancho High School to create a program that offers high school students the opportunity to earn a certificate in Diesel Technology or Industrial Maintenance. There were 24 students enrolled in the first cohort of this program.

What projects have you been working on to help make Northern Nevada more attractive to employees and people who are considering moving here?

At NGM, we have been focused on supporting our local communities, working together with our partners to make them more attractive places to live and work.

In 2021, we announced a $30 million partnership with Anthem Broadband to bring highspeed internet to Elko, Spring Creek, and Lamoille. This fast-paced project has already started connecting residents and is projected to complete within the next 24 months. Of the $30 million loan, $10 million will be paid back to NGMs I-80 Fund small business loan program and $20 million will be paid to NGMs Community Endowment Fund.

Also in 2021, NGM enacted Community Development Committees comprised of local leaders who are responsible for nominating community development projects for NGM funding consideration. Since inception, these CDCs have approved over $5 million in community projects ranging from educational initiatives to environmental and economic development opportunities.

One of the largest projects approved through the CDC process is NGMs $3 million investment in the Boys and Girls Club for the development of two new learning centers in Elko and Spring Creek. The Nevada Gold Mines Learning Centers will not only provide top-rated childcare but will also deliver a comprehensive education and pre-school program. These centers will be open from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. to accommodate mining schedules, which will help alleviate stress felt by parents when trying to find reputable and affordable childcare.

In July 2020, NGM created the I-80 Fund with an investment of $5 million. The Fund initially provided low interest loans to small businesses that were negatively impacted by Covid-19 and is now focused on new business start-ups and expansions in northern Nevada. Thanks to our contributing partners who have collectively given more than $300,000, this fund is sustainable for the small business community. To date, this program has approved 50 loans for a total of $5.6 million in funding, helping to retain 185 jobs and create an additional 104.

With people feeling the pinch from inflation, is this a factor which can help in recruiting more people into mining?

Our focus is on providing long-term, rewarding careers for those who join our team. At the same time, we monitor labor market data and adjust our compensation and benefit packages as necessary to ensure we remain competitive and offer packages that attract and retain talented employees. 
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 John Badman Show More Show Less 2 of 3 John Badman Show More Show Less 3 of 3





ALTON  The massive Viking Mississippi cruise ship docked for the first time on the Alton riverfront on Saturday.

The ship recently made its maiden Mississippi River voyage between St. Louis and St. Paul, Minnesota. It will be in Alton three more times this year.
KATIE PIERCE, Wheeler, Girls Soccer, Junior; Pierce scored two goals and had an assist as Wheeler opened the season with victories over Griswold and Windham. The last time Wheeler started the season with two wins was 2011.

ILIANA RASHLEIGH, Stonington, Girls Soccer, Sophomore; Rashleigh scored a pair of goals as Stonington opened the season with a 7-0 win against Woodstock.

TOM SERLUCA, Westerly, Boys Soccer, Junior; Serluca scored two goals in a victory over defending Division II champion Chariho. Serluca also had a goal in a win against Fitch in the Piver Cup tournament.

REID DOSSANTOS, Chariho, Girls soccer, Junior; DosSantos had seven saves as Chariho defeated Stonington in the Piver Cup tournament. DosSantos has not allowed a goal in four games this season.

Vote

View Results
Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Nguyen Tat Thanh. (Photo: VNA)

Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son will visit Australia from September 10-13 to co-chair the fourth Vietnam-Australia Foreign Ministers Meeting.



In his article, Thanh wrote that the two countries have shared common interests, offered mutual support and trust on core issues within both bilateral and multilateral framework.



He pointed out that economic and sci-tech cooperation is a bright spot in bilateral ties with two-way trade surpassing 10 billion USD for the first time in 2021. The figure soared by 40% annually to 9.6 billion USD in seven months of this year. According to the latest statistics, Vietnam has become the 10th biggest trade partner of Australia while Australia is the seventh largest trade partner of the Southeast Asian nation.



National defence-security cooperation has also been expanded on the basis of mutual trust while education ties and people-to-people exchange have become ever stronger.



On the significance of FM Son's visit, Thanh said it is the first ministerial visit to Australia since the two countries reopened the door following the pandemic. It is also the first Australia visit by Foreign Minister Son to realise the annual foreign ministers meeting mechanism. Notably, it will take place ahead of the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties next year, starting a series of high-level visits between both sides in the future.



Via the visit, Vietnam wants to reaffirm its wish to consolidate and develop strategic partnership with Australia, Thanh said, adding that it will afford both sides a chance to review their ties and outline measures to further deepen mutually beneficial collaboration as well as step up several important contents about multilateral cooperation after ASEAN established comprehensive strategic partnership with Australia in October 2021.



About the prospects of Vietnam  Australia ties, the ambassador said economy, national defence-security, and innovation will be three key pillars. Both sides will continue enhancing links across the priority fields of education-training, natural resources-energy, agro-forestry-fisheries, manufacturing, tourism, sci-tech, digital economy and services.



He suggested establishing bilateral partnership in energy so that Australia could offer financial and technological support to Vietnam to switch to a low-emission economy.



Toward the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties next year, he said they will further deepen ties via Partys external relation and State diplomacy channels, as well as in promising fields such as digital economy, sustainable supply chain, locality-to-locality cooperation, corporate support and cultural exchange./.
Airlines face a bleak winter after the end of Government support, a summer of cancellations and rising costs, analysts have warned.

Firms battling staff shortages and soaring fuel prices struggled to meet a surge in demand over the peak holiday period. Now the next three months will be a fragile time that could usher in a string of failures if travellers facing higher household bills cut back on flying.

Autumn is traditionally the most painful season for airlines, when they must settle bills and invest in the coming year even as demand dwindles. Monarch collapsed in October 2017 and Thomas Cook followed in September 2019.

City broker Bernstein said in a report: 'The pandemic has brought few airline failures in Europe, with state support and furlough schemes keeping many from collapsing. That may be about to change.'

At risk: The next three months will heap pressure on airlines across Europe

Jet fuel is nearly double what it cost before the pandemic, while almost all major airlines have been forced to increase wages to combat staff shortages.

'Winter 2022-23 looks set to be one of the worst in memory,' said the report. 'September heralds the beginning of bankruptcy season.

'After the summer is over, airlines often enter into a period of losses and limited cashflows, as demand ebbs with the weather, and children return to school.'

Bernstein said airlines in Central and Eastern Europe were at the highest risk.

The report said the low-cost Irish airline Ryanair and Wizz Air could be among the biggest beneficiaries of a fallout.

Ryanair was also listed as among the European carriers best prepared for the squeeze, followed by easyJet, Jet2, British Airways owner IAG and  the lowest ranked of the London-listed stocks  travel firm TUI. But even Ryanair recently warned of an 'extremely challenging' winter as it withdrew planes from a Brussels airport.

Bernstein assigned airlines a 'survival score', though there is no suggestion any UK firms are in financial difficulty. Bernstein's score ranges from zero to 100. Ryanair received 92 while Tui was handed 60.

However FTSE 250-listed Tui ranked higher than a large number of other smaller airlines that fly to the UK, including Finnair, Norwegian and Blue Air. The lowest was France's ASL with a score of zero.

It has been a chaotic recovery for travel firms since Covid restrictions were eased earlier this year.

Cancellations and queues have littered airports across Europe, with Heathrow among the worst hit.

Last week, Gatwick's chief financial officer Jim Butler said he was 'cautious about what we might see in the winter or next year'.

He said economic uncertainty could 'impact the overall propensity for travel' as the industry faces ongoing staff shortages and rising fuel costs.

Heathrow recently came under fire for trying to introduce a new charge for airlines. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents the largest airlines, accused the airport of trying to 'squeeze more money' from companies already struggling with sky-high costs.
Enterprises honoured at the event (Photo: VN+)

Chairman of VINASA Nguyen Van Khoa said: Despite the complicated world situation, Vietnams economy is witnessing very strong development, with positive predictions from all rating agencies. The process of digital transformation in Vietnam is also entering an accelerated phase, including agencies, businesses and people, creating momentum for the comprehensive development of Vietnam. The digital technology enterprises carrying on the mission and taking a pioneer role in national digital transformation are also transforming strongly to become digital transformation partners for domestic and international agencies, organisations and businesses.

The Top 10 enterprises honoured in each category are those with impressive business results in 2021. They not only have good growth rates but also possess high technology capacity and have the potential to become pillars for the future development of Vietnams IT industry.

FSI was honoured in two important categories including Top 10 enterprises providing digital transformation services and solutions and Top 10 enterprises providing digital government solutions in Vietnam. This is the 4th year in a row in which FSI was honoured in the Top 10 Vietnamese IT enterprises by VINASA.
Queen Elizabeths coffin began a six-hour journey from her home in the Scottish Highlands to Edinburgh on Sunday as crowds lined the roads in silence, paying tribute to the monarch who reigned for 70 years.

At 10 a.m. (0900 GMT), Elizabeths oak coffin, which had been in the ballroom of Balmoral Castle since she died on Thursday aged 96, was placed in a hearse by six gamekeepers.

Shortly afterwards, the hearse emerged from the gates of Balmoral to head towards the Scottish capital. The coffin was draped in the royal standard of Scotland and with a wreath on top made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas  one of Elizabeths favourites.

The slow cortege is the first of a series of events leading up to the state funeral at Westminster Abbey in London on Sept. 19.

Her death has drawn tears, sadness and warm tributes, not just from the queens own close family and many in Britain, but also from around the globe  reflecting her presence on the world stage for seven decades.

In the nearby small village of Ballater, hundreds stood beside the road in silence as the hearse passed, some throwing flowers into the road.

Its like a family member, it overwhelms  the sadness  that shes not going to be with us, said Elizabeth Alexander, 69, who was born on the day the queen was crowned in 1953.

Accompanied by the queens daughter, Princess Anne, the cortege will slowly make its way from the remote castle, winding through small towns and villages to Edinburgh where the coffin will be taken to the throne room of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Tens of thousands have gathered at royal palaces in the days since Elizabeths death to leave flowers and to pay their respects.

I know how deeply you, the entire nation  and I think I may say the whole world  sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered, her son King Charles said at a ceremony on Saturday.

The queen came to the throne following the death of her father King George VI on Feb. 6, 1952, when she was just 25. Her coronation took place a year later.

Charles became king immediately after his mothers death but was officially proclaimed the new monarch at the ceremony.

While Elizabeths death was not totally unexpected given her age, the fact her health had been deteriorating and the passing of her husband of 73 years Prince Philip last year, there was still a sense of shock at the news.

We all thought she was invincible, her grandson Prince William, now the heir to the throne, told a well-wisher on Saturday as he met crowds at Windsor castle.

FUNERAL

The day of Elizabeths funeral will be a public holiday in Britain, officials announced. U.S. President Joe Biden said he would be there, although full details of the event and the attendees have not yet been released.

Before that, her coffin will be flown to London and there will be a sombre procession when it is later moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall where it will lie in state for four days.

In 2002 more than 200,000 people queued to pay their respects to Elizabeths mother while her coffin lay in state and aides have previously said there is an expectation that millions may want to visit.

It goes without saying that we can expect large numbers of people, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Liz Truss told reporters.

Truss, whose appointment as prime minister on Tuesday was the queens last public act, will join King Charles as both the new head of state and prime minister tour the four nations of the United Kingdom in the next few days.

Charles, 73, is now the 41st monarch in a line that traces its origins to the Norman King William the Conqueror who captured the English throne in 1066.

He is king and head of state not only of the United Kingdom but of 14 other realms including Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

Elizabeths death has capped a difficult couple of years for the royal family, including the passing last year of Elizabeths husband Prince Philip.

The most high-profile issue has involved her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who stepped down from royal life in 2020 to move to California from where they both have heavily criticised the institution.

That has left them alienated from the rest of the family, with Harry and his older brother William said to be barely on speaking terms. But the death of their grandmother has seen differences put aside, as they appeared together with their wives outside Windsor Castle to meet the crowds on Saturday.

A royal source described it as an important show of unity at an incredibly difficult time for the family.

SOURCE: REUTERS
Members of an Islamic State affiliate in Mali killed about 30 civilians in an attack this week on a town in a violence-plagued area bordering Burkina Faso and Niger, a coalition of pro-government militia said late on Friday.

Mali has faced instability since 2012, when Islamists hijacked an ethnic Tuareg rebellion in the north. Since then they have spread across West Africas Sahal, killing thousands and displacing more than 2 million people in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

The coalition, known as the Platform, said several hundred militants attacked its fighters and forced them to retreat on Tuesday near Talataye in the Gao region  long a hotspot for jihadist and militia violence.

As well as attacking local residents, the militants looted shops and burned food stocks, the Platform said in an online statement, adding that three of its fighters had also been killed.

Reinforcements dispatched by the Platform reached the town where they discovered the massacre as well as hundreds of women and children who had been wandering the town without food for two days, it said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the alleged attack.

Malian authorities did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in the same area of central Mali, decrying the deaths of hundreds of civilians in a surge of attacks by the Islamic State affiliate.

SOURCE: REUTERS
Ukrainian forces kept pushing north in the Kharkiv region and advancing to its south and east, Ukraines army chief said on Sunday, a day after their rapid advances made Russia abandon its main bastion in the area.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed Ukraines lightning advances in the northeast Kharkiv province as a potential breakthrough in the six-month-old war, saying this winter could bring more rapid gains of territory if Kyiv can get more powerful weapons.

In the Kharkiv direction, we began to advance not only to the south and east, but also to the north. There are 50 km to go to the state border (with Russia), Ukraines chief commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on Telegram.

He said the countrys armed forces have regained control of more than 3,000 square km (1,158 square miles) since the beginning of this month.

The retreat from the city of Izium marked Russian forces worst defeat since they were were pushed back from the capital Kyiv in March, as thousands of Russian soldiers left behind ammunition and equipment as they fled.

I believe that this winter is a turning point, and it can lead to the rapid de-occupation of Ukraine, Zelenskiy said in comments to a political forum published on his website late on Saturday. We see how they (occupiers) are fleeing in some directions. If we were a little stronger with weapons, we would de-occupy faster.

Ukrainian officials stopped short of confirming they had recaptured Izium, but Zelenskiys chief of staff Andriy Yermak posted a photo of troops on its outskirts and tweeted an emoji of grapes. The citys name means raisin.

Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the gains could pave the way for a further push into Luhansk region, whose capture Russia claimed at the beginning of July.

If you look at the map, it is logical to assume that the offensive will develop in the direction of Svatove  Starobelsk, and Sievierodonetsk  Lysychansk. These are two promising directions, he said.

The gains are important politically for Zelenskiy as he seeks to keep Europe united behind Ukraine  supplying weapons and money  even as an energy crisis looms this winter following cuts in Russian gas supplies to European customers.

Britains defence ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Sunday that Ukrainian forces continued making gains in the Kharkiv region over the past 24 hours. However, fighting continued around Izium and the city of Kupiansk, the sole railway hub supplying Russias front line across northeastern Ukraine, also recaptured by Ukrainian forces.

As the war entered its 200th day, Ukraines military reported more Russian missile and air strikes on its targets overnight and regional officials reported heavy Russian shelling in the east and south.

Eastern Donetsk province governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram 10 civilians were killed overnight. Further south, nine were injured in the town of Mykolaiv, its mayor said.

Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield accounts.

NUCLEAR PLANT HALTS OPERATIONS

While fighting raged on, conditions at Europes biggest nuclear power plant continued to be the source of grave international concern.

State agency Energoatom said it had fully halted operations at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia plant as a restored line to the grid allowed the plant to be powered by Ukraines energy system. But it warned the risk of further damage to the line from what Ukraine says is Russian shelling remains high.

That would force the plant to switch to diesel generators, the duration of which is limited by the technological resource and the amount of available diesel fuel, it said.

The continents energy crisis this winter threatens to erode European unity on Ukraine, and Kyiv badly needs to show that not only it can hold out against Moscows assault but also sway the wars momentum in its favour.

Zelenskiy told a conference attended by Germanys foreign minister on Saturday that Russia was doing everything to break Ukrainian and European resolve this winter.

Ahead are 90 days that will determine more than 30 years of Ukrainian independence. Ninety days that more than all other years will determine the existence of the EU. The winter will determine our future.

Russian forces used Izium as the logistics base for one of their main campaigns  a months-long assault from the north on the adjacent Donbas region, comprising Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russias defence ministry ordered troops to leave the vicinity and reinforce operations elsewhere in Donetsk, state-run TASS news agency reported on Saturday.

The head of Russias administration in Kharkiv told residents to evacuate the province and flee to Russia to save lives, TASS reported. Witnesses described traffic jams of cars with people leaving Russian-held territory.

If the reported gains are held, it would be a serious blow for Russia, which Western intelligence services say has suffered huge casualties. It would be a big boost for Ukraine, which is keen to show Western nations supplying it with weapons it deserves their continued support.

SOURCE: REUTERS
KINGSTON  Johanna Contreras, deputy county executive under the Pat Ryan administration, was sworn in as acting Ulster County executive Friday after Ryan won the election for 19th District congressman.

I am committed to building upon the successes of County Executive Pat Ryans administration and continuing our work to support green growth and economic opportunity, provide financial relief to residents and govern with transparency and fiscal responsibility, Contreras said in a statement. I have always centered the values of equity and inclusion and will continue to do so ...

Contreras took the oath of office administered by County Clerk Nina Postupack in a ceremony held at the County Office Building in Kingston.

As deputy county executive, she was responsible for the Health and Human Services portfolio, which includes the departments of health, social services, mental health, youth, human rights, aging and veterans affairs. She had worked in the mayors Office of Management and Budget in New York City, leading the Education Task Force which oversees the budgets of the New York City Department of Education, City University of New York and School Construction Authority.

She has a master of science degree in urban policy analysis from the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment at The New School and earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She lives in Kingston with her husband and two children.

Ryan is to be sworn in as congressman on Tuesday. He had handpicked Contreras as his successor before winning the special election. She will serve as acting county executive through the end of the year.

To see out the remainder of Ryans term, which ends Dec. 31, 2023, the Ulster County Democratic Committee will hold a nominating convention at Kingston City Hall on Sept. 17. Three candidates are vying for the nomination: Former New York state Sen. Jen Metzger, deputy Ulster County Executive Marc Rider and Ulster County Comptroller March Gallagher. Republicans have yet to nominate a candidate.

Ryan has endorsed Metzger in the race, saying in a statement, Jen is a person of integrity, who brings great compassion to understanding the needs of the community. She has the experience and the drive to deliver results. I look forward to partnering with Jen to make sure that government from the county to the federal level works together to deliver results for our residents.

The parties chosen candidates will appear on the ballot during the general election on Nov. 8, and the next elected Ulster County executive will be sworn in Jan. 1.
ALBANY  The county Health Department is offering up to 100 appointments for impacted residents to receive monkeypox vaccine Monday.

As of Sunday morning there were still times available from 3 to 7 p.m. for the clinic being held at the Albany County Department of Health office at 175 Green St. Registration is encouraged, but there may be a limited number of walk-in appointments available.

Health officials are asking those who get monkeypox vaccine to meet the following requirements:

Individuals with recent exposure to monkeypox within the past 14 days.

Those at high risk of a recent exposure to monkeypox, including members of the gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming community and other communities of men who have sex with men and who have engaged in intimate, or skin-to-skin contact with others in the past 14 days areas where monkeypox is spreading.

Individuals who have had skin-to-skin contact with someone in a social network experiencing monkeypox activity.

Individuals can call 518-447-4580 on Monday for more information.

The Jynneos vaccine is a two-dose vaccine separated by at least 28 days. The county said the online registration is only for first doses. The second dose will be scheduled after the first dose is given.

The virus, which over the summer was greatly impacting New York City, is now present in every U.S. state. California has also now overtaken New York in having the most U.S. cases, with 4,300 reported as of Sunday, compared to 3,591 in all of New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Monkeypox causes a rash and flu-like symptoms, and in some cases can cause serious complications. The virus spreads through skin-to-skin contact, or with contact with fabric surfaces like bedding used by an infected person.

Last month, vaccine doses were running low. In upstate, vaccination clinics have been operated by the Saratoga, Albany, Rockland, Erie, Monroe and Sullivan county health departments. The vaccine is distributed through a federal stockpile.

Meanwhile, disparity in vaccine distribution has been an issue. For example, of the more than 12,000 vaccine doses given outside of New York City, the majority have gone to white residents - which are impacted by the virus at less of a rate than Black and Hispanic residents. Also, a little more than 7 percent of vaccines outside the city have gone to women, when the virus has almost solely impacted men, according to the latest data posted by the state Department of Health.

The National Association of Counties reported on Aug. 30 the Biden administration said it would partner with jurisdictions holding large LGBTQ-plus events to increase availability of vaccines, and would launch a pilot program to get more vaccines into communities where individuals may face barriers in accessing the shots. The White House said it would set aside 10,000 vials that health departments could request to use as part of smaller-scale equity interventions.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)  Five people died Saturday in New Zealand after the small charter boat they were aboard capsized, authorities say, in what may have been a collision with a whale. Another six people aboard the boat were rescued.

Police said the 8.5-meter (28-foot) boat overturned near the South Island town of Kaikoura. Police said they were continuing to investigate the cause of the accident.

Kaikoura Police Sergeant Matt Boyce described it as a devastating and unprecedented event.

Our thoughts are with everyone involved, including the victims and their families, their local communities, and emergency services personnel, Boyce said.

He said police divers had recovered the bodies of all those who had died. He said all six survivors were assessed to be in stable condition at a local health center, with one transferred to a hospital in the city of Christchurch as a precaution.

Kaikoura Mayor Craig Mackle told The Associated Press that the water was dead calm at the time of the accident and the assumption was that a whale had surfaced from beneath the boat.

He said there were some sperm whales in the area and also some humpback whales traveling through.

He said locals had helped with the rescue efforts throughout the day but the mood in the town was somber because the water was so cold and they feared for the outcome of anybody who had fallen overboard.

Mackle said hed thought in the past about the possibility of a boat and whale colliding, given the number of whales that frequent the region.

It always plays on your mind that it could happen, he said, adding that he hadnt heard about any previous such accidents.

Mackle said the boat was a charter vessel typically used for fishing excursions. News agency Stuff reported the passengers belonged to a bird enthusiasts' group.

Police said they were still notifying the relatives of those who died, and couldn't yet publicly name the victims.

Vanessa Chapman told Stuff she and a group of friends had watched the rescue efforts unfold from Goose Bay, near Kaikoura. She said that when she arrived at a lookout spot, she could see a person sitting atop an overturned boat waving their arms.

She said two rescue helicopters and a third local helicopter were circling before two divers jumped out. She told Stuff that the person atop the boat was rescued and a second person appeared to have been pulled from the water.

Kaikoura is a popular whale-watching destination. The seafloor drops away precipitously from the coast, making for deep waters close to the shore. A number of businesses offer boat trips or helicopter rides so tourists can see whales, dolphins and other sea creatures up close.

Compliance agency Maritime New Zealand said it sent two investigators to the scene and would be conducting a thorough investigation once recovery operations had concluded.

Principal Investigator Tracy Phillips said the agency offers its heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of the people who have died.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

STILLWATER  A helicopter hung low over Saratoga Lake on Sept. 1 as onlookers strained their eyes toward dark, choppy water.

Yet the hope at Browns Beach dissolved into despair after the aircraft lifted up, twirled around and landed as rescue boats appeared to locate their target.

The grief rippled through the group.

Its a scene that has repeated itself across New York during an unseasonably hot and dry summer that has seen people flock to rivers, lakes and pools to seek relief from record temperatures.

The number of drownings in the state is at the highest level in decades.

State Police have investigated 25 fatal drownings statewide this summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a 67 percent increase over the same time period last year when 15 people drowned (the tally, which was provided to the Times Union, does not include the investigations in which county sheriffs departments have taken the lead, which drives fatalities even higher).

Troopers handled 16 investigations in 2020 and nine the previous year.

Zooming out, there is a degree of clarity when examining federal statistics.

Drownings statewide in 2020  the most recent year for which federal data is available  increased 32 percent over the year before, jumping to 242 from 184, which is the median average dating back over two decades. The fatalities, which include all fatal water deaths, are the highest since at least 1999 when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database began.

This is really a (nationwide) trend that has turned around the continued slow decrease of fatal drownings in this country since 2019, said Dr. Linda Quan, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Drownings nationwide had dipped 32 percent over the past decade before the reversal. Quan attributed the surge to a confluence of factors, including people seeking to beat back pandemic boredom, rising temperatures, increasingly affordable amateur watercraft and a lack of universal water safety programs.

Between the weather, our social unwillingness to address drownings  and drowning prevention  weve allowed this to happen, Quan said. And its really just happened in the past three years.

This years deaths across eastern New York and the Hudson Valley have run the gamut from overturned kayaks and canoes to terrifying sequences involving extended families, including when two men drowned in White Lake in Bethel last month, and another family member was critically injured while trying to save a loved one in distress.

None knew how to swim, said Faruque Amin, who described watching his brother-in-law and brother succumb to the waters despite his attempted paddleboat rescue. His sister survived but was hospitalized on life support.

The area of the lake where the Long Island family was recreating is mostly shallow water, but Amin described an unpredictable dip in the lakes terrain, a steep but narrow ditch where the water depth plunges to about 20 feet.

"The next thing, I know I'm being pulled down, Amin said in a YouTube video posted hours after the Aug. 28 incident. All I remember at that time is I'm almost out of breath. And then somehow, I'm trying to push them up.

Some upstate counties incurred a steeper number of fatal drownings this summer.

The Warren County Sheriffs Office, for instance, was the lead agency for four drownings compared to none the year before, according to county-provided statistics.

Two boaters died in separate incidents in Clinton County, marking the first drownings in the states northernmost county since 2018, both of whom died after their kayaks reportedly overturned.

Washington County, too, was stricken with fatalities this summer after several years of no deaths, including Onnex Thompson-Hall, a 6-year-old with autism who went missing and was found drowned in a pond near his home, and Brett Hilliker, a 24-year-old Granville resident whose body was discovered after he also reportedly went missing.

Nationwide, there are an estimated 3,960 fatal drownings annually, according to the (CDC), or 11 per day. The number of near-drownings is roughly twice as high.

Yet the true number of fatalities is likely higher because some fatal injuries in the water  including those caused by strokes or cardiac events, or others that list another underlying cause as contributing factors  arent always counted in drowning statistics, experts said.

Thats startling and scary, but not even close to the full picture of whats happening, said Megan Ferraro, executive director of the ZAC Foundation, a water safety advocacy group.

The spike in drownings this summer in New York mirrors broader trends that have surfaced amid the onset of the pandemic nearly three years ago.

Ferraro said another key reason for the surge is a pandemic-rattled public letting their guard down when it comes to water safety. Additionally, a chronic lifeguard crunch has led to the closure of public pools, resulting in people seeking out other riskier settings, including natural bodies of water that are increasingly volatile due to climate change, including choppier oceans, lakes and rivers.

So what you once saw as a safe place to swim is actually rougher and less safe, Ferraro said.

The ZAC Foundation is among a coalition of groups working on a proposal for a national water safety action plan, which they hope to release next spring.

Better data collection will be one component, Ferraro said, among other suggested public guidelines and recommendations to help reduce the risk of drowning, including the use of life jackets for everyone headed out onto the water  no exceptions.

It will call for a much more detailed and real-time collection of data so we can warn populations in real-time of the risks, Ferraro said.

Children are particularly at-risk, with child drownings continuing to be the leading cause of unintentional death among children ages 1 to 4 years old aside from birth defects.

Near-drownings, too, are on the upswing, with injuries involving children younger than 15 increasing 17 percent in 2021 with 6,800 injuries reported, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is urging parents to promote water safety vigilance.

Drowning in the U.S. also disproportionately impacts people of color.

Black Americans are 1.5 times more likely to drown than their white counterparts, according to a 2021 CDC report that determined long-standing racial disparities have only widened over the past two decades.

Compared with non-Latino white people, the rate was two times higher among Indigenous or Alaska Native persons, according to the report.

The numbers are similarly disproportionate in New York, where white people drowned at a rate of 9.35 per 1 million people, a number that shot up to 22 per 1 million for Black people, according to a 2020 report by the state Department of Health. The rate for Latinos was 12.2.

The inequity stems from years of disinvestment in water safety programming and municipal pools in urban communities, said Kendra DeLoach McCutcheon, an associate professor at Syracuse Universitys Falk College of Sport & Human Dynamics, as well as a legacy of segregation that kept Black people from using the facilities.

Seventy percent of Black children and 60 percent of Hispanic youngsters dont know how to swim, McCutcheon said.

The fear of water is compounded when friends and neighbors drown, creating a generational cycle.

When we hear these statistics, theres a community connection, McCutcheon said. Theyre family members and community members who have died and that reinforces the fear.

McCutcheon is a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc., a historically Black sorority nonprofit community service organization that has partnered with USA Swimming to bolster water safety programming for people of color, including young Black girls. Ideally, participants will graduate from attending dry educational clinics to wet clinics that will teach them how to swim.

Part of the programming is specifically designed for young Black girls to properly care for their hair in the water.

That becomes a big deal because of the love, intensity and time it takes to create these styles, McCutcheon said. So how do you overcome that?

Quan, the pediatrician, said New York is among the states with a high number of state-regulated swimming sites, as well as one that has designated staff for water facilities at state parks; for example, the state of Washington stripped that away years ago, she said.

Yet drownings will only likely continue to escalate absent a broader educational shift, Quan said, among everyone, from teenagers to senior citizens who are increasingly physically active into their 70s and 80s.

The public needs to get smarter about the water, Quan said, and this is the wake-up call.

At Brown's Beach in Stillwater, authorities identified the man who died last Thursday as 44-year-old Christopher Lavigne of Mechanicville.

Lavigne's canoe capsized due to windy conditions, authorities said.

He spent his final day fishing.

"A hard and conscientious worker," read his obituary," Chris loved the solitude and challenge of fishing anywhere there was a body of water."
Evie Stockwell, one of the most respected thoroughbred breeders in Ireland and mother to Coolmore founder John Magnier, has died at the age of 97.

Stockwell enjoyed considerable success with homebred horses trained by Aidan OBrien and who raced in her late husband Tom Magniers blue and brown silks.

Aidan O'Brien paid a touching tribute to Evie following her death.

He said: She was an incredibly special lady. We met her first when we came to Ballydoyle and she was a very wise lady.

All the way along she would have been great to give us advice, and we had many good fillies for her, Fairyland probably one of the best recently.

OBrien was speaking following Luxembourg's victory in the Irish Champions Stakes at Leopardstown on Saturday.

The mother of John Magnier had a number of horses with the Ballydoyle supremo over the years, including Hit It A Bomb, who won the Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf in 2015.

The trainer said: She had an unbelievable interest in, and understanding of, horses and she was a great judge of a horse. She was so passionate about horses."

Evie's death notice is below:

Evie Magnier Stockwell (nee Hallinan)

Railway House, Farnaleen, Fethard, Tipperary, E91 KN77

Magnier Stockwell, Evie (nee Hallinan), Saturday September 10th 2022, peacefully at home, surrounded by her loving family. Predeceased by her husband Tom and son Peter. Deeply regretted by her daughter Anne, sons John and David and by all her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Reposing at the Railway House, Farnaleen, Fethard, Co Tipperary (E91KN77) from 6pm to 9pm on Sunday. Funeral at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Fethard, on Monday 12th September at 2pm followed by private burial in Kilcrumper Old Cemetery in Fermoy. House strictly private on Monday.

Family flowers only. Donations, if desired, to The Injured Jockey's Fund. The Funeral Mass can be watched online at http://parishchurch.net/
An Israeli strike on the Damascus International Airport and nearby military posts south of the Syrian capital killed five soldiers, state media reported Saturday.
Sinn Fein stayed away from Sundays accession proclamation ceremony in Northern Ireland but said it will attend other official events during the period of mourning for the Queen.

While leaders of several of the regions other political parties were at Hillsborough Castle for the proclamation of the Kings accession, Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill and other senior party figures were at a rally in Belfast for victims of the Troubles.

The Time for Truth rally was organised to demonstrate opposition to the UK Governments controversial plans to deal with the legacy of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said the party did not attend the accession proclamation because it was intended for those whose political allegiance is to the British Crown.

But she said party figures would be attending other events in the days to come.

On Monday, Ms ONeill is set to address a special sitting of the Stormont Assembly called to mark the death of the Queen.

Ms ONeill and other senior colleagues are also expected to be involved in events attended by the King on his visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday.

The partys vice president also signed a book of condolences for the Queen at Belfast City Hall on Friday.

Sinn Fein once again extends our condolences on the death of Queen Elizabeth, whose loss is felt deeply by her family, and many people across our society, particularly within the unionist community, said Ms McDonald.

We acknowledge the very positive role the Queen played in advancing peace and reconciliation between our two islands, and the two traditions on our island, during the years of the peace process.

In recognition of this, Sinn Fein will attend a number of events during the 10 days of mourning.

The accession proclamation ceremonies are intended for those whose political allegiance is to the British Crown.

Sinn Fein will not be in attendance at these events.
A $4.2 million project to install metal poles with reflective markers along two-lane highways across North Dakota has been put on hold because of worries about how the new polies affected farmers driving large equipment
The tracking unit at the Egyptian Customs Authority (ECA) has disposed of 99 percent of abandoned and hazardous goods at ports since January 2020 to ensure health and safety.
A parent is raising concerns about what she says are health and safety problems at Malick Se
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have liberated about 2,000 kilometers of Ukraines territory since early September 2022.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his video address, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The full text of the speech is provided below:

Dear Ukrainians!

First of all, today I want to congratulate two of our cities, beautiful, strong cities, on their day  Lyman and Dnipro.

Lyman in Donetsk region is still waiting for our flag, and this is inevitable  Ukraine always returns. We demonstrate it well. The entire Donetsk region will be liberated, will be safe and happy again, as it should be in Ukraine, as it should be everywhere on our land.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine and all those who defend our state, the Special Operations Forces, our intelligence, special services, the National Guard, the police will restore peace in every corner of our state, where Russia has brought only grief and suffering.

There will be peace. Peace goes together with the Ukrainian flag, together with our defenders.

Dear residents of Dnipro! Your city has done so much for Ukrainian defense both since 2014 and since February 24 that the history of our victory is also the history of Dnipro, it is undoubtedly well deserved.

The health and lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were saved in Dnipro. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians received shelter and help in Dnipro during the war years. The front has always felt and still feels the support of the people of Dnipro. I thank you all for this! And I wish you all, as well as all Ukrainians, one thing  the fastest possible victory.

I held a meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters today. Reports on the situation on the front lines from the commanders of operative areas were presented. The necessary decisions were made.

We discussed support of our military. We listened to the report of Defense Minister Reznikov on the results of the meeting at Ramstein Air Base. Thanks to our partners for their support!

The movement of our soldiers in different directions of the front continues. As of now, as part of active actions since the beginning of September, about 2,000 kilometers of our territory have already been liberated.

These days, the Russian army is showing its best  showing its back. And, in the end, it is a good choice for them to run away. There is and will be no place for the occupiers in Ukraine. However, I emphasize once again: if any of the Russian troops or security forces men are afraid to return to Russia now, we guarantee that everyone who is detained by our soldiers will be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

I spoke today with French President Macron. I briefed him on our activity at the front, about further prospects. We discussed Russian provocations at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and the need for immediate demilitarization of the plant and the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from there. I also talked with Mr. President about increasing defense support of our country, about increasing pressure on Russia, in particular about sanctions pressure, about visa restrictions for citizens of the Russian Federation.

The arrangements reached during yesterday's agreements with Head of the Polish government Morawiecki were developed at a meeting devoted to the issues of support for our Polish brothers during this autumn and winter, our energy cooperation with Poland, as I promised him.

I instructed to speed up the reconstruction of the power transmission line from the Khmelnytsky NPP to the Polish city of Rzeszow  the first Savior City. Thank you, Rzeszow. Let me remind that this special title was awarded to Rzeszow back in the spring for extremely important assistance to Ukraine. We must complete this reconstruction by December 8 and provide Poland with the necessary amount of electricity.

Of course, all this is possible only if Ukraine maintains normal control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. We are working on the international solutions required for this.

I also instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to work out the possibility of an urgent supply of 100,000 tonnes of thermal coal to Poland right now. We currently have sufficient volumes for ourselves and can help our brothers prepare for this winter.

Today, I welcomed the delegation of UK parliamentarians who arrived in Kyiv. Their negotiations with Head of the Office Andriy Yermak took place  they were very substantive. Among the most important things are security guarantees for Ukraine, our interaction with the UK, as well as the possibilities of our coordination in such regions as, for example, Latin America. We must continue expanding our anti-war coalition.

Today, I had a very interesting and useful meeting with Timothy Snyder, a well-known historian, Professor at Yale University and a great friend of Ukraine. Mr. Snyder did a lot to make our country, our people, and our history known and understood in the world. His books are well known to Ukrainian and international readers. And soon there will be another book, he is preparing it now.

I was pleased to share some memories of both February 24 and the events of the previous time. We discussed the nature of Russian aggression, propaganda, and the evil that the occupiers are doing. They will definitely be responsible for everything they have done on Ukrainian land.

Today, I'm thankful to the soldiers of the 15th Slavic Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, who distinguished themselves in the Kharkiv direction. Well done!

I'm thankful to the troops of the 214th separate rifle battalion for securing the situation in Balakliya, who, together with units of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Special Operations Forces, special forces of the National Guard and the police, returned full control to the city.

I'm thankful to all our defenders, who during these weeks made the approach of the main thing we need  our victory  even more tangible!

Glory to Ukraine!
From February 24 to September 11, the Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated about 52,650 Russian invaders, including 400 in the past day alone.

Thats according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.

Also, Ukraines defenders destroyed a total of 2,154 Russian main battle tanks (+18 on Saturday), 4,617 armored combat vehicles (+33), 1,263 artillery systems (+4), 311 (+0) MLR systems, 162 (+0) , air defense launchers, 242 (+3) warplanes, 213 (+1) helicopters, 902 (+4) operational and tactical level UAVs, 216 (+1) cruise missiles, 15 (+0) warships / cutters, 3,445 (+19) trucks and tankers, and 117 (+1) units of specialized equipment.

In the past day, the enemy suffered the greatest losses in the Kharkiv and Donetsk directions. The incoming data on Russian losses is being further verified.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the President's Office, is sure that the Russian Federation will definitely and fully pay all it owes Ukraine for the destruction, murders, violence, and looting.

The official addressed the issue on Twitter, reports Ukrinform.

"200 days of heroism of Ukraine Russia tried to destroy Ukraine, humiliate its freedom and to bring Europe to its knees. But today it is already understood that Russia will pay all its debts for destruction, murders, violence, looting. Legally and physically..." Podolyak tweeted.

Read also: Police documenting Russian war crimes in liberated territories of Kharkiv region

On September 10, the advisor to the head of the President's Office, Mykhailo Podolyak, stated that the Russian Federation is not yet ready to accept Ukraine's negotiating position, which is "absolutely normal."

As reported, on September 9, Podolyak recommended that Russian troops pull out of Ukrainian lands, otherwise their defeat would be unavoidable.
The Ukrainian defense forces are controlling the situation on the bridges and adjusting Russias plans to use them as transport routes. In particular, the Ukrainian military destroyed a bridge built by Russian invaders across the Dnieper near Nova Kakhovka.

The relevant statement was made by the South Operational Command on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Following the completion of combat missions, the enemys losses were confirmed as follows: 35 invaders, five armored and motor vehicles, 120-mm mortar. Near Nova Kakhovka, an ammunition depot and a bridge built across the Dnieper were destroyed, the report states.

Last night the Ukrainian aviation, rocket and artillery units completed more than 130 fire missions aimed at enemy personnel and military equipment clusters, bridge and ammunition depot.

In the Black Sea, two Russian missile carriers are remaining combat ready and equipped with 16 Kalibr-type cruise missiles.

As of 01:00 p.m., September 11, 2022, the situation in the Southern Bug operational zone was dynamically tense but controlled by the Ukrainian defense forces. Hostilities are underway all over the contact line. Russian troops are making attempts to bring reserves in hope to recapture the initiative.

Last night the enemy launched four air strikes and three missile strikes on the positions of Ukrainian forces and civil infrastructure facilities.

mk
While mopping up several localities in Kharkiv direction, the Ukrainian soldiers got trophies, including a Russian Orlan-10 UAV and Akatsiya 2C3 self-propelled gun.

"A tactical group of one of the military units of the Special Operations Forces, together with a sniper unit of the Defense Forces, mopped up several localities in Kharkiv direction. In the process, the soldiers seized Akatsiya 2C3 self-propelled gun and a tank which were handed over to the units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine," the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine posted on Telegram.

According to the Special Operations Forces data, the Ukrainian soldiers captured a "police officer of Luhansk Peoples Republic". After initial questioning, he was handed over to the National Police representatives.

"A Russian unmanned system with ground control stations, antennas, and factory documentation became an important trophy. Orlan-10 is the main UAV used by the enemy to detect Ukrainian positions and adjust artillery fire," the report reads.

It is noted that the captured system is extremely important as it has all the necessary components and documents.

"Therefore, our radio-electronic intelligence and radio-electronic warfare specialists will be able to effectively counter the Russian threat from the sky, and the enemy will suffer greater losses," the military said.

Earlier in Kharkiv region, the fighters of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine seized Russian PTKM-1R landmines.

ol
As part of a joint project between the foreign ministries of Germany and Ukraine, the German side will strengthen the institutional capabilities of the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry in terms of European integration.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba during a joint press conference with German Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Today it has been extremely important for me to hear from the German colleague that Germany stands for Ukraines rapid progress on its path towards EU membership. In this regard, I accepted Annalenas proposal, and we agreed to launch a project between the foreign ministries of Germany and Ukraine. As part of this project, Germany will provide certain resources and opportunities to strengthen the institutional capabilities of the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry regarding European integration, Kuleba told.

In his words, this will make Ukraines path towards EU membership even faster.

According to Kuleba, they also discussed in detail establishing a Special Tribunal to bring to justice the leadership of the Russian Federation over the crime of aggression.

Our legal advisors will continue working to find an optimal format for establishing it, Kuleba added.

A reminder that German Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock paid a surprise visit to Ukraines capital city on September 10, 2022.
By the end of this year, Ukraine has ambitious plans to fulfill all seven conditions put forward by the European Commission when granting candidate status to the country and to proceed to negotiations on EU membership.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this at the Yalta European Strategy meeting held in Kyiv on Sunday, Ukrinform reports, citing the government's website.

"We will move at a very fast pace. We have analyzed how other countries paved this way. It took them, five, seven, or eight years. We have the ambition to complete this journey in a maximum of two years and achieve our goal of being a full-fledged member of the European Union," Shmyhal said.

He said that Ukraine had defended its civilizational choice and would prolong its advancement towards the West.

"The main conclusion after 200 days of this bloody war is that Ukraine has won strategically. We won in upholding our freedom, our democracy. We won in our strategic vector to unite with Europe. Russia has lost strategically. They remained in their archaic Soviet model of existence with their propaganda, with their imperial ambitions, which we will obviously not allow them to achieve," Shmyhal said.

He also thanked the Armed Forces and all Ukrainian military personnel who provide the possibility to discuss and plan a successful European future for Ukraine.

On June 23, the heads of state and government of the EU countries decided to grant Ukraine the status of a candidate country for EU membership.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that despite the war unleashed by Russia, Ukraine will continue to implement the legislation, norms and rules of the European Union, and the Cabinet of Ministers will develop a respective road map to fulfill the requirements for joining the EU.

Photo: Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine
The 38th edition of Alexandria Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries (AMCFF) this October aims to highlight comedic films and the actors who infuse them with joy
Russia is counting on international indifference and war fatigue. However, it will not succeed: we will not stop supporting Ukraine.

This was stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland on Twitter, Ukrinform reports.

200 days ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, intending to deny its right to exist. 200 days have shown the true meaning of solidarity and brotherhood. Now, Russia is counting on the worlds indifference and fatigue. It will not succeed as we will not cease to #StandWithUkraine, MFA Poland tweeted Sunday.

The Polish Foreign Ministry attached to the tweet a video, which emphasizes that the 200 days of war are a period of destruction, atrocities, bombings, shelling, death, and destruction, but also that of Ukrainian resistance, courage, determination, struggle, as well as unity, solidarity, and support, which is provided to Ukrainians including by Poland.

Russia has been waging a full-scale war against Ukraine since February 24. Poland is one of the closest allies of Ukraine.
At least six people died and 24 were wounded in a shooting at a July Fourth parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, and officers are searching for a suspect who likely fired on the festivities from a rooftop, police said Monday.

At least six people died and 24 were wounded in a shooting at a July Fourth parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, and officers are searching for a suspect who likely fired on the festivities from a rooftop, police said Monday.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O'Neill, the incident commander on scene, urged people to shelter in place as authorities search for the suspect, described as a white male wearing a white or blue T-shirt.

Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference that the gunman apparently opened fire on parade-goers from a rooftop using a rifle that was recovered at the scene. He didn't know which building.

Covelli said police believe there was only one shooter and warned that he should still be considered armed and dangerous. He and O'Neill described the shooting as random.

Police have not released any details about the victims or wounded.

``This morning at 10:14, our community was terrorized by an act of violence that has shaken us to our core,'' Mayor Nancy Rotering said at the news conference. ``Our hearts go out to the families of the victims at this devastating time. On a day that we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we are instead mourning the tragic loss of life and struggling with the terror that was brought upon us.''

Hundreds of parade-goers _ some visibly bloodied _ fled the parade route after shots rang out, leaving their belongings behind. As of early afternoon, ominous signs of a joyous event suddenly turned to horror filled both sides of Central Street where the shooting occurred. Dozens of baby cartridges, some bearing American flags, abandoned children's bikes, a helmet bedecked with images of Cinderella were left behind in their haste. Blankets, lawn chairs, coffees and water bottles were knocked over as people fled.

Police armed, some in camouflage gear and many clutching AR-style weapons continued to pour into the area.

Highland Park Police initially said in a statement early Monday afternoon that five people had been killed and 19 people were taken to hospitals. but those numbers were revised soon after at the news conference.

Video shot by a Sun-Times journalist after the gunfire rang out shows a band on a float continuing to play as people run past, screaming.

Gina Troiani and her son were lined up with his daycare class ready to walk onto the parade route when she heard a loud sound that she believed was fireworks _ until she heard people yell about a shooter.

``We just start running in the opposite direction,'' she told The Associated Press.

Her 5-year-old son was riding his bike decorated with red and blue curled ribbons. He and other children in the group held small American flags. The city said on it's website that the festivities were to include a children's bike and pet parade.

Troiani said she pushed her son's bike, running through the neighborhood to get back to their car.

In a video that Troiani shot on her phone, some of the kids are visibly startled at the loud noise and they scramble to the side of the road as a siren wails nearby.

It was just sort of chaos,'' she said. ``There were people that got separated from their families, looking for them. Others just dropped their wagons, grabbed their kids and started running.''

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a tweet that he is ``closely monitoring the situation in Highland Park.''

Debbie Glickman, a Highland Park resident, said she was on a parade float with coworkers and the group was preparing to turn onto the main route when she saw people running from the area.

``People started saying: `There's a shooter, there's a shooter, there's a shooter,''' Glickman told the Associated Press. ``So we just ran. We just ran. It's like mass chaos down there.''

She didn't hear any noises or see anyone who appeared to be injured.

``I'm so freaked out,'' she said. ``It's just so sad.''

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Bahrains Labour Fund (Tamkeen) has signed a strategic cooperation with Bahrain Polytechnic to train 100 Bahrainis in Swift and iOS App Development as part of the Apple iOS Program, providing the local market with a talent pool of native Swift developers, a highly sought-after skill in Bahrain and abroad.

This initiative comes as part of Tamkeens plan to support the training and development of Bahraini talent in emerging tech skills to enhance their competitiveness locally and internationally, Tamkeen said.

The first cohort attending the training course will include 25 Bahraini students and is scheduled to start in October at Bahrain Polytechnic, home of the first Apple Authorized Training Center in Bahrain and the second in the region.

The participants will learn mobile development based on Apple Swift Fundamentals and Data Collection. The course will be delivered by Apple certified trainers and will offer a professional certificate (Level 1 of the iOS App Development). At the end of the program the participants will get access to a one-month internship to apply the skills they learned during the training period.

Applications for the course will be through Bahrain Polytechnics website https://ios.polytechnic.bh, where registrations will be open until September 25. Applicants do not require any programming experience, and they should attend an intensive morning program for seven days a week for a total of 9 weeks, a statement said.

Maha Mofeez, Acting Chief Executive of Tamkeen, emphasised the importance of upskilling and reskilling Bahraini talent to prepare them for change, and ensure the private sector has access to high quality professionals that can support the growth and success of enterprises.

She said: We are committed to delivering greater impact for the Kingdoms economy by fulfilling our role in the government-led economic recovery plan and through our support to all economic sectors while incentivizing high potential sectors that can drive innovation, productivity and sustainability in the national economy.

She added: "Through this partnership with Bahrain Polytechnic we aim to prepare qualified Bahraini talent specialised in iOS development to keep up with the growing smart phone market and pave the way for them to get quality work opportunities and support their career development.

Bahrain Polytechnic CEO, Professor Ciaran O Cathain, welcomed this initiative from Tamkeen and commented: We are delighted to partner with Tamkeen to offer this program that caters to the requirements of the local labor market and beyond. We look forward to equipping Bahrainis with the technical skills and knowledge required to enter the field of iOS development and achieve career growth within this industry.

Earlier this year Tamkeen embarked on an organisation-wide transformation initiative which resulted in the launch of 16 support programs with the aim of achieving greater economic impact in the national economy. Bahrainis can get support for this course through Tamkeens human capital support programs: Train Me, Train and Grow and Train and Place. TradeArabia News Service
The Egyptian Public Prosecution has referred Ayman Haggag, the husband of murdered TV presenter Shaimaa Gamal, and another defendant to criminal trial on charges of premeditated murder.

The crime of premeditated murder is punishable by death penalty in Egypt.

Haggag, a judicial authority member, had planned to kill Gamal after she threatened to reveal their secrets and asked for money to remain silent about them, the prosecution said in a statement on Thursday.

Hussein El-Gharably, a company owner and the second defendant, accepted an offer from the husband to cooperate in killing Gamal, the prosecution said.

Planning to take his wife's life, Haggag and El-Gharably dug a grave in a remote farm that they rented to kill her in, then hide her body, the prosecution said.

On the day of the crime, the husband lured Gamal to the farm, where the second defendant was also waiting, then surprised her with a hit on her head by the using a gun butt.

When victim fell down, the husband strangled her with his hand and a piece of cloth, while the second defendant held her to paralyse her movement until they made sure she passed away.

The two defendants put the victim in chains, placed her in the grave they dug and poured an incendiary material on her to mutilate her body so she unrecognizable, the prosecution said.

Forensic reports have confirmed that the death was caused by strangulation, the prosecution said. Examination also proved that the cloth that the defendants used to kill Gamal had their genetic fingerprints.

Moreover, it was proven that the SIM cards of the victim and the defendants, which they used on the day of the crime, were within the geographical scope of the cell tower located near the aforementioned farm.

The prosecutions accusations for the two defendants were based on the testimonies of 10 witnesses and the confessions of the two defendants, the prosecution noted.

Investigations also found that the husband is suspected of committing other crimes, the prosecution said, noting that it would investigate them separately.

Gamal was known for her programme El-Moshagheba (The Troublemaker) on LTC TV satellite channel. She also worked for Al-Hadath Al-Youm satellite channel.

Late in June, the Ministry of Interior announced arresting the husband in Suez city less than a week after the prosecution found the body of the victim.

The husband had earlier reported that Gamal went missing in front of a commercial complex in 6 October city in Giza.

Relatives of the victim said she disappeared from the complex after being last seen in the company of her husband.

The prosecution then announced that the body of the TV presenter was found after the second man  who affirmed that he was close to the victims husband  willingly offered his testimony to the prosecution.

The man said he witnessed the crime and claimed that the husband killed Gamal over differences between them. He informed the prosecution of the place where Gamal's body was buried.

The prosecution said it obtained authorisation from the judicial authority, which employs the husband, to lift his immunity and take measures against him.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


A man opened fire at a mall in the US state of Indiana on Sunday killing three and injuring two, officials said, the latest armed rampage in a country plagued by gun violence.

The attack ended when a "good Samaritan" shot the gunman dead, police said.

"We experienced a mass shooting this evening at the Greenwood Park Mall," Mark Myers, mayor of Greenwood, Indiana, said in a statement.

The town is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of downtown Indianapolis, the state capital.

The gunman, who has not been identified, entered the mall's food court at about 6 pm (2200 GMT) carrying a rifle along with several magazines of ammunition and opened fire, said Chief Jim Ison of the Greenwood Police Department.

Those injured included a 12-year-old girl, Ison said, adding that no motive had been established.

"Four have been confirmed deceased," he said, noting that that included the initial shooter.

Chief Ison praised the intervention of the armed passer-by who ended the attack, calling the 22-year-old man a "good Samaritan."

"The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop this shooter almost as soon as he began," he said.

"This has shaken us to our core. This isn't something we have seen in Greenwood before," he said. "It's absolutely horrendous."

It is the latest attack in a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where about 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

It comes just weeks after a gunman opened fire on a July 4 parade in an affluent Chicago suburb, killing seven people and injuring at least three dozen.

That incident followed two massacres in May that saw 10 Black people shot dead at an upstate New York supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers slain at an elementary school in Texas.

The recent surge in gun violence has reignited the divisive debate over firearm regulation. A US House of Representatives' committee is set this week to discuss a bill that would ban assault weapons for the first time in nearly 20 years.

A 10-year federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Johannesburg, Sept 11 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2022 ) :At least three people were killed and dozens injured after a mine dam burst and sparked flooding that swept away houses and cars in central South Africa, officials said on Sunday.

Television footage showed a river of mud and water flowing away from the mine and into a nearby residential area.

It covered roads and swept houses away in Jagersfontein, a town about 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of the Free State province capital, Bloemfontein.

"A mine dam collapsed and swept away houses and cars in the area," Palesa Chubisi, a spokeswoman for Free State premier Sisi Ntombela, said in a statement.

"Three bodies have since been recovered." Chubisi said 40 people, including a pregnant woman, were taken to local hospitals, four suffering from fractured limbs and the rest with bruises and hypothermia.

National electricity utility Eskom said Jagersfontein was left without power after one of its substations was "engulfed by the mud".

"Due to the current situation in the Jagersfontein area and inaccessibility of our substation, it is impossible to estimate when supply will be restored or to determine the extent of the damage," Eskom said in a statement.

Search and rescue efforts continued, while authorities were evacuating people in the affected areas to nearby farms, she added.

A disaster management team was at the scene to determine the extent of the damage, but the cause was not yet known.

The flooding caused some houses to collapse "leading some members of the community to escape with only the clothes on their backs", said the provincial department of social development, which was assisting with the evacuation and relief efforts.
London, Sept 11 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2022 ) :England captain Ben Stokes led by example as the hosts pressed for a series-clinching win in the third Test against South Africa at the Oval on Sunday.

South Africa were 146-7 in their second innings, a lead of just 106 runs, at tea on the fourth day of this curtailed match.

Stokes, having removed opposing South Africa skipper Dean Elgar, rounded off a session where the Proteas lost six wickets for 76 runs by striking with the last ball before tea when he bowled dangerman Marco Jansen for four with an excellent inswinger on his way to a return of 2-29 in 10.4 overs.

Jansen, 'caught' off a Stokes no-ball shortly beforehand, had top-scored with 30 in South Africa's meagre first innings 118 before taking a Test-best 5-35 in England's reply of 158 -- all after he had been unluckily dropped from the side that lost the second Test by an innings and 85 runs at Old Trafford.

Kyle Verreynne was eight not out.

South Africa, who've managed just one individual fifty so far this series, were 70-1 at lunch, 30 runs ahead.

Elgar was 35 not out and Keegan Petersen unbeaten on seven after Stokes, with just his third ball of the match, had Sarel Erwee (26) caught by first slip Joe Root.

Left-hander Elgar, in good touch before lunch, had added just one run to his score when Stuart Broad, bowling from around the wicket, had him lbw.

Perhaps convinced by the forcefulness of Broad's appeal, Elgar walked off almost as soon as he was given out having, extraordinarily, opted against a review despite the match situation and his status as South Africa's senior batsman.

Replays, however, indicated the ball would have missed leg stump by a distance, although by then Elgar was back in the pavilion and South Africa were 83-2.

Not that Broad cared. By dismissing Elgar, he surpassed retired Australia great Glenn McGrath's career tally of 563 Test wickets, with only longstanding team-mate and fellow England star James Anderson (666) having taken more among pace bowlers.

But as Broad had pointed out after equalling McGrath's mark on Saturday, he was appearing in his 159th Test compared to the 124 played by a "hero of mine".

Petersen had slashed Broad over backward point for four before cover-driving Anderson off the back foot for another boundary, with Stokes setting attacking fields, only to be undone on 23 when squared up by an Anderson delivery he edged to fourth slip.

Ryan Rickelton, recalled in place of the injured Rassie van der Dussen, fell cheaply for the second time in the match when he was lbw for eight after playing across a Broad outswinger that straightened. Rickelton, unlike Elgar, reviewed but there was no contradicting Indian umpire Nitin Menon's decision.

Robinson, who took a Test-best 5-49 in South Africa's first innings, then struck twice in quick succession, with Wiaan Mulder (14 off 52 balls) playing on before his equally becalmed partner Khaya Zondo (16 off 51 balls) was lbw to a ball that cut back sharply.

Earlier, England lost their last three wickets for the addition of just four runs in 16 legal deliveries after resuming on 154-7, with Kagiso Rabada and Jansen polishing off the tail.

This match has effectively been reduced to a three-day game after Thursday's opening day was washed out without a ball bowled before Friday's play was abandoned following the death of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

jdg/mw
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2022 ) :Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has so far disbursed over Rs. 23 billion among the flood-hit families in a short span of time under the Flood Relief Cash Assistance, to mitigate the sufferings of flood affected population.

Emerged as the most effective and reliable social protection intervention during the recent floods devastation, the BISP is executing the challenging task of disbursing cash relief of Rs. 25,000 per family to the flood affected families in devastated areas.

The task of disbursing Flood Relief Cash Assistance among the flood-hit people was assigned to the BISP by the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif which is being carrying out speedily.

Under the leadership of Federal Minister of Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety and Chairperson BISP, Shazia Marri, BISP rolled out its operations in the flood affected areas within no time and presently the flood relief activities are operational in 69 districts by establishing more than 400 payment sites.

Since August 19 till September 11 (Sunday) 3:00 pm, BISP has disbursed a total amount of Rs. 23,063,125,000 has been disbursed among 922,525 affected families under this programme.

A total of 112,301 affected families have received Rs.2,807,525,000 in Balochistan; 548,979 families have received Rs.13,724,475,000 in Sindh; 114,029 families have received Rs. 2,850,725,000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 147,216 families have received Rs.3,680,400,000 in Punjab.

Azra Bibi from Qambary, Swabi said, "My husband is a factory worker. I have seven children, four sons and three daughters. My house is made of mud so rain is a big problem and whenever it rains, water gets inside our house. Now my house has been destroyed due to the rains" "I got a message from BISP to come and collect flood relief money from their center. I borrowed some money for commute and reach BISP Center where they checked my CNIC and got my biometric. After all the clearance, they gave me the flood relief money of Rs. 25,000. With this money, we will fulfill our basic needs as we don't have the groceries at home. I thank Benazir programme with all my heart; May Bless her", she said.

Razzaq Mehmood, Deputy Director BISP who is supervising the cash disbursement process at Flood Relief Camp set up in Government Boys school, Taunsa Sharif said the camp has been established on the directions of Chairperson BISP, Shazia Marri to disburse Rs.

25,000 among the flood affected families.

He said that the payment process is going on smoothly and the staff is vigilantly extending all possible support and guidance to the visitors.

Irfana, mother of two children visited the same camp for receiving her payment said, "My husband is a piece rate worker. The recent flood has completely destroyed our house and we have nothing to survive".

She thanked the government and BISP for providing cash assistance of Rs.25, 000 through which she intends to buy ration to feed her family.

Amina Bibi from Sukkur, said, "My house is made of mud and has been destroyed due to the floods like other houses in surroundings. My husband is suffering from illness. I thank BISP for providing Rs. 25,000 much-needed cash relief which I would spend on buying medicine of my husband and ration".

All the payment centers are kept open on holidays for the disbursement of payment to the affectees. The administration of BISP has directed the concerned staff present at the campsites to fully cooperate and facilitate the people in their respective regions.

The affected families can send their CNIC number to 8171 for registration in Flood Relief Cash Assistance program and upon receiving payment message they can visit their nearby campsite to receive their payment. A control Room has also been established at BISP headquarters to ensure smooth payments.

It is also worth mentioning that the federal minister, Shazia Marri has announced that the flood affected pregnant mothers and children will be covered under the Benazir Nashonuma Programme in collaboration with World food Programme (WFP).

For this purpose, an additional amount of one billion rupees has been allocated for the flood affected mothers and children apart from the existing beneficiaries.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has also announced to increase the flood relief assistance under BISP from the existing Rs. 28 billion to Rs. 70 billion in view of gross damages of lives, infrastructure and crops in the wake of flash floods.

395/
LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2022 ) :Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi said that the speeches and quotes of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah are a beacon of light for all and by adopting Jinnah golden principles of "Faith, Unity & Discipline" nation can put the country in the right direction.

"I firmly believe that we can solve the problems of Pakistan by adhering to the sterling principles of Quaid-e-Azam and if we call ourselves an independent nation then the sagacious politics of Jinnah has a pivotal role behind it", he said.

In his message on the death anniversary of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the CM said that the formation of a peaceful society based on tolerance, endurance and lenience was the dream of the founder of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, adding that Quaid-e-Azam wanted such a Pakistan where everyone would be provided equal social and economic justice.

He highlighted that the best course to pay homage to Quaid-e-Azam was to set aside our political and vested interests and as a nation, we should create an exemplary environment of unity and solidarity among our ranks.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Sep, 2022 ) :Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday and expressed his gratitude to him and the people of Trkiye for extending humanitarian relief assistance to Pakistan.

The relief assistance from Turkey was in the form of immediate dispatch of tents, emergency food items, and medicines via 12 Turkish military aircraft, four 'Goodness trains' and two Turkish Red Crescent Trucks.

The Prime Minister exclaimed that this is in the truest tradition of Pakistan-Trkiye exemplary relationship.

He also expressed his gratitude for the visit undertaken on September 1, 2022, as a gesture of solidarity and support, by Suleyman Soylu, Minister of Interior, Murat Kurum, Minister for Environment and Urbanisation, the Head of AFAD and representatives of TOKI to see the devastation caused by flash floods for themselves.

Sensitising President Erdogan of the havoc caused by the riverine floods, the Prime Minister stated that as per initial estimates, the floods were likely to reduce Pakistan's GDP by over 2 percentage points.

He underlined that the ongoing floods have devastated millions of acres of standing crops, houses and critical infrastructure in the country.

Prime Minister Sharif conveyed that Pakistan was grappling with the immediate challenge of averting an imminent food insecurity in the country as well as providing for rescue and rehabilitation of the victims of this climate-induced calamity.

The Prime Minister briefed President Erdogan about the ongoing relief activities by the Government, and expressed his intention to seek Trkiye's assistance in overcoming the food shortage as well as in undertaking reconstruction and rehabilitation of the flood-affected areas.

In the bilateral context, Prime Minister Sharif reaffirmed commitment to boost relations in all areas.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th September, 2022) Officials of the Cuban Border Guard Troops and the US Coast Guard have discussed joint measures to confront the illicit smuggling of migrants and drugs, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said.

"The Cuban Border Guard and the US Coast Guard Service had an exchange in order to increase operational cooperation in order to combat illegal alien smuggling, drug trafficking, illegal migration and maritime search and rescue operations," Parrilla said on social media on Friday.

The meeting between US and Cuban officials was held on September 8-9 in the Cuban capital of Havana.

Cuba's Ministry of the Interior said in a statement on its website on Friday that the Havana talks were conducted in a respectful and professional atmosphere, and both delegations agreed on the importance of moving forward in cooperation in this area, and on continuing such bilateral meetings in the future.
A Cairo criminal court referred on Tuesday the case of the judge accused of murdering his wife, TV presenter Shaimaa Gamal, and his alleged partner in crime to the grand mufti to inquire about the religious ruling.

Referral to the grand mufti is a necessary procedure before issuing a death sentence, according to Egyptian law, though the religious opinion of the mufti is non-binding.

Tuesday's verdict is not final yet with the possibility of an appeal.

Both defendants were referred in July to the criminal court after the Egyptian public prosecution charged them with premeditated murder, which is punishable by the death penalty in Egypt.

The referral came two weeks after the crime initially came to light when the accomplice reported the murder to the prosecution and said that Ayman Haggag, a judge, killed Gamal over disputes, according to a statement by the prosecution in June.

Haggag had initially reported that his wife had gone missing from a commercial complex in 6 October City in Giza.

However, the second defendant led the prosecution to the victims burial site after reporting the crime.

The prosecution charged Haggag after hearing the testimonies of 10 people and the confessions of the two defendants, according to a statement released on 7 July.

Haggag plotted to kill Gamal after she blackmailed him by demanding money in exchange for not revealing secrets, the prosecution said in the statement, without elaborating on the nature of these secrets.

Haggags friend, Hussein El-Gharably, a company owner and the second defendant, has accepted charges as an accomplice in the murder, the prosecution said.

On the day of the crime, the husband lured Gamal to a remote farm in Giza, where he struck her with the butt of a pistol and strangled her to death with a piece of cloth as El-Gharably held her.

They then put Gamal's body in a makeshift grave and doused her body with a corrosive liquid to make her unrecognisable, according to the prosecution's findings.

Forensic examination confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation, the prosecution said, adding that the DNA of the defendants was found on the cloth used to murder the victim.

Investigations also revealed that the mobile phones of both the victim and the defendants were in proximity of the same cell tower near the aforementioned farm.

However, during the first hearing in the case on 20 July, Haggag claimed that he killed Gamal in self-defence after she attacked him with a knife.

But, the prosecution dismissed Haggags claims in its charging document, which was published by Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper after the hearing.

The prosecution said that no knife was found at the crime scene and that Haggag made no claims of self-defence during his confession.

The prosecution added that El-Gharably's statement contradicts Haggags self-defence claim.

In late July, the Cairo Court of Appeals issued a media gag order on the case.

Gamal was known for her programme El-Moshagheba (The Troublemaker) on LTC TV satellite channel. She also worked for Al-Hadath Al-Youm satellite channel.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2022) Portugal has denied golden visas to all Russian citizens who requested them after February 24, Portuguese newspaper Publico reported on Sunday.

Golden visa is a residence visa granted to non-EU nationals for significant investments made in the Portuguese economy.

The media said that from the end of February to August, the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service received 10 applications for golden visas from Russian citizens in exchange for investments, and all of them were rejected.

On Tuesday, the European Commission adopted a proposal to fully suspend the visa facilitation agreement with Moscow.

The decision will complicate visa application process for Russian citizens and impose more restrictions for multiple entry visas.

Travel between Russia and the EU became much easier in 2007 when the agreement came into force. Under the document, visa fees were reduced, the rules for obtaining a multientry visa were simplified, the list of necessary documents was reduced and visas for diplomats were abolished. In late February, after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the EU partially suspended the agreement, canceling preferences for Russian diplomats and other officials, as well as representatives of the Russian business community.
SIMFEROPOL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2022) The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) was switched off to prevent a potential emergency situation that could be caused by shifting operation modes of the turbines and reactors due to shell-damaged power lines and other infrastructure, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of the Zaporizhzhia region's administration, told Sputnik on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, the authorities said that the last operating power unit at the ZNPP was shut down.

"The Zaporizhzhia NPP was switched off because of constantly adjusting operating modes of the power units.

Shelling of the plant and power lines resulted in their damage. So, we have to repeatedly change the working modes of the power units, which is extremely hazardous to them," Rogov said.

The official added that power lines running from the Russia-controlled territory were cut by Ukrainian shelling.

On Saturday, Rogov said that the Kiev authorities unilaterally stopped accepting the electricity from the ZNPP.
Pope Francis renews his prayers for the people of Ukraine amid the ongoing war, and says he has sent Cardinal Konrad Krajewski to the country to offer his and the Churchs concrete closeness.

By Stefan J. Bos & Devin Watkins

We continue to pray for the Ukrainian people, that the Lord will give them comfort and hope.

Pope Francis made that appeal on Sunday as he spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peters Square for the Angelus prayer.

The Pope also recalled that he has sent Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, to Ukraine to visit various communities and offer concrete witness to the closeness of the Pope and the Church.

The Holy See Press Office announced the Polish-born Cardinals fourth visit to the country on Wednesday. He will travel to the cities of Odessa, Zytomyr, Kharkiv and other places in eastern Ukraine.

Nuclear meltdown concerns

Pope Francis appeal comes as the situation at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continues to worry international experts.

The agency in charge of the site in Ukraine, Energoatom, said operations at the power station had been entirely halted, explaining that a power restoration to the plant had allowed it to do the safest thing and pull down its sixth and last working reactor.

Yet concerns remain as Russia and Ukraine accused each other of shelling the site, risking a nuclear disaster.

As a result, Kyiv has urged residents in the area to evacuate Russian occupied regions around the plant for their own safety. But, without the plant working as usual, Ukraine faces difficulties in energy supplies ahead of winter.

The plant, operational since 1984, accounted for 40 percent of the total electricity generated by Ukrainian nuclear power plants and one-fifth of electricity generated in the country.

Listen to our report

Eastern counteroffensive

The shutdown, monitored by the United Nations nuclear watchdog comes amid signs that Ukraine's military forced the Russian army to pull back thousands of troops after suffering a series of battlefield defeats.

Ukraine appears to have regained control of the two key cities of Kupiansk and Izyum after a recent counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.

Retaking territory

And the regional governor says the Ukrainian flag has also been raised in the city of Balakliya. Troops entered after wrong footing Russian forces with a much publicized Ukrainian southern offensive to distract Russia from the real one being prepared in the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claims his forces have retaken over 2,000 square kilometers, some 772 square miles, in a rapid counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed the withdrawal of its troops from Izyum, the primary base for Moscow's forces in Kharkiv. However, it claimed they were being regrouped so that efforts could be stepped up in Donetsk.

However, Zelensky warned that Donetsk is another area in the east that Kyiv wants to recapture one day completely.

The entire Donetsk region will be liberated and safe and happy again, as it should be in Ukraine, as it should be everywhere on our land, the president says.

Zelensky adds, The movement of our soldiers in different directions of the front continues as part of active actions. Since the beginning of September, about 2,000 kilometers of our territory have already been liberated.

Suffering continuing

Yet, 200 days after the Russian invasion began, the war seems far from over, with Russian troops still holding about one fifth of the country. And there are reports of widespread torture of prisoners of war and forced deportations.

Kyiv also says that Moscow is sending 1,300 Chechen fighters to the southern Kherson region, where Russian forces are under sustained pressure from Ukrainian attacks.

Tens of thousands, including many soldiers, are believed to have died in Europe's most significant conflict since the Second World War, which has displaced millions of people.

Among the victims was a woman killed and at least 20 civilians injured in Russian shelling over the weekend in the Kharkiv area.
The mentality of the people of Kazakhstan is slowly changing regarding stereotypes about the religious affiliation of the country's individual ethnic groups, says Fr. Ruslan Rakhimberlinov, the first Kazakh rector of Central Asia's only seminary, in Karaganda, as he shares his joy for the grace of Pope Francis' upcoming Apostolic Visit to the nation.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

I am a priest who comes from this nation, from this nationality, because my father's name is Kazakh and my mother comes from the Ukraine - but we Kazakhs always count nationality by father, so I feel and consider myself a Kazakh, says Fr. Ruslan Rakhimberlinov from Karaganda, Kazakhstan, as he anticipates Pope Francis' arrival in Nur-Sultan on Tuesday.

Fr. Ruslan, 39 years old, was recently appointed as the new rector of Kazakhstans Catholic Theological Seminary, the only Catholic seminary in Central Asia, and the first-ever ethnically Kazakh rector to run it.

Catholic Theological Seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan

Pope Francis' visit 'an opportunity'

For us, the visit of Pope Francis to Kazakhstan is an opportunity for our small Catholic community here, our 'small flock' in Kazakhstan, to gain some momentum.

He had been baptized in the Catholic Church just two years prior to Pope St. John Paul II's visit to Kazakhstan in 2001.



Pope Francis' visit is the second time a Pope has visited "our Church" in these years since Kazakhstan's independence, which, says Fr. Ruslan, "is a double joy for our seminary community."

In the 20 years of our existence in Kazakhstan, we are the only seminary in Central Asia, and we are very happy that God is giving us this grace.

First Kazakh priest in the country



Also noteworthy is that Fr. Ruslan is the first Kazakh priest in the country. I was introduced to the Catholic Church when I was about 15 years old, he says.

I come from a simple family. My father is a formal believer of Islamic religion, and my mother is Orthodox, of the Russian Orthodox Church - you could say the Soviet Union. The time of atheism had kind of taken its toll. It was all formal....

"When I was 15-16 years old," he recalls, "I met the Catholic Church for the first time. I was baptized on Easter Sunday in 1999."

Two years later, feeling called to a vocation, and encouraged by his friend, relatives, and the priest serving as rector, Fr. Ruslan decided to enter the seminary in Karaganda.

Catholic Theological Seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan

Challenging long-standing stereotypes

In 2008, after years of formation, he was ordained a priest at the celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29.

All these years, he served as a priest in various parishes of Kazakhstan, especially in the Karaganda Diocese.

With his baptism and ordination to the priesthood, he suggests he challenged long-standing prejudices that have been rather widespread in Kazakhstan, and which have often fueled mistrust between different religious communities.

Of course, there are also difficulties, because people have such prejudices that if you are Kazakh, you should always be a Muslim. If you're Russian, you must be Orthodox, and if you're Polish or German, you must be Catholic. I often encounter such conversations, or maybe even accusations: 'What are you doing there? You're a Kazakh, and you're supposed to go according to the faith of your ancestors!

More respect toward choosing religion freely

Fr. Ruslan, however, is grateful to see this mentality slowly changing.

Today, people give more respect to a person's free choice, and many understand my choice, even my relatives.

Need to recognize the Gospel in Kazakhstan

For me it is also a responsibility: it is very important to me that the Gospel, the faith of Christ and Christianity here in Kazakhstan, where it already has its deep roots, be recognized. That people gradually learn what Christianity is, what the Good News is, who Christ the Lord is, and what the Catholic Church is.

Pope Francis, he goes on to explain, will find in Kazakhstan, "a Church that is familiar with the idea of synodality and puts it into practice," because we all realise here that the community of Catholics in Kazakhstan is a small flock."

Catholics make up a mere 1 percent of Kazakhstan's 19 million Kazakhs. The country is approximately 70 percent Muslim, and 26 percent Christian, primarily Russian Orthodox.

"We are few in number, so we priests, and also men and women religious know that our future, as a Church, does not depend only on priests and deacons. It is very important for us that the laity, that is, our faithful, understand very well what their responsibility is for the Church in Kazakhstan, the Church of the future.



Catholic Theological Seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan

Impetus for richer dialogue

To prepare for the Popes visit, the seminary is preparing itself spiritually, with some prayer groups and meetings in parishes, especially considering Pope Francis' teaching.



Fr. Ruslan expresses particular appreciation for Pope Francis' latest encyclical, Fratelli tutti, saying, "we are very close to dialogue among all our brothers, because in Kazakhstan so many different religions are represented."

We are preparing for this visit to give us impetus for a richer dialogue, and not only for us Catholics, but also for our Orthodox brothers, for our Muslim brothers, because the Muslim presence in Kazakhstan is very great.

Catholic Theological Seminary in Karaganda, Kazakhstan

Face-to-face moment with Pope Francis

The seminarians, the rector relayed, cannot wait for their personal meeting with Pope Francis on 15 September, where they will have a unique opportunity - for many of them maybe the only one in their lives - to meet face to face with Pope Francis of Rome.

Speaking about the seminary in Karaganda as the only Catholic seminary in all of Central Asia, he told Vatican News about its future priests.

We can say our seminary is 'enriched' with an intercultural, interethnic aspect. The future seminarians come from Uzbekistan, Russia, Georgia, and of course, Kazakhstan. We have 10 students in total.

Each seminarian, he says, carries a particle of the culture and people they come from; there is this enrichment: everyone shares something. This grace and wealth, he said, helps the seminarians.



Grace of God, embracing with faith

While he recognizes that some difficulties arise in understanding and accepting each other, the grace of God helps overrides any misunderstandings between seminarians.

It is a richness, because these 10 students come from different countries and enrich each other as they prepare for the future ministry of God's People in their countries.

As the rector of the seminary serving several countries, he feels a certain weight upon him, but embraces the responsibility with faith.

I am a rector from the local clergy, the first in the history of this seminary.

Trusting in God's providence



"It's a big responsibility for me, but on the other hand it's also an opportunity to serve our Church here in Kazakhstan, to do something with what God has given me," Fr. Ruslan says.

While the rector admits there are challenges, he is not afraid of them.

I look with trust in God's providence, and that is certainly a unique experience. I see that every day God gives me something new: an opportunity to understand in new ways, to look at my faith, my acts of trust in God's providence.
Strolling along the ancient ruins of Hatra in Iraq's north, dozens of visitors admired the site, where local initiatives seek to turn over a new leaf after a brief but brutal jihadist rule.

Designated an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO, Hatra dates back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.

It is a two-hour drive from Mosul, the former "capital" proclaimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which was recaptured in 2017 by Iraqi forces and an international coalition that backed them.

A tour of the site on Saturday, the first of its kind organized by a private museum in Mosul, aimed to boost tourism in the area.

Some 40 visitors, most of them Iraqis, were allowed to walk around the more than 2,000-year-old archaeological site in the golden hour of twilight.

The tourists took selfies in front of impressive colonnades and inspected the reliefs vandalized by IS jihadists.

"It has great history" allowing a peek into an ancient civilization, said Luna Batota, a 33-year-old on tour with her Belgian husband.

"A lot of history but at the same time a lot of unfortunate events took place here with IS," she told AFP.

Batota works for a pharmaceutical company in Belgium, where she has lived since the age of nine.

Twenty-four years later, this is the first time she returns to her homeland.

Visiting Hatra stirred up "mixed feelings" for her, she said. "You see bullet holes, you see many empty bullets."

An important religious and trading center under the Parthian empire, Hatra had imposing fortifications and magnificent temples, blending Greek and Roman architectural styles with oriental decorative elements.

In 2015, IS released a video showing its militants destroying a series of reliefs, firing at them and hacking away at a statue with a pickaxe.

In February, the authorities unveiled three restorations at the site: a Roman-style sculpture of a life-size figure and reliefs on the side of the great temple.



'Not only war'



Five years after the defeat of IS, Mosul and its surroundings have regained a sense of normalcy, even as rehabilitation efforts suffer setbacks and many areas still bear the scars of the fight against the jihadists.

The tour of Hatra was organized by the Mosul Heritage House, a private museum inaugurated in June.

But even before it, the site drew individual visitors, according to one of the organizers, Fares Abdel Sattar, a 60-year-old engineer.

This new initiative seeks to "showcase the heritage and identity" of Mosul and its broader Nineveh province, he said.

After its rise to power in 2014 and the conquest of swathes of Iraq and Syria, IS faced counteroffensives in both countries. Iraqi forces finally claimed victory in late 2017.

As Iraq gradually opens up to foreign tourism, dozens of visitors -- particularly from the West -- are now exploring the country, with some even venturing into Mosul.

The Hatra group are pioneers, visiting at a time when the US, British and other governments are warning their citizens against travel to Iraq, citing the risks of terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict and civil unrest.

The tourism sector also suffered a setback with the case of British pensioner James Fitton, who was detained and condemned to 15 years in jail over pottery shards he picked at an archaeological site, before a court in July overturned the sentence and he flew back home.

Religious tourism to the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf has been thriving, mostly from Iran.

However, challenges remain and tourist infrastructure is still basic in Iraq, a country rich in oil but ravaged by decades of fighting.

"Mosul isn't only war, IS, terrorism," said Beriar Bahaa al-Din, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Exeter in Britain, on the Hatra visit.

"Mosul is a civilization, heritage, culture," he added.

"This impressive site should be full of tourists from across the globe."
President Joe Biden will mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Sunday by delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the Pentagon, the White House said Tuesday.

The day will commemorate the 2001 terrorist attacks when hijackers took control of commercial planes and used them as missiles, crashing into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks by al-Qaida. The U.S. and its allies responded by launching the Afghanistan war.

Jill Biden, the first lady, will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband will go to New York City for a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial.

In New York, the smaller of two museums dedicated to preserving the memory of the attacks has closed.

The 9/11 Tribute Museum, which opened in 2006, offered tours led by volunteers who had lost a family member or were connected in some other way to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It was sometimes confused with the much larger Sept. 11 museum, which opened in 2014 near the memorial pools that mark where the twin towers stood.

"Financial hardship including lost revenue caused by the pandemic prevents us from generating sufficient funding to continue to operate the physical museum," Jennifer Adams, co-founder and CEO of the 9/11 Tribute Museum, said in a statement.

She said the Tribute Museum would maintain an online presence to provide educational resources and support for the 9/11 community.

Most of the museum's collection of artifacts from the Sept. 11 attacks is being moved to the New York State Museum in Albany, Adams said. The nonprofit September 11th Families' Association, which founded the Tribute Museum, is coordinating with its donors to make sure that the artifacts are handled property, she said.
Chinese state media say the countrys top legislator decried sanctions against Russia during a recent visit to the country, underscoring China's backing of Moscow in its war on Ukraine despite claims of neutrality.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Li Zhanshu urged greater cooperation on fighting against external interference, sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, among others, in a meeting with Russian lawmakers Thursday.

Li also held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of an expected meeting this month between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a regional gathering in Uzbekistan. That would mark Xis first trip outside China since the pandemic began in early 2020.

Li is a member of the Communist Party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee and is considered one of Xi's closest confidants, the two having worked together for decades. Ranked third in the Communist Party hierarchy, Li is the highest-level official to travel abroad since the start of the pandemic.

The meeting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization  a political, economic and security forum that China and Russia dominate  comes as Putin faces setbacks in his attempt to conquer Ukraine and Xi prepares for a congress of the ruling Communist Party that is expected to grant him a third five-year term as leader.

Xinhua said Russia also backed Beijing's condemnation of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit last month to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China threatens to annex by force.

Li thanked the Russian side for firmly supporting China on the Taiwan question," Xinhua reported.

Russia has also backed China against international criticism, including at the United Nations, over its mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

The world's two leading authoritarian states, China and Russia have increasingly aligned their foreign policies against the U.S. and other liberal democracies. Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi hosted Putin in Beijing in early February, during which the sides issued a joint statement declaring, Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no forbidden' areas of cooperation."

In that statement, Russia also said it confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan."

China has steadfastly refused to criticize Russia's invasion of Ukraine or even to refer to it as such and has accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking the conflict, despite Putin's statements that he regards Ukraine as a historical part of Russia that must be eliminated as an independent political entity.

Although condemning the punishing economic sanctions against Russia, Beijing has not provided military or financial support to Moscow that could trigger legal action from Washington against its companies.

Russia held sweeping military drills that ended last week in the countrys east, involving forces from China in another show of increasingly close ties between the two.

Xinhua said Li met with Putin in the far-eastern port city of Vladivostok, and with Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko and Vyacheslav Volodin, chairperson of the Russian State Duma, in Moscow on a visit that ran from Wednesday to Saturday.
Chinas mass incarceration of Uyghur and other Muslim minorities is not on the U.N. Human Rights Councils packed agenda for its session starting Monday. However, the controversial policy threatens to overshadow all the other issues to be examined during the councils monthlong session.

Human rights activists are clamoring for China to be held accountable for its alleged systematic, widespread abuse of more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

These calls have grown more insistent since the publication August 31 of a long-awaited U.N. report accusing China of torture or ill-treatment and other violations that could amount to crimes against humanity.

Michelle Bachelet issued the report just minutes before stepping down as U.N. high commissioner for human rights. In departing remarks, she called on the Human Rights Council to keep abreast of the situation in Xinjiang.

In a briefing last week, council President Federico Villegas diplomatically sidestepped questions pertaining to the possible convening of a special session on China. He said the council did not mandate the report.

I am the President of a council of 47 members, and it is state-driven. They have the prerogative, each of the 47, to ask for the council to do whatever they deem necessary. So, it will be up to the states to decide how to follow up that report or any other report that is brought to the attention of the council in different formats, he said.

Chinas ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Chen Xu, said China will firmly oppose any efforts to use human rights as a political tool to interfere in its internal affairs. He said nearly 100 countries have expressed their support of what he called Chinas just position. He added the developing world will reject all anti-China initiatives by Western countries at the upcoming session of the Human Rights Council.

I should say any kind of anti-China actions is again doomed to failure. So, in short, we strongly opposing the assessment, the so-called assessment report. And we will strongly oppose any move to move this assessment report, launch any kind of motion or joint actions against us, he said.

Chen said China was ready to establish a working relationship with the newly appointed high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk. However, he said Turk must strictly observe his mandate, and conduct business in an impartial, nonpoliticized manner for that relationship to work.
UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt Mahmoud Mohieldin stressed on Wednesday the importance of prioritising climate projects in the food, water and energy sectors, as global indicators refer to a high increase in demand in the three fields by 2030 by 35, 40, and 50 percent respectively because of the rising world population.

This, Mohieldin said, is given that the number of the planets inhabitants is expected to reach 8 billion by November  when the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) is set to take place  and 8.5 billion by 2023.

He made the remarks at a roundtable titled Nexus of Water, Food and Energy on the first day of the Egypt-International Cooperation Forum (Egypt-ICF 2022), which is being held at the New Administrative Capital from 7-9 September.

The roundtable involved the participation of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait, Minister of the Environment and COP27 Ministerial Coordinator and Envoy Yasmine Fouad, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Ghada Waly.

Mohieldin noted that half of the expected increase in the Earths population will be in eight countries, five of which are African, which adds challenges for developing countries to achieve sustainable development, especially after COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and more crises that halt development tracks.

Hence, he said, the African continent is in need of effective transition in the sectors of food, water and energy that serve all of its habitants.

"As the UN high level climate champion, I developed eight priorities which I advocate and repeat in any discussion. The Water-Food-Energy nexus is a concept that hits the sweet spot for all these five priorities," Mohieldin said, explaining that the first priority is adopting a holistic approach that aims to achieve all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including climate targets.

Moreover, he clarified that this approach should help all people receive food, water and energy equally, and focus on achieving social, environmental and economic development, saying that this approach has become more important than at any time before.

He added that climate actions second priority is implementation, saying that COP27 will be a conference of action, not more pledges and promises.

The third priority, according to Mohieldin, is to regionalise climate action, mentioning the five major regional roundtable initiatives to finance climate and development action.

The Africa roundtable resulted in 19 development projects, four of them relate to the nexus of food, water and energy, and Asia-Pacific resulted in 20 projects. Mohieldin expects that the Arab world roundtable will result in three related projects.

Mohieldin said that the fourth priority is to enhance the local aspect of climate action, referring to the National Initiative for Smart Green Projects launched by Egypt, in which all local actors compete to register the best, smartest projects that help achieve environmental and climate goals within the framework of a local investment map.

"We will showcase 18 local development and climate projects during COP27, some of them will be food, water and energy projects," he said.

Mohieldin indicated that financing is the fifth priority, explaining that COP27 prioritises mobilising finance and investments for environment and climate projects, pushing towards fulfilling previous financing pledges, especially the $100 billion pledged by the Copenhagen conference, and activating GFANZ to finance climate projects in developing countries.

He added that COP27 will target scaling up private sector participation, finding innovative finance instruments, pushing towards financing climate action through investments without adding a bigger debt burden on developing countries, establishing a carbon market that suits developing countries and emerging market priorities and circumstances, and linking public budgets to development and climate action.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


This Monday, the cast and crew of the Broadway musical Come From Away have an appointment, as usual, with an aircraft carrier.

Every year to honor Sept. 11, they help box thousands of meals for food banks across the city and perform for the volunteers aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid.

9/11 was a worldwide event. It was a time when we all felt helpless, and it was a time when we all wanted to help. And I think those sentiments continue right now, said David Hein, who with his wife, Irene Sankoff, wrote the book, music and lyrics to Come From Away.

The musical is set in the small Newfoundland town of Gander, which opened its arms to some 7,000 airline passengers diverted there when the U.S. government shut down airspace during 9/11.

In a matter of a few hours, the town was overwhelmed by 38 planeloads of travelers from dozens of countries and religions, yet locals went to work in their kitchens and cleaned up spare rooms to offer space and food to the newcomers.

Bittersweet visit

This year's visit to the Intrepid by the New York cast will be bittersweet; it's the last time the show will send representatives from Broadway. The show closes Oct. 2 after a five-year run.

But it's fitting that one of its last acts will be giving. Few shows have left such a legacy of connecting with the community  concerts for cancer victims, fundraisers for farmers facing drought and even cast members handing out dollar bills to the needy in the New York subway.

It's been incredible to see us be inspired by the Newfoundlanders and then have this story inspire other people to do even more good, Hein says. "Its humbling to see that Shakespeare quote in action: How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Giving back from the beginning

Giving back was baked into the show since the first workshop at Sheridan College in Ontario, where a hat was passed to raise money for animal shelters overwhelmed with new kittens. A benefit concert planned for later this month at the Gander airport will do the same because kittens never stop, Hein says, laughing.

Since its debut, the musical  under director Christopher Ashley, who won a Tony for his work  has not changed, but it has seemed to take on different issues, depending on real events swirling at the time.

The shows first preview at its pre-Broadway run at Seattle Rep  Nov. 13, 2015  came just hours after 130 people were killed in a coordinated terrorist attack in Paris. Offstage, the creators wondered what to do. Should they say something? Change the show?

I think it was Chris Ashley who said, I think we just put on the show. I think this show says look for the helpers. It says, remember theres more of us trying to do good than there are people trying to do harm. It says so much just by telling the story.

Broadway opening

When Ivanka Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saw it in 2017 on Broadway, the issue was immigration and walls. Trudeau got onstage and said he was pleased, the world gets to see what it is to lean on each other and be there for each other through the darkest times.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave the musical a different color, a sense of entering a period of uncertainty and reinforcing the notion of a community coming together. It was no surprise to Sankoff and Hein that the show's costume department immediately started sewing masks for front line workers.

At a time when people were actually out of work and terrified that their industry wasnt going to come back, so many of our company were saying, How can I also help? Sankoff says.

While the terror attacks are ever-present in the musical, the focus is on the Canadian response. The words World Trade Center and terrorist are each uttered only once. The creators like to call it a 9/12 story.

We really did not want to do a show that was about 9/11, says Hein, who was with his wife in New York on that fateful day. We wanted to do a show about Newfoundland and how they had responded because that gave us hope, contrasting what we had felt on that day. 

North American tour

The Broadway version may soon be gone, but the future is still bright for Come From Away. There's a North American tour, a production in London and one touring Australia. A version in Finland opens this month, one recently opened in Holland, another in Argentina and one in Sweden.

Whats amazing is how universal this story is. You have to change elements of it within a language and within a culture. But the concept of welcoming strangers and a world coming together is something that people are, I think, really hungry for, says Hein.

He and his wife and their 9-year-old daughter will be spending the 9/11 anniversary in Gander, at one of several concerts and benefits planned to commemorate the 21st year after the attacks.

9/11 is a national day of service. But I think what weve also learned is that any day can be a day of service  at any moment, says Hein. Kindness is a daily practice and one that we can all use a reminder for each day.
Hours before dawn on March 1, 2003, the U.S. scored its most thrilling victory yet against the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks  the capture of a disheveled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, hauled away by intelligence agents from a hideout in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The global manhunt for al-Qaida's No. 3 leader had taken 18 months. But America's attempt to bring him to justice, in a legal sense, has taken much, much longer. Critics say it has become one of the war on terror's greatest failures.

As Sunday's 21st anniversary of the terror attacks approaches, Mohammed and four other men accused of 9/11-related crimes still sit in a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, their planned trials before a military tribunal endlessly postponed.

The latest setback came last month when pretrial hearings scheduled for early fall were canceled. The delay was one more in a string of disappointments for relatives of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack. They've long hoped that a trial would bring closure and perhaps resolve unanswered questions.

"Now, I'm not sure what's going to happen," said Gordon Haberman, whose 25-year-old daughter Andrea died after a hijacked plane crashed into the the World Trade Center, a floor above her office.

He's traveled to Guantanamo four times from his home in West Bend, Wisconsin, to watch the legal proceedings in person, only to leave frustrated.

"It's important to me that America finally gets to the truth about what happened, how it was done," said Haberman. "I personally want to see this go to trial."

If convicted at trial, Mohammed could face the death penalty.

When asked about the case, James Connell, an attorney for one of Mohammed's co-defendants  one accused of transferring money to 9/11 attackers  confirmed reports both sides are still "attempting to reach a pretrial agreement" that could still avoid a trial and result in lesser but still lengthy sentences.

David Kelley, a former U.S. attorney in New York who co-chaired the Justice Department's nationwide investigation into the attacks, called the delays and failure to prosecute "an awful tragedy for the families of the victims."

He called the effort to put Mohammed on trial before a military tribunal, rather than in the regular U.S. court system, "a tremendous failure" that was "as offensive to our Constitution as to our rule of law."

"It's a tremendous blemish on the country's history," he said.

The difficulty in holding a trial for Mohammed and other Guantanamo prisoners is partly rooted in what the U.S. did with him after his 2003 capture.

Mohammed and his co-defendants were initially held in secret prisons abroad. Hungry for information that might lead to the capture of other al-Qaida figures, CIA operatives subjected them to enhanced interrogation techniques that were tantamount to torture, human rights groups say. Mohammed was waterboarded  made to feel that he was drowning  183 times.

A Senate investigation later concluded the interrogations didn't lead to any valuable intelligence. But it has sparked endless pretrial litigation over whether FBI reports on their statements can be used against them  a process not subject to speedy trial rules used in civilian courts.

The torture allegations led to concerns that the U.S. might have ruined its chance to put Mohammed on trial in a civilian court.

But in 2009, President Barack Obama's administration decided to try, announcing that Mohammed would be transferred to New York City and put on trial at a federal court in Manhattan.

"Failure is not an option," Obama said.

But New York City balked at the cost of security and the move never came. Eventually, it was announced Mohammed would face a military tribunal. And then over a dozen years passed.

Kelley said talk of military tribunals two decades ago surprised many in the legal community who had been successfully prosecuting terrorism cases in the decade before. The concept of a tribunal, he said, "came out of the blue. Nobody knew it was coming."

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was not in favor of tribunals and had been supportive of the Manhattan federal terrorism prosecutions, he said.

Now, Kelley said, with the passage of time it will be much more difficult to prosecute Mohammed in a tribunal, much less a courtroom. "Evidence goes stale, witness memories fail."

The passage of time hasn't dulled the memories of the victims' families or dampened their interest in witnessing justice.

Eddie Bracken's sister Lucy Fishman was killed at the trade center. The New Yorker opposed Obama's proposal to move the trial to federal court  Mohammed is charged with "a military act," and should be tried by the military, he reasoned. And while he is somewhat frustrated by the delays, he understands them.

"The whole world is looking at us and saying, 'What are they doing after all this time?'" he said. But he realizes the case is "a process that the world is seeing, that needs to be done under a microscope.  It's up to the United States to do their due diligence, make sure it's done right."

"The wheels of justice turn. They turn slowly, but they turn. And when the time comes, and it's said and done, the world will know what happened," he adds.

While Mohammed has lingered at Guantanamo, the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid and deputy-turned-successor Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike just this August.

Investigators with the military commission at Guantanamo Bay said he plotted the 9/11 attacks for three years. They cited a computer hard drive seized at his arrest which they said contained photographs of the 19 hijackers, three letters from bin Laden and information about some hijackers.

Mohammed, at his tribunal hearing, conceded in a written statement that he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, that he was on al-Qaida's council and that he served as operational director for bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the Sept. 11 plot "from A to Z."

According to the statement, he also took credit for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; an attempt to down U.S. jetliners using bombs hidden in shoes; the bombing of a nightclub in Indonesia; and plans for a second wave of attacks after the 2001 attacks targeting landmarks like the Sears Tower in Chicago and Manhattan's Empire State Building.

He also claimed credit for other planned attacks, including assassination attempts against then-President Bill Clinton in 1994 or 1995 and an assassination plot against Pope John Paul II at about the same time, the statement said.

Mohammed's nearly two decades in legal limbo differs from the fate of his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people, injured 1,000 others and left a crater in the parking garage beneath the twin towers.

Yousef is serving life in prison after being convicted at two separate civilian trials. He was also captured in Pakistan, in 1995, but was brought to the United States for trial.

At the time, Yousef said his right to kill people was comparable to the U.S. decision to drop a nuclear bomb in World War II. Mohammed has offered a similar justification, saying through an interpreter at a Guantanamo proceeding that killing people was the "language of any war."

Bracken traveled to Guantanamo in 2012 to watch one hearing for Mohammed and his co-defendants, and would probably go again if a trial ever happened.

"I don't know if I want to go there again to bring back all the hurt and pain. But if I'm allowed to go, then I guess I would go. Yeah. My sister would do that for me."

"She's that type of a woman," he added. Then he corrected himself: "She was that type of a woman."
A fiery crash between a tank truck carrying fuel and a passenger bus Saturday has left at least 18 people dead in northern Mexico.

Police in the northern border state of Tamaulipas said the collision left both vehicles completely burned. Police photos showed the bus was reduced to a tangle of smoking, charred metal.

The death toll could rise as more charred remains are recovered. The crash occurred before dawn Saturday on a highway that leads to the northern city of Monterrey.

The driver of the fuel truck apparently survived and is under investigation. The bus had apparently set out from the central state of Hidalgo and was headed to Monterrey.

The truck was towing two fuel tanks in tandem, and such double-container freight trucks have been involved in numerous deadly crashes in the past.

Because weight restrictions and safety inspections in Mexico are lax, there have been calls in the past to ban such extremely heavy and unwieldy trucks.
At least seven fighters from a Kurdish-led force were killed Sunday in two Islamic State group attacks in eastern Syria, a war monitor said.

"Six fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed" in an IS attack along the road linking Deir Ezzor province with Hasakeh, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A seventh was shot dead by IS-linked gunmen in the west of Deir Ezzor province, the Observatory said.

The attacks were carried out in areas under the control of the SDF, which is a key U.S. partner in fighting IS and is the Syrian Kurds' de facto army.

IS seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a "caliphate" to administer the millions-strong population.

A long and bloody fightback by Syrian and Iraqi forces with backing from the United States and other powers led to its eventual defeat in March 2019, but sleeper cells of the Sunni Muslim extremist group still carry out attacks in both countries.

On Thursday, the SDF said two of their fighters were killed and six IS jihadists arrested following clashes in a volatile Syria camp where a security operation was under way.

Syria's war began in 2011 and has killed nearly half a million people and forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.
Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire's former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Beyond official condolences praising the queen's longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her father's death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen's reign, and well into Britain's harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

"Movement permit," the document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugo's grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

"Most of our grandparents were oppressed," Mugo tweeted hours after the queen's death Thursday. "I cannot mourn."

But Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queen's rule before becoming the country's first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. "The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries," Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

"This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in," said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

Elizabeth's reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the region's borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gaza's Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to "correct" British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen's perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was "held by many as bearing responsibility" for the island's tragedies.

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

"I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in today's world, because we are the world's largest democratic country," said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

In Kenya's capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion "with a lot of bitterness" and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was "a very young lady" then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

"We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time," Kahindi said.

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering "spiritual connection" in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. "It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia," he said.

The queen's dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: "She's seen more as the mother of the world."

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

"You have contradictory consciousness," said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this year's visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialism's implications, Thame said  during the visit, William expressed his "profound sorrow" for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn't surprising since she was presented by the British as "this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us," but young people aren't awed by the royal family.

"The only thing I noted about the queen's passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery," Spence said. "She should've apologized."
Okinawas incumbent governor who opposes an ongoing U.S. Marine base relocation forced by Japan's central government and calls for a further reduction of American troops on the southern island secured his reelection Sunday despite concerns of escalating tensions between China and nearby Taiwan.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, who is backed by opposition parties, was certain to win his second four-year term, according to exit polls by major Japanese media, including NHK national television and Kyodo News agency. Polls were held Sunday before his first four-year term is to end later this month.

Tamaki and his supporters declared his victory and celebrated with the chants of banzai soon after the exit poll results showed he beat two contenders  Atsushi Sakima, backed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's governing bloc, and another opposition-backed candidate Mikio Shimoji. Final vote counts are expected early Monday.

Tamaki's victory could deepen tensions between Okinawa and the central government.

The plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood to a less populated area on the island has already been delayed for years. Okinawans call it a new construction rather than a relocation and want the Futenma base closed and removed from the island.

My commitment to resolve the U.S. military base problem for the future of Okinawa has never been shaken, Tamaki said. He said he will continue his endeavor to convey Okinawans will to the central government.

During the campaign, Tamaki also vowed to do more to improve Okinawa's economy. Tourism on the semitropical island known for its corals, marine life and unique culture was badly hurt by the pandemic.

Resentment and frustration run deep in Okinawa because of the heavy U.S. presence and Tokyos lack of efforts to negotiate with Washington over how to balance the burden of hosting U.S. troops between mainland Japan and the southern island group.

Okinawa, where one of the bloodiest battles in World War II was fought, was under American occupation until it returned to Japan's control in 1972. Today, a majority of the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact and 70% of U.S. military facilities are still in Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6% of Japanese land.

Because of the U.S. bases, Okinawa struggled with noise, pollution, accidents and crime related to American troops, Tamaki said.

Japan's government has in recent years shifted the nations defense posture to southwestern Japan, Okinawa and its remote islands and is pushing to significantly bolster Japans military capability and budget over the next five to 10 years, citing growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia.

Many in Okinawa are worried about the growing deployment of Japanese missile defenses and amphibious capabilities on outer islands that are close to geopolitical hot spots like Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own and has threatened to use force to annex it if necessary. Okinawan people fear that they will be the first to be embroiled in a conflict over Taiwan.

The Futenma base relocation plan developed after the 1995 rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl, in which three U.S. servicemen were convicted. The case reignited local opposition to the U.S. bases. The relocation has been delayed for years due to Okinawa's resistance as well as environmental and structural issues in the Henoko area, where the new base is supposed to be set up.
In the northeastern village of Ban Ta Klang in Thailand, Siriporn Sapmak starts her day by doing a livestream of her two elephants on social media to raise money to survive.

The 23-year old, who has been taking care of elephants since she was in school, points her phone to the animals as she feeds them bananas and they walk around the back of her family home.

Siriporn says she can raise about 1,000 baht ($27.46) of donations from several hours of livestreaming on TikTok and YouTube but that is only enough to feed her two elephants for one day.

It is a new - and insecure - source of income for the family, which before the pandemic earned money by doing elephant shows in the Thai city of Pattaya. They top up their earnings by selling fruit.

Like thousands of other elephant owners around the country, the Sapmak family had to return to their home village as the pandemic decimated elephant camps and foreign tourism ground to a virtual halt. Only 400,000 foreign tourists arrived in Thailand last year compared with nearly 40 million in 2019.

Some days, Siriporn doesn't receive any donations and her elephants are underfed.

"We are hoping for tourists to (return). If they come back, we might not be doing these livestreams anymore," she said.

"If we get to go back to work, we get a (stable) income to buy grass for elephants to eat."

Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, estimates that at least a thousand elephants in Thailand would have no "proper income" until more tourists return.

Thailand has about 3,200 to 4,000 captive elephants, according to official agencies, and about 3,500 in the wild.

Wiek said the Livestock Development Department needs to find "some kind" of budget to support these elephants.

"Otherwise, it's going to be difficult to keep them alive I think for most families," he said.

"Like family"

The families in Ban Ta Klang, the epicenter of Thailand's elephant business located in Surin province, have cared for elephants for generations and have a close connection to them.

Elephant shows and rides have long been popular with tourists, especially the Chinese, while animal rights groups' criticism of how elephants are handled there has given rise to tourism in sanctuaries.

"We are bound together, like family members," Siriporns mother Pensri Sapmak, 60, said.

"Without the elephants, we dont know what our future will look like. We have today thanks to them."

The government has sent 500,000 kilograms of grass across multiple provinces since 2020 to help feed the elephants, according to the Livestock Development Department, which oversees captive elephants.

Elephants, Thailand's national animal, eat 150 kg to 200 kg each day, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Siriporn and her mother, however, said they have not yet received any government support.

"This is a big national issue," said Livestock Development Department Director-General Sorawit Thanito.

He said the government plans to assist elephants and their caretakers and that "measures along with a budget will be proposed to cabinet," without giving a time frame.

While the government is expecting 10 million foreign tourists this year, some say this may not be enough to lure elephant owners back to top tourist destinations, given the costs involved. Chinese tourists, the mainstay of elephant shows, have also yet to return amid COVID-19 lockdowns at home.

"Who has the money right now to arrange a truck... and how much security (do) they have that they are really going to have business again when they go back?," said Wiek.

He expected more elephants to be born in captivity over the next year, exacerbating the pressures on their owners.

"Some days we make some money, some days none, meaning there's going to be less food on the table"," said Pensri.

"I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel."

($1 = 36.4200 baht)
Swedes began voting in legislative elections Sunday that will either pave the way for an unprecedented right-wing government supported by the far right or a third straight mandate for the ruling Social Democrats.

Opinion polls have predicted a close race with a razor-thin lead for Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson's Social Democrats and the left bloc, following a campaign dominated by rising gang shootings and soaring electricity prices.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and will close at 8 p.m., with final results due around midnight.

At a voting station set up in Stockholm's Central Station, 34-year-old IT worker Erwin Marklund said he was concerned about the rise of the far right and had voted for the small Left Party.

"It's important to not get the far right into the system," he told AFP.

The right-wing bloc has never before agreed to cooperate with the nationalist and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, long treated as "pariahs" by other political parties.

The far right has leapt to second place in opinion polls behind the Social Democrats in the final weeks of the campaign, credited with around a fifth of votes.

Their surge -- overtaking the traditional leaders of the right-wing bloc, the conservative Moderates -- was attributed to an election race focused on issues close to their voters, including crime, segregation and the integration of immigrants.

Prime Minister Andersson, 55, hopes however to hang onto power with the support of the small Left, Centre and Green parties.

Speaking to reporters at a rally on the eve of the vote, she said she hoped she had convinced voters "that the Social Democrats are a party for ordinary people, for workers, with good safety nets, good jobs and a good future."

Tough days ahead

Andersson, whose party has dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s, enjoys broad support among Swedes.

She has consistently led her challenger for the post of prime minister, Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson, by a wide margin in opinion polls.

Yet pollsters put the two blocs in an almost dead heat, predicting 49.7-51.6% of voter support for the left and 47.6-49.4% for the right.

Kristersson is the architect behind a major U-turn for the right wing.

He launched exploratory talks with the Sweden Democrats in 2019 and deepened their cooperation before the two other small right-wing parties, the Christian Democrats and to a lesser extent the Liberals, followed suit.

"As it stands, we have two fairly clear blocs," political scientist Katarina Barrling told AFP, noting it should be fairly easy to predict the next prime minister after election night.

However, both blocs are beset by internal divisions that could make for laborious negotiations to build a coalition government.

The previous 2018 election resulted in a four-month stalemate that ended with the Social Democrats forming a minority government.

That would be a nightmare scenario this time around.

In addition to a looming economic crisis, Sweden is currently in the delicate process of joining NATO and is due to take over the EU presidency in 2023.

"The pressure to have a united and effective government is larger today than in the last election," Barrling noted.

'Enormous shift'

The end of the Sweden Democrats' political isolation, and the prospect of it becoming the biggest right-wing party, is "an enormous shift in Swedish society," said Anders Lindberg, an editorialist at left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet.

Born out of a neo-Nazi movement at the end of the 1980s, the Sweden Democrats entered parliament in 2010 with 5.7% of votes. They won 17.5% in 2018.

The party's surge comes as Sweden struggles to combat escalating gang shootings attributed to battles over the drugs and weapons market.

The country now tops European statistics for firearm deaths.

While the violence was once contained to locations frequented by criminals, it has spread to public spaces such as parks and shopping centers, sparking concern among ordinary Swedes in a country long known as safe and peaceful.

"My country totally changed from maybe the safest in the world," 56-year-old Ulrika told AFP at a far-right rally late Saturday.

"I'm so happy about my childhood ... in that kind of a safe country but today no one can go out without fear," she said.

"We know it's because other cultures are coming to our country."

Ingrid Schmidt, a 62-year-old researcher, disagreed.

"It is important to express your voice against these right-wing values," she said as she voted at Central Station on Sunday.

More than 80% of Sweden's 7.8 million eligible voters are expected to cast ballots.
A passenger train and freight train collided Friday night in central Croatia, killing at least three people and injuring another 11 or more, authorities said.

The collision happened around 9:30 p.m. near the town of Novska, which is close to Croatia's border with Bosnia, police said in a statement.

The impact was huge, said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who rushed to the scene with other government officials.

Plenkovic confirmed that so far the bodies of three people were found at the site of the accident, but he said more victims could still be found.

The injured have been hospitalized, some with serious injuries but none in life-threatening condition, he added.

Its nighttime, there is no light, we dont know at the moment if there are more victims, said Plenkovic.

The cause of the collision was not immediately clear.

The passenger train was a local line carrying 13 people, while only the engine driver was in the freight train, said Plenkovic. He said foreign citizens were among the injured.

Officials said both trains were pushed off the rails after the collision. An investigation has been launched to determine what caused the collision.
Britains defense ministry says Ukrainian forces have continued to make significant gains in the Kharkiv region.

The agencys intelligence report, posted Sunday on Twitter, said, Russia has likely withdrawn units from the area, but fighting continues around the strategically important cities of Kupiansk and Izium.

Ukrainian forces reported Saturday that they had gained control of Izyum and pushed Russian soldiers across the Oskil River. Russias Defense Ministry confirmed it had pulled its forces out of Izyum, claiming the move was planned.

Western military analysts said if the advances were confirmed, it would put the Ukrainians in control of a main railway that Moscow uses to supply thousands of troops in eastern Ukraine.

In other developments, a pro-Russia separatist leader was quoted as saying there also was fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region.

Denis Pushilin said the situation in the town of Lyman was very difficult and there was fighting in a number of other localities, particularly in the northern part of the region.

Military analysts say Russia is believed to be sending reinforcements to the area, where it plans to launch new attacks against Ukrainian-controlled sections of Donetsk.

Meanwhile, Moscow announced it was regrouping its forces in the eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

To achieve the goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas, a decision was made to regroup Russian troops stationed in the Balakliya and Izyum regions, to bolster efforts along the Donetsk front, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The regrouping of Russian soldiers comes as residents in parts of the Kharkiv region had been advised to evacuate to Russia, according to the state-run news agency Tass. The areas Russian-installed administrator, Vitaly Ganchev, reportedly said doing so would save lives.

The Ukrainian breakthrough near Kharkiv was the fastest advance reported by either side for months, and it is one of the biggest gains in the war since Russian forces abandoned a disastrous assault on the capital, Kyiv, in March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the countrys armed forces have liberated about 2,000 square kilometers of territory since a counteroffensive against Russia started earlier this month.

On the diplomatic front, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday, pledging Berlin's unwavering support for Ukraine.

I have traveled to Kyiv to show that they can continue to rely on us. That we will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary with deliveries of weapons, and with humanitarian and financial support, Baerbock said in a statement.

Over the last weeks, Germany has sent howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. Heavier weapons such as anti-aircraft systems, rocket launchers mounted on pickup trucks and anti-drone equipment are also expected in a further military aid package worth more than $500 million.

Meanwhile, Britains defense ministry also said in its intelligence report Sunday that Russia is pursuing a deliberate misinformation strategy as it seeks to deflect blame for food insecurity issues, discredit Ukraine and minimize opposition to its invasion.

The ministry said that Russian President Vladimir Putins claim on Sept. 7 that only 60,000 tons of grain exported from Ukraine since August had been sent to developing countries, with the majority delivered to EU states, was false.

The ministry said, According to UN figures, around 30% has been supplied to low and middle-income countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Some information in this report came from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
Russia is redeploying troops to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported Friday.

Russian troops have been redeployed to Kharkiv city in northeast Ukraine, where Kyiv's army has been conducting a large-scale counter-offensive to take back territory captured by Moscow.

The TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies shared a video from Russia's defence ministry, showing the movement of military hardware on a paved road, some with Russian flags and bearing the letter "Z", a symbol of Russia's military campaign.

Local Moscow-installed official Vitaliy Ganchev said in televised remarks that "fierce battles" were underway near Balakliya, a town in Kharkiv region that Ukraine said it had recaptured on Thursday.

"We do not control Balakliya. Attempts are being made to dislodge the Ukrainian forces, but there are fierce battles and our troops are being held back on the approaches," Ganchev said.

He added that Ukrainian forces were also attempting "to break through the defence" near the town of Shevchenkove, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Balakliya.

"Now Russian reserves have been brought there, our troops are fighting back," Ganchev said.

Kyiv's army has claimed gains in the counter-offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine, saying they have advanced "deep" into Russian lines.

The Ukrainian military said Thursday it had recaptured more than 20 towns and villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Ukrainian forces advanced their counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine Sunday, looking to take advantage of Russian troop withdrawals from the northeastern Kharkiv region in a retreat that may have changed the course of the nearly seven-month conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy derided the Russians in his nightly video address Saturday, saying, The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do  showing its back."



On Sunday, he posted a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over Chkalovsk, one of several towns they reclaimed from the Russians in the counteroffensive.



Ukraine's military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said that Ukraine had reclaimed about 3,000 square kilometers from Moscows forces since the beginning of September. He said Ukrainian troops are now just 50 kilometers away from the border with Russia.

The battlefield advance marked the biggest Ukrainian success since early in the war when it thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv. Ukraine's attack in the Kharkiv region seemed to surprise Moscow, which had moved many of its troops from the area to the south, where Kyiv had publicly announced a counteroffensive.

Russias Defense Ministry, in response to the Ukrainian gains, said Saturday the troops' withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighboring Donetsk region to the south.

But the retreat drew angry comments from Russian military bloggers and nationalist commentators, who characterized it as a major defeat and urged the Kremlin to bolster war efforts. They criticized Russian authorities for staging fireworks and other lavish festivities in Moscow that marked a city holiday Saturday.



In its assessment, Britains Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces have continued to make significant gains in the Kharkiv region.

The agencys intelligence report, posted Sunday on Twitter, said, Russia has likely withdrawn units from the area, but fighting continues around the strategically important cities of Kupiansk and Izyum.

Western military analysts said if the advances are confirmed, it would put the Ukrainians in control of a main railway that Moscow has used to supply thousands of troops in eastern Ukraine.

In other developments, a pro-Russia separatist leader was quoted as saying there also was fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region.

Denis Pushilin said the situation in the town of Lyman was very difficult and there was fighting in a number of other localities, particularly in the northern part of the region.

Military analysts say Russia is believed to be sending reinforcements to the area, where it plans to launch new attacks against Ukrainian-controlled sections of Donetsk.

Meanwhile, Moscow announced it was regrouping its forces in the eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

To achieve the goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas, a decision was made to regroup Russian troops stationed in the Balakliya and Izyum regions, to bolster efforts along the Donetsk front, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The regrouping of Russian soldiers comes as residents in parts of the Kharkiv region had been advised to evacuate to Russia, according to the state-run news agency Tass. The areas Russian-installed administrator, Vitaly Ganchev, reportedly said doing so would save lives.

The Ukrainian breakthrough near Kharkiv was the fastest advance reported by either side for months, and it is one of the biggest gains in the war since Russian forces abandoned its efforts to capture Kyiv.

On the diplomatic front, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made a surprise visit to Kyiv Saturday, pledging Berlin's unwavering support for Ukraine.

I have traveled to Kyiv to show that they can continue to rely on us. That we will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary with deliveries of weapons, and with humanitarian and financial support, Baerbock said in a statement.

Over the last weeks, Germany has sent howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. Heavier weapons such as anti-aircraft systems, rocket launchers mounted on pickup trucks and anti-drone equipment are also expected in a further military aid package worth more than $500 million.

Some information in this report came from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
A visiting U.S. diplomat on Sunday urged Sri Lankan authorities to tackle corruption and introduce governance reforms alongside efforts to uplift the country's economy as a way out of its worst crisis in recent memory.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power told reporters that such moves will increase international and local trust in the government's intentions.

"Assistance alone would not put an end to this country's woes," Power said. "I stressed to the Sri Lankan president in my meeting earlier today that political reforms and political accountability must go hand in hand with economic reforms and economic accountability."

She said that international investor confidence will increase as the government tackles corruption and proceeds with long sought governance reforms. "As citizens see the government visibly following through on the commitment to bring about meaningful change, that in turn increases societal support for the tough economic reforms ahead," she said.

During her two-day visit, Power announced a total of $60 million in aid to Sri Lanka. After meetings with farmers' representatives at a rice field in Ja-Ela, outside of the capital Colombo on Saturday, she announced $40 million to buy agrochemicals in time for the next cultivation season.

Agricultural yields dropped by more than half for the past two cultivation seasons because authorities had banned the imports of chemical fertilizers ostensibly to promote organic farming. She said that according to the World Food Program, more than 6 million people  nearly 30% of Sri Lanka's population  are currently facing food insecurity and require humanitarian assistance.

On Sunday, she said an additional $20 million will be given to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to vulnerable families.

Sri Lanka has faced its worst crisis after it defaulted on foreign loans, causing shortages of essentials like fuel, medicines and some food items.

It has reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion package to be disbursed over four years. However, the program hinges on Sri Lanka's international creditors giving assurances on loan restructuring. Sri Lanka's total foreign debt is more than $51 billion of which $28 billion must be repaid by 2027.

Power said that the U.S. stands ready to assist with debt restructuring and reiterated that it is imperative that China, one of the island nation's bigger creditors, cooperate in this endeavor.

Infrastructure like a seaport, airport and a network of highways built with Chinese funding did not earn revenue and are partly blamed for the country's woes.
Sweden is holding an election Sunday to elect lawmakers to the 349-seat Riksdag as well as to local offices across the nation of 10 million. Early voting began Aug. 24. Here are some key things to know about the vote.

What is at stake?

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson is fighting to keep her center-left Social Democrats at the helm of a left-wing coalition but is facing a strong challenge from the right.

Sweden is known for being a cradle-to-grave welfare society and Andersson would like to preserve the social protections that have long defined Sweden, and reverse some of the market-oriented changes by an earlier government. Her party feels that some of the changes, like state subsidies going to private schools, are creating greater inequalities.

The once-mighty Social Democrats have been in power since 2014. But as the party's popularity has sunk, it has presided over a weak government that relies more on other parties to pass laws, creating political instability for the past eight years.

Who is likely to win?

There are two major blocs: one with four parties on the left and another with four on the right. The polls leading up to the election say it is impossible to predict.

Its basically a coin toss. Its 50-50 between the two different sides, Zeth Isaksson, a sociologist in electoral behavior at Stockholm University, said Saturday.

Under Swedish law, the party that wins the most seats forms the next government. Polls show this is likely to be Andersson's party, which will need to create a coalition with other parties.

But if the left has a poor showing, she might not be able to form a coalition. In that case, the baton would be passed to the second-largest party to try to form a government.

Which party is in the No. 2 spot?

In the last election in 2018, the Moderates led by Ulf Kristersson, a center-right party, won the second-highest number of seats. The conservative party promotes a market economy, lower taxes and a smaller role for government in a country with a generous welfare state supported by high taxes.

But like the Social Democrats and other mainstream parties across Europe, the Moderates have also seen their popularity decline amid a populist challenge coming from further right.

Who are the populists?

The Sweden Democrats, a populist right-wing party that takes a hard line on immigration and crime, first entered parliament in 2010 and has been growing steadily ever since.

The party won 13% of the vote in 2018, becoming the third-largest force in parliament. Polls show it is likely to improve on that showing Sunday.

Some Swedes compare the party to Trump-style populism and note it was founded by far-right extremists decades ago. They do not trust it in its reported transformation to a more traditional conservative party.

The party is led by Jimmie Akesson, a 43-year-old former web designer who has been the driving force in trying to moderate the partys image.

The party has clearly tapped into the social mood, however, and other parties have been moving closer to its positions, as many Swedes believe that they can no longer bear the costs of the country's generous refugee policies and are seeking a crackdown on crime.

Once a pariah, other conservative parties have grown increasingly willing to deal with the Sweden Democrats.

Andersson told reporters Saturday that the rise of the far right was partly the fault of the right-wing opposition, which she said, spent so much time and effort to try to convince people that the Sweden Democrats arent the party that they actually are.

How serious is crime in Sweden?

Some immigrants have had difficulties assimilating into Swedish society, leading to segregated neighborhoods with high crime rates.

Gang violence mostly takes place among criminal networks dealing drugs or involved in other illicit activity. But there have been recent cases of innocent bystanders being hurt. So far this year, 48 people have been killed by firearms in Sweden, three more than in all of 2021.

The fears triggered by shootings and explosions in disadvantaged neighborhoods have made crime one of the most pressing issues for Swedish voters.

Shootings and explosions of bombs have increased in the last few years and (this violence) is now considered a great social problem," said Anders Sannerstedt, a political scientist at Lund University in southern Sweden.

The gender factor

Andersson became Swedens first female prime minister less than a year ago  a milestone late in coming for a country that in many ways is an example of gender equality.

I was really proud, said Ulrika Hoonk, a 39-year-old who voted early in Stockholm on Friday, saying it took far too long for that to happen.

Polls show that Andersson's party is especially popular with women, with men tending to vote more conservative.

Even though Andersson is the first prime minister, there are still many women represented in positions of authority. Four party leaders are women, and one party has a woman and a man sharing the leadership. In parliament, the gender balance has long been split roughly 50-50.

Several women voters interviewed this week said that finally having a woman in the top leadership job was very important for them, and one factor they considered when choosing which party to support.
Some pro-democracy activists, including former Zimbabwean deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara, Elinor Sisulu of South Africa and others, have signed a petition accusing President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government of violating the rights of 16 Citizens Coalition for Change members currently in remand prison facing charges of inciting violence and obstruction of justice.

The petition submitted to the countrys Cabinet secretary by Ibbo Mandaza of the Southern African Political Economy Series Trust on behalf of 116 people, accused Mnangagwa's government of behaving in a manner that is worse than the Ian Smith regime that jailed some of the present top leaders during the war of liberation of the 1960s.

The petition reads in part, "We, the undersigned, are citizens and persons who care about Zimbabwe. We petition Your Excellency to bring to your consideration, a most unusual situation obtaining in the arrest and detention of MPs Honourable Job Sikhala and Honourable Godfrey Sithole, and 14 residents of Nyatsime, Chitungwiza following the violence of 14 June 2022 in Nyatsime. Our duty to Zimbabwe constrains us from maintaining silence.

"The multiple denials of bail these two have endured, multiple times in the Magistrates Court and multiple times in the High Court, makes for an unusual and unprecedented situation. We cannot think of any prosecution in recent times where one has been denied bail for such numerous times, for offences of inciting public violence and obstruction of justice, which Honourable Sikhala is charged with, and inciting public violence, which Honourable Godfrey Sithole is charged with. MPs Job Sikhala and Godfrey Sithole have now spent 85 days in pre-trial incarceration at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison."

The petitioners are questioning the handling of the court cases by the judiciary.

"When this is juxtaposed to the timely and little-resisted granting of bail to high profile politically exposed persons accused of serious corruption, and they being flight risks, questions about the equal treatment of persons before the courts arise. There appear to be targeted differential treatment of those arrested and detained for charges emanating from political circumstances.

During their incarceration, Honourable Sikhala and Honourable Sithole have been subjected to leg irons; their lawyers have in some instances been denied access  in once instance prompting a court application; and other concerned individuals have been prevented from visiting them. Honourable Sikhalas health has deteriorated."

The petitioners also say while they noted the political violence that occurred in Nyastime, it is curious that arrest and detention was targeted at members and perceived supporters of the political opposition.

"No one associated with any other formation was arrested. Among the 14 residents currently in detention are victims of arson who were arrested upon presenting themselves to a police station to report the arson. In the case of Honourable Sikhala, he has been arrested over 60 times, and has never been convicted. He has no record of escaping justice. To then deny him bail on the basis that he has the propensity to offend the law, is curious. This is in spite of the Constitution providing for bail as a right only to be denied in exceptional circumstances.

"When the actors in the justice system appear to act in ways wholly contrary to their sworn duty and oath to uphold and implement the law without fear or favour, inferences of external hands in work of the judiciary are bound to arise. The offences that Honourable Sikhala, Honourable Sithole and the 14 residents of Nyastime are facing, have not had this kind of treatment visited upon anyone charged of them in recent times."

According to the petitioners, this treatment was commonplace during the times of the liberation struggle.

"In those days, such kind of arrests and detentions were known to be political, and many including those currently in public office, suffered those and are well aware of their evils. An observer witnessing these developments cannot help but draw parallels. Our belief is that law must maintain its supremacy and moral high ground above politics. The injustice is too visible to ignore, and we would be unfaithful in our devotion to the country if we remain silent.

"The law must have moral content, and its enforcement must have humanity. The Constitution of Zimbabwe is moral in both substance and process. The enforcement thereof is robbing the law and legal process that gives it authority, respect, recognition and supremacy. Judicial authority itself derives from the people, per section 162 of the Constitution."

They said Mnangagwa's office is charged with the sacrosanct duty as per section 90 of the Constitution to ensure that the Constitution and all other laws are faithfully observed, in particular, to ensure protection of the fundamental human rights and freedoms and the rule of law.

"Of the many rights, liberty and human freedom is a cornerstone right, a right that many Zimbabweans so reverently and fervently fought for. The unusual trajectory that these cases have taken cannot be ignored. These cases, in our view, warrant an inquiry into how the justice system has come to this. The consequences of ignoring this will be too dire for Zimbabwes young democracy to bear."

The petitioners say the criminal justice system was never created as a platform to silence or punish political dissent or holding of divergent views.

"When that happens, as is happening to Honourable Sikhala, Honourable Sithole and the 14 residents of Nyatsime, it erodes the value and essence of the criminal justice system and diminishes public confidence and trust in the justice system. That should not be allowed to happen. Where the criminal justice system is weaponized against dissent, there are no victors. The justice system, the accused and the generality of Zimbabweans derive no benefit from this. Should there be cause, by all means the law must take its course. But doing so without cause erodes confidence in the justice system. We expect a resolution to this abuse of law and process."

Mnangagwa has not yet reacted to the petition.
Funeral Announcements A daily list of current funeral annoucements as heard on KXRA 1490 AM/100.3 FM

News Updates The daily news, sports, and events delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.



Sports Update This current sports headlines delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Upcoming Events This email is the events of the area delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria.

Breaking News The big news. Sent only as it happens.
User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale

Contribute:

Leave a comment if you find a particular report interesting or want to add to it.

Flag as inappropriate.

Mark as helpful or interesting.

Send your own user report!

Translate

near Vina del Mar, Provincia de Valparaiso, Valparaiso (60.7 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 20-30 s : Vibrational moderate, with vertical and lateral mov components | 3 users found this interesting.

Santiago / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : I felt the shaking, and a sound, nos very loud, like a second before it started, and after it, my glass of Ester continued to shake for a little while

Santiago / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : I felt the shaking, and a sound, nos very loud, like a second before it started, and after it, my glass of Ester continued to shake for a little while

Reinoso,catemu, valparaiso (43.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 30-60 s : Estaba durmiendo al persepcionar el ruido y el movimiento telurico

Zapallar (81.2 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Light shaking

las condes (42.3 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Santiago (41.6 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Santiago de chile (49.8 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Se movio la ventana y la cama uno o dos segundos

Santiago - Chile (60.8 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Yo estaba en mi casa

Santiago de Chile, Provincia de Santiago, Metropolitana (36.2 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / complex motion difficult to describe / 5-10 s : Fuerte temblor

buin chile (66.6 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : i was laying in bed and felt like something jumped on my bed repeatedly

Santiago de Chile, Provincia de Santiago, Metropolitana (46.5 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Providencia, Santiago de Chile (42 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Santiago (47.9 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Quilpue, Provincia de Marga Marga, Valparaiso (45.5 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s : Raro xq igual se cayeron algunas cosas de la cocina

Las Condes (43.1 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : Las Condes, going to bed

Chile vina del mar (58.3 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

La Pintana, Provincia de Santiago, Metropolitana (51.5 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s

Los Andes, Valparaiso (49.9 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : shake shake shake, shake your body

Santiago San Miguel (44.7 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s

Santiago de chile (38.8 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Se movio el televisor y la cama

Las Condes, Santiago (42.6 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Chile, la punta de mostazal (98.4 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

La Florida (54 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / very short

Lo espejo (45.3 km SSE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Teniente Bello 2090, Conchali, Region Metropolita (35.3 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s Muy fuerte,mucho ruido (reported through (reported through our app / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

La Pintana, Provincia de Santiago, Metropolitana (53.5 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : Estoy viendo television,y escuche ruido agudo y movimiento regular

Santiago (45.5 km ESE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short

Vina del Mar, Provincia de Valparaiso, Valparaiso (58.4 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : Brief and intense

santiago, chile (46.5 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s en casa. ruido. movimiento fuerte (reported through (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Recoleta Santiago / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s (reported through our app / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s
Ukrainian forces said Saturday they had entered Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine dislodging Russian troops from a key logistics hub in a lightning counter-offensive that has seen swathes of territory recaptured.

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, meanwhile arrived in the Ukrainian capital for a surprise visit, which she said was to demonstrate Berlin's support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia.

Ukrainian special forces published images on social media showing camouflage-clad officers with automatic weapons "in Kupiansk". It "was and will always be Ukrainian," their statement said.

The town of some 27,000 people, that sits on a crucial supply route for Russia forces in the east, fell within the first week after the Kremlin ordered its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Observers of the conflict expect Ukrainian forces to announce further gains in the Kharkiv region, which borders Russia, and has been either controlled by Russia or shelled by its artillery for months.

'Astonishing' advance

There was no official confirmation that Kyiv's troops had also routed Russian forces from Iyzum -- an important staging ground for Russia's war effort -- with a pre-war population of around 45,000 people.

But images flooding social media appeared to show Ukrainian forces within the city and Russian observers of the conflict said there were initial reports Moscow's army had already withdrawn.

"Ukrainian troops are advancing in eastern Ukraine, liberating more cities and villages. Their courage coupled with Western military support brings astonishing results," foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said in a statement on social media.

"It's crucial to keep sending arms to Ukraine. Defeating Russia on the battlefield means winning peace in Ukraine," he added.

His assessment of the pace of the Ukrainian gains came after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced late Friday that his troops had retaken some 30 towns and villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region as part of the sweep.

Ukraine's push appears to have caught Russian troops largely off guard.

The head of the Russian-installed administration of the Izyum told state news agency RIA Novosti that the situation in the region was "very difficult".

"For the past two weeks, the city has been targeted by bombardments by Ukrainian forces... which is causing serious destruction and causing many deaths and injuries," Vladislav Sokolov told RIA Novosti.

Moscow on Friday made the surprise announcement it was dispatching reinforcements to Kharkiv, with images on state media showing tanks and artillery and support vehicles moving in columns on dirt roads.

'It was frightening'

The capture of urban hubs like Kupiansk and Izyum would be a significant blow to Russia's ability to effectively resupply positions on the eastern frontline and could see Russia pushed back from Kharkiv entirely.

In one village captured by the advancing Ukrainians, electric pylons were toppled and cables lay across the ground and houses were gutted, AFP journalists reported.

"It was frightening," said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev recalling the battle earlier this week that saw Ukrainian forces recapture the village from the Russians.

"There were bombings and explosions everywhere."

Ukrainian troops were also advancing along portions of the southern front line, a spokesperson said Saturday, in some regions by dozens of kilometres, into territory captured by Russian troops at the beginning of the invasion.

Russian news agencies meanwhile reported six large explosions in Nova Kakhovka, a town held by Russian troops in the southern Kherson region.

'We will stand by Ukraine'

Baerbock was in Kyiv Saturday for her second trip to Ukraine, which comes a week after Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal's trip to Berlin where he had repeated Kyiv's call for weapons.

"I have travelled to Kyiv today to show that they can continue to rely on us. That we will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary with deliveries of weapons, and with humanitarian and financial support," she said.

Over the last weeks, Germany has sent howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles to Kyiv, part of an arsenal of Western-supplied weapons that observers say have hurt Russia's supply and command abilities.

Baerbock's visit comes on the heels of a trip from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who promised a nearly $3 billion military package for Ukraine.

In a meeting in Brussels with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Blinken said Russia's push to send reinforcements showed Moscow was paying "huge costs" in its bid to capture and then hold Ukrainian territory.

However, Russian forces were still inflicting serious damage with a campaign of shelling in Kharkiv city and in the industrial region of Donbas in the east.

Oleg Synegubov, the head of the Kharkiv region, said Russian shelling had left 14 civilians injured.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region, which is part of Donbas, said Russian shelling had left two dead.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

For his return to geopolitical frontlines after almost three years of Covid-19 isolation, Xi Jinping has chosen something of a victory lap. The Chinese leader is set to visit Central Asia, starting in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and then moving on to a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan. There hell meet Vladimir Putin for their first encounter since the Russian president traveled to the opening of the Beijing Olympics in February, shook hands with his counterpart, declared a friendship with no limits  and then launched an assault on Ukraine. Itll be a week of political theater, and one from which Moscow, under growing pressure on the battlefield, should expect few substantial gains.

Xis itinerary has not been chosen by chance. Russias invasion of its western neighbor and the motivations laid out in Putins disquieting pre-attack speech  a rambling intervention that dismissed Ukraines right to exist and post-Soviet reality  sent a shudder through the region sitting to its south, where there are significant ethnic Russian minorities. Not only that, but Moscows unimpressive and ill-disciplined military performance has been duly noted by nations for whom the country is supposed to act as a security guarantor.

Advertisement

Central Asias red lines are being redrawn, its spheres of influence recast. China isnt about to sit that out, even with a Party Congress weeks away.

The year started badly for Beijing in this part of the world. Chinese officials were caught off-guard by unrest in Kazakhstan, initially dismissing the protests as an internal affair. Putin, by contrast, was swift on his feet, answering President Kassym-Jomart Tokayevs appeal for help by sending in troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a loose Russian-led group. He helped salvage the regime and restore order, and reinforced the Kremlins role as protector. For all the talk of Beijings growing economic influence in the region, it was Russia that demonstrated a real understanding of the crisis in January and was able to drive events, as Temur Umarov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it to me. Beijing understood it needed to pay closer attention.

Then came the war, with its implicit threats. In August, in a rapidly deleted social media post (later attributed to hackers), former-Russian president-turned-superhawk Dmitry Medvedev called Kazakhstan an artificial state. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was clearer in an interview with an Uzbek newspaper last week: I want everyone to understand that if we lose, then you will be next.

Advertisement

Kazakhstan has been strikingly reluctant to fall into line behind Moscow, sending humanitarian support to Ukraine and remaining in contact with Kyiv. On stage next to Putin in June, Tokayev said that he would not recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republics of eastern Ukraine. The country is seeking alternative routes for its oil exports and has agreed to advance military intelligence collaboration with Turkey, a NATO member. Apart from anything else, Russias economy is a dead-end, leaving even crucial migrant remittances less reliable than they once were.

So while Xis visit isnt a provocation  Kazakhstan was also where he chose to launch the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, and the country has long balanced its relationships with China, Russia and the US  it certainly lends welcome visible support to Tokayev. Its a reminder to Moscow that resource-rich Central Asia has other neighbors. No wonder Putin, a man in search of friends, has his own travel plans in the region.

But of course, a friend in need is a friend indeed, and Xi isnt about to abandon Putin. The two are still autocrats, aligned in their opposition to Washington, fresh from joint military exercises. Both could use a little geopolitical showmanship  the trip was announced after House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit to Taiwan, Moscow is struggling to resist a Ukrainian offensive. But will anything come of their confab?

Advertisement

By meeting in an ostensibly neutral venue  not Moscow, say  and speaking on the sidelines of the SCO, Beijing suggests expectations should be low. The SCO is a vast grouping, representing more than two-fifths of the worlds population now that India and Pakistan have joined, but it amounts to less than the sum of its parts. As Jakub Jakobowski, who researches Chinas foreign economic policy at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw puts it, the SCO isnt able to provide a coherent response to any international development, but it is an opportunity for a propaganda-friendly performance that will resonate in the Global South. That just doesnt imply any substantial economic, let alone military, commitment.

Ukraines rapid advances over the last few days have certainly left China in an uncomfortable position. Xi has been unwilling to take costly or risky steps to support Putin, and yet Beijing also does not want to see an embarrassing defeat for the Kremlin, which would reflect badly on Xi and create unwelcome instability.

But Russia is down, not out. For now, expect China to continue to do what it has done since February  exclusively what is best for China. Over the past months, it has turned up the rhetoric but limited actual face-to-face diplomatic contact with Russia, with No. 3 official Li Zhanshus stop in Vladivostok for the Eastern Economic Forum the most senior visit since the invasion. It hasnt significantly challenged the Wests financial and other measures, particularly in tech and military supplies  forcing Russia to go to North Korea and Iran. Instead, it has pragmatically bought up cheap raw materials, as India has. In a tender that closed last week, the Sakhalin-2 LNG export plant, struggling to sell to South Korea and Japan, sold several shipments to China at nearly half the current spot price.

Advertisement

All of this ensures profits continue to flow for Russias commodity giants. But its keeping the economy afloat at the cost of increased dependence on Beijing, left holding all the cards. Russias exports to China rose by 50% in the first eight months of the year, according to Kommersant, while Russias imports from there grew 8.5%.

Xi will come under pressure in Uzbekistan. The Chinese leaders balancing act is more uncomfortable than ever  but it isnt over yet. Not least because Beijing knows all too well that Putin has nowhere else to turn.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

 Time Isnt on Putins Side in Ukraine: Leonid Bershidsky

 China, Russia and Iran Are Ganging Up on the US: Hal Brands

 China and Russia Have a Central Asia Problem: Clara Ferreira Marques

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and editorial board member covering foreign affairs and climate. Previously, she worked for Reuters in Hong Kong, Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

This is part two of a condensed and lightly edited transcript of an interview with Soviet and Russian energy specialist Thane Gustafson. In part one, he described the evolution of the Russian energy industry under President Vladimir Putin until the eve of the war in Ukraine. Part two picks up with him describing the impact of the war on Russias oil industry.

Denning: You say Putins war has set in motion a process that will drag down the long-term competitiveness of Russias oil industry. How so?

Gustafson: The big question is the long range effects, beginning about five years out. How the withdrawal of the services companies; the interruption of supply lines, of equipment; the exit of the Western majors; and the financial difficulties that the Russian government is going to have  all of those are going to act as drags on the ability of the Russian oil industry to continue modernizing. And yet it must continue modernizing because, like all natural resources, the initial resource gradually gets used up and you have to move out to increasingly marginal development opportunities, while constantly using new technology

Advertisement

The traditional core of the oil industry in West Siberia is clearly in decline. The Russians even now are fighting a rearguard action there. Hence the importance of those three techniques I mentioned earlier. But the big thing to focus on as an example of the tests that lie ahead is [Rosneft CEO] Igor Sechins favorite project, Vostok Oil.

LD: Why is Vostok so important and what makes it so challenging?

TG: Vostok is a mixture of things, but the main thing to know is that it lies outside the administrative boundaries of West Siberia in a place called the Taymyr Peninsula, but it is the northeastern edge of the geology of West Siberia. Some of that, such as the Vankor field, is already producing. The big question concerns the fields now being explored, of which one of the best known is the Payakh field. Sechin has said to Putin: If you grant me the full support of the state, I will produce for you a hundred million tons of oil a year from Vostok Oil  two million barrels a day  by 2030, and Ill keep going from there.

Advertisement

But heres the thing: Vostok Oil is a pile of challenges. Its virgin territory. Youve got to build a new port system to be able to export the oil to Asia by tanker. So thats tied to the rate of global warming. You have to build an entire infrastructure with buildings that have to be reinforced against permafrost melting. Novatek sank 60,000 piles into the ground to support the buildings at Yamal LNG [another Arctic project].

Then you need a whole network of new pipelines to bring the oil to that new port on the Arctic coast. But those pipelines and the port dont yet exist. Youve got to bring in maybe a hundred thousand workers. Now, the good news is thats a hundred thousand jobs, but the bad news is thats a hundred thousand people youve got to induce to go up there either full-time or part-time. And you realize that all of this adds up to infrastructure  and investment. Its not so much the impact of the sanctions per se, directly.

The one place where the sanctions probably have a direct impact is in the supply of oil tankers and such. Sechins got a plan for that, too. Hes directly responsible for the development of a new shipyard called Zvezda, or star. He had, until the invasion, support from South Korean shipbuilders. They are now pulling back and the project is behind schedule. No Zvezda, no tankers; no tankers, no Vostok Oil.

Advertisement

LD: Back to gas. Another theme of The Bridge was that Europe expected the far-reaching changes it enacted in its own gas industry would give it an advantage in dealing with Gazprom. Now, those expectations are pretty much dashed. Can you talk about what things look like beyond this war?

TG: In retrospect, you can fault the European Union and the Germans for three major things. One, I think the EU had too much faith in the power of its new regulatory and market mechanisms. Take, for example, the doctrine of the Single European Market, which took the concrete form of three far-reaching gas and power directives. I think the EU believed that if you enforced those directives  with the Russians kicking and screaming the whole way, by the way  and applied the whole panoply of regulatory, neoliberal weapons, that Europe would have the advantage in any bargaining relationship. That the burden of risk would shift onto the supplier and that Europe would be able to control the show.

You have to give the Russians credit for having been very candid on this. Gazprom explicitly warned the EU, saying: Are you sure that you want me to be on my computer screen every day, setting the level of Russian gas exports to Europe on the basis of the day-ahead spot price? Be careful what you wish for.

Advertisement

Number two is the Germans had too much confidence in the Energiewende [Germanys energy transition program] and the rate at which they would be able to shut down nuclear, and ultimately coal, and increase renewables. And then, in the fullness of time, cut their dependence on gas. Exhibit A is the way they waved away all talk of an LNG terminal in Germany up until just recently. But their strategy depended crucially on the continued availability of Russian gas.

Third is the over-optimism of the European business community, particularly in Germany. Ever since Soviet times, there had been a strong faith, shared with much of the German political establishment, in the power of Wandel durch Handel, or Change through Trade. That good business relations would favor the transition of Russia to a normal political system. The depth of that relationship [with Russia] was extraordinary. Theres a whole generation of people whose entire careers in Germany were built  think of Wingas, for example  on the reality of partnership; close, intimate, friendly partnership. They couldnt believe that the Russians would just commit gas suicide.LD: In a way, given the gas relationship began under the Soviet Union, you could almost understand that the Germans might look at that experience and say: look, we were able to do business even with those guys. So surely these are the same people, just a different government. What did they get wrong about that?

TG: What they got wrong is that they held onto those three items of faith too long. Basically, all three come out of the neoliberal view of the world, despite the growing signs by about the mid-2000s that Putin himself and the Russian political center of gravity were shifting away from collaboration, cooperation and friendship, toward a stance of hostility and resistance. The key date is 2007 when Putin made his famous speech at the Munich security conference and his bitter denunciation of the US and secondarily of Europe. That should have been a wake-up call.

Advertisement

And yet, think of the major Western projects in the automotive sector, Renault, think of the partnership between Total and Novatek in LNG, think about Siemens modernizing the Russian locomotive system. All of those were at the express invitation and encouragement of Putin himself. He made himself the ambassador for these projects, so you were getting dual messages out of Russia.

LD: There was a great line in your last book,  Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change, where you said Russia is already one of the chief causes of climate change but, as time goes on, it will also be one of its chief victims. You published that a few months before Russia invaded Ukraine. What did you mean by that, and how does the invasion, this new landscape, interact with or change that thesis?

TG: That book is very much a thought experiment about a set of hypothetical futures. The central question is: what if peak oil demand turns out to be real and it is followed by a decline? What would be the impact on Russian revenues and, by extension, the budget of the Russian government and the whole political system that is underpinned by those revenues?

Advertisement

So I went on a systematic tour of all the possible alternative money earners. Theres a chapter in there on nuclear power, on agriculture, coal, renewables. And then I added it all up and you come to totals that dont even compare with the last peacetime  and pre-pandemic  revenues from oil and gas. Oil accounting for four fifths of the hydrocarbon revenues, by the way, and gas, only one fifth at the time.

As to benefits of climate change, the one Putin keeps talking about is opening up the Arctic Ocean, the Northern maritime passage. That is the basis of Russias policy on LNG, and also Sechins Vostok Oil. Putin also talks about possible benefits of climate change for agriculture. The jurys very much out on that. The biggest question concerns Russias grain exports. But even at their best, Russian agricultural exports are unlikely to add up to more than $40 billion a year  thats Putins target  and thats far less than the roughly $425 billion that oil and gas generated in 2019.

Based on the various modeling exercises of the oil companies and others, the consensus on the eve of the pandemic was that Russias hydrocarbon revenues would remain strong during the 2020s. But that the impact of a possible peak in oil demand, and a possible leveling-off of gas demand by 2040, would start to kick in by the beginning of the 2030s. So you have two periods: one of reprieve, so to speak, and the second of increasing stress on the system.

Advertisement

How does the invasion affect that? The first consequence is the self-destruction of Russias gas market in Europe. The second is the likely decline in Russias oil exports to Europe, as the embargo kicks in, forcing Russia to accept discounts and higher costs to move its oil to other markets. Both of these will affect Russias revenues in this decade.

There has been a good deal of talk that the sanctions arent working because the price spike has more than offset any decline in export volumes. It is true that the immediate result of the spike has been an increase in Russias dollar revenues, but that is turning out to be a mixed blessing for Moscow, causing the ruble to appreciate. Thats awkward because if you sell your oil in dollars but your ruble is overvalued, you get fewer rubles. And the revenues of the Russian budget are in rubles. So you get indirect financial hits that arise in the wake of the invasion and the sanctions.

I think the net effect of all that will be seen in retrospect as having blown a good deal of that favorable decade of the 2020s. And Putin will have only himself to blame.

Advertisement

Then the final question, and this brings us back into the orbit of Klimat: For the time being  say, the next two to five years  energy security will be the main priority. But at what point does climate change come back to the fore? I think Germany is ground-zero on that question.

LD: In what sense?

TG: Take LNG. For years the Germans rejected LNG, saying we wont need it because Europes gas system is nicely interconnected and, besides, were not going to need gas for very much longer. Now theyre saying, wow, weve got to build some LNG terminals here and some new pipeline connections. And weve got to rent some floating LNG re-gas vessels. All that investment is, in effect, locking in a long-term dependence on LNG, which is driving the German greens crazy.

So there, you have a good example of the competition between the green agenda  God save us from global warming  and then the energy security agenda, which is God save us from the Russians. Which of those two agendas is going to win out? And when?

We know the answer for this winter: Its all energy security all the time.

But meanwhile, very quietly in the background, Brussels keeps on pushing its climate change agenda with things like reform of the emissions trading system. That has inched its way through the endless European labyrinth. Its gone through the parliament. Now its going to be submitted to the trilogue.(1) And then that will have to go back to Brussels for coordination. Then itll be resubmitted. But the point is that the climate-change agenda keeps inching along. It is not dead. Will it ultimately be strengthened or weakened by the measures taken to improve energy security? Thats not yet clear.

LD: Coming back to where we started, Gorbachev is regarded by many as the perhaps unwitting undertaker of the Soviet Union. Will Putin be remembered as the unwitting undertaker of the Russian energy sector, and the political system that it supports?

TG: Certainly on the gas side. Revenues from LNG are not going to come close to replacing what Gazprom will be losing. Its hard to construct a scenario under which Gazproms business is reborn in Europe.

LD: Can China compensate?

TG: Partly thats an infrastructure question. The pipeline capacity doesnt exist yet. Nor, it would seem, does the political will, for all the professions of no-limits friendship between [Chinese president] Xi Jinping and Putin.

The test question is whether the [proposed gas pipeline] Power of Siberia 2 goes forward. The current Russian plan is to run it from West Siberia, through Mongolia and into China. And every time you turn around, theres a press release from Gazprom saying hurray, hurray, were on our way. And the Mongolian government has adopted policy arrangements that point in the same direction.

Not one word from the Chinese. Until you see a fast-track Power of Siberia 2 project actually putting pipe on the ground, I think theres your answer to the prospects for a serious pivot to the east of Russian gas exports. At best, its 10 years away, and probably more. As Putin ruefully admits, the Chinese are tough negotiators.

LD: And oil?

TG: The core answer is the same for both gas and oil: that Putin had a tremendous opportunity to use the reconsolidated and modernized production of energy, and to put those revenues to work in reshaping the Russian economy in a modern direction and reversing the misshapen Soviet economy, which is still the essential structure of the Russian economy today.

Exhibit A on this point: Look at a map of the distribution of Russian cities compared to, say, Canada. Youve got over a hundred cities with populations of one million, and theyre all separate dots. Theyre like the pimples in a bad case of chicken pox. Those are what the Russians call millionniki; they are there mainly because of the military-industrial facilities they supported in Soviet times. They have no viable economic function in a market economy. They are capitals of cold. Places in the Urals like Chelyabinsk or Perm, or even worse, in Siberia, like Omsk or Novosibirsk.

This is ironic, of course. The world is worried about global warming, and rightly, but Russia still suffers from the curse of cold, and from the pattern of urban settlement inherited from Soviet times. Nothing has been done to change that structure. Instead, Putin mostly encouraged investment on the far Arctic Ocean coastal frontier. This will worsen that imbalance.

LD: How so?

TG: Because all of that new investment is concentrated up there in the capitals of cold. If those oil and gas assets end up as stranded assets, thats more Soviet-style wasted investment. So I think the bottom line is that Putin has blown, economically speaking, the tremendous opportunity afforded by the remaining energy endowment, to say nothing of the geopolitical legacy.

(1) An ad-hoc group made up of representatives of the national governments, the Parliament, and the Commission.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. A former investment banker, he was editor of the Wall Street Journals Heard on the Street column and a reporter for the Financial Timess Lex column.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

What can rich countries do to help the developing world battle climate change? Whats happening in South Africa right now embodies that central question of fairness. Africas third largest economy is also the worlds 12th most serious emitter of carbon dioxide. At COP26 in Glasgow last November  where I worked with the British government  the UK, US, France, Germany and the rest of the EU joined together to allocate $8.5 billiion in seed money to South Africa. Its the worlds first Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), a crucial effort to ease the economic and social disruptions that poorer countries face as they attempt to lower their carbon footprints.

The money is meant to allow South Africa to retire a colossal but creaking (and corruption-riddled) fleet of coal plants. Just as importantly, the funds will support the workers who will need to find new jobs. In the countrys coal belt of Mpumalanga, some 120,000 workers are employed in coal production, mining and transportation. The region already has a 35% youth unemployment rate. The country must focus on concerted reskilling because theres great skepticism that high-tech jobs in green hydrogen or electrical vehicles will go to former miners.

Advertisement

If South Africa can pull this off, it will become a template for action elsewhere.

The coal plants that produce 84% of South Africas energy are run by state-owned Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. The gigantic public utility has been failing for more than a decade  and not just financially. Many of the power plants are spluttering to the end of their lives. This year is the worst ever, with South Africans suffering through more outages  called load shedding  than before. Considered uninvestable by international finance, Eskom has been a drag on the whole economy as it soaks up huge government subsidies.

The answer is to restructure Eskom into two parts: one with good finances and the other with distressed assets that can be slowly liquidated. With a cordon sanitaire put around the poorly performing parts, good Eskom  with funds from the World Bank and other international financial institutions  can become a platform for reliable and clean energy generation, including renewables.

Advertisement

Thats exactly what Eskom is trying to do at its Komati power station. For 60 years, Komati was one of South Africas largest coal plants. This month, however, its last coal-burning unit will be turned off. A new workshop is already making containerized solar microgrids. These are repurposed shipping crates full of batteries powered by solar panels that will be deployed to far-flung rural communities currently off the electricity grid. Eskom also wants Komati to make agrivoltaics  solar panels erected in fields amid growing crops. Additionally, the utility will lease land around the power plant for solar farms.

But this is still a transition, not yet a termination. The country still faces tough questions about where to focus its climate investment. For example, should it put funds into improving the grid in a poorly-served part of the country that, nevertheless, has the potential for substantial growth in solar and wind power? Or should financing be targeted at mining centers like Mpumalanga, which are already electrified but will need the jobs created by the infusion of cash?

Eskom also has to maintain aging power stations and upgrade younger ones. Coal will continue to have a role, though in gradually declining amounts as wind, solar and green hydrogen are joined by new liquefied natural gas flows. If cheaper energy flourishes, coal will fizzle out quickly.

Advertisement

Until then, South Africa will need more funds  $50 billion to $60 billion in the medium term but, in total, probably a sum closer to $250 billion  to reach its climate goals. Some of the $8.5 billion in JETP funding will be outright grants but more of it will be concessional finance  loans at lower than market value  to pay for projects the private sector wont. It will be kick-starter cash to build confidence with the intention of leveraging in even more capital.

The private financial sector, however, is still nervous of anything Eskom-related. There are influential sectors of South Africa that oppose sacrificing Eskom jobs  and are just as wary of big foreign businesses taking profits out of the country. Unless that changes, international financing will hold back.

To help, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has lifted restrictions to allow more private electricity generation. Hes also increased the size of renewable projects to 100 megawatts from 1 megawatt. A South African solar farm should be a no brainer. At COP26, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carneys Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero announced $1.3 trillion of private finance ready to back low-carbon projects. If South Africa can improve its energy investment environment, this money should start to flow.

Advertisement

If Eskom and South Africa make progress, Vietnam, Indonesia, Senegal and India are likely to follow. The rest of the world will then have a clearer route to net zero.

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:



How to Reach Net Zero Profitably: Hendrik du Toit



From the Rhine to the Tigris, Rivers Are Warnings: Andreas Kluth

 When the Weather Gets Hot Enough To Kill: David Fickling and Ruth Pollard

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Allegra Stratton is a Bloomberg News contributing editor who writes the Readout newsletter. She previously worked in the UK government and is co-founder of Zeroism, a climate and energy consultancy.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

The oldest Prince of Wales in history was kept waiting longer than any other royal heir before he could take his mothers place on the throne. Many suggested he had become king too late in life and had wasted his days in self-indulgence. The Princes marital difficulties and his mistresses were discussed disapprovingly in the press. His contacts with politicians were held to have compromised his neutrality.

Sound familiar?

If the 73-year-old Charles III seeks a role model, as he ascends to a new job at an age when most people are safely retired, he need only look to his great-great grandfather, Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, the longest-reigning monarch in British history (she ruled from 1837 to 1901) until the arrival of Elizabeth II.

Edward, known to his family as Bertie, became king at just under 60  which was, for the time, an advanced age. Yet he was a great success story as a monarch, healing divisions at home and helping end his countrys not-so-splendid isolation abroad, not least by paving the way for an alliance with France. The UK today could similarly do with more friends abroad and some reconciliation at home after the divisions created by Brexit.

Advertisement

On Friday, Charles III made his national TV debut as king. Although his age is not a bar to doing the job well, he starts his reign with a fair amount of baggage as well as goodwill.

His ancestor Edward was accused of being too close to politicians such as the Tory prime minister, Lord Salisbury. However, on his accession he cooperated with a great reforming Liberal government and, unlike his mother, he understood his own constitutional limits when it came to the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn.

Charles, likewise, has been accused of plotting a meddling monarchy. His so-called black spider memos (on account of his handwriting), letters sent to cabinet ministers in 2004 and 2005 lobbying on policy issues, created paranoia in the press until a freedom of information request and their subsequent publication showed them to be harmless and well-intentioned, if sprawling. Although some express doubts that he can subordinate his strong views, Charles went on the record in a BBC interview to mark his 70th birthday to declare he would give up campaigning when he becomes king  Im not that stupid, he said pointedly.

Advertisement

Although the new king emphasized in his first speech on Friday that he understood the implications of this shift in role, it is not certain how easily a person of strong temperament will adapt to the new constraints. For one thing, he must be prepared to sign laws personally uncongenial to him and accept guests from unlovely foreign governments in his official quarters  all with his mothers ability to bear an expression which was neither a smile nor a grimace. But then Bertie had to swallow reform of the aristocratic, unelected House of Lords too.

The ancestral connections also extend to the royal marriage. Camilla Parker-Bowles, who became Charless mistress and wife, is also the great granddaughter of Edwards mistress Alice Keppel. The difference is that Edward was opposed to divorce despite his many infidelities, while Charles was prepared to ditch his wife to marry the woman he loved.

There is nothing more he can do to redress the past  whats done is done where Lady Diana is concerned. The new King doesnt lack dignity but he must cast off the appearance of gloom and self-pity that dogged his troubled middle years. In early life, his sense of fun was more apparent. On a royal tour in the US many years ago, I cracked a joke or two with him on a visit to Harvard University, but my tabloid newspaper colleagues looked a bit uncomfortable in his presence. Putting his subjects at ease is part of the job.

Advertisement

Like his royal ancestor, Charles has a keen intelligence. As Prince of Wales, Edward was a voracious reader of state papers given to him by sympathetic prime ministers (his mother denied hers to him). Charles, too, displays intellectual curiosity and has insight and sympathy for faith-based religions. He was prescient in his understanding of climate change, for which he receives insufficient credit.

None of these cerebral enthusiasms, however, guarantee popularity. The British are wary of intellectuals and dislike religiosity. The Kings namesake Charles I was a connoisseur of art, but that was hardly appreciated by the rebellious subjects who beheaded him. Richard II, another aesthete, met a similarly grisly end in the Middle Ages, while in the modern era, George IV, the begetter of the splendor of Brighton Pavilion, had spells of great unpopularity. The late Queens love of racing was more to her subjects taste.

Edward VII used his contacts in the business world to modernize a decrepit Palace machine. Likewise, Charles should  and I suspect will  radically streamline the monarchy. Far too much prominence is still given to undeserving minor royals. His younger brother, Prince Andrew, must be kept out of the limelight for good after his toxic entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein. The King ought to effect a truce, if not a reconciliation, with his younger son, Harry, who is embittered by his mothers treatment and prickly about any slights to his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Advertisement

It is a daunting-to-do list, and it would be too glib to say that Charles can pull all of these threads together with ease. But as his ancestor has shown, a belated reign can still be a fruitful one.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Previously, he was editor of the Sunday Times of London and its chief political commentator.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

The global obesity epidemic is getting worse, especially among children, with rates of obesity rising over the past decade and shifting to earlier ages. In the US, roughly 40% of todays high school students were overweight by the time they started high school. Globally, the incidence of obesity has tripled since the 1970s, with fully one billion people expected to be obese by 2030.

The consequences are grave, as obesity correlates closely with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems. Despite the magnitude of the problem, there is still no consensus on the cause, although scientists do recognize many contributing factors, including genetics, stress, viruses and changes in sleeping habits. Of course, the popularity of heavily processed foods  high in sugar, salt and fat  has also played a role, especially in Western nations, where people on average consume more calories per day now than 50 years ago. Even so, recent reviews of the science conclude that much of the huge rise in obesity globally over the past four decades remains unexplained.

An emerging view among scientists is that one major overlooked component in obesity is almost certainly our environment  in particular, the pervasive presence within it of chemicals which, even at very low doses, act to disturb the normal functioning of human metabolism, upsetting the bodys ability to regulate its intake and expenditure of energy.

Advertisement

Some of these chemicals, known as obesogens, directly boost the production of specific cell types and fatty tissues associated with obesity. Unfortunately, these chemicals are used in many of the most basic products of modern life including plastic packaging, clothes and furniture, cosmetics, food additives, herbicides and pesticides.

Ten years ago the idea of chemically induced obesity was something of a fringe hypothesis, but not anymore.

Obesogens are certainly a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic, is what Bruce Blumberg, an expert on obesity and endocrine-disrupting chemicals from the University of California, Irvine, told me by email. The difficulty is determining what fraction of obesity is related to chemical exposure.

Importantly, recent research demonstrates that obesogens act to harm individuals in ways that traditional tests of chemical toxicity cant detect. In particular, consequences of chemical exposure may not appear during the lifetime of an exposed organism but can be passed down through so-called epigenetic mechanisms to offspring even several generations away. A typical example is tributyltin or TBT, a chemical used in wood preservatives, among other things. In experiments exposing mice to low and supposedly safe levels of TBT, Blumberg and his colleagues found significantly increased fat accumulation in the next three generations.

Advertisement

TBT and other obesogens trigger such effects by interfering directly with the normal biochemistry of the endocrine system, which regulates the storage and use of energy, as well as human eating behavior. This biochemistry depends on a wide variety of hormones produced in organs such as the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas and liver, as well as chemicals in the brain capable of altering feelings of hunger. Experiments have shown that mice exposed to obesogenic chemicals before birth exhibit significantly altered appetites later in their lives, and a propensity to obesity.

Nearly 1,000 obesogens with such effects have already been identified in studies with animals or humans. They include Bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in plastics, and the phthalates, plasticizing agents used in paints, medicine and cosmetics. Others include parabens used as preservatives in food and paper products, and chemicals called organotins used as fungicides. Other obesogens include pesticides and herbicides, including glyphosate, which a recent study found to be present in the urine of most Americans.

A further clue that these chemicals may lie behind obesity: Studies have found that the obesity crisis is also affecting cats, dogs and other animals living in proximity with people. A significant rise in obesity incidence has even been noted in laboratory rodents and primates  animals raised under strictly controlled conditions of caloric intake and exercise. The only possible factors driving weight gain for these animals, researchers believe, would be subtle chemical changes in the nature of the foods they eat, or in the materials used to build their pens.

Advertisement

So it is possible that we have unwittingly saturated our living environment with chemicals affecting some of the most fundamental biochemical feedbacks controlling human growth and development. The obesity epidemic will likely persist, or grow worse, unless we can find ways to eliminate such chemicals from the environment, or at least identify the most problematic substances and greatly reduce human exposure to them.

At the very least, it will require a transformation in the way we test chemicals for their toxicity, especially the many compounds that are ubiquitous in our food, plastics, paints, cosmetics and other products. Discoveries in epigenetics have deeply changed basic biological science and medicine over the past 15 years but have not yet had much impact on prevailing practices for chemical safety testing. Scientists are pushing for changes, but it takes time.

Hopefully, appropriate test methods will be adopted within the next few years. If they arent, we may well struggle to make any appreciable dent in this pernicious epidemic.

Advertisement

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:



To Tackle Hunger, We Need to Fix Food Subsidies: David Fickling:



Menu Calorie Counts Are a Nudge, Not a Panacea: Therese Raphael



Go Ahead, Order That Cheesesteak: Faye Flam

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mark Buchanan, a physicist and science writer, is the author of the book Forecast: What Physics, Meteorology and the Natural Sciences Can Teach Us About Economics.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

TORONTO  Tyler Perry has directed his first screenplay, 27 years after writing it. A Jazzman's Blues, which is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, was Perrys first stab at screenwriting long before Madea made him a media mogul, back when he was pouring what little money he had into less successful Atlanta stage shows.

After directing numerous films, dozens of TV episodes and expanding his 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios empire in Atlanta, Perry has returned to that old script, without hardly changing a word, for his first film for Netflix. (A Jazzmans Blues begins streaming Sept. 23.)

The timing seemed to be right, Perry said in an interview ahead of the films premiere Sunday.

Set in mid-century Georgia, the movie stars Joshua Boon as Bayou, a juke joint-sensation who, before leaving to make it big in Chicago, falls in love with Leanne (Solea Pfieffer). Years later, she returns to their hometown married and passing for white. Its a romance sketched against the backdrop of the segregated South and the eras flourishing music scene, with songs by Terence Blanchard and choreography by Debbie Allen.

Advertisement

Remarks have been edited for brevity.

___

AP: What was going on in your life when you wrote this?

PERRY: I was really struggling and poor. It was a really difficult time. I got a chance to see an August Wilson play. If Im not mistaken, I think it was Seven Guitars. I would have to sneak it an intermission and go in when people came out for a smoke. I couldnt afford a ticket. There was an afterparty at a little cafe and I ran into him. I told him what kind of shows I was doing and how there was so much more I wanted to do. He encouraged me to not be ashamed of what I was doing but also to do whatever else I wanted to. I went home and started writing and Jazzman showed up.

AP: Where did the story come from?

PERRY: I grew up New Orleans and I have family in rural Louisiana. Thats where I spent summers with my grandmother. So I knew this world very well. When I was a young kid working on Bourbon Street, Id hear all kind of music. As I was writing, all this music was in my head. I wasnt trying to write a period piece about someone passing in the South. A couple years ago, I remember seeing a picture of my grandmother and great grandmother who looked like white women. My grandmother married my grandfather, who was clearly a Black man. According to my aunt  Im fact checking this now  there are people in my family who passed for white.

Advertisement

AP: Was that something your family talked about?

PERRY: No. Its the strangest thing from the generations before me. I find this true with my Jewish friends who have grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Its just not talked about. Its not spoken of. I feel that its a horrible disservice to the future children and people who are benefitting from the atrocities that our families endured. If you dont know the facts of what happened and how it happened, I think you do a disservice to your family.

AP: This might be your most ambitious film yet. Did you feel you had to build up to it?

PERRY: One hundred percent. Diary of a Mad Woman, my first film, I didnt direct because I didnt know how. It took all of these films and all of these television episodes to really understand filmmaking. I really credit David Fincher and (Ben) Affleck when I was on Gone Girl where I really started to understand it and get it. For me, it had always been that the camera was just there to tell the story. I didnt take in the fullness of all the things that the camera can represent.

Advertisement

AP: So why tackle it now?

PERRY: Ive been strategic. Ive had to make sure that I super-serve my niche, my audience. I needed those successes to be able to get it here. Its all been part of the plan. The reason that it came up now is that Ive been watching so many politicians and powers that be trying to downplay and whitewash the experience of Black people in America. I think its up to us as storytellers to bring those real stories to the forefront because of this assault on history.

AP: Georgia has been at the center of some of the battles over voting rights, abortion rights and school curriculum. How do you feel about having your studio there?

PERRY: I have two views to that. One is: Being on the very ground and home of Dr. Martin Luther King and seeing their fight, seeing the vigor that it took to get things done. Theres a richness there that I thrive on, that I plug into, that I appreciate. On the other side, were dealing with all this gerrymandering, voting-rights issues, abortion issues. All these moments are happening but I have to focus on the fighters so that Im able to function in a state that I love.

Advertisement

AP: Some in Hollywood have previously called for boycotting productions in Georgia. Last year, the Will Smith film Emancipation withdrew from shooting in the state. What do you think about those kind of measures?

PERRY: Some of them I think are extreme. We have this cancel culture now that if someone does something you dont like or says something you dont like, theyre canceled. If the state makes a law you dont like, you dont go there. The reason I take issue with all of it is every four years theres an election, or every two years with the midterms. We get an opportunity to try to change it. So I think drastic, immediate shutdowns can be harmful to people who work here. At this moment, I have over $400 million in the ground at Tyler Perry Studios. And there are many people who come to work there who would have never gotten a chance to be in this business. I know Hollywood is really big on diversity now. Well, you dont get more diverse than Tyler Perry Studios. If youre trying to boycott the state, youre boycotting those people, too.

AP: Youve had a content deal with Viacom for years. This is your first film with Netflix. Are you looking for a bigger platform?

PERRY: Ive built this machine and its ready to produce tons and tons and tons of content. So I want to be in a place where that content can be created and a place where I can express things like Jazzman or whatever I want to do next. I have a zombie movie that Ive worked on for a while that I want to do. I just want to be in a place where I can cultivate all those things.

GiftOutline Gift Article
Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share

TORONTO  Steven Spielberg premiered his much-anticipated The Fabelmans to thunderous applause at the Toronto International Film Festival, debuting his most autobiographical film and one the 75-year-old filmmaker said hes been building toward his whole life. We're following changes at the palace after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Get the Post Elizabeth newsletter for updates. ArrowRight The Fabelmans, which Spielberg wrote with Tony Kushner, draws extensively from the directors own childhood  from his parents, played by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano in the film, and from his early formation as a filmmaker. The film opens with a timid young boy outside a cinema going to see his first movie (The Greatest Show on Earth). His mother encourages him: Movies are dreams, doll.

Its something obviously Ive been thinking about for a long time, Spielberg said on stage after the screening late Saturday. I didnt really know when I was going to get around to this. It is not because I decided to retire and this is my swan song. Dont believe any of that.

Advertisement

Spielberg said he first talked about what would become The Fabelmans with Kushner during the making of Lincoln. The playwright, Spielberg said, played the role of therapist as Spielberg unloaded his memories. But it wasnt until the pandemic that the director resolved to tell, for the first time, his own story.

As things got worse and worse, I felt if I was going to leave anything behind, what was the thing that I really need to resolve and unpack? said Spielberg.

Spielberg, whose three sisters were in the audience, later added: This film is for me a way of bringing my mom and dad back. And it also brought my sisters  Annie and Sue and Nancy  closer to me than I ever thought possible. And that was worth making the film for.

Universal Pictures will release The Fabelmans on Nov. 11 in New York and Los Angeles before expanding it nationwide Nov. 23. Its world premiere at Toronto  which happened to immediately follow Rian Johnsons Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery at the Princess of Wales Theatre  was a major event, and an unusual one. It was Spielbergs first film at TIFF, and he said while introducing the film that it was his first time ever in a film festivals official lineup.

Advertisement

The two-and-a-half hour film was immediately received as a grand and personal opus for Spielberg, all but certain to play a staring role at the Academy Awards. Aside from Williams, who is pregnant with her third child, and Dano, the cast includes Seth Rogen as a close family friend, a brief standout performance from Judd Hirsch, Jeannie Berlin and newcomer Gabriel LaBelle who plays Sammy Fabelman, the fictionalized young Spielberg.

Steven was generous about letting us into his life, said Dano, who said he had access to Spielbergs old photographs, home movies and lengthy conversations over Zoom with the director. The goal was to capture a life lived.

While there are vividly drawn moments of movies transporting Sammy, Fabelmans may surprise some for how complexly it weaves filmmaking and family life. Cinema in Spielbergs film is both a transformative power and something dangerous; a way to express genuine emotion and to hide from it. Kushner, a frequently collaborator with Spielberg, said the film demonstrates how film is an unreliable friend.

Advertisement

It will take you to into a place of safety and right through safety is something unexpected and scary, said Kushner. It happens over and over again in the movie.

The Fabelmans is populated by early experiments with 8-millimeter cameras, little movies made with family members and increasingly ambitious short films. All mirror Spielbergs own first forays into filmmaking, though there are some differences.

I made all the behind-the-scenes stuff in this movie much better than the actual films I made when I was Sammys age, Spielberg said with a smile. It was a great do-over.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

GiftOutline Gift Article
Russia's Defense Ministry announced Saturday that it's pulling back troops from two areas in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made significant advances in the past week.

The news came after days of apparent advances by Ukraine south of Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital of Kyiv at the start of the nearly seven-month war.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Saturday that troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izyum areas to Ukraine's tern Donetsk region. Izyum was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region and earlier this week social media videos showed residents of Balakliya joyfully cheering as Ukrainian troops moved in.

Konashenkov said the Russian move is being made ``in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,''' one of the eastern Ukraine regions that Russia has declared sovereign.

The claim of pullback to concentrate on Donetsk is similiar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian officials earlier Saturday claimed major gains in a counteroffensive against Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, saying Ukrainian troops had cut off vital supplies to Izyum.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko also suggested the Ukrainian troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometers (45 miles) north of Izyum.

The Ukrainian Security Service of Ukraine hours later posted a message which it said showed its forces in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized by Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian military didn't immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub that Russia seized in February.

Videos on social media appeared to show Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Izyum at a roadside checkpoint. A large statue with the city's name could be seen in the footage. Ukrainian forces did not acknowledge holding the city.

Earlier Saturday, the British Defense Ministry told reporters it believed the Ukrainians had advanced as much as 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izyum as ``increasingly isolated.''

``Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,'' the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 2,500 square kilometers (965 square miles) in its eastern breakthrough. The institute said it appeared that ``disorganized Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance.'' They cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized in the advance around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The same report said Ukrainian forces ``may collapse Russian positions around Izyum if they sever Russian ground lines of communication'' north and south of the town.

Vladislav Sokolov, head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izyum have started evacuating residents to Russia.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in the south. Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce around Kherson, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the television channel Ukraina that the Russians had no food or fuel for their troops in the area as Kyiv had cut off their supply lines.

``It will be like an avalanche,'' he said, predicting a Russian fallback. ``One line of defense will shake and it will fall.''

The Ukrainian military was more circumspect about the reported gains, claiming Saturday to have taken ``more than 1,000 square kilometers'' (386 square miles) from pro-Kremlin forces this week. It said ``in some areas, units of the Defense Forces have penetrated the enemy's defenses to a depth of 50 kilometers,'' matching the British assessment, but did not disclose geographical details.

Officials in Kyiv have for weeks been tight-lipped about plans for a counteroffensive to retake territory overrun by Russia early in the war, urging residents to refrain from sharing information on social media.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukrainian troops had reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of the counteroffensive.

``We are gradually taking control over more settlements, returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our people,'' Zelenskyy said.

He spoke after the Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv reported that the national flag had been raised over Balakliia, a town recaptured by Ukrainian troops on Thursday following six months of Russian occupation.

``Balakliia is Ukraine! Today, together with the military, led by the commander of the Ground Forces Oleksandr Syrskyy, we raised the Ukrainian flag,'' governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region when her home was flattened overnight.

Syniehubov also accused Moscow of pummeling settlements retaken by Kyiv. He said in a Telegram post that five civilians were hospitalized in the Izyum district, while nine others suffered injuries elsewhere in the region.

In the embattled Donbas region south of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive there. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two more suffered injuries in Bakhmut and the neighboring village of Yahidne.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit Saturday, saying that Europe would not tire of helping Ukraine despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to raise the pressure by withholding energy supplies from European Union nations.

Baerbock said Germany will assist Ukraine in finding and removing mines and other unexploded ordnance left by Russian troops in areas where they have been pushed back by Ukrainian forces.

Despite the gains made by Ukraine's armed forces, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of NATO warned Friday that Ukraine's fight against Russia appears set to drag on for months. Blinken said the war was entering a critical period and urged Ukraine's Western backers to keep up their support through what could be a difficult winter.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size This story is part of the September 11 Edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. The last time I saw Jane Harper was during one of Melbournes many lockdowns. We were supposed to be having lunch together, but with restrictions in force I played the role of the person from Uber Eats: I picked up our food from a nearby restaurant, passed over her dish as she stood at her front door, and hurried home so we could reconnect via Zoom. On that occasion she sat in splendid isolation in her back room, but despite the absence of restrictions theres no chance of me joining her there today.

Yes, I have crossed the threshold, but there has been an invasion of builders who are demolishing a substantial chunk of the back of the house as part of renovations. They arent due to finish until the end of March next year  Jane sighs at the prospect  but shes clinging to the faint hope they might be swifter. So the bestselling author of The Dry and three other novels, her husband, Peter, and their two children  Charlotte, who turns six on the day after her new book, Exiles, is published, and two-year-old Ted  are making the best of it in their sunny front room. As we sit at the table with mugs of tea, Jane is keeping an eye on Zoe, the familys all-white cat, whos cavorting on top of the ceiling-high bookshelves, threatening to dislodge all thats up there. The shelves themselves are full, with multiple copies of her own books prominent but far from dominant. Loading The other family cat is, fortunately, a more earthbound marmalade, Gingernut  named by Charlotte, she hastily explains. She may be an international bestseller, but Jane, who is 42, seems completely unaffected by her success. What she is, though, is one of those people who likes a busy life.

Advertisement

In the past 2 years she has: given birth to Ted; taken a research trip to Tasmania for her most recent book, The Survivors; written that stand-alone mystery and seen it published in late 2020; enjoyed the success of Robert Connollys big-screen version of The Dry, starring Eric Bana as Aaron Falk, in which she can be spotted as an extra in the funeral scene at the start; and written Exiles, her third  and, she tells me, final  book about Falk, which is published next week. That will make it five novels written and published in eight years. When she starts a book, Jane always has a particular end in sight  shes already planned it all out. So shes upfront that this one was always going to be Falks last hurrah. No following in the footsteps of Ian Rankin or Michael Connelly, who have each written more than 20 books about their respective cops, John Rebus and Harry Bosch. Exiles is a kind of 300-page goodbye letter to Falk, Jane says. I wanted to craft the whole thing around him and bring it to the kind of conclusion that

I thought was really right. I just feel like I dont need Falk to generate ideas, says Jane. I know how to generate the seed that will be enough to grow into a novel. Credit:Hugh Stewart I ask how her publishers took the news that her engaging detective hero, who has delighted readers and film audiences alike, would be bowing out of Janes work. Apparently theyve been very supportive, but you can bet theyd love more novels about him. A film adaptation of Force of Nature, with Bana back as Falk, will be released next year. Jane has a thing about endings. One element her favourite books, films or TV series have in common is knowing the right time and way to finish, despite any incentives to keep going. And thats what she wanted for Falk.

Advertisement

I feel like Im the only person not concerned about bringing this to an end, she says. Im totally comfortable with it. Falks given me a lot. He kind of launched my career. And from her point of view as an author, theres a significant difference between writing a series and a standalone. With Falk, the focus is on him and the story has to be right for him, but with a standalone  she has written two, The Lost Man and The Survivors  everythings on the table. I just feel like I dont need Falk to generate ideas, she says. I know how to generate the seed that will be enough to grow into a novel. Perhaps because of her young children, or perhaps because her parents visiting from England were locked down with them while she was writing the book, theres a lot about families in Exiles. Her house was almost bursting at the seams and the adults would take turns taking the children out, that way buying Harper three hours writing time: Not the ideal writing scenario. Loading Theres a warm tone pervading the book, despite the intriguing mystery at its heart. Falk has gone to South Australia to attend the rearranged christening of the son of his friend, Greg Raco, who readers will recall was badly burned in the climax of The Dry. The christening had been postponed when a local woman and former partner of Racos brother disappeared from the Marralee festival, abandoning her six-week-old daughter by the Ferris wheel. Its a puzzle no one in the small South Australian town can really fathom, as is the unsolved hit-and-run a few years earlier that left a teenage boy fatherless.

Advertisement

Janes critical and commercial success with The Dry was credited with reviving international interest in Australian crime writing and establishing outback noir. Not bad for someone who came to live here permanently when she was 28. She was born in Manchester, but after a stay in California, the family moved to Melbourne for her fathers work in computer software sales when she was eight, returning to England after six years. It was that first spell, and being able to observe changes and differences when she returned that, she says, allowed her to capture small-town Australia and the outback so well. She studied English and history at the University of Kent  where Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro studied and last years laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, taught  then worked on newspapers in northern England. She was also doing shifts for a Sunday paper in London but realised the industry was not in great shape and there was little chance of a full-time gig. So, having always wanted to come back to Australia, she fired off a few letters to papers and landed a job on the Geelong Advertiser before shifting to Melbournes Herald Sun. Jane may write about crime, but shes most interested in whats brought the characters to this moment, whats fed into that, and how their relationships have forged the path theyre on. Credit:Hugh Stewart Theres a track record of journalists turning to crime writing: think Peter Temple or Michael Robotham. Perhaps its no surprise the newspaper work Jane found most useful when turning to crime fiction were the stories where thered been a death in the family. She would occasionally have to do the dreaded death knock after some tragic event and says she was quite good at it because she approached it completely straight. She found that people often really did want to talk about their loved one: You talk to them and you see this lingering shock and this absolute ripple effect of devastation. So how has that fed into the books? When she writes, the crime serves as the starting point. But what Jane is most interested in is whats brought the characters to this moment, whats fed into that, and how their relationships have forged the path theyre on.

Advertisement
Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size This story is part of the September 11 Edition of Sunday Life. See all 14 stories. After winning the inaugural Triple J Unearthed National Indigenous Award in 2012, Thelma Plum went on to release her debut album Better in Blak in 2019, quickly becoming one of the countrys most successful artists. At 27, Thelma finds herself at a stage in her career where she has learnt to prioritise her mental health and wellbeing. How have you grown since your debut album Better in Blak came

out in 2019? Im definitely much calmer than I used to be. We are all on our

own life journey but I think as I have grown up, I have come to accept myself a lot more. When I wrote Better in Blak there was a lot of angst I wanted to get out. My new EP, Meanjin, was written while sitting on my balcony looking at the river at home in Brisbane during the pandemic. It came from a reflective place that wasnt so agitated. How have fame and recognition changed your life? It feels overwhelming, to be honest. To be recognised still makes me feel weird. I try not to think about it too much! I have noticed a small difference recently in terms of people recognising me when I am out. Sometimes I get anxious and feel nervous about losing that anonymity. Most of the time people are nice and come up to say hi. But fame has made me use the internet differently to what I would have done before. Sometimes I feel awkward using social media such as Instagram  deciding what parts of me I want to share with my followers. I am now sharing with more people than I used to, and its all about trying to create those boundaries for myself. Loading How easy is it to maintain friendships or make new friends? I am lucky to have the most amazing friends and family around me. I think I have become good at weeding out those sorts of people who arent genuine. I am very lucky to have friends who have my back and who are good at saying, Thelma, dont hang out with that person! You recently took part in a Maybelline New York foundation campaign on diverse skin tones and now youre an ambassador for Melbourne Fashion Week. What does being part of Fashion Week mean to you? Its quite an important moment for me, and I am excited to be involved. This has been a good year for conversations around diversity for First Nations people. To bring my voice to the fashion realm is another great step. There has been a lot of progress in fashion overall, but there is still a lot of under-representation and lack of diversity. Having a front-facing role like mine will help, I hope. Do you have a favourite Australian fashion designer right now? I love First Nations label Maara Collective and always feel great in their power suits. I go to Gammin Threads for a parody power shirt  they make the funniest T-shirts  and Nungala Creative is another go-to. I also love the custom designs by Melbourne label Sabatucci  they create big beautiful bows which I love to wear. I also love HoMie in Fitzroy, especially what they do as a not-for-profit, giving back to community.

Advertisement

You work very closely with your stylist, Karinda Mutabazi. How did that friendship form? I have always had my own style and sense of style. I first worked with Karinda when I was 17. I was a poor struggling musician who couldnt afford a stylist and we did a photo shoot in a Melbourne warehouse together. I felt beautiful in the clothes she chose for me and loved every minute of the process. Years down the track I had the chance to work with her again, and now she is across everything I do fashion-wise. She is like an aunty I look up to. I always have been pretty good at advocating for myself and its something that Mum taught me from a very young age. She knew that as a young black kid it was important that I knew how to stand up for myself. Who are among your other role models, and why? I am a big fan of First Nations model and Mob in Fashion advocate Nathan McGuire. I also look up to Jessica Mauboy. She is incredible  a beautiful black woman who inspired me as a teenager. Seeing a black woman succeed in the mainstream was very empowering. We got to work together and wrote a song, which was a pinch-me moment. Courtney Barnett is another artist I look up to. I was very nervous when we performed Homecoming Queen together at WOMADelaide in March this year during an A.B. Original set. We got together the day before in our hotel room going over the song. She is an incredible human and musician and made me feel most comfortable. Loading What is the best advice your mother Lieszel has given you? My mum is my biggest supporter. I always have been pretty good at advocating for myself and its something that Mum taught me from a very young age. She knew that as a young black kid it was important that I knew how to stand up for myself. I have always had a strong sense of what is just, and standing up for myself all comes from Mum. So, its not so much about advice, its about observing her actions and leading by example  always being true to yourself. How do you stay on top of your mental health as life  and your

career  go full-steam ahead? For me, its about knowing that I can count on my friends and family, and surrounding myself with loved ones makes me feel safe. I have ADHD and recharging is very important to me. I cant function unless I carve out time to rest and recover. Not feeling bad about wanting that time is something I am learning to do. It took me a long time to not beat myself up about it. There is this idea of toxic productivity  that we need to be constantly moving and doing things. I dont necessarily think thats true, and it has taken me up until now to figure it out. How has ADHD affected you? School was very difficult for me. I really struggled. It was very tricky, but I was lucky that in grade 11 and 12 I went to an alternative learning school and it catered to kids like me. I had to find a way to get through it, putting systems in place that worked for me. I know that when I go on tour and have to play four nights in a row, I need time to recharge and to feel okay within myself afterwards. I often need to be alone in this time, which is funny because I dont like being alone! For me to do what I do without burning out means I need these boundaries and strategies. My cat Buddy is also really good for my mental health. He was my neighbours cat and he wouldnt stop coming around to mine, so she suggested I have him. I love him so much.

Advertisement
By the time those that remained emerged from their basements at the end of March, Russia was in control. During the months that followed, Russia used Izium as a base of operations and command centre, relying on its hub of roads and railways to resupply troops. The city became a military way station for Russia, supporting its campaign to seize Ukraines eastern Donbas region, which in the spring became the Kremlins main objective after its failed attack on Kyiv. Parts for a pontoon bridge are moved toward the Inhulets River by the Ukrainian military, near the Kherson front in Ukraine on September 5. Credit:Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times Supplies flowing through Izium helped sustain Russias vast expenditure of ammunition in that campaign. At one point in June, Ukraine was almost out of ammunition and Russia was killing as many as 200 Ukrainian soldiers a day, according to Ukrainian officials. Losing ground in the east as Russia used Izium to support its capture of two embattled cities in late June and early July, Ukraine retreated to stronger defensive positions. With that movement and the arrival of Western weapons and ammunition, Ukraine stabilised its defensive lines in the east. Russia stopped gaining ground and Ukraine began setting the stage for a new phase of the war.

A summer of shifting forces and disruptive attacks In late July, as precision long-range missile systems began to arrive in Ukraine, Russian ammunition depots behind the front lines began to explode. Ukrainian officials, in statements and social media, would release one tally after another of what they claimed to have destroyed. And while it was impossible to verify all their claims, there was video evidence of many strikes. But unlike in the spring, when a convoy of Russian military vehicles stuck north of Kyiv gave a clear indication of Russias logistical problems, it was hard to know the toll of the strikes in the late summer. In interviews with Ukrainian political and military leaders throughout August they all repeated a common sentiment: Just wait. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraines president, said that even if Ukrainian forces hit five depots a night, Russia held vast supplies and it would take time to set the conditions for an offensive.

In addition to using the newly arrived, long-range weapons from the West, Ukraine deployed special forces, sometimes working with partisans, to disrupt Russian activities behind enemy lines  a campaign to target not just supply hubs, ammunition depots and command centres, but also Ukrainians collaborating with the Russian authorities. When Ukraine struck an airfield in Crimea in early August, the first of what would be a wave of strikes aimed at the territory seized by Russia in 2014, they were not only attacking a Russian stronghold, but preparing for a well publicised next step  the southern counteroffensive. The southern offensive begins Throughout August, Ukraine signalled it was readying to push south with highly visible strikes. Every bridge crossing the Dnieper River, which bisects Ukraine from north the south, was hit time and again in an effort to isolate groups of Russians. Russia raced to reinforce garrisons on the west side of the river in the southern Kherson region, with analysts estimating that they deployed 15,000 to 25,000 soldiers by mid-August. They pulled concrete from irrigation ditches, according to satellite photos, and reinforced three lines of defence.

At the end of August, Ukraine attacked, saying its forces managed to break through the first line of Russian defences in multiple locations. But the state of the offensive remains shrouded in secrecy, as Ukraine and Russian proxies make competing claims, and as the Ukrainian military imposed sweeping new restrictions on access for journalists to the front line, including asking pro-Kyiv military bloggers to not reveal details of troop movements. It is unclear where that offensive stands. Russia had months to reinforce and fortify the region, but many of its troops may now be straining to resupply. Ukrainian troops have described heavy casualties, and difficult battles in the region. But those troops also reported even steeper Russian losses. Ukraines opportunity in the north

Early this week, the first reports began to trickle in from around the city of Kharkiv. Ukrainian troops were on the move, but it was not exactly clear where. Loading The northeastern city, Ukraines second-most populous before the war, has been under bombardment by Russian forces since the first hours of the invasion. The shelling has never truly relented, and officials have steadily reported civilian casualties, even as Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from the outskirts of the city as far as the border, just 25 miles away. Since the spring, fighting has continued but not resulted in major shifts in territory. The Russian stronghold in Izium, vital to supporting so many phases of the Russian campaign, even when Russian troops became bogged down or slowed to a crawl, did not seem like a weak point. But in early September, Ukrainian forces around Kharkiv swept southeast, attacking Russian positions where the defences had thinned out  in part because of Russias persistent manpower problems, but also, likely, because of the Kremlins significant redeployment of troops to southern Ukraine.
Edinburgh: Prince William has paid an emotional tribute to his grandmother as he joined his estranged brother in an impromptu public show of unity with thousands of mourners outside Windsor Castle following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Prince of Wales invited Prince Harry and wife, Meghan, to join him and his wife Catherine, the Princess of Wales, to view the public tributes left at the royal grounds. It followed their father, King Charles III, formally being proclaimed the nations sovereign in a day of pomp and ceremony at St Jamess Palace in London on Saturday morning London time.

Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, and Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex walk to greet the crowds after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle. Credit:AP

The Queens coffin began its journey to its final resting place from Balmoral to Edinburgh at 10am London time (7pm AEST) on Sunday, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland and with a wreath of flowers on top.

Buckingham Palace has announced she will lie-in-state from next Thursday at Westminster Hall to give the public and foreign dignitaries an opportunity to pay their respects before a state funeral on Monday, September 19. Queues to view the coffin are expected to stretch for several kilometres.
Edinburgh: This was the moment it became real for so many.

A simple oak coffin, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland and crowned with a white wreath of phlox and heather, lay in the back of the hearse.

Edinburgh on Sunday offered a foretaste of what London can expect on a much larger scale in coming days. Credit:Getty

The body of Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch and a figure of stability, continuity and comfort to so many, was driven past mourners who lined the streets in their thousands hoping to get a glimpse.

Theyd known for days she was gone but this sight, on her last great journey as the King called it on Friday, was a moment all on its own.
A Cairo criminal court handed a death sentence on Sunday to a judge for murdering his wife, TV presenter Shaimaa Gamal, and his co-defendant after the approval of Grand Mufti Shawki Allam.

Both the husband Ayman Haggag and the second defendant Hussein El-Gharably were referred in July to the criminal court after the Egyptian Public Prosecution charged them with premeditated murder, which is punishable by the death penalty in Egypt.

Sunday's ruling can be appealed within 60 days before the Court of Cassation.

In mid-August, the court referred of the case to the grand mufti to inquire about the religious ruling.

Referral to the grand mufti is a necessary procedure before issuing a death sentence, according to Egyptian law, though the religious opinion of the mufti is non-binding.

Sheikh Shawky Allam is head of the Dar El-Ifta, which is Egypts official body responsible for issuing religious edicts for Sunni Muslims.

The crime initially came to light when the accomplice reported the murder to the prosecution and said that Haggag killed Gamal over disputes, according to a statement by the prosecution in June.

Haggag had initially reported that his wife had gone missing from a commercial complex in 6 October City in Giza.

However, the second defendant led the prosecution to the victims burial site after reporting the crime.

The prosecution charged Haggag after hearing the testimonies of 10 people and the confessions of the two defendants, according to a statement released on 7 July.

Haggag plotted to kill Gamal after she blackmailed him by demanding money in exchange for not revealing secrets, the prosecution said in the statement, without elaborating on the nature of these secrets.

On the day of the crime, the husband lured Gamal to a remote farm in Giza, where he struck her with the butt of a pistol and strangled her to death with a piece of cloth as El-Gharably held her.

They then put Gamal's body in a makeshift grave and doused her body with a corrosive liquid to make her unrecognisable, according to the prosecution's findings.

Forensic examination confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation, the prosecution said, adding that the DNA of the defendants was found on the cloth used to murder the victim.

Investigations also revealed that the mobile phones of both the victim and the defendants were in proximity of the same cell tower near the aforementioned farm.

However, during the first hearing in the case on 20 July, Haggag claimed that he killed Gamal in self-defence after she attacked him with a knife.

But, the prosecution dismissed Haggags claims in its charging document, which was published by Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper after the hearing.

The prosecution said that no knife was found at the crime scene and that Haggag made no claims of self-defence during his confession.

The prosecution added that El-Gharably's statement contradicts Haggags self-defence claim.

In late July, the Cairo Court of Appeals issued a media gag order on the case.

Gamal was known for her programme El-Moshagheba (The Troublemaker) on LTC TV satellite channel. She also worked for Al-Hadath Al-Youm satellite channel.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Foresthill: Firefighters made progress against a huge Northern California wildfire that was still growing and threatening thousands of mountain homes on Sunday, while crews also battled major blazes that blanketed large swaths of Oregon and Washington in smoke.

The Mosquito Fire in the foothills east of Sacramento spread to nearly 168 square kilometres, with 10 per cent containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

Firefighters battle the Mosquito Fire burning in Placer County, California. Credit:AP

Cooler temperatures and higher humidity assisted with moderating some fire activity, but higher winds allowed the flames to push to the north and northeast, according to a Cal Fire incident report on Sunday.

In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in state history.
Ten years after the US ambassador to Libya was killed in the eastern city of Benghazi, the country remains in turmoil and Washington is vying for influence with other foreign powers.

Islamist militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades stormed the US compound on the evening of September 11, 2012, at a time when the oil-rich North African country was torn by civil war.

They set the building ablaze, killing ambassador Christopher Stevens and IT specialist Sean Smith through smoke inhalation, and then also attacked a CIA annex where two contractors died, both former Navy Seals.

The assault, the first to claim the life of an American ambassador since 1979, deeply shocked the United States and caused a political storm for then president Barack Obama's administration.

The State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, was accused by its political foes of deadly mistakes and negligence over the bloodshed, which came 11 years to the day after al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks.

Two years after the Benghazi attack, as more violence rocked Libya's capital Tripoli, the United States, like many other countries, shuttered its embassy there and has not reopened it since.

The diplomatic vacuum, and a disengagement from Libya under the next US president, Donald Trump, left the door open for other actors.

The main players have been Turkey, which has politically and militarily backed the Tripoli government, and Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which supported a rival camp based in the country's east.

The US embassy remains based in neighbouring Tunisia, but this has not stopped Washington from seeking to wield "crucial influence on the Libya file," analyst Jalel Harchaoui told AFP.

"There have been positive moments such as the UN agreement in Skhirat in 2015, on which the Americans had worked hard," he said about the deal struck in Morocco on forming a Libyan national unity government.

There were also "darker moments", Harchaoui said, such as when Trump supported the eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar who launched a failed 2019-20 offensive against Tripoli.

US forces in Libya captured two militants in connection with the Benghazi attack and tried them in the United States. Mustafa al-Imam and Ahmed Abu Khattala were sentenced to 19 and 22 years in prison respectively.

The Benghazi attack had come almost a year after the fall of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime, which was swept away by a popular uprising backed by a controversial NATO-led intervention.

The turmoil plunged the country into political and security chaos. Rival centres of power in the east and west are still vying for control, with various militias and mercenary groups in the fray.

While many diplomatic missions returned to Tripoli last year as the situation on the ground improved, Tunis-based US Ambassador Richard Norland only occasionally visits the Libyan capital.

Since March, two rival governments have been wrangling for control in Libya: one based in Tripoli and led by interim premier Abdulhamid Dbeibah since 2021; the other headed by Fathi Bashagha and supported by Haftar's eastern camp.

Fighting between rival militias in Tripoli late last month left 32 people dead and 159 wounded, according to a health ministry report.

The main concern for the United States for now appears to be keeping Libyan oil exports flowing amid the turmoil, said a European diplomatic source in Tripoli, as Russia's Ukraine war has battered global markets.

Norland has repeatedly called for elections to be held in the country, after the postponement of polls scheduled for December 2021 deepened the crisis. He also warned in June that Libya's rivals must not use oil "as a weapon".

Oil production in Libya reached 1.2 million barrels a day in late July, matching its daily average before an oil blockade was imposed between mid-April and mid-July by groups close to the eastern camp.

The US embassy in Libya said on Twitter last week that "the status quo is unsustainable, and it is incumbent on all external and internal actors to move toward presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible".

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Today

Hazy sunshine with some areas of high-altitude smoke from those western wildfires hanging around for one more day. Warmer and still comfortable.

Tonight

Mostly clear.

Tomorrow

Partly to mostly sunny and warmer.
STOCKHOLM (AP)  Near final results in Sweden's election Sunday show that a bloc of right-wing parties was expected to defeat a left-wing bloc headed by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. The conservative group includes a populist anti-immigration party that made its best ever showing.

However, the result was so close that the election authority said it would not be known before Wednesday when some uncounted votes, including those cast abroad, have been tallied.

According to the early count, Andersson's ruling left-wing Social Democrats won 30.5% of the vote, more than any other party. However a bloc of four left-wing parties appeared to fall short as a whole of winning a majority of votes in the 349-seat parliament, or Riksdag.

Exit polls had initially predicted a narrow victory for Andersson's camp but as the evening wore on, and the vote count supplanted the exit poll, the results tipped in favor of the conservatives.

Early Monday, the conservatives appeared to have 176 seats to 173 for the center-left.

In a speech to her supporters, Andersson said that while the results were unclear, it was obvious that the social democratic movement, which is based on ideals of creating an equal society and a strong welfare state, remains strong in Sweden.

The biggest winner of the evening was the populist anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, which had a strong showing of nearly 21%, its best result ever. The party gained on promises to crack down on shootings and other gang violence that have shaken a sense of security for many in Sweden.

The party has its roots in the white nationalist movement but years ago began expelling extremists. Despite its rebranding, voters long viewed it as unacceptable and other parties shunned it. But that has been changing, and its result in this election show just how far it come in gaining acceptance.

We are now the second biggest party in Sweden and it looks its going to stay that way," party leader Jimmie Akesson told his supporters.

We know now that if theres going to be a shift in power, we will be having a central role in that," he said. "Our ambition is to be in the government.

The conservative bloc was led during the campaign by the center-right Moderates, which won 19%. It was previously the country's second largest party.

Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson told his supports that he stands ready to try to create a stable and effective government.

Regardless of the election outcome, Sweden is likely to face a lengthy process to form a government, as it did after the 2018 election.

Andersson, a 55-year-old economist, became Swedens first female prime minister less than a year ago and led Swedens historic bid to join NATO following Russias invasion of Ukraine in February.

Jari Tanner in Helsinki, Finland, and James Brooks in Stockholm contributed reporting.

This version corrects the percentage that the Sweden Democrats won in 2018. It was 17.5% of the vote. They won 13% in 2014.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- A special event celebrated Bethlehem's finest Saturday, including those on two and four legs.

"Bridles and Badges" was held at the Bethlehem Mounted Police Training Area.

Visitors were greeted by Bethlehem's human, and horse, officers.

The event featured demonstration of skills by the mounted unit.

There were various activities for the entire family, including pony rides, tours of the stables, crafts and a food tent.
The Parkland School District is set to fully reopen Monday following a threat that shut down in-person learning at all schools Thursday and Friday.

School officials released the following information to all district families Sunday evening:

"All Parkland Schools will operate on a normal schedule for Monday, September 12, 2022. Law enforcement continues to investigate the Safe2Say threat toward Orefield Middle School from last week.

"District personnel, along with law enforcement, completed a sweep of Orefield Middle School on Friday and completed an inspection of all school transportation vehicles. This was done as an extra precaution. Additionally, South Whitehall Township Police, Upper Macungie Township Police, and the Pennsylvania State Police will provide an increased police presence throughout Monday at our schools. Our number one priority is the safety of our students and staff. We are confident in our safety efforts.

"Thank you for your continued support and understanding. We will continue to communicate updates into the investigation as more information becomes available. In order to assist you during this difficult time, we are providing information that may help you support your child(ren) at home while discussing a return to school."

Local authorities are investigating the threat with the FBI.

All Parkland schools were closed Thursday and remote-only learning was conducted on Friday.

Even though the threat was directed at Orefield Middle School, Parkland ended up closing all of its schools because the district's bus depot is at Orefield, and drivers were told not to come in for their safety.

Authorities have yet to describe the nature of the threat or whether a suspect has been identified.

On Friday, South Whitehall Police said that "there was a specific time frame provided in the threat and that has passed."
SHENANDOAH, Pa. -- Workers at 14 nursing homes across Pennsylvania reached a tentative deal between the union and two health care companies.

The workers were on strike for a week.

Friday we reported that a tentative deal was reached at 13 of the 14 nursing homes affected by the strike.

On Saturday, another deal was reached with SEIU workers at the Shenandoah Heights Health Care Nursing Home.

The strike affected nursing homes in Easton, Reading, East Stroudsburg and Pottsville.

Details of the agreements are expected to be released Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Joe Biden marked the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, taking part in a somber wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon held under a steady rain and paying tribute to extraordinary Americans who gave their lives on one of the nation's darkest days.

Sunday's ceremony occurred a little more than a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.

Biden noted that even after the United States left Afghanistan that his administration continues to pursue those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Last month, Biden announced the U.S. had killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the al-Qaida leader who helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks, in a clandestine operation.

We will never forget, we will never give up, Biden said. Our commitment to preventing another attack on the United States is without end.

The president was joined by family members of the fallen, first responders who had been at the Pentagon on the day of the attack, as well as Defense Department leadership for the annual moment of tribute carried out in New York City, the Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul's airport, and thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.

Biden on Sunday said an incredible debt was owed to the U.S. troops who served in Afghanistan as well as their families. More than 2,200 U.S. service members were killed and more than 20,000 were wounded over the course of the nearly 20-year war, according to the Pentagon.

He also vowed that the nation will never fail to meet the sacred obligation to you to properly prepare and equip those that we send into harms way and care for those and their families when they come home  and to never, ever, ever forget.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden's handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has spiraled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. withdrawal.

Now, one year on from last Augusts disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Bidens decision has come into sharper focus," McConnell said. Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity."

The president also remembered the words of comfort Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week, sent to the American people soon after the 2001 attacks: Grief is the price we pay for love." Biden said those words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago but the weight of loss also remains heavy.

On this day, when the price feels so great, Jill and I are holding all of you close to our hearts. Biden said.

Biden has recently dialed up warnings about what he calls the extreme ideology of former President Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican" adherents as a threat to American democracy. Without naming Trump, Biden again on Sunday raised a call for Americans to safeguard democracy.

Its not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then, Biden said. Its something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but also is a day for renewal and resolve for each and every American in our devotion to this country, to the principles it embodies, to our democracy.

First lady Jill Biden spoke to a crowd at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where she recalled the concern she had about her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant.

She said the attacks showed that with courage and kindness we can be a light in that darkness.

It showed us that we are all connected to one another, said Biden, who was joined by her sister in Shanksville for Sunday's commemoration. So as we stand on this sacred and scarred earth, a record of our collective grief and a monument to the memories that live on each day, this is the legacy we much carry forward: Hope that defies hate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband attended a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial in New York.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry reiterated Egypts firm stance on the need to reach a comprehensive agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as soon as possible in a meeting on Sunday with the UN Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Hanna Tetteh.

Shoukry warned that the continuation of the status quo on the GERD represents an element of instability that threatens the interests of the peoples of the region for current and future generations, a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry read.

Egypt and Sudans tensions with Ethiopia have heightened as the latter proceeded with its plans to implement the third phase of filling the GERD reservoir without the consent of the downstream countries.

Egypt and Sudan have reiterated their rejection of the unilateral Ethiopian acts regarding the $4.2 billion GERD, including filling its 74-billion-cubic-metre reservoir and operating the dam turbines without their consent.

The two downstream countries have repeatedly affirmed their support for Ethiopias right to development, but called on Addis Ababa to sign a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam that would secure their water rights and their peoples interests.

African Union-sponsored talks to find a solution to the GERD dispute between the three countries have been stalled since April last year, with Egypt and Sudan blaming the failure of talks on the upstream countrys intransigence.

Amid the stalled talks, Egypt and Sudan have called for the engagement of a quartet made up of the UN, the AU, the United States, and the European Union to mediate the GERD talks, a step that Ethiopia has rejected.

Shoukry and the UNs Tetteh discussed various important issues linked to peace and security in the region, the statement said.

The discussions reflected the keenness of the UN official to better understand Egypt's vision and assessment of the situation in Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, the security of the Red Sea, as well as the GERD and means of expressing African interests during the upcoming climate summit, the statement said.

Egypt, which will host the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in November in Sharm El-Sheikh, has repeatedly vowed to speak for African aspirations regarding the climate agenda during the conference.

Shoukry also briefed Tetteh on his vision toward resolving the political crises in the region, affirming that Egypt has extensive experience in backing peace and stability in Africa and good contacts that qualify it to always support UN purposes and goals in this regard.

The FM also affirmed Egypts constant keenness to support the stability of the Horn of Africa as an integral part of Egypts own national security. This has been evidenced by Egypts great contribution to peacekeeping operations in Africa, he added.

Shoukry congratulated the UN envoy on assuming her post, highlighting the special importance that Egypt attaches to the Horn of Africa region as a geostrategic extension of Egyptian national security.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)  The man charged with abducting and killing a Tennessee teacher this month was a suspect in a 2021 kidnapping and sexual case, but his indictment over those allegations didn't occur until Thursday because of the timing in testing his DNA.

Cleotha Henderson was rebooked at the Shelby County Jail on Friday on charges of aggravated rape, especially aggravated kidnapping and unlawful carrying of a weapon. Details of the newest allegations against Henderson were not immediately available.

The indictment came days after Hendersons arrest in the death of Eliza Fletcher, a mother of two and a kindergarten teacher.

Fletcher disappeared while on a pre-dawn run near the University of Memphis campus on Sept. 2, and her remains were found Monday near an abandoned house. Henderson is being held in the Shelby County Jail without bond on the charges related to Fletchers death.

In the earlier case, Memphis police took a sexual assault report on Sept. 21, 2021, the department said in a statement Saturday. A sexual assault kit was submitted two days later to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the statement said.

An official CODIS (national DNA database) hit was not received until after the unfortunate event that occurred on September 2, 2022, the Memphis police statement said, referring to the jogger's abduction. Probable cause to make a physical arrest of any suspect did not exist until after the CODIS hit had been received."

Memphis police provided no further details, citing an ongoing criminal prosecution. Hendersons public defender could not be reached for comment Saturday.

The TBI confirmed Saturday that the sexual assault kit was submitted last Sept. 23.

The evidence was put into the queue of unknown assailant kits, as no request was made for TBI analysis to be expedited, and no suspect information or DNA standard was included in the submission, the TBI statement said.

The kit eventually was pulled from evidence storage along with 19 other kits for analysis this past June 24 and an initial report of the results was completed on Aug. 29, the TBI said.

When the 2021 DNA was entered into the national database, it returned a match for Henderson on Sept. 5, which the TBI reported to Memphis police, the TBI said.

The TBI accepts rush DNA cases when requested to do so by local law enforcement agencies, as was done in the Fletcher case, according to the TBI. Last weekend, Henderson was identified as the suspect less than 18 hours after receiving key evidence, which was critical in his subsequent apprehension.

Because we rarely know the facts of the case when processing evidence, TBI relies on submitting agencies to identify cases that would benefit their investigation from our rush analysis, the TBI statement said.

Henderson, who also has gone by the name Cleotha Abston, is charged with kidnapping and killing Fletcher, 34. Henderson is being held in the Shelby County Jail without bond on the charges stemming from Fletcher's death.

Henderson was arrested after police detected his DNA on sandals found near the location where Fletcher was last seen, an arrest affidavit said.

A funeral for Fletcher was held Saturday.

Henderson, 38, previously served 20 years in prison for a kidnapping he committed at age 16.
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP)  In a somber, regal procession, Queen Elizabeth IIs flag-draped coffin was driven slowly through the Scottish countryside Sunday from her beloved Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Mourners packed city streets and highway bridges or lined rural roads with cars and tractors to take part in a historic goodbye to the monarch who had reigned for 70 years.

The hearse drove past piles of bouquets and other tributes as it led a seven-car cortege from Balmoral, where the queen died Thursday at 96, for a six-hour trip through Scottish towns to Holyroodhouse palace in Edinburgh. The late queen's coffin was draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland and topped with a wreath made of flowers from the estate, including sweet peas, one of the queen's favorites.

The procession was a huge event for Scotland as the U.K. takes days to mourn its longest-reigning monarch, the only one most Britons have ever known. People turned out hours early to grab a space by the police barricades in Edinburgh. By afternoon, the crowds were 10 people deep.

I think she has been an ever-constant in my life. She was the queen I was born under, and she has always been there, said Angus Ruthven, a 54-year-old civil servant from Edinburgh. I think it is going to take a lot of adjusting that she is not here."

Silence fell on the packed Royal Mile in Edinburgh as the hearse carrying the queen arrived. But as the convoy vanished from view, the crowd spontaneously started clapping.

A very historic moment. I am quite speechless actually, said Fiona Moffat, a 57-year-old office manager from Glasgow. She was a lovely lady. Great mother, grandmother. She did well. I am very proud of her.

When the hearse reached Holyroodhouse, members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, wearing green tartan kilts, carried the coffin past the queen's youngest three children Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward  into the throne room, where it was to remain until Monday afternoon so staff can pay their last respects.

King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla will travel Monday to Edinburgh to join another solemn procession that takes the queen's coffin to St. Giles Cathedral on the citys Royal Mile. There the coffin will remain for 24 hours so the Scottish public can pay their respects before it is flown to London on Tuesday.

The first village the cortege passed through was Ballater, where residents regard the royal family as neighbors. Hundreds of people watched in silence. Some threw flowers in front of the hearse.

She meant such a lot to people in this area. People were crying, it was amazing to see, said Victoria Pacheco, a guest house manager.

In each Scottish town and village, the entourage was met with respect. People stood mostly in silence; some clapped politely, others pointed their phone cameras at the passing cars. In Aberdeenshire, farmers lined the route with an honor guard of tractors.

Along the route, the cortege passed through locations laden with House of Windsor history. Those included Dyce, where in 1975 the queen formally opened the U.K.s first North Sea oil pipeline, and Fife, near St. Andrews University, where her grandson Prince William, now the Prince of Wales, studied and met his future wife, Catherine.

Sunday's solemn drive came as the queens eldest son was formally proclaimed the new monarch  King Charles III  in the rest of the United Kingdom: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It came a day after a pomp-filled accession ceremony in England.

I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of sovereignty, which have now passed to me, Charles said Saturday.

Just before the proclamation was read Sunday in Edinburgh, a protester appeared with a sign condemning imperialism and urging leaders to abolish the monarchy." She was taken away by police. Reaction was mixed. One man shouted, Let her go! Its free speech! while others shouted: Have some respect!

Still, there was some booing in Edinburgh when Joseph Morrow, Lord Lyon King of Arms, finished his proclamation with God save the king!

That upset Ann Hamilton, 48.

Theres tens of thousands of people here today to show their respect. For them to be here, heckling through things, I think it was terrible. If they were so against it, they shouldnt have come," she said.

Still, it was a sign of how some, including people in Britain's former colonies, are struggling with the legacy of the monarchy  and its future.

Earlier in the day, proclamations were read in other parts of the Commonwealth, including Australia and New Zealand.

Charles, even as he mourned his late mother, got to work at Buckingham Palace, meeting with the secretary-general and other Commonwealth envoys. Many in those nations are grappling with both affection for the queen and lingering bitterness over their colonial legacies, which ranged from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British cultural institutions.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is in favor of an Australian republic, said Sunday that now was not the time for a change but for paying tribute to the late queen. India, a former British colony, observed a day of state mourning, with flags lowered to half-staff.

Amid the grief enveloping the House of Windsor, there were hints of a possible family reconciliation. Prince William and his brother Harry, together with their respective wives, Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, delighted mourners near Windsor Castle with a surprise joint appearance Saturday.

The queen's coffin was taking a circuitous journey back to the capital. After it is flown to London on Tuesday, the coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to the Houses of Parliament to lie in state until a state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 19.

In Ballater, the Rev. David Barr said locals consider the royal family as neighbors.

When she comes up here, and she goes through those gates, I believe the royal part of her stays mostly outside," he said of the queen. And as she goes in, she was able to be a wife, a loving wife, a loving mum, a loving gran and then later on a loving great-gran  and aunty  and be normal."

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes after the hearse passed through Ballater.

It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the queen," she said. She certainly gave service to this country, even up until a few days before her death.

Corder reported from London.

Follow AP coverage of Queen Elizabeth II at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii
Student success advisor Shannon Sullivan knows that college can be a very daunting environment. Establishing a key person that you can go to for anything helps ease the transition into college.

At Minnesota State College Southeast, the Papenfuss Scholars Program is helping students build just such relationships.

Made possible by a gift from the Jerry & Patricia Papenfuss Family Fund of the Winona Community Foundation, the Papenfuss Scholars Program is meeting the college expenses of nine Winona Area Learning Center (WALC) graduates at MSC Southeast this year.

The Papenfuss Scholars also have the advantage of working with a dedicated advisor. Shannon Sullivan previously worked at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and was a retention advisor, a financial aid assistant and an admissions assistant at MSC Southeast for seven years.

After the first group of Papenfuss Scholars was selected in 2021, I came back to Southeast, she said. I started meeting with students on a regular basis in the summer before classes even started. By the time fall semester began, we were already well into a comfortable relationship.

Now age 22, Devin Foster is one of five successful Papenfuss Scholars who started college at MSC Southeast last year. Initially, he planned to major in information technology, but after a successful first semester, he changed to software development and support, a program he considers to be more challenging.

When he was younger, Devin said he was in and out of high school. He dropped out to work for a while. I just didnt care about school at the time, but at a certain point, I had a wakeup call to change my life around.

During COVID, he enrolled at the Winona Area Learning Center. By then, he was a highly motivated student. I finished a full year of high school in a semester. And I was doing it all online at that, Devin said. I liked working online because I could work at my own pace. I could accelerate my pace and graduate sooner.

As a WALC student, Devin first heard about the Papenfuss Scholars Program in a text message from his high school counselor.

My counselor said I would be perfect for it  I felt confident that I would get the scholarship. I try hard, they know Im intelligent, I was on good terms with the counselor and teachers.

But after completing the application process, he didnt hear back for quite a while. In fact, he thought he hadnt been selected until the end of June, when three of his high school teachers and an admissions representative from Minnesota State College Southeast showed up at his doorstep to surprise him with the good news.

Devin knew the Papenfuss Scholarship would meet his college expenses. He also received MSC Southeast Foundation and Workforce Development scholarships and got a work-study position at the colleges IT Helpdesk to stretch his dollars further.

What he didnt know was that the scholarship would also come with the opportunity to work with an advisor. Thats when Shannon Sullivan came into his life.

Shannon explained that relationship building is key to helping students achieve academic progress  it creates a safe environment where they become comfortable in asking for help.

Asking for help is something thats really hard to do, she confided. Sometimes I feel our biggest challenge is letting students know its OK to ask for help.

Shannon and I meet up once a week. Shes a happy person to talk to, said Devin. I have felt overwhelmed at times, but she makes sure I feel positive about school. Shell email my teachers if we have concerns. I like to walk or bike everywhere, but sometimes I need a ride and Shannon will give me Lyft cards.

Shannons approach to advising is based on a team approach with college faculty. I get progress checks from the instructors, which provides another level of feedback and opportunities for learning, said Shannon.

Knowing he will have the first two years of completed without any student loan debt, Devin said he is planning to continue his college career. I definitely plan to go on for a bachelors degree. I would like to go somewhere out of state, live on campus.
Trend Industries FZC, a front-runner organisation partnering with clients in the field of specialised fabrication, has announced plans to invest AED25 million ($6.80 million) in the construction of a new production facility in the Hamriyah Free Zone (HFZA), UAE.

According to the companys new expansion strategy, Trend Industries will scale up its production capacity from 3,600 tonnes per year (tpy) to 8,400 tpy, which will further strengthen Sharjah's position as a global leader in steel fabrication.

This was announced during a ceremony held recently to sign a lease agreement between Hamriyah Free Zone Authority (HFZA) and Trend Industries.

Saud Salim Al Mazrouei, Director of the Hamriyah Free Zone Authority, and Neeraj K Sharma, CEO of Trend Industries, signed the partnership agreement in the presence of a number of senior officials from both entities. According to the agreement, the steel fabrication company would lease 323,000 sq ft of land to build its new factory.

Accompanied by a number of HFZAs officials, Al Mazrouei toured Trend Industries existing facility, which offers a comprehensive suite of fabrication and manufacturing services that includes a complete portfolio of managed solutions.

In addition to storage tanks, air receiver tanks, pressure vessels, heavy structure fabrication and installation, chiller plant skids, silos, skids for pressure silos, the facility also produces chemical skid fabrication, piping systems, crane and escalator beams, flatbed and container trailers, crane-mounted trailers for cargo bodies & blocks, tipper/water/diesel tank trailers, cesspit tanks, and frame trailers, among many more.

Al Mazrouei was briefed on the production processes and mechanisms adopted in accordance with the latest international standards. The production plant was founded in 2006 and now employs around 134 personnel including technicians.

Al Mazrouei expressed his appreciation for Trend Industries' decision and emphasized that HFZA would continue to promote investments in heavy industries, including steel fabrication, by offering a welcoming business environment and cutting-edge infrastructure that perfectly suits these industries and meets their needs, adding that HFZA's deep water port and inner harbor facilitate the import and export of goods and raw materials.

"More businesses are either growing in the free zone or basing their operations there, Al Mazrouei said. This is due to the effectiveness of our sophisticated systems, which guarantee the flow of raw materials on a regular basis and enable manufacturing facilities to run at full capacity, as well as the integrated logistical services that we provide, linking manufacturers with more than 3.5 billion customers around the world.

He underlined that the HFZA has grown into a significant partner, supporting the emirate's future goals of attracting further foreign direct investments to Sharjah. He also added that manufacturing is one of the sectors that the free zone is known for, which can effectively attract quality and sustainable investments to improve Sharjah's competitiveness and reputation locally and abroad.

For his part, Neeraj Sharma said that HFZA has significantly supported the company in accelerating its growth and achieving its vision of becoming a leading manufacturing company in the Middle East by expanding 3Ms  Men, Material, and Machinery.

"Thanks to HFZAs outstanding facilities as well as its strategic location in the midst of the Middle East and African markets, we have been able to establish our first production facility that incredibly satisfies the demands of our customers in the local, regional, and international markets," Sharma added.

"Through the new facility, we look forward to expanding our customer base, accessing new markets in Africa, the USA, Europe, and India, and branching out into new sectors like automobiles, oil & gas industry, in addition to the industries we are currently specialized in, such as construction and manufacturing industry," he clarified.--TradeArabia News Service
The Egyptian Armed Forces are keen to boost military and security cooperation with the United States, Minister of Defence and Military Production Mohamed Zaki said in a meeting in Egypt with Commander of US Central Command Michael Kurilla on Sunday.

Zaki hailed the extensive strategic relations between Egypt and the US, Egyptian military spokesman Gharib Abdel-Hafez said in a statement.

Zaki and Kurilla discussed topics of mutual concern and issues that touch [their countries] joint interests in light of the military cooperation between the two countries, the spokesman said.

Kurilla hailed the pivotal role the Egyptian state plays in achieving security, stability, and balance in the region, stressing the deep bilateral relations between Egypt and the US, said the statement.

They also discussed supporting military cooperation between the two countries, the spokesman added.

Kurilla also met today with Chief-of-Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces Osama Askar, where they discussed boosting Egypt-US cooperation in training and exchanging expertise between the armed forces of the two countries.

Egypt and the US have had firm miliary cooperation in recent decades, including by conducting joint military drills, and have continued to coordinate on vital regional issues of mutual concern, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a phone call last month, Zaki and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J. Austin III have reaffirmed their commitment to Egypt-US military-to-military cooperation as a cornerstone of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Austin thanked Egypt for its leadership role in the region and vital assistance in securing an August ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which ended three days of renewed conflict that claimed the lives of 43 Palestinians, including children.

In May, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi received Kurilla in Cairo, where they discussed upgrading military and security cooperation, cooperation in counterterrorism, as well as joint military exercises and border security between the two countries.

The US has been the main arms exporter to Egypt between 2000 and 2019 at about 41.6 percent, followed by Russia at a share of about 25 percent, according to 2021 data by the German database company Statista.

In March, the then-CENTCOM Commander said the US will provide Egypt with F-15 aircrafts. Two months earlier, the US administration approved a massive $2.5 billion arms sale to Egypt, including 12 Super Hercules C-130 transport aircraft.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Video: Mayor proclaims new King to people of Wrexham

The Mayor of Wrexham, Councillor Brian Cameron, has issued a proclamation from the balcony of the Guildhall this afternoon.

A proclamation was be made in London yesterday as part of an accession council held at St Jamess Palace, with the news then cascaded across the UK.

Todays ceremony was part of that process, that saw the Chief Executive Ian Bancroft and the Mayor travel to Mold to receive the news from the High Sheriff of Clwyd and the Lord Lieutenant.

The civic party then returned to Wrexham to issue the proclamation to the people of Wrexham, we are told the Mayor was acting on behalf of the Crown in this role.

After the proclamation, which was made bilingually, there was a repetition of God Save The King from the crowd  and at the very end of both readings, Three cheers for the King with the crowd responding.

The video of the short event is below:

The proclamation as read out by the Mayor is below:

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call to His Mercy our late Sovereign

Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second of Blessed and Glorious Memory, by whose

Decease the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is

solely and rightfully come to The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George: We,

therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm and Members of the House

of Commons, together with other members of Her late Majestys Privy Council and

representatives of the Realms and Territories, Aldermen and Citizens of London, and

others, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and

proclaim that The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George is now, by the Death of our

late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lord

Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and

Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the

Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom we do acknowledge all Faith and

Obedience with humble Affection; beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do

reign to bless His Majesty with long and happy Years to reign over us. Given at St. Jamess Palace this tenth day of September in the year of Our

Lord twenty thousand and twenty-two. GOD SAVE THE KING

Above is a view of part of the crowd from the balcony taken around 15 minutes before the proclamation was made, along with the image below seconds before:
Wrexham superheroes asked to don their capes and raise funds for Mencap

Mencap, the learning disability charity, is calling on local superheroes to don their capes and ka-pow their way to their latest event.

The charity is organising a Superhero Challenge with people across the UK taking part in events, including one in Wrexham, to support the 65,000 people across Wales with a learning disability.

When we think of superheroes, we think of those with extraordinary powers that are there for us when we need them most.

However some superheroes can change the world though supporting someone in need, and this includes Mencaps amazing support workers, helpline volunteers and fearless campaigners.

The Wrexham Superhero Challenge will take place on Saturday 1st October at Alyn Waters Country Park, Wrexham, with families encouraged to join a 2.5k or 5k sponsored walk to help raise funds to support Mencaps vital work.

Additional activities will be taking place throughout the event for everyone to enjoy.

Funds raised at the event will support people like Robert, who lives in his own house with staff and friends.

He attends Me Time at Mencap Llanfyllin, which empowers people with a learning disability to enjoy a variety of meaningful activities that matter to them in their community.

Robert said, I like coming to Mencap to see my friends and I can talk to people I wouldnt normally see. I like volunteering because its good fun and its great meeting new people.

Lucy Carr, Area Fundraising Manager, explained, We are so excited to be bringing the Superhero Challenge to Wrexham.

We have a Mencap charity shop in Wrexham and wanted to do something in the local community that everyone can get involved in.

Theres a superhero trail throughout the month of October, which you can take on anytime throughout the month, either in one go, or over a few days. So collect your trail map at our Mencap store in Queens Street to get started.

Registration for the event is 10 per adult with carers and under 16s attending for free to watch their superheroes.

Participants are encouraged to dress as their favourite comic book hero or don a costume to honour a hero who inspires them with the aim of raising 100 each to support Mencap.

To join in the superhero fun and register your family please visit: www.mencap.org.uk/event/superhero-challenge-2022/wrexham or email community.fundraising@mencap.org.uk for more information.

Resources to support with fundraising for the challenge are also available to download here.

Volunteers to assist with the event are also needed, for more information please visit: https://jobs.mencap.org.uk/vacancies/25947/superhero-event-steward-volunteerwrexham.html
25 years ago: Local elections along communal lines in Bosnia

On September 14, 1997, municipal elections were held in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and declared a success by international organizers. It was the second election held following the implementation of the Dayton Accords, signed in 1995.

Approximately 2.5 million people were registered to vote for the 136 municipal and district councils at stake, with about 20,000 candidates competing for 4,830 seats. Around 400,000 people cast absentee ballots and a further 35,000 were, for the second year in a row, supposed to go back to their home areas to vote, in spite of their status as displaced refugees.

US troops deployed as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force had taken an increasingly aggressive posture in the weeks leading up to the election, directly intervening in the ongoing political conflicts between rival Serb factions. The night before the elections, US warplanes were deployed in the area to back up a threat to jam or even bomb radio and television stations supporting the faction led by former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic.

Radovan Karadzic during a visit to Moscow in 1994 [Photo by By Mikhail Evstafiev - Created and Uploaded by Evstafiev, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=715228]

The reality was that the US-led intervention in Bosnia only solidified the partition of the former Yugoslav republic between Muslim, Croat, and Serb statelets, each of which were run by dictatorial ethnic nationalist regimes. The US was increasing its military pressure to assure the subservience of these entities to Washington and thereby assert its hegemony over a strategically important area of the globe. The elections were crucial to creating an illusion of peace and democracy.

Revelations which appeared in the Croatian press earlier in September underscored Washingtons complicity with some of the worst offenders of the region. A former Croatian militiaman chillingly recounted his activities in officially sponsored death squads which operated during the Croat separatist war in 1991, killing, torturing, and raping ethnic Serbs. He implicated top officials in the regime of President Franjo Tudjman, Washingtons principal ally in the region. The US provided direct military support for an even larger Croatian campaign of ethnic cleaning, which drove out hundreds of thousands of Serbs in 1995.

50 years ago: Cod War fisheries conflict begins between Britain and Iceland

British and Icelandic warships collide during Cod War. Source: Wikipedia; Issac Newton

On September 12, 1972, the Icelandic Coast Guard ordered its ships to begin cutting the nets of British fishing boats in Icelands newly claimed territorial waters. The move would provoke a response from Britain, which would eventually send warships into the disputed waters.

The conflict was the second of three phases of the so-called Cod Wars. The first, lasting from 1958-1961, ended with an agreement that Iceland would have exclusive rights to fishing 22 kilometers off its shore. At the start of September 1972, Iceland extended its claim on exclusive fishing grounds to 93 kilometers, encompassing waters that contained the largest quantities of fish.

The British government refused to recognize Icelands new claim. While British fishermen had often sailed to the abundant fishing waters near Iceland for catches, going as far back as the 14th century, in more recent years over-fishing had depleted fish populations closer to British shores and forced British ships to rely on the Icelandic waters.

Fearing that the increased competition from the British boats would harm Icelandic fishermen and deplete the fisheries, the Icelandic government issued its new claim. Initially, the Icelandic Coast Guard only escorted British boats out of their waters, usually allowing them to keep the supplies of fish already caught. But some began to refuse to obey Icelands orders, and a few attempted to defend their claim on the waters by ramming their boats into the Icelandic Coast Guard ships. The British ramming attacks prompted the Icelandic Coast Guard to use net cutting devices to sever the British fishing nets from their ships.

The situation continued to deteriorate. In May, the Icelandic Cost Guard began firing non-explosive cannon shots at the British fishing boats. This prompted British warships to enter the waters. In June through August 1973 there were several collisions between Royal Navy Ships and the Icelandic Coast Guard. On one of these occasions an Icelandic engineer was killed.

A year after the conflict began, in September 1973, Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO if British ships did not respect their claim to exclusive fishing rights. Icelands withdrawal from NATO might have forced the removal of the US military presence on the island, a significant strategic point in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Under this pressure the British government eventually relented and agreed to respect the territorial claim in return for permission to catch 150,000 tons of fish per year in Icelandic waters. The decision would devastate thousands of British small fishermen unable to continue their operations. In 1975, a third phase of the Cod War would begin when Iceland further expanded its territorial waters claim.

75 years ago: Typhoon Kathleen kills thousands in Japan

Flooded areas in the wake of Typhoon Kathleen

On September 15, 1947, Typhoon Kathleen made landfall in Japan, touching off several days of devastation that would claim thousands of lives. The storm is considered one of the worst to have hit the island nation, killing more and causing greater damage than almost any other precipitation-based natural disaster.

Kathleen made contact with Japan in the Kanagawa Precinct, near the southern outskirts of Tokyo. At the time, winds from the storm were estimated at around 185 kilometers per hour. Tokyos often flimsy wooden structures were ill-prepared, with estimates that more than 9,200 structures were razed by the initial barrage, including dwellings, workplaces and official buildings in and around the capital city.

Even more devastating was the resulting flooding from massive rainfall caused by the storm, which had a central barometric pressure of 28.34 inches at landfall. The unprecedented deluge affected all water systems in northern Kanto (the greater Tokyo region), with catastrophic results.

Several dikes were overwhelmed, the biggest of them at the Tone River, only seven kilometers from Tokyo. That failure led to the inundation of a densely populated area just three kilometers wide but home to some 300,000 people. The breaches also caused flooding within metropolitan Tokyo itself. In the Tohoku region, the Kitakami River flooded, leading to substantial damage in Ichinoseki Citys Iwate Prefecture.

The total area that was submerged has been estimated at 440 square kilometers, with some 600,000 people affected and as many as 150,000 buildings either damaged or destroyed entirely. In urban areas that flooded, narrow streets accentuated the water build-up, trapping many. The economic damage was estimated at more than $US 800 million.

The number of victims remains unknown. At least 1,100 people were confirmed dead. But contemporaneous reports indicated that over 800 more were missing. According to some estimates, as many as 4,000 people may have perished.

At the time, Japan remained under effective US military occupation and rule, following its 1945 defeat in World War II. The US authorities presided over an authoritarian regime, which suppressed political opposition and collaborated with sections of the Japanese state and military apparatus implicated in its militarist crimes during the war. In the year preceding the flood, there had nevertheless been repeated mass demonstrations over food shortages and high prices, overseen by the American authorities.

The impact of the flooding was undoubtedly exacerbated by the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in the final US blitzkrieg of Japan, which had included the firebombing of Tokyo and the dropping of atomic weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

100 years ago: Tens of thousands die in fire in Turkish city of Smyrna

Smyrna fire, September 13, 1922

On September 13, 1922, a massive fire began in the western Anatolian city of Smyrna that would kill between 10,000 and 100,000 civilians, most of them ethnic Greeks and Armenians. Turkish troops had entered the city on September 9 as Greek forces withdrew. The occupation of the city effectively ended the war of national liberation against the British, French, Italians, and Greeks, waged by the Turkish nationalist movement led by Kamal Ataturk.

Thousands of refugees had swelled the population of this historically multiethnic city, many of them on the docks awaiting evacuation by British and French forces. The imperialist navies had at least 21 ships in Smyrnas harbor, including the British battleships HMS Iron Duke and King George V as well as the American destroyers USS Litchfield, Simpson, and Lawrence.

Although the Turkish forces initially observed discipline, Turks began a series of pogroms against Armenians, looting shops and raping women. A Greek cleric was murdered in full view of a group of French soldiers who were prevented from intervening by their commanding officers.

Turkish soldiers, according to eyewitnesses, began to set fire to Greek and Armenian property and soon the whole Greek and Armenian quarters of the city were ablaze. Thousands began a desperate stampede toward the docks as the fire spread throughout the city. Thousands died from smoke inhalation and the intense heat. Many dived into the sea in attempts to reach the ships.

Military bands played on Allied ships to stifle the screams of those who drowned. Only a Japanese freighter came to their aid, dumping its cargo to take on refugees.

By September 22, large parts of Smyrna were destroyed and its Greek and Armenian populations were either killed or forced out.
Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Suweilam said that Egypt is one of the world's most affected countries by climate change, noting that the country is suffering water scarcity, high temperature, erosion and saltwater intrusion into fresh water.

Egypt depends on the Nile River for 97 percent of its water needs and climate change will increase water shortages in the country, the minister said during the opening session of the Environment & Development Forum: The Road to Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change COP27.

The event, which kicked off Sunday and is scheduled to run through Tuesday, is part of the country's preparations for hosting the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in the Red Sea city of Sharm El-Sheik in November.

Several countries suffer from water shortages due to increases in population, unstable water shares (the percentage of water from shared sources, like the Nile, allotted to each country) and climate impacts, which has led to shortage of water used for drinking, agricultural and industrial purposes, said Suweilam according to Ahram Arabic gate.

The irrigation minister urged all countries to strengthen cooperation amid extreme climate phenomena, stressing the need to place the water sector, food and agriculture on the global climate agenda.

He said shedding light on these sectors will contribute to increasing the ability of countries to deal with water issues in a way that is consistent with the related sustainable development goals.

Egypt, one of the most water-scarce countries in the world, needs 114 billion cubic metres (bcm) annually, but it only receives an average of 60 bcm, mainly from the Nile River, according to official remarks.

Egypt overcomes water scarcity by importing 54 percent of its virtual water and reusing 42 percent of its renewable water.

Virtual water, which is the embedded water required to produce commodities and measured as a percentage of the already existing water resources, has been relied on for decades in the form of food imports and is increasingly recommended as a good policy for water-scarce areas.

Egypts annual share of water is 560 cubic metres per person, placing the country well below the international threshold for water scarcity, according to the cabinet's figures.

According to the UN, a population faces water scarcity when annual water supplies drop below 1000 cubic metres per person and absolute scarcity when it drops below 500 cubic metres.

Suweilam said Egypt is making great efforts in improving water management, which includes rehabilitating canals in order to better deliver water to farmers.

Additionally, the country has established huge water treatment plants, such as Bahr Al-Baqar plant, to be used in agriculture, a sector on which about 40 million people in Egypt depend as a main source of income.

The minister added that water is a key element in agriculture and food security.

The minister underlined the necessity of expanding water desalination projects, studying ways to find less costly and more efficient ways of reusing wastewater, including by using renewable energy.

Former Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Ati has previously highlighted the adverse effect of climate change on Egypts fertile Nile Delta, as the rise in sea levels makes it one of the worlds most at-risk area for decreasing fertility due to the interference of saline water.

This affects the quality of groundwater and could lead to the displacement of millions of Egyptians residing in the north of the delta, according to Abdel-Ati.

These challenges, Abdel-Ati added, require strenuous efforts to confront them, adding that Egypt has prepared a strategy for water resources until 2050 at a cost of up to $50 billion that may reach $100 billion, in addition to developing a four-pronged National Water Resources Plan running through 2037.

The three-day forum is organised by the Arab Water Council under the auspices of Egypts Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, with the participation of a host of officials and experts from 30 nations.

The forum  through eight main elements  is meant to focus on the impacts and solutions of climate change on the environment and development fronts, including climate adaptation and mitigation measures.

It also focuses on food and water security in light of climate change, clean and renewable energy and sustainable development. It also focuses on ways to preserve the environment, protecting biodiversity, and controlling emissions carbon dioxide as well as sustainable transportation and cities.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Egypt is very keen to allow the greatest possible number of local and foreign civil society organisations to participate and express their views in the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Sunday.

Madbouly made the remarks to the press during a two-day inspection tour in Sharm El-Sheikh city, the host of COP27 next November, to follow up on the ongoing projects to develop the city and the efforts underway to host the climate conference.

The premier said the number of people who have applied to participate in COP27 is double the number of participants during the past two editions of the conference, Madbouly said, without giving specifics.

Meanwhile, Egypts EC4SDF, an observer non-governmental organisation (NGO) to COP27, said late in August that about 35,000 people from around the world so far have registered on the UN website to attend COP27.

This puts the upcoming UN climate change conference in Sharm El-Sheikh on track to possibly become one of the most attended COPs, the NGO asserted.

During the tour, Madbouly said Egypt is keen to accept all requests to participate in COP27 as per the directives of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, adding that this has posed a challenge for the state with regards to expanding the areas allocated to receive participants.

The premier also noted that Egypt seeks to capitalise on COP27 to promote Egypt to the world as a tourist attraction and show the size of development projects in the country.

Boosting tourism

Egypt seeks to more than double the annual tourism revenues to $30 billion during the coming few years from roughly $11-12 billion currently, Madbouly said.

The premier said he called for the private sector and investors to set a detailed executive plan of their needs from the state to raise tourism revenues to $30 billion within two to three years.

Egypt now receives around 11 million tourists annually, which is almost equal to the number of tourists Egypt used to receive before the coronavirus pandemic, Madbouly said, noting that Egypt aims to double this number soon.

The projects being carried out in Sharm El-Sheikh as part of Egypt's preparations for COP27 provide an ideal opportunity for increasing the number of tourist arrivals in the city, Madbouly said.

Receiving COP participants

Ahead of COP27, Egypt has worked on raising the efficiency of Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport, including by establishing an additional hall at the airport, Madbouly said.

Currently, the airport is capable of receiving 10 million tourists year-round, he noted.

President El-Sisi has ordered raising the efficiency of aircraft runways at the airport so that it includes two runways operating simultaneously like at other international airports, the premier added.

Currently, more than 717 taxis are operating in the city with tracing systems and CCTV cameras to ensure the highest degree of safety for tourists, Madbouly noted.

This is in addition to new 260 buses working with natural gas or electricity, which abide by all environmental standards.

Vehicles transferring participants during COP27 will run on electricity, Madbouly said, affirming the availability of 18 charging stations across the city.

Tourists will also enjoy a bicycle-sharing system in the city and will be allowed to pay for their ride via credit card, he added.

During his visit to the city, Madbouly toured a number of projects, including some that have been completed.

Madboulys tour included the central park, the new city hall of Sharm El-Sheikh, charging stations, the airport, as well as a number of drinking water and sanitation projects.

Madbouly said he directed authorities to finalise constructions works linked to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh within a month to start working on logistical and organisational aspects of the conference as of the beginning of October.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


TOPSHOT - Members of the public pay their respects as they hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater, on September 11, 2022. - Queen Elizabeth II's coffin will travel by road through Scottish towns and villages on Sunday as it begins its final journey from her beloved Scottish retreat of Balmoral. The Queen, who died on September 8, will be taken to the Palace of Holyroodhouse before lying at rest in St Giles' Cathedral, before travelling onwards to London for her funeral. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP) (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Queen Elizabeth's coffin

Queen Elizabeth's death on September 8 triggered the enactment of Operation London Bridge, the U.K. government's long-established plan for arrangements in the event of Her Majesty's passing. Going forward, major events will accompany each day leading up to her state funeral on Monday, September 19.

Because the Queen's 96 years of life ended at her beloved Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the location-specific Operation Unicorn is in progress. The Queen's coffin has already begun its pre-planned journey down to London.

Here is what's expected to happen in the national period of mourning before the Queen's funeral.

Sunday, September 11

The Queen's coffin departed Balmoral Castle around 10 a.m. GMT, traveling south towards London. Her coffin is decorated in flowers picked at Balmoral and draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland. The coffin will spend the night at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh before continuing the journey by road.

For more on Queen Elizabeth, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.

On this day, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments read the new King's proclamations.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Scott Heppell/AP/Shutterstock (13382392h) Members of the public line the streets in Ballater, Scotland, as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes through as it makes its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral in Scotland, . The Queen's coffin will be transported Sunday on a journey from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, where it will lie at rest before being moved to London later in the week Royals, Ballater, United Kingdom - 11 Sep 2022

Scott Heppell/AP/Shutterstock Queen Elizabeth's hearse

Monday, September 12

On the fifth day following her passing, the Queen's coffin is expected to pass along Edinburgh's Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral.

In London, King Charles III will likely hear both Houses of Parliament express their condolences. He and Queen Consort Camilla are then scheduled to depart for a tour of the four nations of the United Kingdom.

King Charles III waves to well-wishers outside Buckingham Palace, London, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday. Picture date: Sunday September 11, 2022. (Photo by Beresford Hodge/PA Images via Getty Images)

Beresford Hodge/PA Images via Getty King Charles

Tuesday, September 13

The Queen's coffin will be flown to London. Once arrived at Buckingham Palace, there will then be a rehearsal of the coffin's procession to the Palace of Westminster.

Wednesday, September 14

After her coffin is ceremonially brought through London, the Queen's lying in state is expected to start in Westminster Hall. This four-day tradition is known as Operation Marquee. Thousands of people will be able to pay their respects as they pass by the coffin. Senior royals traditionally stand guard throughout, in what's known as the Virgil of the Princes.

Story continues

Thursday, September 15

Her Majesty's lying in state continues, and a rehearsal of the state funeral procession is scheduled on this day as well.

Friday, September 16 through Sunday, September 18

The lying in state will continue as funeral attendees arrive before the official day of the service.

TOPSHOT - Members of the public pay their respects as they hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater, on September 11, 2022. - Queen Elizabeth II's coffin will travel by road through Scottish towns and villages on Sunday as it begins its final journey from her beloved Scottish retreat of Balmoral. The Queen, who died on September 8, will be taken to the Palace of Holyroodhouse before lying at rest in St Giles' Cathedral, before travelling onwards to London for her funeral. (Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP) (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Queen Elizabeth's coffin

Monday, September 19

The state funeral is set to happen at Westminster Abbey. Navy officials will escort the Queen's coffin on a gun carriage, using ropes to pull it. The King and other members of the royal family will follow the coffin in a silent procession. The event will be televised and attended by heads of state and major figures from around the world.

After the funeral at Westminster Abbey, cameras will follow the Queen's coffin to another televised service at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Later, there will be a private service for senior royals and, finally, the late monarch's body will be laid to rest in the King George IV memorial chapel, where Queen Elizabeth's mother and father were buried and where her the ashes of sister, Princess Margaret, rest. Soon after, Prince Philip's body will be transferred to the chapel as well.
Nobody, save perhaps Europe, shrugs off international humiliation as disingenuously as the United States of America. Time and again since the loss of face in the Vietnam War and the terrible human cost to Vietnamese and Americans alike, Washington has embarked on military escapades throughout the world in the most ruthless manner under the pretext of defending freedom, democracy and human rights. This would be remarkable enough, but Washington does all this without any qualms about its moral right to do so.

The world sees Washington for what it is: a sickening superpower with a morbid imperial mentality. Its politicians and policy-makers are laser-brained careerists who have since 9/11 manipulated the unfortunate event to further their careers. The conventional wisdom in Washington holds that politicians must be packaged as thick-skinned, sharp-elbowed robots of the Dick Cheney variety dedicated to self-aggrandisement and self-advancement. The so-called "War against Terror" was nothing but a hoax designed to win the sympathy of gullible governments around the world.

On this tenth anniversary of the 9/11 and the destruction of the Wall Street Twin Trade Towers and the unprecedented attack on the Pentagon, it is time to reflect and ponder the implications of Washington's aggressive policies overseas.

Ten years ago, I wrote a commentary entitled Giant's Feet of Clay and received an astounding number of hate-mail from patriotic Americans. I also was applauded by conscientious citizens of the US who were not fooled by the lies spewed by the then administration of George W Bush. Policymakers and politicians in Washington were not in the least interested in principled answers to the poignant questions posed by 9/11 concerning the national security of the US.

The powers that be in Washington were more interested in fishing out, hounding and bringing to book those they regarded as having a treacherous and disloyal disposition.

Through all this, moreover, Washington was shameless in its pretensions that it was warring with Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq for justice and retribution. But then the very foundations of the US have been based on the appropriation of the lands of North America's indigenous population. The European settler colonial mentality that created apartheid South Africa and is now expanding the Zionist entity, Israel, on dubious Biblical grounds, is the same ideology upon which the US was founded. The land grab was cynically used to justify genocide.

US policymakers do not stand a prayer. The irony is that the name given to the military operation to execute Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was none other than Operation Geronimo. For those familiar with the history of the US Geronimo was the Native American Apache chieftain who led his people in a brave albeit desperate resistance bid to rid his land of the invaders. He was defending his ancestral lands from European settler colonialism.

Washington's politicians' knack of sweeping historical myths and blatant lies into some corner cabinet of the recesses of their evil, heartless minds led them cynically to call their weapons of war and warplanes after the Native American peoples they vanquished. The Blackhawk and the Apache have become buzzwords for US imperialism and synonyms of American military might. Imagine the public outcry had Hitler's Luftwaffe named its fighter jets "Jew" and "Gypsy". Such hypocrisy begs serious introspection and retrospection.

Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us reminds us that the first 9/11 was in 1973 when the US toppled the democratically elected government of Chile's Salvador Allende in a bloody military coup detat that put the right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet in Allende's place.

Such is the twisted logic of the world's leading advocate of democracy, freedom and human rights. Such is the hypocrisy of the powers that be in Washington. Such is the legacy of 9/11 that first used political Islam as an instrument to destroy the Left and progressive forces in the Arab and Islamic worlds and then used militant Islam as a bogeyman, and terrorists as an excuse to re-colonise the oil-rich lands of the Middle East and North Africa such as Iraq and Libya.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction as the hawks in Washington claimed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The US might have dumped the body of Bin Laden in the Arabian Sea, but the Taliban still commands considerable respect among a broad spectrum of the frustrated unemployed youth and manages to be as popular as ever in Afghanistan.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Rep. Lauren Boebert shut down the possibility that she might leave congress mid-term to pursue what her democratic opponent called her dream job of being a Fox News commentator Saturday.

When asked in a debate ahead of the Nov. 8 election if she promises to serve the full term if reelected, even if her dream job of joining the right-leaning network came up, Boebert responded, I dont think thats my dream job.

My dream job is actually just being a mom of four boys and raising my goats, the Republican representative from Colorado clarified. Thats my biggest dream, but its an honor to serve the constituents of Colorados 3rd district, and I look forward to doing it a second time.

Also Read:

Barbarian Leads Anemic Box Office With $10 Million Opening

The congresswoman began her time at the debate by directing her questions to moderator Edie Sonn, who serves on the Colorado Behavioral Health Council, by asking her to disclose her support of Democratic candidates, pointing to a tweet Sonn wrote that expressed support for Boeberts former opponent Diane Mitsch Bush.

This debate is not about me, Sonn responded, as the crowd booed Boebert for her remarks.

The event, which was hosted by Club 20, Colorado Mesa University and the Grand Junction Sentinel, is the first and only debate scheduled between Boebert and her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch prior to the election.

Boebert has been under fire in recent months, after comments that President Bidens student-debt forgiveness funds Karens daughters degree in lesbian dance theory had Twitter trolls coming out of the woodwork.

In August, her husband was also the center of controversy when he made threats to neighbors before driving his car into their mailbox in a rage after a dispute. According to a 911 call and an incident form, at least two 911 calls were made by neighbors after a resident asked one of Boeberts sons to stop speeding down their street in a dune buggy, and the situation escalated when Jayson Boebert began to ram his car into their mailbox.
The Baltimore Ravens saw running back go down for the entirety of the 2021 season during the teams final preseason game against the Washington Commanders. Dobbins has worked his way back from his injury, but reportedly isnt quite ready enough to play in Week 1 against the New York Jets.

Its been reported by multiple outlets that Dobbins wont suit up on Sunday, which would likely lead to a running back room of Kenyan Drake, Mike Davis and Justice Hill. The team will also be without running back Gus Edwards, who was placed on the reserve/PUP list after going down for the year as well in 2021.

JK Dobbins is ready to play but the Ravens are being extra cautious with their star running back. Its more important to have him for many games rather than just one. https://t.co/Ruk3H5FpL7  Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 11, 2022

This is the way its been trending for Dobbins. On Wednesday, Lamar Jackson said: Hopefully, hell be out in a couple of weeks. Mike Davis and Kenyan Drake, who were free-agent additions this year, would carry the running back workload for Ravens. https://t.co/PrxrM7KgGm  Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) September 11, 2022

Once the Ravens get J.K. Dobbins back, they will probably put him on some sort of play restriction to reduce his workload. That way, he can ease his way back from his severe knee injury just in case he has no setbacks. If Dobbins can play in a couple of weeks, that would make the Ravens running back depth even stronger.

Story originally appeared on Ravens Wire
Dr. Paul Runge helps Dr. Tetyana, a pediatric ophthalmologist, examine a premature baby at the NICU at the Ivano-Frankivsk City Childrens Hospital in Ukraine.

Paul Runge felt helpless as he watched the Russian army rush Ukrainian borders in February, initiating a devastating war that continues to rage on.

He didnt know that by July, hed be walking alongside Ukrainian doctors, treating newborns and infants in a hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, a large city about 75 miles south of Lviv.

Runge, a retired ophthalmologist, wasnt particularly interested in typical retirement hobbies  such as golfing, tennis, or extensive travel  instead leaning into opportunities of helping others with his medical knowledge, whether by teaching or volunteering.

I wasnt ready to just sit around and do nothing for the remaining part of my life, Runge said in a phone interview, speaking with the Herald-Tribune from Ivano-Frankivsk. I was sitting at home like everybody else, watching (war) unfold and just wondering what I could do.

Paul Runge, pictured right, discussing a treatment plan for a premature infant with a potentially-blinding eye condition with a pediatric ophthalmologist at City Childrens Hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

Plant people rejoice: Sarasota Succulent Society open to the public

Other news: Airborne exposure to red tide could have neurological effect, Florida study suggests

Runge sent dozens of emails and calls out to his connections to help in West Ukraine and its biggest cities but had a string of false starts before landing in Ivano-Frankivsk on July 4.

His 10-day trip took him 80 miles north of Lviv to donate a special eye lens to a Ukrainian doctor and back to Ivano-Frankivsk to work in a childrens hospital neonatal intensive care unit, as well as picking up hours in a military hospital next door.

I was really excited when I realized that, No. 1, they wanted me, and No. 2, I could really be of help, Runge said. I dont want to be like a bull in a China shop and tell everybody hey, you gotta do it this way, thats the way we do it.' but Ive really enjoyed being here.

(The doctors) are very enthusiastic. Theyre not driven by money. Theyre wanting to do as good of a job as they possibly can for their patients. It's such a unique and refreshing experience.

Runge is board-certified in ophthalmology and specialized in medical retinal training. Besides his private Sarasota practice, he also taught resident physicians at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and treated premature infants at Sarasota Memorial Hospital  where no baby under his care has ever become blind.

Story continues

Everyday life near a war zone

One of the young patients who was examined at the Central Clinical Hospital general ophthalmology clinic in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

He arrived back in Ivano-Frankivsk on Sept. 10 and plans to spend the rest of the month there, saying that he feels comfortable and safe despite the nearby military conflict.

This morning we were awakened by air raid sirens, and when I arrived at the hospital, all the patients and staff were in the basement bomb shelter, Runge said in a text message Tuesday morning. Nothing unusual transpired, and we were back to work in less than an hour.

Runge described a scene of life-going-on, enthusiastically describing the produce at a local farmer's market as well as the silent reminders of war: structures surrounded by sandbags and a curfew beginning at 11 p.m. sharp.

He admitted to a blunder in the beginning: walking around "like a tourist" and taking pictures of the town.

"I thought, well, we'll wander around the city. You see Anderson Cooper wandering around in his helmet and black jacket, and I thought well, let's see what the city really looks like," Runge said.

Paul Runge, pictured left, examining a patient at the Novovolynsk City Hospital north of Lviv, Ukraine.

"But police officers walked up to me  they didnt speak English  and tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at my phone. they wanted me to open it up and they erased all my pictures."

Runge said there are ongoing concerns about Russian spies and didn't blame Ukrainian officers for taking precautions.

"(Ukrainians) have a common cause. All they talk about is how the country has pulled together to defeat these tyrants. They're not thinking that theyre anything but winning this war," he said.

"I have to pinch myself to make sure Im not dreaming."

Stefania Lugli covers a little of everything for the Herald-Tribune. You can contact her at slugli@heraldtribune.com or dm her on Twitter at @steflugli.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Retired Sarasota doctor treats babies in war-torn Ukraine
Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been shut down for safety, operator says, after repeated warnings of a radiation disaster

Overview of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on August 29, 2022. Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies.

Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been shut down as a "safety measure", its operator said.

Its last operational reactor was disconnected from the grid, switching the plant to a "cold state."

Conflict near the plant in southern Ukraine has triggered alarms from international watchdogs.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been completely shut down as "a safety measure" as fighting continues to rage in the area, Ukrainian nuclear power agency Energoatom said on Sunday.

Russian forces have occupied the plant, which is one of the largest in the world and the largest in Europe, since early March. It is still operated by Ukrainian staff.

The plant has ceased operations after the agency disconnected the last operational reactor from the grid, Energoatom said in a statement, per Reuters.

"Preparations are underway for its cooling and transfer to a cold state," the statement said.

The plant has continually come under shelling, which both Russia and Ukraine blame each other for, prompting fears of a potential nuclear disaster.

International watchdogs have repeatedly sounded the alarm, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres previously saying attacks around the plant are "suicidal."

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency visited the plant earlier this month, and said that fighting near the plant "may lead to radiological consequences with great safety significance."

The plant had become disconnected from the power grid due to fighting in the area, and for several days was using its only remaining reactor in operation for essential cooling operations.

Energoatom said that one of the power lines was restored late Saturday, which allowed the final reactor to be shut down, according to The Associated Press.

"Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state  cold shutdown," the company said in a statement, per AP.

Energoatom noted that the risk of power being cut again is high, which would mean the plant would need to use emergency diesel generators to keep the reactors cool and prevent a nuclear meltdown.

Story continues

The agency's chief told AP on Thursday that the plant only had enough diesel fuel for 10 days.

The UN and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have called for the creation of a demilitarized zone around the plant.

Zelenskyy said on Saturday that he wanted the plant to be able to run in a stable way so it could used to create power to help with Europe's energy crisis.

Read the original article on Business Insider
It isnt that peoples first instincts are bad in Victim, Slovak director Michal Blaskos compelling, apprehensive feature debut. A distraught Ukrainian mother travelling back to her adopted home in the Czech Republic to be by her injured sons hospital bedside, for example, will find someone willing to drive her when her bus is delayed. Its just that once they find those instincts lining up with their pre-existing prejudices  say, when the boy alleges, or heavily implies, that the ones who beat him up were of Roma background  then those same people will erase all nuance, ignore all complexity, and do almost anything to drink further into the intoxication of righteous moral outrage. Even if it means shoring up a teenagers lie.

The mother is Irina (a sympathetic, stressed Vita Smachelyuk), a hardworking housekeeper who aspires to open a hairdressing salon with her friend Sveta (Inna Zhulina), and who is re-applying for Czech citizenship  having lost out the last time on a technicality. Her son, Igor (an appropriately sullen Gleb Kuchuk) is a promising gymnast, or at least he was until he landed in hospital with injuries so severe he lost a kidney. When he regains consciousness after the surgery, Irina is by his side, as is local police investigator Novotny (Igor Chmela). With a barely perceptible motion, Igor indicates, in answer to a leading question, that the three assailants who attacked him in the stairwell of his apartment building were not white. Suspicion immediately falls on the upstairs neighbors, a Roma family headed by a single mother, with whom Irina already has a combative, mutually unfriendly relationship. The elder son is duly arrested.

More from Variety

Blasko, working from an efficient, singleminded script by Jakub Medvecky, keeps the focus trained on Irina, and on Smachelyuks superbly controlled yet conflicted performance  which becomes especially fraught once Igor confesses to her that he made up the attack, out of embarrassment over injuries actually sustained while showboating to impress a girl from school. By then its already too late to stop the political juggernaut of clashing vested interests: The media are covering the story; rabble-rousing local activist Selsky (Viktor Zavadil) has organized a rally and a March for Igor; and the mayor (Gabriela Micova), sensing the political opportunity concealed in this potential quagmire, has quickly offered Irina her photo-opp-heavy support.

Story continues

So while Irina initially conspires to cover up her sons lie purely out of protective, maternal impulses, soon shes getting in deeper, being offered unforeseen perks and benefits for being such a high-profile, easy-to-root-for victim. Suddenly her hair salon, her Czech citizenship, even a bigger apartment in a better neighborhood, all seem within her reach. All she has to do is ignore her nagging conscience, and commit to a false, racist fiction.

Shot by DP Adam Mach with somber Romanian New Wave-style realism, in handheld images that get implacably steadier as the situation becomes more intractable, the film zeroes in on Irinas moral crisis, as the police refuse to release the Roma boy she knows to be innocent. But its most trenchant  and most depressing  insights might actually come from other quarters. Svetas blithe reaction when, half a bottle of vodka deep, Irina admits that Igor lied and an innocent kid is paying the price, is to go from supportive if slur-ridden indignance to he would have ended up in prison anyway without missing a beat. The ever-pragmatic Selsky, momentarily wrong-footed by Irinas rally speech calling for the boys release, manages a horrifying but impressively quick-thinking onstage pivot to broader, more toxic fearmongering and anti-Roma sentiment.

Its these asides that give Blaskos film its edge, when elsewhere it can feel a little familiar  especially to fans of Cristian Mungius Graduation  in its analysis of the toll a corrupt, agenda-laden society can take on a basically decent individual, who becomes increasingly compromised after one grievous but understandably motivated decision.

While the films sympathies are schematically clear, to a certain extent it does what it critiques in centering the moral quandary of the white family who have unjustly co-opted the victim label and pushing to the periphery the very tangible struggles of the Roma family who have actually earned it. Irinas ultimate punishment is the removal of the illusion of her childs innate goodness, where her Roma counterpart must endure the potential removal of her child. Despite the unimpeachable intentions and smooth, tense, fluid delivery, a little more balance between these characters might have made for a more provocative film. As it is, in terms of the skewed, whitened lens through which society views issues of systemic xenophobia, Victim is a victim itself.

Best of Variety

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.
A photo of people, covered in dust from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, on September 11, 2001. Suzanne Plunkett/AP

Today marks 21 years since a series of coordinated terrorist attacks took place on September 11, 2001.

A total of 2,977 people were killed in New York City, Washington, DC, and outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Those who survived had their lives transformed by the attacks. Here are some of their stories.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Genelle Guzman-McMillan was the last person pulled alive from the rubble

Genelle Guzman-McMillan was trapped for 27 hours before she was rescued. ABC 7 News

Guzman-McMillan and her colleagues decided to take the staircase down after the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When they reached the 13th floor, the tower collapsed on them.

Guzman-McMillan, now 51, was the lone survivor among her colleagues and was miraculously rescued after spending 27 hours trapped under the rubble.

Source: startTV

Brian Clark was one of only 18 people in the South Tower to escape from a floor above where the plane struck

Brian Clark worked for the international brokerage firm Euro Brokers, which lost 61 employees on 9/11. BBC News

During his descent from the 84th floor of 2 World Trade Center, where the office of his international brokerage firm was, Clark stopped to save the life of a man  Stanley Praimnath  who was trapped.

Praimnath was pinned underneath some debris behind a wall that had stood firm, and Clark, who is 75, was able to hook his arms around Praimnath and lift him over.

Source: PBS, Independent

Tom Canavan dug upwards and crawled out of the rubble

Canavan, who worked at the First Union brokerage firm, was buried alive when the first tower fell on 9/11. He was saved from death, he told Reuters, because a large cement wall fell over him which created a safe pocket in the pile of debris.

He began crawling and digging upwards, out of the rubble, and eventually got to safety.

In footage shared by National Geographic from September 11, 2001, Canavan describes his escape with remarkable calmness.

Source: Reuters

Captain Jay Jonas survived because he stopped to rescue a fallen woman

Jay Jonas attends the 2008 Viennese Opera Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City on January 25, 2008. Dan Herrick/Getty Images

Captain Jay Jonas, and five of his firefighters from Ladder Company 6, were exiting a search and rescue mission in the North Tower shortly after the South Tower collapsed.

Story continues

While Jonas and the unit were on their way down the stairs, they spotted Josephine Harris  a 59-year-old bookkeeper who had fallen and was unable to continue her descent. They stopped to help get her to safety.

Shortly after, the North Tower collapsed around them, but Harris and the men were not crushed.

"You cannot say that something that happened to you is a miracle," Jonas told The New York Times. "But we had the courage to do what we did, and you can say that if she was not there for us to save her, we probably would not have made it."

Source: The New York Times

Lauren Manning had burns over 80 percent of her body

9/11 survivor Lauren Manning delivers remarks on the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 26, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Manning was arriving for work at the North Tower moments before the first jet crashed into it. As she entered the elevator that would take her to her office, she was met by a fireball.

She was burned on over 80 percent of her body and spent almost two months in a medically induced coma. Manning made a recovery that surprised doctors.

In 2013, then-President Barack Obama cited Manning as an example of American people who "bounce back."

In July 2016, she gave a widely-acclaimed speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Sources: Newsday, The New York Times, The Washington Post

Brian Birdwell survived the attack on the Pentagon and later became a state senator

Texas Sen. Brian Birdwell speaks in the senate chamber on February 28, 2017. Eric Gay/AP Photo

Texas State Senator Brian Birdwell, 61, was a lieutenant colonel in the US and was working at the Pentagon when it was struck by the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, 2001.

He was left with severe burns over 60 percent of his body and was the lone survivor in the E ring at the crash site, Birdwell told KWTX.

Birdwell was awarded a Purple Heart in 2004 and spent the 13 years after that running a non-profit organization to support critical burn survivors.

In a June 2010 special election, Birdwell was elected to the Texas State Senate. He has been re-elected three times since.

Sources: The Texas Senate, KWTX

Sarah Rudder had her leg amputated and later competed in the Invictus Games

Sarah Rudder, right, crosses the finish line at the 2016 Invictus Games in Kissimmee, Florida. John Raoux/AP Photo

Rudder, who was in the US Marines, was at the Pentagon on September 11, awaiting her promotion ceremony. She was unscathed in the attack and was able to help others get to safety.

She returned to the Pentagon two days later to assist in removing victims' remains and, during this effort, got her ankle trapped and crushed beneath a concrete barrier.

After several reconstructive surgeries, her leg was eventually amputated in 2014.

In 2016, Rudder competed in the international Invictus Games for wounded and injured servicemen and women. The 9/11 survivor won six medals.

Source: Tampa Bay Times

Will Jimeno was buried under 30 feet of rubble

Will Jimeno describes his experience of the September 11, 2001 attacks during an interview in his home in Chester, New Jersey. Richard Drew/AP Photo

After seeing the first plane crash into the North Tower, Jimeno  a rookie officer with the Port Authority Police Department  rushed to the World Trade Center with 20 other officers.

Shortly after he arrived, the South Tower collapsed, and Jimeno was trapped under 30 feet of debris. He was one of two officers to be pulled out of the rubble alive but spent weeks in the ICU undergoing 13 surgeries.

Source: CBSN New York

John McLoughlin tried to send a radio message for Jimeno's pregnant wife

Sgt. John McLoughlin was the last man pulled alive from the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. Todd Maisel/NY Daily News/Getty Images

McLoughlin, a sergeant with the Port Authority police, was trapped with Jimeno under the rubble. He tried to use his radio to send a final message to the rookie officer's heavily pregnant wife, asking that she fulfill Jimeno's wish that they name their unborn child Olivia.

McLoughlin survived being buried underground for 22 hours. After being placed in a medically induced coma for six weeks, he returned to Ground Zero four months later to witness the removal of "the final column" at Ground Zero.

Source: CBS News

Read the original article on Insider
By Pavel Polityuk and Tom Balmforth

KYIV, KHARKIV/Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukrainian forces kept pushing north in the Kharkiv region and advancing to its south and east, Ukraine's army chief said on Sunday, a day after their rapid surge forward drove Russia to abandon its main bastion in the area.

Ukrainian officials accused retreating Russian forces of launching retaliatory attacks on civilian infrastructure, including a thermal power station in Kharkiv, that the authorities in Kyiv said caused widespread blackouts.

"No military facilities, the goal is to deprive people of light & heat," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter of the attacks.

Moscow denies its forces deliberately target civilians.

Zelenskiy has described Ukraine's offensive as a potential breakthrough in the six-month-old war, and said the winter could see further territorial gains if Kyiv received more powerful weapons.

In the worst defeat for Moscow's forces since they were repelled from the outskirts of the capital Kyiv in March, thousands of Russian soldiers left behind ammunition and equipment as they fled the city of Izium, which they had used as a logistics hub.

Ukraine's chief commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said the armed forces had regained control of more than 3,000 square km (1,158 square miles) since the start of this month.

Moscow's almost total silence on the defeat - or any explanation for what had taken place in northeastern Ukraine - provoked significant anger among some pro-war commentators and Russian nationalists on social media. Some called on Sunday for President Vladimir Putin to make immediate changes to ensure ultimate victory in the war.

'CYNICAL REVENGE'

Zelenskiy said late on Sunday that Russian attacks caused a total blackout in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, and partial blackouts in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions.

"They are unable to reconcile themselves to defeats on the battlefield," Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.

Story continues

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the president's office, posted an image on Telegram of a power station on fire but added power had been restored in some regions.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov described attacks on infrastructure as "cynical revenge" for the success of Ukrainian troops at the front, particularly in Kharkiv.

Ukraine's gains are important politically for Zelenskiy as he seeks to keep Europe united behind Ukraine - supplying weapons and money - even as an energy crisis looms this winter following cuts in Russian gas supplies to European customers.

Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces would continue to advance.

"We will not be standing still," he said in a CNN interview recorded on Friday in Kyiv. "We will be slowly, gradually moving forward."

'SNOWBALL ROLLING DOWN A HILL'

Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine needed to secure retaken territory against a possible Russian counterattack on stretched Ukrainian supply lines. He told the Financial Times that Ukrainian forces could be encircled by fresh Russian troops if they advanced too far.

But he said the offensive had gone far better than expected, describing it as a "snowball rolling down a hill".

"It's a sign that Russia can be defeated," he said.

Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the gains could bring a further push into Luhansk region, whose capture Russia claimed at the beginning of July.

"If you look at the map, it is logical to assume that the offensive will develop in the direction of Svatove - Starobelsk, and Sievierodonetsk - Lysychansk," he said.

The head of Russia's administration in Kharkiv told residents to evacuate the province and flee to Russia, TASS reported on Saturday. Witnesses described traffic jams with people leaving Russian-held territory.

Washington appeared to take a cautious public posture, with the Pentagon referring Reuters to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's remarks on Thursday about Kyiv's "encouraging" battlefield successes.

Britain's defence ministry said on Sunday that fighting continued around Izium and the city of Kupiansk, the sole rail hub supplying Russia's front line across northeastern Ukraine, which has been retaken by Ukraine's forces.

NUCLEAR REACTOR SHUTS DOWN

As the war entered its 200th day, Ukraine on Sunday shut down the last operating reactor at Europe's biggest nuclear power plant to guard against a catastrophe as fighting rages nearby.

Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia plant, risking a release of radiation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said a backup power line to the plant had been restored, providing the external electricity it needed to carry out the shutdown while defending against the risk of a meltdown.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Putin in a phone call on Sunday that the plant's occupation by Russian troops is the reason why its security is compromised, the French presidency said. Putin blamed Ukrainian forces, according to a Kremlin statement.

(Reporting by Reuters reporters; Writing by Tomasz Janowski, William Maclean and Phil Stewart; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Frances Kerry and Daniel Wallis)
In this frame grab from Iranian state television, Iranian navy sailors throw an American sea drone overboard in the Red Sea on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Iranian state television via AP

An Iranian ship snatched two US Navy drone boats from the Red Sea on Friday, a US official said.

Iran's Navy tried to hide the drones under a tarp, initially denying it had them before ultimately returning them.

It's the second incident this week where an Iran-linked boat has attempted to seize US drone boats.

An Iranian ship seized two US Navy drone boats on Thursday and tried to hide them from US air assets by putting them under a tarp. The Iranians eventually released them overboard the next day following intervention by the US military, a US official told Insider.

The Iranian destroyer Jamaran captured the two drones and pulled them out of the water in the Red Sea and then examined them on deck, the Associated Press reported, citing state television footage.

A US official told Insider that the Navy received indications from the drones that they had been seized and responded to the incident by sending ships to establish bridge-to-bridge communications with the Iranian vessel.

In a statement released after initial publication, US Naval Forces Central Command said that the responding ships were the guided-missile destroyers USS Nitze and USS Delbert D. Black. A MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter was also sent out in response.

When the Iranians noticed the helicopter in the air, sailors on the Jamaran tried to hide the captured US unmanned assets under a tarp, the official said.

After initially denying that it was in possession of US property, the crew of the Iranian naval vessel put them back in the water by releasing them overboard, the official explained.

The drones were Saildrone Explorers  commercially-available unmanned surface vessels that are equipped with cameras, senors, and radars to collect data.

Iranian state television claimed the country's navy found the drones "abandoned in the international maritime routes," the AP reported.

In its statement, NAVCENT said the two drones were "unarmed and taking unclassified photos of the surrounding environment" and "posed no risk to naval traffic." It said the drones had been operating around the southern part of the Red Sea for over 200 consecutive days without any problems.

Story continues

Friday's incident is the second this week that involved an Iran-linked ship trying to capture with US Navy property in international waters.

On Tuesday, the US Navy successfully prevented Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from trying to capture a Saildrone Explorer in the Persian Gulf.

US Naval Forces Central Command said the IRGC support ship Shahid Baziar was seen towing the unmanned surface vessel "in an attempt to detain it." US Navy coastal patrol ship USS Thunderbolt and an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter were dispatched to the area in response. The IRGC ship disconnected the tow line and left.

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, US 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, slammed the IRGC's actions earlier this week as "flagrant, unwarranted, and inconsistent with the behavior of a professional maritime force."

IRGC boats have had previous run-ins with the US Navy and Coast Guard, sometimes sailing dangerously close. In response, the military has fired warning shots and sent radio warnings.

Ryan Pickrell contributed reporting.

Update: This article was updated with additional information following the release of a statement from US Naval Forces Central Command/5th Fleet.

Read the original article on Business Insider
HOLYOKE, Mass. (AP)  Police in western Massachusetts have charged two men with murder following separate shootings earlier this month.

The Holyoke Police Department announced Saturday that they arrested Victor Diaz-Torres in connection with the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Alex Larkin of Chicopee on Sept. 3. Diaz-Torres, a 23-year-old Holyoke resident, was arraigned Friday on a charge of murder and is being held in jail.

In the second case, police said they arrested 35-year-old Angel Velez of Springfield in connection to a deadly shooting Wednesday night. Velez was set to be arraigned on a single murder charge on Saturday.

The victim in that shooting was identified as 40-year-old Kevin Ventulett of Holyoke.

It was unclear Saturday whether Diaz-Torres and Velez are being represented by attorneys.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's government expressed its condolences to China on Tuesday for an earthquake in Sichuan province and said it was ready to send rescuers, in a sign of goodwill to Beijing despite weeks of military tensions.

China, which claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, has been carrying out drills around the island following a visit last month by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Taiwan's presidential office said President Tsai Ing-wen had offered her "sympathy and concern" after Monday's quake in southwestern China which killed at least 46 people.

Apart from also expressing her condolences to those who had died and their families, Tsai hopes search and rescue and post-disaster recovery work can proceed smoothly and normal life resume as soon as possible, the office said in a statement.

The office was not aware of any Taiwanese casualties, it added.

Taiwan's fire department said separately it had assembled a rescue team of 40 people, one search dog and five tonnes of equipment which could immediately leave if given instructions to do so, saying it was "committed to the spirit of humanitarian care and disaster relief without borders".

China has not said whether it will allow in overseas teams to help with search and rescue operations.

Taiwan, which frequently suffers its own earthquakes, sent a team to China in 2008 after a massive temblor struck the same province of Sichuan, killing almost 70,000 people and causing extensive damage.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill and Lincoln Feast)
The 12th Edition of Hakawy International Arts Festival for Children will take place across different venues in Cairo and Alexandria from 6 to 15 October.

Organised by the AFAC Arts Centre, the festivals main program this year will host eleven productions of different art forms like dance and music performances, object and shadow theatre and video installations.

International performers will include Circles from Germanys Helios theatre, I Glu from Frances Collectif a.a.o and Family Portrait from Scotland-UKs Barrowland ballet.

The Egyptian programme will host On Air & Zaki, Les fables de la Fontaine in both French and Arabic, Gimme, Please! and The Lawsuit: Animals against Humanity, as well as a music performance by Al-Darb Al-Ahmar Arts School.

This edition is bound to be a different experience where we get to question concepts of the city, spaces, inclusion and sustainability around us, read a statement published by the festival on Sunday.

In addition to the main program, this year Hakawy will introduce a programme of workshops, talks and film screenings to continue their mission of exchanging views and experiences in the performing arts sector for children in Egypt.

The festivals organisers, who have yet to reveal the programmes details on their official website, are currently calling for volunteers to join them facilitating the 12th edition in various operational aspects of the festival, ranging from stage management, marketing and media.

Since its founding in 2011 by director Mohamed El-Ghawy who also founded the AFCA Arts Centre, Hakawy is being held annually across multiple governorates in Egypt, sponsored by many local and international entities.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Michigan Secretary of State candidate Kristina Karamo speaks at the Michigan State Capitol as demonstrators gathered to demand a forensic audit of the 2020 presidential election on October 12, 2021. Nic Antaya/Getty Images

A Trump-backed nominee for Michigan secretary of state tried to harm her family, a court filing says.

Kristina Karamo threatened to kill her husband and daughters when he sought a divorce, records show.

Once she tried to take control of the car her ex-husband was driving and crash it with their two kids in the backseat, the filing says.

The Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state threatened to kill her own daughters after her husband asked for a divorce, according to court records filed on Friday.

Kristina Karamo, the nominee who received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, "was committed to an institution for evaluation due to her efforts at self-harm and suicide," court records say.

Her now ex-husband Adom Karamo "was in fact trapped in the marriage for years, always subject to the threat of Mother committing suicide," the filing says.

Family members discouraged the ex-husband from revealing that she had threatened to kill her daughters in response to his ask for a divorce. They said she had been experiencing a mental health crisis at the time, per the filing.

The filing documents other incidents during which Karamo exhibited questionable behavior involving her children. One time, Adom had been driving their car with their kids in the back and Karamo said, "Fu_K it, I'll kill us all," as she tried to take control of the wheel.

"I do not believe that Mother is currently in this state of mind, however, as this was several years ago," Adom said in the filing. "I do believe, however, that her children have been the only thing that has kept her sane, and hence I have not been as aggressive as I should have been in terms of pursuing parenting time legally, because I had fears about how she might react should Father be granted significant time with daughters."

Karamo has been in the spotlight for controversial statements in the past. Insider previously reported that the Republican nominee once called abortion an act of "child sacrifice."

Story continues

"Abortion is really nothing new," Karamo said in 2020 during an episode on her podcast. "The child sacrifice is a very satanic practice, and that's precisely what abortion is. And we need to see it as such."

"When people in other cultures  when they engage in child sacrifice  they didn't just sacrifice the child for the sake of bloodshed. They sacrificed the child because they were hoping to get prosperity, and that's precisely why people have abortion now," Karamo added further into the episode.

Karamo, a community college professor who teaches public speaking, attracted Trump's attention last year when she falsely claimed that the former president won the 2020 election against Joe Biden. If elected to secretary of state, she would oversee the 2024 presidential election in the state.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Ukraine launched a massive counteroffensive against Russian troops in the eastern region of the country last week, forcing the Russians to retreat from key cities and settlements.

While Russia continues to hold onto large parts of Ukraine, experts say the Ukrainian rout of Russian forces in Kharkiv could be a sign of a major shift in the war.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN anchor Dana Bash the gains indicated a weakening Russian position.

Lets see how this plays out, Warner said on State of the Union on Sunday. The Ukrainians are demonstrating their will to fight, and thats one of the things you can never fully estimate no matter how good your intelligence is. And, candidly, the Russians inability and lack of supplies to their troops is playing out as well.

Warner noted Russia had expected a counteroffensive in the south, not in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where its forces were forced out of at least 40 settlements.

Fighting continues in the regional cities of Kupiansk and Izium, according to an intelligence update from the United Kingdoms Defense Ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remained optimistic on Sunday. Zelensky told CNNs Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that his troops are slowly, gradually moving forward until Ukraine reclaims all of the lost territory.

We have no other way. And its not our weakness. I believe its our strength, Zelensky said. Because Russia does have a way out. They can go back home. We have only this home to defend.

The counteroffensive could provoke a more aggressive reaction from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who last week promised to carry it through to the end, in response to a question about the war.

Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson for Ukraines Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted Sunday that Russia attacked power stations and critical infrastructure in an act of desperation following immense losses and retreat in eastern Ukraine.

Story continues

Even with their terrorist tactics, they are doomed to lose this war, Nikolenko wrote.

Ukraines counteroffensive offers the latest cause for optimism in its efforts to expel Russian forces.

When Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, his forces launched a blitz offensive with attacks across the country.

Ukraine pushed Russian troops out of the capitol region of Kyiv within a few months, forcing Russia to regroup and concentrate on taking territory in the east.

While Russia succeeded in taking over key eastern cities  including large parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions  Ukraines counteroffensive has erased significant gains achieved over the spring and summer.

The regional head of the Luhansk tweeted Saturday that Ukrainian troops were headed into the city of Lysychansk, a major city Russia captured over the summer.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Russia is likely losing the larger war effort because of unclear goals.

Russia needed to be able to defend an enormous front line and control the areas it was occupying. Not an easy task, Lee tweeted.

It was never clear how Russia could achieve conflict termination, especially since Ukraine had a morale advantage, he added.

Mick Ryan, an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a Twitter thread Sunday that if Ukrainians overtake Kupiansk, a key rail hub, that would compromise Russian operations on their eastern front.

Ryan also said the surprise counteroffensive introduces a larger psychological issue with Russians fighting in the east.

The Russians, while not beaten, are in real trouble, Ryan said. Ukraine now has the initiative in this war, as well as tactical and operational momentum going into winter. The war is not over, but perhaps the tide is finally turning.

Editors note: A previous version of this story misidentified the Sunday show on which Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) appeared.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Ukraine's army said it has tripled the amount of land taken back from Russian forces.

Ukraine said Sunday it had taken back 1,158 square miles, compared to 386 square miles on Thursday.

Russian troops have retreated from areas of Kharkiv during Ukraine's counteroffensive.

Ukraine said that it tripled the amount of land it has taken back from Russian forces over less than three days.

President Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Ukraine had retaken 386 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of land back from Russia since the start of September.

Then on Saturday, he said this had increased to around 772 square miles (2,000 square kilometers).

And on Sunday, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that Ukraine had retaken around 1,158 square miles (3,000 square kilometers) of Russian-occupied territory so far this month.

Insider is unable to verify the figures, and Ukraine has not allowed media on its front lines since it began its counteroffensive.

But Russia has confirmed that its troops withdraw from and Izyum and Kupiansk in the Kharkiv Oblast.

And the UK Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that Ukraine has "continued to make significant gains in the Kharkiv region" and that Russia had "likely withdrawn units from the area," though it said Russia was still fighting in some of the region's cities.

UK think tank the Institute for the Study of War said that the territory square kilometers taken by Ukraine so far this month was "more territory than Russian forces have captured in all their operations since April."

Ukraine has repeatedly said that aims to retake all of its land from Russia, and it has been a core goal of the Ukrainian army to recapture Kharkiv.

Writing on the official Telegram channel, Mariupol city council has suggested the Ukrainian forces may be preparing for a "quick breakthrough" to Volnovakha and Mariupol, and have said that "Mariupol is waiting."

Also according to officials on Telegram, Ukraine states they have recaptured Kozacha Lopan a town three kilometers from the Ukraine-Russia border.

Read the original article on Business Insider
In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word glamping. The word is a portmanteau or a combination of two words  glamorous and camping. The vacation trend made its way from a humorous mashup to a full industry.

There are glamping publications, blogs and membership associations. There is even a glamping summit. The Glamping Show Summit is a trade event that hosts industry executives, suppliers and operators.

So what is this industry and how did it evolve? Heres what you need to know about glamping and if its the right vacation experience for you.

What is glamping?

Glamping is a luxury camping experience in which campers spend time in semi-indoor locations as opposed to the normal tent or sleeping bag. Glamping typically offers the indoor amenities that regular camping lacks: beds, electricity and indoor plumbing.

Glamping has many different looks, including airstreams, barns, cabins, huts, cottages and treehouses. Glamping.com offers everything from yurts and shepherd huts to villas for a luxury camping experience.

What do you do when you go glamping?

The experience of glamping depends on the location, price point and preferences. Glamping.com advertises outdoor activities like ATV excursions, hiking, canoeing, fishing, horseback riding and even dog sledding. Try a premade travel guide to plan out your glamping trip, or make it your own by hand selecting your favorite activities.

More travel tips: How to save money on your next family vacation without sacrificing any fun

Unconventional trips: Try these new hotel alternatives: Home swapping, B&Bs, monasteries

The history of glamping

According to The Glamping Association, the word glamping was first used in the early 21st century in the U.K. Born out of an international financial crisis, young families turned to glamping after searching for a luxury holiday experience at a fraction of the price. In 1997, the U.K. driving license banned towing caravans, so travel companies created a low cost luxury vacation for families that would have normally gone caravanning.

Story continues

Though the portmanteau wasnt seen until the 2000s, the concept of glamping dates to the 16th century. In 1520, a summit known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold brought together King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France, who were rivals looking to wave the white flag. The result was an 18-day celebration with lavish activities, festivals, tournaments and feasting in tents set up for the royal courts. According to Historic U.K., the tents were so luxurious that they were designed to look like portable palaces with fountains, stained glass and exquisite gold and jewels. Glamping indeed.

Another example is seen in Scotland, where the Duke of Atholl builds an elaborate, luxurious hunting lodge for King James V and his mother when they come to visit.

Travel destination guide: Vacation experiences for LGBTQ travelers across the nation

Choosing an RV: All the info you need to pick the right kind to rent or buy

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is glamping? Everything to know about the luxury vacation option
Jasper Kenzo Sundeens reporting for the Yakima Herald-Republic is possible with support from Report for America and community members through the Yakima Valley Community Fund . For information on republishing, email news@yakimaherald.com.
About 50 community members gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Yakima on Sunday to pray for a 4-year-old who went missing in Yakima on 
Updated 5:30 p.m.: State Route 410 is back open east of Chinook Pass after a serious injury collision, according to the state Department of Tr
FILE - Washington Supreme Court Justice Debra Stephens is shown during a swearing-in ceremony in Olympia, Wash., on Jan. 6, 2020. One year after saying virtual life sentences are unconstitutional for teenage killers, the court changed course Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, in a split ruling that drew irate dissents from four justices. Stephens wrote the majority opinion upholding a 61-year sentence for Tonelli Anderson, a Black man who was 17 when he shot two women, killing one of them and blinding the other, during a drug robbery in Tukwila in 1994.
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has affirmed Egypt's keenness to support the judicial authority's role in African societies in a meeting on Sunday with presidents of African constitutional and supreme courts.

The president's meeting with the African judges came on the sidelines of the Sixth Cairo High-level Meeting of Chiefs of Constitutional Courts, Supreme Courts, and African Constitutional Councils, which is taking place in the Egyptian capital under the title The Role of Constitutional Control in Developing African People.

During the meeting, El-Sisi stressed the importance of popular awareness about the role of the law and judicial institutions, said presidential spokesman Bassam Rady in a statement.

The African judges lauded the vital role played by the conference in promoting judicial cooperation between African constitutional courts, the spokesman said.

The meeting tackled the most pressing issues on the African arena, especially those related to the role of constitutional courts in safeguarding countries' sovereignty, the statement added.

The participants also voiced keenness on benefiting from Egypt's successful experiment, which is considered a model for respecting the rule of law and judicial independence.

Sixth meeting of judicial chiefs

The sixth meeting of the continent's judicial chiefs, which runs until Monday, discussed ways to institute constitutional protections for the rights of refuge and citizenship as well as ways to tackle challenges in training in the constitutional judiciary across Africa.

The meeting also discussed the role of constitutional control in preserving African societies cultural uniqueness and promoting social justice on the continent from an economic perspective.

During the opening session of the meeting on Saturday, Egypts Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly called on the heads of top African courts to formulate joint principles and constitutional guarantees to protect and develop the continents natural resources for "our peoples and future generations."

The African continent is an important part of a world that is facing challenges. Therefore, we have to think collectively... to find legal and constitutional ways... to help African states in curbing the negative impacts of global disputes on our economies, the premier said.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


News headlines on the impeachment trial of Donald Trump are displayed outside of the Fox headquarters on Feb. 9, 2021, in New York.
Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business.
The video is part of the organizations back-to-school "awareness" campaign targeting parents. "With the start of a new school year, many parents may be concerned about what is being taught to their children. Therefore, the Ordo Iuris Institute is providing materials to help parents realize that they have a constitutional right to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs"  we read on the groups website.

Among other materials, Ordo Iuris prepared a "know your rights" factsheet, as well as a guide instructing parents on "how to stop vulgar sex education at school". There is also a template for parents to express their lack of consent for sex education classes, as well as the introduction of concepts such as "cultural" or "social" gender, gender identity, equality, tolerance, diversity, or violence in the context of sexual relations and sexual orientation.

Later in the video, we hear that such classes can be taught to children by "LGBT activists". "When the student's parents found out about it, they began to seek help to protect their daughter from psychologically damaging content"  the narrator explains.

We further learn that thanks to the institute's actions, parents were able to oppose "an ideological event at school", and the school could "resist the violent pressure of LGBT activists". As a result, Ordo Iuris argues, "the childrens innocence was protected".

REKLAMA

The Catholic fundamentalist organization argues that "the guide shows how parents can enforce their rights in schools and kindergartens. Among other things, it describes the role of parent-teacher councils. It also outlines the procedure that must be fulfilled in order for an NGO to visit a school" - the announcement reads. However, in both the video and the written guide there is no mention of the general rules guiding school and NGO advocacy related to topics other than LGBTQ rights. The organizations entire activity centers around "protecting" children from being "groomed by LGBTQ ideology".

It is not the first time that Ordo Iuris is targeting the LGBTQ community. Nor is it its first "awareness campaign" aimed at a specific societal group. Recently, the organization released a "Stop the Death Pill" guidebook to help authorities effectively prosecute medical abortions.

Taking cues from the American right

Arguments advanced in the organizations homophobic campaigns mirror the rhetoric of the American right meant to smear and vilify the LGBTQ community. Claiming that LGBTQ activists are "grooming" or "sexualizing" children by pushing their "agenda" in schools, some of the more radical Republican politicians try to rally public opinion against LGBTQ people and introduce homophobic legislation on local and state levels. Such homophobic laws are perhaps best exemplified by the Parental Rights in Education bill signed into law by the Republican governor of Florida Ron DeSantis. Critics are calling the law the "Dont Say Gay" bill, as it effectively limits discussions about LGBTQ issues at school.

REKLAMA

***

Every day, 400 journalists at Gazeta Wyborcza write verified, fact-checked stories about Polish politics and society, keeping a critical eye on the ruling camps persistent assault on democratic values and the rule of law; the growing cultural tension between religious fundamentalism and human rights; and the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine. Our journalists are on the front lines in 32 Polish cities, reporting from the streets, hospitals, and courtrooms about issues that move public opinion.

We decided to make our service available to everyone free of charge in order to provide access to high quality journalism for expats and English speakers interested in Polish affairs.

REKLAMA

The access to information should be equal for all.
Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, stated that his ministry can address the country's water woes. The 'Mission Amrit Sarovar' was launched on April 24, 2022, as part of the celebration of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, with the goal of conserving water for the future. The Ministry of Rural Development launched the Mission with the goal of developing and revitalising 75 water bodies in each district of the country. The two-day event, themed 'Ideas to Action-Towards a Smart, Sustainable Road Infra, Mobility, and Logistics Ecosystem,' is attended by ministers and officials from the Centre and states.

"You all know that the Centre has come up with the 'Amrit Sarovar' scheme. The road, transport, and highway ministry can do great work in addressing the water woes," he said during the 'Manthan' programme under the 'Bharatmala' series here.

Noting that he comes from the Vidarbha region, where thousands of farmers had died by suicide over the years, Gadkari said one of the reasons for the agrarian crisis was water scarcity. "There is a water crisis in many places. There is no dearth of water but water management (is an issue). We can use our highways for building lakes," the minister said.

Also read: What to do when you see Ferrari on road? NOT what this man did- WATCH Video

He said building highways requires soil, which can be obtained so that new water bodies can be formed. This will not only fulfill the road construction requirement but also provide new lakes in rural areas, which will eventually increase the groundwater table, Gadkari said.

He cited an example where a university got 36 lakes and nearby villages 22 wells due to a project executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Gadkari said such innovative measures will reduce project costs and help many others.

He appealed to the ministers and officials of the Centre and States to work on minimising project costs. The minister emphasised upon building durable roads and asked the states to go for the concrete road, which can last for at least 25 years.

In this context, he recalled how he built 750 kilometres of concrete road in his constituency and claimed that there were no potholes there. Gadkari also told the gathering that on his insistence, the Maharashtra government white-topped 6,000 km of roads in Mumbai.

"White topping is a one-time time investment. You may need to spend 20 per cent extra, but it will last for 25 years, whereas bitumen roads are cheaper, but every two to three years, you require maintenance," the minister said.

He also stressed upon increasing the greenery along the expressways and recommended a 'tree bank' where at least five trees should be planted for each tree felled. Gadkari asked the NHAI, Railways, ports, and district authorities to become one unit to develop a tree bank. The minister also insisted upon tree transplanting instead of felling them.

While emphasising upon minimising the carbon footprint through transplantation, the minister also batted for 100 per cent ethanol fuel to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The minister underscored the importance of an integrated approach with multi-modal transportation being at the core if India has to become a USD 5 trillion economy.

He said 90 per cent of passenger traffic and 70 per cent of goods traffic was on roads, and there is a need for an integrated approach where waterways, railways, and airports are interlinked, and logistics parks play a critical role. If the state governments provide land, the Ministry of Road Transport will facilitate the construction of logistics parks. He added that the construction cost has to reduce while the quality of construction has to improve substantially.

With inputs from PTI
A female passenger who had become unconscious on a flight from Dubai on Saturday had been pronounced dead when she arrived at this hospital, as per the police statement. Mini (56), according to the police, was travelling from Dubai to Kochi when she passed out in the air. After the plane landed, " She was taken to a private hospital nearby after the flight landed but was declared dead," according to authorities. The reports also said that she was under treatment for some ailments, which according to airport authorities, was ongoing. Since the death was caused by natural causes, police have not opened a case on this subject.

(More information awaited)

With inputs from PTI
Mahindra and Mahindra, the Indian automotive giant created a lot of buzz back in the days after acquiring Mainis EV brand and relaunching Indias first electric car as the Mahindra e2O/ e2O Plus. Then came the eVerito, followed by concept EVs like the eXUV300 and eKUV100. While everyone thought Mahindra is all ready to slay the Indian EV industry, another homegrown automaker Tata Motors took a massive lead.

While we didnt see any new electric car launch from Mahindra in a long time, a few days ago, the company unveiled their massive plan to launch 5 electric SUVs in coming years, all designed by Mahindras new design centre in the UK. Before that happens, Mahindra is ready to launch the XUV400, their first ever electric SUV, which promises best-in-segment range and performance. We drove the SUV recently and heres our Mahindra XUV400 test drive review.

The design of the Mahindra XUV400 is not unique as we have seen the same in Mahindra XUV300 and Mahindra eXUV300 showcased at 2020 Auto Expo. However, there are few visible changes, which adds a unique touch to the XUV400, including elaborate use of the Bronze elements throughout the exterior, including the new Twin Peaks logo.

Dimension wise, the Mahindra XUV400 is a mid-size SUV with 4,200 mm length, putting it in the league of Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos. However, the XUV400 is the widest car in its segment with a width of 1812 mm, 1634 mm in height and has a wheelbase of 2600 mm, lending it a planted, muscular profile.

Mahindra XUV400: Cabin

In terms of cabin design and features, I felt a little disheartened from the treatment in the Mahindra XUV400 given the fun I had driving this stonker of a vehicle. The layout is very old school with lots of buttons here and there, while the infotainment screen is not anything special.

There are features like a wide sunroof (but no panoramic sunroof), digital instrument, an auto AC among others, but a lot seems to be missing. Quality and finish wise too, there's a lot left to be desired, but thankfully, the launch is still far, and I hope Mahindra will crease out the small issues we faced in the pre-production units.

Mahindra XUV400: Range

Mahindra XUV400 is an electric Vehicle, and a major deal breaker in EVs is the range of the vehicle. However, that's not the case with the XUV400. As mentioned before, the Mahindra XUV400 happens to offer the best-in-segment range of 456 km on a single charge as per the MIDC cycle, which makes it a viable option for those looking for a small electric SUV with credible mileage.

It gets a 39.4 kWh battery pack which is IP67 rated, and is waterproof and dustproof, that can be topped up upto 80% in less than an hour using fast charging (50 kWh charger). Mahindra might offer a wall mounted AC charger with the SUV that can charge the battery upto 100% in 6-7 hours.

Mahindra XUV400: Performance

The Mahindra XUV400 happens to be the fastest made-in-India electric SUV with 0-100 kmph in just 8.6 seconds. This performance comes from a massive 147 bhp of maximum power and 310 Nm of peak torque, which is available on the tap right from the moment you press the accelerator. I managed to touch three-digit speeds with very less effort and hats off to Mahindra for providing tank like stability to the SUV.



Apart from the performance, Mahindra has done an incredible work in tuning the suspension and the steering which felt balanced and refined. Just like the beautifully crafted gear lever, the gearbox is tuned to perfection as well. The auto unit also gets a unique L mode for city driving where you don't need to use the brakes and lifting the foot off the accelerator enables heavy recuperation, that stops the vehicle.

Mahindra XUV400: Verdict

One key point to understand here is that Mahindra is marketing the XUV400 as a C-segment electric SUV, which means that the Indian automaker is targeting the MG ZS EV and Hyundai Kona EV as a competition and not the Tata Nexon EV. But given the history of the brands recent launches and their pricing, be it the Mahindra XUV700 or the Mahindra Scorpio-N, we are anticipating Mahindra price the XUV400 competitively and given its credentials, it turns out to be a credible electric SUV for mass buyers in India.
A Palestinian succumbed to his wounds Sunday, five days after being shot by Israeli occupation forces during a home demolition in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry confirmed "the death of the young man, Hamad Mustafa Hussein Abu Jelda, 24, after being shot by the Israeli occupation forces in Jenin camp a few days ago".

Security sources in Jenin told AFP that Abu Jelda had been shot during an Israeli forces raid on Jenin camp last Tuesday to destroy the home of Raad Hazem, who killed three Israelis in a deadly shooting attack in Tel Aviv's busy Dizengoff Street nightlife district on April 7, before being shot dead.

His father Fathi and brother Hamam are both wanted by Israel.

A petition by Hazem's family to prevent the demolition was rejected by Israel's supreme court on May 30.

The Tel Aviv shooting was part of a wave of deadly attacks on Israeli targets, mostly by Palestinians. In response, Israel launched near nightly raids on West Bank towns and cities that have killed dozens of Palestinians, including fighters.

Human rights activists say Israel's policy of demolishing the homes of suspected attackers amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.

But Israel says the practice is effective in deterring some Palestinians from carrying out attacks.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it captured the territory from Jordan.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Washington: Steven Spielberg`s `The Fabelmans` earned a roaring standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.

According to Variety, the director claimed that the COVID pandemic served as the impetus for him to create his most intimate tale to date, which takes a look at his early forays into filmmaking, his upbringing in Arizona and Northern California, and the breakup of his family.

"I`m really glad we came to Toronto," a visibly moved Spielberg said after taking the stage as the credits rolled."As things got worse and worse, I felt that if I was going to leave anything behind, what was the thing that I really need to resolve and unpack about my mom, my dad," Spielberg said. He told the audience at TIFF that `The Fabelmans` would not be his final film despite having come to terms with his history.

"This is not because I`m going to retire and this is my swansong," he said. "Don`t believe any of that." Gabriel LaBelle plays Sam Fabelman, Spielberg`s cinematic persona, in the director`s autobiographical drama, along with Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, and Seth Rogen. The `Jurassic Park` director estimated before the screening that `The Fabelmans` is his first to officially play in the selection of a film festival in his 34-picture career, apparently forgetting that 'Bridge of Spies' only recently had its world debut there. Making this movie seemed to sting more deeply.

The ensemble cast of "The Fabelmans" includes Jeannie Berlin, Julia Butters, Robin Bartlett, Keeley Karsten, and David Lynch, who make a brief appearance but are not revealed here. Producing the movie are Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and Kristie Macosko Krieger.`The Fablemans` is backed by Universal Pictures, which is set to release the film in theatres on November 11.
Gujarat: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday unveiled a 16-feet tall statue of Lord Hanuman in Somnath town of Gujarat after offering prayers at the Somnath Mahadev temple. He also inaugurated the 'Somganga distribution facility' of the Somnath temple to filter the Ganga water offered to Mahadev at Somnath temple and give it as prasad to the devotees in packed bottles.

The minister then launched a web portal of the Somnath Trust to facilitate devotees to do online booking of slots for offering prayers at the temple, making donations, booking rooms, and taking live darshan of Somnath Mahadev daily, among other things.

Shah, who is a trustee of the Somnath Trust, offered prayers at the temple and later unveiled the statue of Lord Hanuman near the Samudra Darshan Path. He also inaugurated a total of 202 'Maruti Haat' shops on the Samudra Darshan Path, a release said.

"Shah inaugurated the Somganga distribution facility in the temple and unveiled the statue of Shri Chandeshwar. A plant has been installed to purify the water used to anoint Lord Somnath, pack it in attractive bottles and arrange for distribution," it said.

Shree Somnath Trust has also made arrangements to offer live darshan to devotees from all over the country and abroad through a digital platform. The new website has been designed to be informative and user-friendly, it said.

Maruti Haat shops have been constructed by the Somnath Trust at a cost of Rs 1.80 crore along the Samudra Darshan Path with the intention of providing employment to local people, the release said. The 16 feet statue of Lord Hanuman has been installed by the Trust on the beach for visitors to take selfies with the statue, it added.
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the party`s Bharat Jodo Yatra, will spend the night on Sunday at a school in Thiruvananthapuram along with party leaders and workers. According to Congress, a camp of containers was to be set up in an agricultural university in Thiruvananthapuram for which permission was also granted. But at the last minute, the student wing of the Kerala CPM and the student wing of the university called a sit-in protest against it the Bharat Jodo Yatra camp.

Sources told ANI, that Congress wants to keep the Yatra away from controversies, so instead of containers, party leaders including Rahul Gandhi will stay in a school for all Yatris tonight. With Congress` Bharat Jodo Yatra-led by party MP Rahul Gandhi entering its fifth day, the march arrived in its Kerala leg on Sunday.

The Congress leaders reached Parassala, a small town located near the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The 3,500-km march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir will be completed in 150 days and cover as many as 12 states.

Also Read: On Uma Bharti's 'imbalance of casteism in BJP govt' remark, Kamal Nath's invite to 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'

From Kerala, the Yatra will traverse through the state for the next 18 days, reaching Karnataka on September 30. It will be in Karnataka for 21 days before moving north. The Padyatra (march) will cover a distance of 25 km every day.

According to Congress, the `Bharat Jodo Yatra` is being held to combat the divisive politics of the BJP-led Centre and to awaken the people of the country to the dangers of economic inequalities, social polarisation and political centralisation.

Also Read: 'Unite India but first answer...': Smriti Irani slams Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'

The Yatra includes Padayatras, rallies, and public meetings which will be attended by the senior Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Notably, all the party MPs, leaders and workers along with Rahul Gandhi are staying. Sleeping beds, toilets and AC are also installed in some of the containers.

During the journey, the temperature and environment will differ in many areas. The arrangements have been made keeping in view the intense heat and humidity with the change of places. The Congress suffered a debacle in the assembly polls held earlier this year and the Yatra is seen as an attempt to rally the party rank and file for the upcoming electoral battles.
JEE Advanced Result 2022: The Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay will declare the JEE Advanced 2022 Result today, September 11, 2022. According to the official schedule released by the IIT Bombay, the result will be declared at 10 AM. Candidates will be able to check their JEE Advanced 2022 scorecard on the official website- jeeadv.ac.in, once the result is announced.

Candidates must notice that IIT Bombay will also release the JEE Advanced 2022 Final Answer Key along with the result. Candidates who appeared for the JEE Advanced 2022 exam can check their results following the simple steps given below

Steps to check JEE Advanced Result 2022

Visit the JEE Advanced official website - jeeadv.ac.in 2022. Click on the direct link to check the JEE Advanced Results 2022. Enter the roll number, date of birth and other login credentials Submit and your JEE Advanced 2022 Result will appear on your screen Download the JEE Advanced 2022 scorecard for future reference.

IIT Bombay conducted the JEE Advanced 2022 exam on August 28, 2022, and the provisional answer key was released on September 3, 2022. IIT Bombay will begin the Joint Seat Allocation (JoSAA) 2022 Process tentatively on September 12, 2022.
Jaipur: In an unfortunate incident, seven people were killed, while four sustained injuries in a lightning strike in Rajasthans Jhalawar and Udaipur districts. Light to heavy rainfall occurred at isolated places in eastern parts of the state accompanied by thunder and lightning. 34 mm rain was recorded in Sriganganagar, 30.6 mm in Barmer, 13 mm in Dungarpur, 11 mm in Bundi, 6.6 mm in Ajmer, 5.6 mm in Phalodi, 3 mm in Bikaner and Chittorgarh recorded 1 mm of rain according to the officials of the meteorological department.

After the uneventful monsoon this year in Rajasthan, it has finally picked up some pace on Saturday evening. Rain accompanied by strong winds paid visits to many parts of the state. Many places in Tonk, Alwar, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Kota, Baran, Bundi, Jhalawar, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara, and Chittorgarh districts recorded rain.

Jaipur Meteorological Centre Director Radheshyam Sharma said the area of very low pressure in the Bay of Bengal intensified into a depression on Sunday and is presently located over the adjoining areas of Orissa and Chhattisgarh which is responsible for the late resurgence of the monsoon.

The official added that the system is very likely to move in the west-north-west direction towards Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and weaken gradually in the next 24 hours. Sharma said that the maximum impact of this system is likely to be recorded in most parts of Kota, Udaipur, Jaipur, Bharatpur and Ajmer divisions of East Rajasthan on September 13, 14 and 15.

Predicting the possibility of rain, he said, there is a possibility of light to moderate rain in most parts of these divisions and heavy rain in some places. He said light to moderate rain is likely at isolated places in the districts of Jodhpur and Bikaner divisions of western Rajasthan

The Western parts of Rajasthan have been devoid of rain and are facing extreme heat causing a shortage of water. The worst affected parts of Western Rajasthan are Jodhpur, Barmer, Churu, Jaisalmer, and Bikaner. The day's highest temperature was recorded at 41.6 degrees Celsius in Phalodi of Jodhpur while the minimum night temperature fell to 30.8 degrees Celsius in Phalodi. The maximum temperature recorded in Jaisalmer was 40.8 degrees Celsius, Bikaner 40.5 degrees Celsius, Barmer 39.4 degree Celsius, and Churu 38.4 degree Celsius.

(With PTI inputs)
MH CET LAW Result 2022: The State Common Entrance Test Cell, Maharashtra will declare the MH CET LLB 5-year Result 2022 on the official website, cetcell.mahacet.org today, September 11, 2022. According to the official notice released by Maharashtra CET Cell the MH CET LLB 5-year Result 2022 will be released today after 5 PM. Once released, candidates will be able to check their MHT CET LLB 5 year result on the official website.

Here's how to download MAH LLB CET Result 2022

Candidates who appeared for the MHT CET 2022 Law exams can check their scorecards once the results are declared following the simple steps given below

Visit the official website- cetcell.mahacet.org Click on the scorecard link for the MAH LLB CET 2022. Enter your application number and password Submit, Your MAH LLB CET Result 2022 scorecard appear on screen Download the scorecard and take the printout

The MAH CET 2022 law result for five years LLB program will be declared in the form of all India rank lists. The individual scorecards will be published a few days before the Centralized Admission Process (CAP). The MAH LLB CET 2022 examinations were conducted from August 2 to August 4, 2022, in online mode. Due to technical issues at some exam centres, the exams were re-conducted on August 27, 2022.
Chennai: AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday slammed rival leader O Panneerselvam as an "opportunist and chameleon" and ruled out chances to take him back into the party even if he or his camp apologised for unruly acts unleashed in the party office in July. Palaniswami, who visited the party headquarters here after about two months, the first after he was elected interim general secretary on July 11, hit out at the rival camp.

To questions like electoral setbacks and the demand from the OPS camp to unify the party, he slammed Pannerselvam as 'opportunistic' and as a person who changed colours more often than a "chameleon."

EPS ridiculed Panneerselvam, popularly known as OPS, for carrying out "Dharma Yudha" years ago against VK Sasikala, the confidante of late party supremo J Jayalalithaa and now pitching for her inclusion into the party.

He also alleged that OPS is disloyal to the party.

Palaniswami also said that there is no question of a split in the AIADMK as only some functionaries who betrayed and worked against the party interests were expelled by the General Council.

OPS and his supporters were ousted from the party in the GC meeting held in July and the legal battle related to it continues in court.

Asked on chances of joining hands again with Panneerselvam if his camp apologised, EPS ruled out any scope for it.

He wondered if the party worker would pardon or accept OPS and his supporters for storming the AIADMK headquarters.

The lock of the AIADMK headquarters was broken open and vandalism was unleashed on July 11, he said.

Panneerselvam had led the violent attack on AIADMK office, he alleged.

"How will the cadres pardon or accept them back? This is a party of workers." EPS accused OPS of being the ruling DMK's "benami", who wanted to break the party.

On speculation that the party's name and symbol may be frozen by the Election Commission under the current circumstances of rivalry between the two camps, Palaniswami said there was absolutely no chance for such an eventuality.

"Anyone can lodge a complaint (with EC), but there must be evidence to support the claim."

An overwhelming majority of party office-bearers, MPs and MLAs supported him, he said. Hence, there are absolutely no legal impediments whatsoever in respect of the leadership's legality and bona fides. All along in its history, the party has successfully overcome the challenges it has faced and AIADMK workers would together work and bring back Amma's rule and that is "our vow and goal."

In view of Panneerselvam camp approaching the court over leadership issue, the party work on election of general secretary has got delayed, he said.

The Madras High Court had on September 2 allowed AIADMK leader Palaniswami's appeal, setting aside an order of a single judge, which nullified the July 11 General Council (GC) meeting of the party. Palaniswami's position as the single, supreme leader of AIADMK is established with this fresh court order. The court had quashed the August 17 order of Justice G Jayachandran, which ordered maintenance of status-quo ante as of June 23.

Previously, Panneerselvam was the Coordinator and Palaniswami, the Joint Coordinator and that directive was for maintenance of the then existing dual power structure.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (September 10, 2022) spoke on phone with his new UK counterpart Liz Truss and conveyed deep condolences to the Royal family on the sad demise of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen died on September 8 at the age of 96 having reigned the United Kingdom for 70 years.

According to Modi's Office, the two leaders discussed various issues of bilateral interest including the progress in the implementation of the Roadmap 2030, ongoing FTA negotiations, defence & security cooperation, and the people-to-people ties between both countries.

PM Modi also congratulated Truss on assuming the office of the Prime Minister of the UK and appreciated her contributions to the India-UK bilateral relationship in her previous roles as Trade Secretary and Foreign Secretary.

"On behalf of the people of India, Prime Minister Modi conveyed deep condolences to the Royal family and the people of UK on the sad demise of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II," Modi's office said in a statement.

Spoke with UK PM @trussliz and exchanged views on further strengthening the India-UK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in all sectors. I also conveyed condolences on the sad demise of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 10, 2022

"Both leaders committed to further strengthen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between India and UK," the statement added.
New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, on Saturday, September 11, lashed out at the government over renaming Rajpath as Kartavya Path, asking whether other Raj Bhavans should also be renamed Kartavya Bhavans as well. He went on to suggest that Rajasthan be renamed Kartavyasthan.

"If Raj Path is renamed Kartavya Path, shouldn't all Raj Bhavans be renamed Kartavya Bhavans?" he tweeted. "Why stop there? Why not rename Rajasthan Kartavyasthan?" he added.

Common sense on #KartavyaPath from @livemint : https://t.co/h08QFt6ZaA

If RajPath is to be renamed #KartavyaPath, shouldn't all Raj Bhavans become Kartavya Bhavans?

Why stop there? Rename Rajasthan as Kartavyasthan?  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 10, 2022

TMC MP Mahua Moitra also raised a similar question on Friday when she tweeted, "Will all Raj Bhavans be now known as Kartavya Bhavans?" On Saturday, she put out another tweet, "Meanwhile new BJP in charge for WB can ride on the Kartavyadhani Express to Sealdah enjoying his Kartavya kachoris followed by a nice sweet Kartavya bhog. Yummy."

The BJP has named Mangal Pandey, its former Bihar minister, as the party incharge of West Bengal.

Also Read: Win for entire J&K: Ghulam Ali thanks PM Modi over Rajya Sabha nomination

Rajpath to Kartavyapath

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 8, inaugurated the Kartavya Path, adding, "the move symbolises a shift from erstwhile Rajpath being an icon of power to Kartavya Path being an example of public ownership and empowerment". PM said, `Kartavya Path` symbolises a shift from erstwhile Rajpath being an icon of power, to Kartavya Path being an example of public ownership and empowerment. He also unveiled the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate on occasion.

Inaugurating the Kartavya Path PM said, "Today, we are filling the picture of tomorrow with new colours, leaving behind the past. Today this new aura is visible everywhere, it is the aura of confidence of New India", he said. He continued "Kingsway (Rajpath), the symbol of slavery, has become a matter of history from today and has been erased forever.

He stressed that the emotion and structure of the Rajpath were a symbol of slavery, but today with the change in architecture, its spirit is also transformed. This Kartavya Path stretching from the National War Memorial to Rashtrapati Bhawan will be vibrant with a sense of duty, he added.

(With ANI/PTI inputs)
New Delhi: TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee's sister-in-law Maneka Gambhir was on Saturday evening stopped by the ED at the Kolkata airport from flying abroad and was handed over summons to join investigation in a money laundering case, official sources said. Gambhir had reached the airport to take a flight to Bangkok departing around 9 PM. The sources said on Sunday that Gambhir was denied immigration clearance on the basis of a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against her by the federal probe agency.

She was stopped by the immigration authorities and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was informed following which they reached the airport, spoke to her and denied her permission to travel, they said.

The ED officials subsequently handed over summons to her seeking her appearance before the agency on Monday (September 12) at 11 am at its office in the Salt Lake area in Kolkata for questioning in a money laundering case linked to an alleged coal pilferage case of West Bengal, the sources said.

She is understood to have left the airport for her Kolkata home around 10:30 PM on Saturday.

Gambhir has not been questioned by the ED in this case till now. The CBI had earlier questioned her in the said case.

The Calcutta High Court in August directed the ED to question Gambhir at its regional office in Kolkata and not in Delhi and also not to take coercive steps against her till the next date of hearing.

Gambhir had challenged an ED summon that asked her to appear before it in Delhi on September 5 in connection with the alleged coal scam case and had sought direction from the court to the agency to allow her to appear before it in Kolkata, where she claimed she resides.

The ED has questioned Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the national general general secretary of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and his wife Rujira in this case earlier.

While Abhishek Banerjee has been questioned by the ED both in Delhi and Kolkata, Rujira has been questioned in Kolkata after she obtained a similar relief from the court like Gambhir.

This case is being investigated by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) with Anup Majee being alleged to be the kingpin of a coal mining pilferage-linked money laundering case related to Eastern Coalfield Limited's mines in Kunustoria and Kajora in and around Asansol in West Bengal.
Tehran has given the green light for the release of the crews of two Greek-owned oil tankers seized by Iran in May, the ERT state-run broadcaster reported on Sunday.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized the tankers in the Gulf days after Athens confirmed it would deliver Iranian oil it had seized from the Russian tanker Pegas to Washington.

Greece swiftly accused Iran of "piracy". Its foreign ministry said Iranian helicopters had landed commandos on the two tankers.

The 49 crew members of Delta Poseidon and Prudent Warrior, including ten Greek sailors and one Cypriot, were held hostage at sea in the Persian Gulf for almost 100 days.

In a statement on Sunday, the Panhellenic Union of Merchant Navy Sailors said that during the recent visit of a Greek delegation to Iran, the Iranian side took a significant step back and agreed to the replacement of the two crews, Ert tv said.

The release of the sailors is expected to begin on Monday with the crew members of the Prudent Warrior ship while the members of the "Delta Poseidon" will follow.

Tehran allowed the release the crews after the 100,000 tons of oil originally seized by the Greek authorities at the request of the US was returned to the tanks of the Iranian-owned ship Lana late August.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Actor Ranveer Singh is one of the biggest superstars in the country today, and the actor, wherever he goes, brings laughter and joy.

The actor recently attended the South Indian International Movie Awards where he not only danced to the 'Srivali' song of Pushpa but also recited its dialogue, leaving everyone, including the star of the movie 'Allu Arjun' impressed.

Here are videos of the actor dancing to the song 'Srivali':

Here is the video of the actor recreating Pushpa's dialogue:

Later that night, Ranveer Singh was bestowed with the 'Most Loved Hindi Actor In South India award. The actor also took to his social media account to express his joy. He captioned it, "Grateful to the South Indian Film Fraternity for this honour! Thank you for bestowing me with such high esteem!".

Here is the post shared by the actor:

Allu Arjun, on the other hand, also won big in the 10th year of the SIIMA awards and bagged the 'Best actor' trophy. He also took to his social media to express his gratitude and where he wrote, "Thank you #SIIMA2022 ! Soo Blessed by the people to the best actor once again . Its soo rare that getting it once itself is a dream & when it happens twice I truly feel very fortunate . Thank you for all the love . Gratitude".

Here is the post shared by the actor:

Thank you #SIIMA2022 ! Soo Blessed by the people to the best actor once again . Its soo rare that getting it once itself is a dream & when it happens twice I truly feel very fortunate . Thank you for all the love . Gratitude pic.twitter.com/Nn5wexTqMM  Allu Arjun (@alluarjun) September 11, 2022

On the work front, South superstar will soon begin filming for the sequel to his blockbuster 'Pushpa,' while Bollywood star Ranveer Singh will next be seen in Karan Johar's directorial 'Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahaani.'
In Madhya Pradesh, a motorbike stunt that could have caused a serious accident was prevented by the loco pilot's quick thinking and prompt slowing down of the train. The stunt might have caused the train to derail, endangering the lives of everyone on board. On Saturday afternoon, the incident was reported close to Beena Railway Station in the Sagar district. The Kerala Express (New Delhi-Trivandrum Express) was moving toward the station while a biker, later identified as Brijesh Shukla (35), attempted a stunt on the railroad track.

The biker (Shukla) bounced off while his motorcycle got crushed as the train rammed into it. It got stuck into the cattle guard at the bottom of the engine`s front, said a railway official. The official added that the mishap was averted as the train was moving at a low speed at the time of the accident.

The railway staff immediately swing into action and pulled out the crushed bike from the engine. The official said that it took around 45 minutes to complete the process of clearing the track. Due to this, several trains, including Shaan-e-Bhopal Express, got delayed by one and a half hours.

Also read: Navratri 2022: Indian Railways to run special trains along with tour package to Mata Vaishno Devi from THIS day

The railway safety department officials said that the speed of a train arriving on a platform is reduced to 30 km per hour. However, the loco pilot of the express train spotted the bike and had reduced the speed further. Biker has been arrested and was sent to railway police custody for further inquiry into the matter, officials added.

In such cases, the attention of loco pilot's on train tracks is of prime importance. Even a slight delay in the actions can cause trains to get derailed, leading to a major disaster. A few days ago, in a similar incident, a loco pilot saved the lives of a herd of elephants and was appreciated by the authorities.

With inputs from IANS
New Delhi: Actor Ranveer Singh, with his path-breaking performances and string of blockbusters, has emerged as one of the biggest pan India stars of this country. SIIMA, in its 10th year, has awarded him with the Most Loved Hindi Actor In South India trophy. While receiving the honour, Ranveer said that he is proud of the diversity that India has to offer which makes our countrys film industry rich and dynamic.

He said, Im overwhelmed with gratitude to be able to do this, just to be an artist. I get to do what I love to do for a living. It's because of your love and acceptance, so thank you all. First of all, and most of all you know what I love about our country the most is the diversity that we have in our culture. We are the most diverse country in the world. Every state has such richness and vibrancy in its culture and we as a people must and must celebrate that.

He added, That's my favorite part about Indias 75 years of independence. There used to be a time when language was a barrier but how wonderful it is that we don't live in such a time anymore. Like Bong Joon-ho said on the Oscar stage, I'm so glad and grateful that we are now in a time where people are rising above that one-inch thing called subtitles to be accepting of these most wonderful and amazing stories from in different languages and different cultures.

Ranveer further said that the South film fraternity and the mesmerizing talent that it has to offer inspires him. He said, You have captured the imagination of the entire and beyond and thats the credit to your craft, thats credit to the hand work and sincerity. You inspire me!

On the work front, Ranveer will be next seen in Rohit Shettys Cirkus releasing this Christmas and Karan Johars Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani.
New Delhi: There are only a handful of events that have the ability to change the world forever and also change the course of history, and the September 11 attacks on America's financial capital, which killed nearly 3000 people, was one of them. The world marked the 21st anniversary of 9/11, a day of unspeakable tragedy and spectacular heroism, on Sunday (September 11, 2022).

21 years have passed since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. The attacks were carried out by a total of nineteen Arab terrorists from different countries all of them belonging to the al-Qaeda terror group.

On this day, the hijackers used commercial planes as missiles and crashed into New Yorks World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field that killed nearly 3,000 people and toppled the trade centers 110-story twin towers.

What happened on 9/11?

A total of nineteen Arab terrorists, associated with Al-Qaeda, hijacked four planes. The first two crashes occurred in quick succession. The first and second hijacked plane was deliberately crashed into the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center complex. This caused the twin towers to burn and ultimately fall to the ground.

According to the reports, there were roughly 16,400 to 18,000 people inside the WTC complex at the time of the attack. While most of the people were safely evacuated from the complex, a total of 2,753 people died in New York that day.

The third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia state of the US where 184 people were killed. The fourth, Flight 93, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against three al Qaeda hijackers, preventing the plane from reaching its target.

What happened after the 9/11 attacks?

The attacks not only changed America forever, it also changed the world. Over 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001. After the attacks, the United States led a war on terror against al-Qaeda, which finally resulted in killing of the al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden who was found hiding right inside Pakistan where he was protected by Pakistani authorities.

This war on terror left behind a trail of destruction across the globe and redefining the relations between the Muslim world with the rest of the world.
Washington: President Joe Biden is set to mark the 21st anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the Pentagon, a year after he ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. And allies launched in response to the terror attacks. In ending the Afghanistan war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. Troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in the face of a countrywide Taliban advance that returned the fundamentalist group to power.

A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. Troops at Kabul's airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. Cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden in his remarks on Sunday, will recognize the impact the 2001 attacks had on the U.S. and the world and honour the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaida hijackers took control of commercial planes and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

I think you'll hear him talk about how America will stay vigilant to the threat but also look to future threats and challenges and be able to learn to meet those threats and challenges, Kirby said.

1st anniversary of US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in a low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honour of the 13 U.S. Troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. Veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.

Also Read: 9/11 attacks anniversary: How attacks on America's financial capital, which killed nearly 3000 people, changed the world forever

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticised Biden's handling of the end of the war and noted that the country had spiralled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. Withdrawal.

Now, one year on from last August's disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden's decision has come into sharper focus, McConnell said. Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity.

First lady Jill Biden will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband will go to New York City for a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial.
Edinburg: Queen Elizabeth's coffin arrived in Edinburgh on Sunday after a six-hour journey from her summer home in the Scottish Highlands, past tens of thousands of mourners lining the route, many in sombre silence, some applauding and others in tears. At the end of its slow journey through picturesque Scottish countryside, villages, small towns and cities, soldiers wearing kilts carried the coffin to the throne room of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Elizabeth's official Scottish residence, where it will remain overnight.

In an emotional tribute to his mother on Friday, the queen's eldest son and the new monarch, King Charles, said she had begun a "last great journey" to join Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years who died last year.

Earlier, the hearse carrying the oak coffin emerged from the gates of Balmoral Castle, where she died on Thursday aged 96, at the start of the drive to the Scottish capital. Her coffin was draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland with a wreath on top made of flowers taken from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas, one of Elizabeth's favourites.

Also Read: Queen Elizabeth II's death: Prince Harry, Meghan join William and Kate on Windsor walkabout - See pics

Crowds, fifteen deep in places, massed in the centre of Edinburgh to greet the cortege as it made its way to Holyroodhouse, where it was met by a military guard of honour. The queen's daughter Anne, flanked by the queen's younger sons, Princes Andrew and Edward, curtsied as the coffin was carried inside by soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

"There was no way I could miss this. I would regret it for the rest of my life," said Eilidh Mackintosh, 62, who left her home at 6 a.m. to be sure of a good view among the large crowds on Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile.

Rachel Lindsay, 24, was left in tears as the coffin passed. "Its just very sad," she said. "I dont think we expected it to ever happen. I just thought shed live forever. I didnt think it was real until I saw it."

Also Read: Queen Elizabeth II's death won't repair Prince William and Harry's strained relationship: Source

The journey from Balmoral was the first of a series of events leading up to the state funeral at Westminster Abbey in London on Sept. 19.

Her death has drawn tears, sadness and warm tributes, not just from the queen's own close family and many in Britain, but also from around the globe - reflecting her presence on the world stage for seven decades.

Wherever the cortege went, people lined the road or stopped their cars to get out and watch. At one point, it passed a guard of honour formed by dozens of tractors lined up in adjacent fields by farmers. Many watched silently in bright sunshine. Some threw flowers into the road. For others, the emotion of the moment moved them to tears. "It's just very, very sad. Im happy I was here to say our goodbyes," said Elizabeth Alexander, 69, who was born on the day the queen was crowned in 1953.
London: Thousands are lining the route to catch a glimpse as Queen Elizabeth II's coffin, seen in public for the first time, began its journey on Sunday from Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire to the late monarch's official Scottish residence of Holyroodhouse Palace in the capital city of Edinburgh.

At the end of a six-hour journey, the coffin draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland and featuring a wreath of flowers on top will rest in the Throne Room of Holyroodhouse until Monday afternoon for the royal household to pay their respects to Britain's Queen. She died peacefully aged 96 at Balmoral on Thursday evening.

The seven-car cortege, with a police escort and the Queen's daughter Princess Anne, slowly made its way towards Edinburgh, as crowds of people gathered to see it pass. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the "poignant" journey would give people in Scotland the chance to come together to "mark our country's shared loss". She and other leaders in Scotland will observe the coffin as it makes its way past the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Also Read: PM Narendra Modi dials new UK counterpart Liz Truss, conveys deep condolences on demise of Queen Elizabeth II

The oak coffin will make an onward journey to London later in the week after Buckingham Palace has unveiled plans for the State Funeral, which will take place at Westminster Abbey on Monday, September 19, declared a Bank Holiday in the UK. Prior to the funeral, the late monarch will lie-in-state at Westminster Hall within the Houses of Parliament complex for four days, to allow the British public to pay their respects.

On Saturday, members of the royal family viewed the several thousand floral tributes and messages left for the late Queen at her residences at Windsor, Balmoral and London. In a show of royal unity, Prince William and Kate now the Prince and Princess of Wales joined Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle for a walkabout at Windsor to speak to members of the public gathered at the gates of Windsor Castle.

Prince Louis innocent comment on Queen

A social media video clip shows Kate telling one group how her youngest son, Prince Louis, had said that his great grandmother was now with great grandpa, a reference to the Queen's husband Prince Philip, who died last April aged 99.

It followed Charles, the former Prince of Wales, being formally proclaimed King in an ancient ceremony at St. James's Palace during which he pledged to follow the "inspiring example" set by his late mother. Flags atop all palaces and government buildings in the UK were brought up to the full mast to mark the proclamation and will be lowered back to half-mast for the State Mourning on Sunday.

Schedule for new monarch

Buckingham Palace has released a schedule for the new monarch, King Charles III, who will host several audiences and travel to all parts of the United Kingdom as is customary during the State Mourning for a monarch. After a meeting with the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Baroness Patricia Scotland, at Buckingham Palace, the King will host Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room of the Palace on Sunday.

Also Read: Queen Elizabeth II's death: Prince Harry, Meghan join William and Kate on Windsor walkabout - See pics

On Monday, Charles and Queen Consort Camilla will travel to Westminster Hall where both Houses of Parliament will meet to express their condolences at the demise of the Queen. The royal couple will then travel to Scotland for an audience with the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and to attend the devolved Scottish Parliament. They are scheduled to travel to Northern Ireland on Tuesday and then later in the week to Wales.

On Monday, a procession will be formed on the forecourt of the Palace of Holyroodhouse to convey the Queen's coffin to St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, where King Charles III and members of the royal family will attend a service to receive the coffin. It will then lie at rest at St. Giles' Cathedral, guarded by Vigils from the Royal Company of Archers, to allow the people of Scotland to pay their respects, Buckingham Palace has said.

The journey from Scotland to England will be undertaken by air on Tuesday, when the Queen's daughter Princess Anne will accompany the coffin on its journey to the Bow Room at the monarch's London residence of Buckingham Palace. A day later, on Wednesday, it will be borne in procession to the Palace of Westminster for lying-in-state until the day of the funeral. Members of the royal family, politicians and world leaders are expected to attend the State Funeral at 11 am local time on September 19.
Islamabad: At least three Afghan crew members were killed on Saturday when a US-manufactured Black Hawk helicopter they were flying crashed, the Taliban's defence ministry said. The statement said that five others were wounded in the accident during a training session overseen by Afghanistan's defense ministry in the capital of Kabul. It is not known how many US choppers remain in the hands of the Taliban government.

As the US-backed Afghan government collapsed in mid-August last year, dozens of Afghan pilots fled to Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Afghan air force pilots played a key role, alongside their US counterparts, in the 20-year war against Taliban insurgents that ended with the departure of foreign troops last year.

The airstrikes inflicted heavy casualties among the Taliban and repeatedly drove them from positions they had seized in different parts of the country.

Last year about 140 Afghan pilots and others were flown out of Tajikistan and then to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and their final destination in the US.

Separately, three civilians were wounded when a bicycle bomb exploded in Kabul, said Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the capital's police chief.

The attack occurred in the Shai neighbourhood and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.
KYODO NEWS - Sep 11, 2022 - 09:15 | All, World, Japan

Sunday marked 10 years since Japan's move to put the China-claimed Senkaku Islands under state control, and comes at a time when Tokyo says it is "extremely concerned" over Beijing's ongoing activities around the contested islets.

The Senkakus, called Diaoyu by China, have been problematic for bilateral ties since the Japanese government purchased three of the islets a decade ago, including the biggest island Uotsuri, from a Japanese individual.

China began claiming the Japan-administered uninhabited islets in the East China Sea in the early 1970s after United Nations studies indicated potentially lucrative gas reserves might be located around them.

In the intervening years since Japan decided to nationalize the islets on Sept. 11, 2012, Chinese coast guard vessels have regularly entered territorial waters around the Senkakus, with the Japan Coast Guard saying the incursions occurred on 40 days in 2021, a total exceeded only by that of 2013.

As of the end of August, the number has reached 25 days so far this year, the Japanese coast guard said. It also said the contiguous zone around the islets has been breached by Chinese naval vessels on four known occasions since June 2016, including an incident in July this year.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference Friday that the situation remains "unpredictable" and that the country is "extremely concerned" by China's ongoing activities in the waters around the islets.

"That the Senkakus are our nation's inherent territory is without doubt historically and based on international law," Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told a separate news conference Friday. He emphasized that the situation "affords no room for complacency, and we are deeply concerned."

Behind the heightened tensions is China's increasing militaristic pressure on Taiwan, only around 170 kilometers from the islets, and fears a clash with the United States could lead to war reaching Japan's southwestern Nansei Islands chain, including the Senkakus.

But the Japanese and Chinese sides are looking for options to stabilize relations as the countries mark 50 years of normalized relations on Sept. 29. Following high-level talks in August, plans are being considered for both nations' foreign ministers to meet in New York this month.

A meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping is also eyed for this year. But Beijing has not softened its stance on the islets, and there is currently no expectation of a resolution to the dispute.

Related coverage:

FOCUS: China's Senkaku passages a decade-long friction point with Japan

Japan concerned about China's activities around Senkakus: spokesman
KYODO NEWS - Sep 11, 2022 - 13:34 | All, Japan, Coronavirus

Japan is reviewing its border control policy of keeping daily entries below 50,000 and will remove it in the "not so distant future," a government spokesman said Sunday.

The government will simultaneously relax other restrictions including a visa requirement and the requirement to travel on a package tour when it completely lifts the daily cap on overseas arrivals, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said in a Fuji Television program.

The country's strict COVID-19 border controls have been gradually eased but have been in place for more than two years. Just recently, the daily entry cap was raised to 50,000 from 20,000 and inbound tourists were allowed to travel on tours without a guide.

"We will review (restrictions) altogether. We have to carry it out in the not-so-distant future," he said.

"Japan has seasonal attractions in fall and winter. We know there are a lot of people overseas who want to come to Japan."

Japan should not lag further behind in attracting foreign tourists, especially at a time when the Japanese currency's weakness is making the country an attractive destination, he added.

The entry cap had been raised in stages since March to reach 20,000 in June, though all foreign tourists to Japan are still required to obtain visas and asked to wear face masks during their trip.

In 2021, just 245,900 foreign visitors came to Japan, the lowest figure since comparable data became available in 1964, dealing a heavy blow to the country's travel industry that had been buoyed by inbound tourist demand before the pandemic began in early 2020.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349
Tourists take photos with the sacred rock of Acropolis, in Athens, Greece, Sept. 10, 2022. Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)



ATHENS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts.

"2022 has been an amazing year for Greek tourism ... I'm very happy to say that both branded and alternative destinations, both on islands and the mainland, were full of travelers and tourists this year, and we are set to surpass this year the numbers recorded in 2019, which has so far been a record year in tourism," Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias told Xinhua in a recent interview.

In 2019, Greece registered 32 million tourist arrivals and some 18 billion euros (18 billion U.S. dollars) in tourism-related revenues, according to Bank of Greece (BoG) data.

The data so far this year indicates a strong comeback. Tourism-related revenues were 224.5 percent higher in June and 329.3 percent higher in January-June 2022 than in the corresponding periods of 2021, according to the latest BoG announcement. Compared with 2019, tourism-related revenues increased by 2.3 percent in June 2022.

A recent analysis by local lender Alpha Bank expects Greece's tourism-related revenues to reach 20 billion euros this year, thanks to a travel frenzy after the lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, giving a significant boost to the Greek GDP.

"After two very difficult years for tourism, we had an extremely positive rebound this year that helps us a lot and helps the Greek economy a lot. As a sector we usually account for 25 percent of the GDP, this is a very big number for a national economy," Alexandros Vassilikos, president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (HCH), told Xinhua on Friday.

Tourism was a key driver in Greece of the 7.7 percent GDP growth in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period in 2021, according to data released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) earlier this week.

The impressive performance of Greek tourism -- despite prevailing challenges, such as the simmering COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the energy crisis -- is the result of good planning, hard work and collaboration among all players, according to Kikilias.

However, there are many challenges lying ahead, such as the upscale of tourism infrastructure to accommodate more visitors, which requires the implementation of a strong strategy, the minister said.

"Circumstances are still very peculiar, which leaves a lot of question marks for the future. Nonetheless, we are extremely positive about the future," Vassilikos said. (1 euro = 1 U.S. dollar) 

Tourists visit the Roman Agora in Athens, Greece, Sept. 10, 2022. Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

Tourists take photos with the sacred rock of Acropolis, in Athens, Greece, Sept. 10, 2022. Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

Tourists visit the Roman Agora in Athens, Greece, Sept. 10, 2022. Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

Tourists visit the Roman Agora in Athens, Greece, Sept. 10, 2022. Tourism in Greece, a vital pillar of the country's economy, is on track to yield record high revenues this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)
BANGKOK, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Senior officials from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies wrapped up a meeting on Saturday, during which they focused on efforts to promote the recovery of the region's micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The 28th APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial Meeting was held in Phuket under the theme of "Inclusive Recovery of APEC MSMEs through the Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Economy Model and High Impact Ecosystem."

Considering small businesses as "the driving engine of the APEC economies," Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Supattanapong Punmeechaow, who chaired the meeting, said "without their inclusive recovery, we will not be able to achieve resilient and balanced economic growth."

During the two-day meeting, officials agreed to continue to foster economic growth and help small businesses participate in the global economy. They will intend to improve the connectivity among APEC economies through digital resilience, which will help MSMEs prosper.

The officials also discussed ways to drive economic growth and support small businesses, including accelerating the adoption of the BCG economy model, encouraging inclusive digital transformation, giving MSMEs access to financing while restructuring debt, and helping them cope with the evolving market landscape. 
Photo taken on Oct. 16, 2021 shows a gas prices board at a gas station in Haarlem, the Netherlands. (Photo by Sylvia Lederer/Xinhua)

Natural gas consumption in the Netherlands amounted to 17.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) over the first six months of 2022, which is 25 percent less than in the same period last year, according to Statistics Netherlands.

THE HAGUE, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Companies and consumers in the Netherlands are using less natural gas and turning to coal and renewable energy sources as the country, like many other European countries, suffers from declining natural gas supplies from Russia. Prices are sky-rocketing and the authorities are searching for storage sites and alternatives.

"Gas consumption has decreased across the society, from companies to consumers," Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist at Statistics Netherlands, told Xinhua. "This will undoubtedly continue for a while, which also has to do with the rising price. Everyone needs gas, so the price goes up and companies are looking for alternatives."

Natural gas consumption in the Netherlands amounted to 17.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) over the first six months of 2022, which is 25 percent less than in the same period last year, according to Statistics Netherlands. Manufacturing and power plants in particular used less natural gas, falling by 30 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

Photo taken on Oct. 16, 2021 shows transformers in Haarlem, the Netherlands. (Photo by Sylvia Lederer/Xinhua)

The drop in gas consumption coincides with changes in electricity generation. In the second quarter (Q2) of 2022, electricity generation from coal increased by 40 percent and from renewable sources by 25 percent year on year. At the same time, 19 percent less electricity was generated from natural gas.

Solar and wind power also showed strong increases, by 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively, in Q2. The sunny weather and the increased installed solar panel capacity have both resulted in an increase in electricity generation by solar. Wind farms also increased their output due to both greater installed capacity of onshore turbines and favorable weather conditions.

The Dutch government has recently managed to fill the country's gas storages to around 80 percent of capacity, achieving the European Union (EU) target.

"It is good news that, despite the difficult circumstances, we have succeeded in filling our gas storages to more than 80 percent almost two months ahead of the European deadline," Minister for Climate and Energy Policy Rob Jetten said. Filling continues ahead of winter to avoid supply bottlenecks.

Earlier this week, the Eemshaven port in the northern province of Groningen inaugurated a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal comprising two floating units operated by Dutch energy network operator Gasunie. The new terminal, together with an older LNG terminal in the port of Rotterdam, which has been expanded, has doubled the country's LNG import capacity.

The Eemshaven floating terminal will convert LNG into gaseous form, which then can be fed into the national natural gas network or transported abroad. This way the country can import an additional 8 bcm of gas.

"We can see an acceleration of the phasing out of natural gas to new sources," van Mulligen said. "That also helps us become less dependent on imports. It just can't be done in a few months. It could take a long time. How long is hard to predict."

A man fuels a vehicle at a gas station in The Hague, the Netherlands, on April 2, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Xiangjiang)
Photo shows screens displaying Britain's King Charles III delivering a speech at the accession ceremony at St James's Palace in London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

LONDON, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday.

Charles assumed the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday, aged 96. The accession ceremony introduced the new monarch to the country.

In his declaration at the accession ceremony, King Charles III, 73, told the Accession Council of hundreds of senior political and religious advisers that he would strive to follow his mother's "inspiring example."

"I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me," he said in the ceremony televised for the first time in history.

The Accession Proclamation was then read out from the balcony of St James's Palace, a royal residence, to a trumpet fanfare, followed by gun salutes. The proclamation will also be read publicly in other capital cities of the United Kingdom -- Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast -- and other locations.

In his first address to the nation and the Commonwealth on Friday night as the new monarch, King Charles III bestowed the title of Prince of Wales to his eldest son William, 40, a title he had held for over 50 years and is a title reserved exclusively for the heir apparent to the British throne. 

People watch a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

People watch a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

People watch a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

The Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read during a ceremony held at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

Band members are seen during a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

Band members are seen during a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)

A band member is seen during a ceremony where the Accession Proclamation for King Charles III is read at the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain, Sept. 10, 2022. King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Xinhua/Li Ying)
The file photo shows delegates posing for a group photo during the 12th edition of the Armed Forces Command Post Exercise of the East African Community (EAC) in Jinja, Uganda, Nov. 7, 2019. (Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Xinhua)

The East African Community and the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed an agreement for the deployment of an EAC joint regional force to fight negative forces in the bloc's new member.

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The East African Community (EAC) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Friday signed an agreement for the deployment of an EAC joint regional force to fight negative forces in the bloc's new member.

A statement issued late Friday by the EAC headquarters in Tanzania's northern city of Arusha said the agreement was signed by the EAC secretary general, Peter Mathuki, and DRC's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Christophe Lutundula Apala Pen'Apala, and witnessed by DRC President Felix Tshisekedi in DRC's capital Kinshasa.

Peter Mathuki, secretary general of the East African Community (EAC), speaks during an interview with Xinhua at the headquarter of EAC in Arusha, Tanzania, on May 20, 2022. (Photo by Herman Emmanuel/Xinhua)

Mathuki said the agreement is in support of the implementation of the decision of the 22nd summit of the EAC heads of state to deploy a joint regional force to fight the negative forces in the DRC.

"The agreement envisages an initial deployment of the EAC joint regional force for a period of six months after which the deployment will be evaluated," said Mathuki.

President Tshisekedi thanked the EAC for the deployment of the joint regional force, saying that instability in his country has been ongoing for over two decades.

"My highest wish is for the regional force to be successful and allow the country to turn over and focus on the economic and social growth of the country that will see it transform and shine in front of the world," said Tshisekedi.
* With the number of infections surpassing 20,000, the United States now leads the world in monkeypox cases.



* Black and Hispanic Americans in the country make up the majority of monkeypox cases but are underrepresented in vaccine distribution.

* Experts urged the U.S. administration to alter its slow pattern of responding to pandemics.

by Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Liu Yanan

NEW YORK, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Following the disastrous handling of COVID-19, the spread of monkeypox is another microcosm of the racial disparities and health inequity in the United States.

With the number of infections surpassing 20,000, the United States now leads the world in monkeypox cases. Like a replay of the COVID-19 outbreak, Black and Hispanic Americans in the country still bear a disproportionate burden in the public health emergency. They make up the majority of monkeypox cases but are underrepresented in vaccine distribution.

WORSENING RACIAL DISPARITIES

Signs show the number of infections in the country is slowing, but racial divides are worsening in monkeypox cases and vaccine access.

Health care workers assist people waiting to be vaccinated at a monkeypox vaccination site in New York, the United States, on July 14, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

Over 38 percent of the monkeypox infections are among Black people, who represent only 13.6 percent of the country's population of 335 million. Similarly, Hispanic or Latino people account for 28.3 percent of the total cases as of Sept. 3 but are only 19 percent of the U.S. population.

By contrast, the share of White people in the total contracted cases slumped from 75 percent as of May 20 to 27.5 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Similar trends in racial disparities can be seen among U.S. states and cities with the most monkeypox cases.

Black or African American residents make up 55 percent of all monkeypox cases but just 24 percent of vaccinations in Philadelphia, city data showed. White Philadelphians make up 24 percent of cases but have received 56 percent of first doses.

White and non-Hispanic people received 67.2 percent of monkeypox vaccines and only account for 35.2 percent of cases as of Sept. 4 in New York State, excluding New York City, the state's health department said.

Up to 39.2 percent of cases are among Hispanic people, while they only got 15 percent of vaccines in the state. Black and non-Hispanic people accounted for 18.5 percent of the total cases while receiving 9.3 percent of vaccines.

A medical worker gives a dose of monkeypox vaccine to a recipient at a monkeypox vaccination site in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 11, 2022. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

"IT'S NOT THAT SURPRISING"

"Unfortunately, it's not that surprising," said Mark Abdelmalek, a dermatologist who has treated monkeypox patients. "History kind of repeats itself. We see health disparities across many aspects of medicine, and to think that this wouldn't be one of them is a little naive."

The associate professor of dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania added, "I mean we saw it with COVID. It speaks to the fact that we have a lot of work to do to meet people where they are."

Total cumulative data show that Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander people have experienced higher rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths than White people when data are adjusted to account for differences in age by race and ethnicity, according to a recent report by Kaiser Family Foundation.

The foundation noted in an earlier report that "underlying structural inequities place people of color at increased risk for public health threats, as was seen in COVID-19 and as is beginning to be observed amid the monkeypox outbreak.

Robert Fullilove, a professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said that the lack of trust and communication between the health department and the Black community resulted in the racial disparities, which were exacerbated by stigma and the long history of medical neglect and abuse of Black patients.

"What's happening with monkeypox is just yet another chapter of 150 years of medical mistrust," Fullilove said.

People sanitize their hands at a monkeypox vaccination site in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, on July 30, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination raised significant concerns regarding the United States implementing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, according to Lisa Borden, the Southern Poverty Law Center's senior policy counsel for international advocacy.

Although the United States has signed and ratified the treaty, Congress has never taken any step to incorporate its requirements into U.S. legislation. No administration has made an effort to do the same when developing and implementing domestic policy, said Borden in an article on Friday.

She said that the treaty is in force on paper, but any instance of compliance with its requirements is merely coincidental.

The committee said the United States has failed to create a national human rights institution or any similar coordinating mechanism to monitor the treaty's implementation. Additionally, it lamented the continued absence of a comprehensive federal action plan to combat systemic racism and structural discrimination, urging the United States to proceed on both fronts.

People wait in line to receive monkeypox vaccine at a vaccination site at Eugene A. Obregon Park in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 6, 2022. (Xinhua)

SLOW, MUTED RESPONSE

Experts urged the U.S. administration to alter its slow pattern of responding to pandemics that has worsened the spread of COVID-19 and is dragging on the current fight against monkeypox.

"If monkeypox gains a permanent foothold in the United States and becomes an endemic virus that joins our circulating repertoire of pathogens, it will be one of the worst public health failures in modern times not only because of the pain and peril of the disease but also because it was so avoidable," former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in a July 30 essay, citing a slow ramp-up of testing, inadequate vaccine supply and "an absence of coordination among federal agencies."

The first cases confirmed or suspected in Europe in May "should have been a code red for federal infectious disease response" here in the United States, Gottlieb said, criticizing the timeline for expanding testing to commercial labs, which didn't start until late June.

"In the end, monkeypox was a soft stress test for our public health system that we should have passed reasonably well after our jarring and humbling bout with COVID-19. The results, especially with more virulent bugs surely looming, are discomfiting," Jalal Baig, an oncologist, opined in an article on NBC last month.

"Unless something drastically changes," Chyke Doubeni, chief health equity officer at Ohio State University, told local media, "we'll see the same pattern in the next outbreak." (Video reporters: Xia Lin, Zhang Mocheng, Tan Jingjing; video editors: Yang Zhixiang, Zhu Jianhui)
Photo taken on Sept. 10, 2022 shows lanterns celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua)

BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A taste of mooncake, a taste of China. As the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Saturday, overseas Chinese and their local friends joined in activities to celebrate the festival worldwide.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, has been observed by people of Chinese origin for thousands of years, usually marked by family reunions, a full moon viewing and the consumption of mooncakes, a traditional pastry dedicated to the festival.

In Australia, this year's celebrations started as early as Saturday noon with festive shows, such as chic Chinese music, martial arts and moon-praising rituals, staged at Meat Market, an iconic state heritage with an over 200-year history in Melbourne.

During the event, participants wore the traditional clothing "hanfu" of the Han ethnic group, picked up a rabbit lantern at a streetside stall and had a calligrapher write down some moon-related blessings.

"Many locals came to my booth, asking me if I could translate their names into Chinese and write it down," Dongdong, a Chinese calligraphy artist, told Xinhua at the event.

Yet Australia is not the earliest place to celebrate the festival outside China. On Friday in Vientiane, a Chinese movie show and the Mid-Autumn Festival evening were held by the China Cultural Center in Laos.

The attendants enjoyed an exceptional Chinese-Lao bilingual art performance and were also introduced to Chinese calligraphy, mooncake-making and Chinese tea.

On Friday night, hundreds of Chinese nationals living in Nigeria celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival in Lagos with song and dance amid a copious flow of food and beverages. About 500 people attended the five-and-a-half-hour gala at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos.

Taking part in a traditional Chinese festival celebration has been a must-try for many Chinese culture lovers in various countries.

At the Chinese American Museum in the U.S. capital Washington D.C., many Chinese Americans and other ethnic groups enjoyed activities like tasting mooncakes and different Chinese cuisines and sipping tea. Young children enjoyed making craft lanterns and listening to stories about ancient Chinese tradition.

On Saturday night in New York City, a concert -- "2022 Golden Night Concert" -- was held at the Lincoln Center, featuring a lineup of Chinese and Western artists.

"The concert was beautiful and unique ... it makes my day happy today," Stanley Strychacki, an 85-year-old New York resident, told Xinhua after watching the 1.5-hour dance and music performance, including many traditional Chinese music pieces.

In San Fan Con square in Havana's Chinatown, a competition focused on making traditional Chinese mooncakes attracted many people.

"Since ancient times, the Chinese people have had a special relationship with the moon. We are having a lot of fun eating mooncakes," said Yorbelis Rosell, Cuban director of Confucius Institute in Havana.

At the popular plaza decorated with red lanterns in the Cuban capital, participants enjoyed Chinese table games, traditional painting and calligraphy exhibitions, martial arts demonstrations, musical performances and massage sessions.

Chinese language student Camila Feliz, 23, told Xinhua that this was an excellent opportunity to learn more about Chinese culture and traditions. "It is a good moment to express solidarity, support, and a sense of togetherness," she said. "This festival sends a strong message of peace." 

Chinese students perform during Mid-Autumn celebrations aboard a cruise ship in Paris, France on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

A Chinese student performs during Mid-Autumn celebrations aboard a cruise ship in Paris, France on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

Chinese students perform during Mid-Autumn celebrations aboard a cruise ship in Paris, France on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)
As the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated across China on Saturday, more and more overseas Chinese restaurants and even western stores have launched their own unique handmade mooncakes.





Produced by Xinhua Global Service
KABUL, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Five people sustained injuries in two blasts that rocked Dasht-e-Barchi area in the western edge of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday, Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said.

"Explosive devices planted on two bicycles went off in Dasht-e-Barchi locality late evening today, injuring five persons," Zadran told Xinhua.

The officer said that an investigation was underway.

Meanwhile, Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor in his twitter account said that a few people were slightly injured in the two blasts.

No group or individual claimed responsibility for the blasts.

A deadly blast outside a mosque in the western Herat city days ago killed 18 including a renowned cleric and injured 23 others. The hardliner Daesh or Islamic State outfit claimed responsibility for the attack. 




DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's Zanzibar President Hussein Ali Mwinyi on Saturday awarded 21 members of the Chinese medical team with medals for their one-year stellar medical services in the Zanzibar archipelago.

The president expressed gratitude for the work Chinese doctors have done.

Mwinyi thanked China for dispatching medical teams to Zanzibar since 1964, saying the Chinese medical teams have helped strengthen the health system in Zanzibar, saving the lives of hundreds of people.

Nassor Ahmed Mazrui, Zanzibar's minister for health, also thanked the Chinese doctors for providing quality health services.





Produced by Xinhua Global Service












KABUL, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces have killed an armed rebel and arrested 10 others in eastern Kapisa province, the state-run Bakhtar news agency reported on Sunday.

"A rebel has been killed in a clash with security forces and 10 others have been arrested on charge of association with the rebel," Bakhtar news agency quoted intelligence sources of Kapisa province as saying.

The state-run news agency neither reported the exact date of the incident nor revealed the identity of the killed or arrested during the operation. 
CHONGQING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- With a fuselage length of fewer than two meters, a flight time of four hours, and a maximum speed of 110 km per hour, the E25 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) played a vital role in extinguishing a forest fire in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality in August.

Intelligent UAVs are now being used in many scenarios, especially in complex environments, which can effectively reduce labor costs and improve work efficiency, said Zheng Wei, general manager of Chongqing Efly Technology Co., Ltd, E25's manufacturer.

Zheng said their UAVs have independent intellectual property rights, widely used in forest fire prevention, emergency rescue, security inspection, and others.

Fitted with a camera and tracking module, the UAV can send back high-definition videos in real-time, identify targeted objects, and perform object tracking.

According to Zheng, the UAVs were used for searching for potential ignition points and conducting fire detection and residual fire monitoring during the forest fire.

Meanwhile, they also sent the on-site inspection videos back to the command center through the 5G network in real-time, providing accurate data analysis and emergency treatment plans for fire prevention and fighting at the front line.

China is a key civil UAV industrial base globally and boasted over 12,000 companies engaged in the UAV industry at the end of 2021, according to the 5th China International Unmanned Aircraft System Expo held in August.

Recently, Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area received approval to build a national-level civil UAV test area. The city is seizing this opportunity to attract upstream and downstream UAV enterprises to design application scenarios such as UAVs in urban logistics.

"Chongqing has complex terrain with high mountains and steep slopes. It's difficult to transport fresh agricultural products with high added value in mountainous areas to cities by road. This provides opportunities for UAV cargo delivery," said Zhan Xiangdong, chairman of Chongqing Liangjiang Aviation and Aerospace Industry Investment Group Co., Ltd.

In the field of the UAV industry, Liangjiang New Area has gathered leading enterprises in sub-sectors such as Fonair UAS Technologies Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Efly Technology Co., Ltd., according to local authorities.

The area also has operation guarantee conditions like general aviation airports and flight service stations, forming a relatively complete industrial chain.

"In the future, we will support enterprises to carry out operations such as integrated application of satellite internet and long-range UAVs, and vertical take-off and landing of UAV for cargo delivery in high mountains and valleys," said Zhan. 
BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Round-shaped white lanterns on top of 33 "moon boats" were lit in the iconic West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province in east China Saturday night.

The gathering was the highlight of a moon worship activity to celebrate one of the most important traditional festivals in China, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on Saturday this year.

The festival is usually marked by family reunions, enjoying the sights of the full moon, and eating mooncakes.

Since ancient times, the Mid-Autumn Festival has had the custom of moon worship. Today, people still worship the moon during the festival to express good wishes for home and country and sincere hopes for a happy life.

A slew of cultural activities to celebrate the occasion also took place in other parts of China.

In southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, colorful "jade rabbit" lights and a gigantic moon-shaped light lit up the hilltop observation deck at Longmenhao old street.

In addition, the city's lovers of hanfu, the traditional clothing of the Han ethnic group, also gathered on the carefully decorated old street Saturday night to enjoy the festival.

With bright lights and air filled with the fragrance of osmanthus flowers across the street, residents dressing in hanfu, some with flower lanterns, strolled along. It complemented the vintage street with its many old buildings.

"The old street not only has gorgeous lights but also preserves the traditional architecture featuring Chinese blue bricks and tiles. You won't have the feeling of not fitting in walking here," said Deng Yuhua, a Chongqing resident.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival also coincided with Teacher's Day in China. As Chinese people have the same traditional respect for teachers as they do for family, many have decided to celebrate bigger than usual.

Guo Jiguang, 60, is from east China's Fujian Province, and he used to be a teacher. He is also a practitioner of the "Fumao Cake" craft, a form of intangible cultural heritage from Fujian.

To celebrate the dual festival, Guo designed a special mooncake with four Chinese characters, meaning "Remembering your teachers," sculpted on the surface.

He has made about 60,000 such mooncakes and decided to give them away to local teachers as gifts. "Parents give us life, friends give us support, and teachers give us knowledge and guidance. They are the most important people in our lives. That is my belief," Guo said.

Over the past decade, more than 4,500 teachers across the country have been awarded at the national level for their professionalism and dedication to education.

"The two festivals meeting is a rare and precious occasion. It feels beautiful to see various traditional Chinese values celebrated harmoniously under the full moon," said Wan Jianzhong, a professor at the School of Chinese Language and Literature of Beijing Normal University. 
A series of activities were held at tent classrooms in the quake-hit Luding County in China's Sichuan to celebrate Teachers' Day on Saturday, which also marked the Mid-Autumn festival.

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding County last week. Local authorities have set up temporary accommodation sites and tent classrooms for the quake-affected juniors.





Produced by Xinhua Global Service
BEIRUT, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran's ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani on Saturday reiterated his country's readiness to provide Lebanon with fuel commodities, construct new power stations, and rehabilitate existing power networks, the National News Agency reported.

He made the remarks during a meeting with Lebanese Energy Minister Walid Fayad in Beirut, which came a day after Fayyad indicated that a Lebanese technical delegation would soon visit Iran to discuss the free fuel offer.

"We hope that the donation constitutes the beginning of cooperation in other fields as well," Amani was quoted as saying, adding all the Lebanese would benefit from Iran's fuel donation.

For his part, Fayad said the donation is of strategic importance, as it would put the Lebanese energy sector on the path of recovery.

"It will be a starting point for implementing the electricity plan developed by the ministry ... it will provide citizens with power supply at a lower cost than that offered by private generators," Fayad said.

Lebanon has struggled with outages for years, leaving most of the country with one or two hours of state-provided electricity per day and forcing households to rely on subscriptions to private generators, the cost of which have skyrocketed recently as global fuel prices went up. 
An Egyptian student performs Chinese poetry at a Chinese poetry contest in Cairo, Egypt, on Sept. 10, 2022.(Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The China Cultural Center in Cairo celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival on Saturday in a festive atmosphere climaxed with the Egyptian students' performance for a Chinese poetry recitation contest.



Celebrating family reunions and sights of the full moon, the Mid-Autumn Festival is marked on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which falls on Sept. 10 this year.

During the evening, the center's yard was converted into a contest venue, where walls and trees decorated in red lighting brimmed it with a joyous mood.

Rivaling Egyptian students expressively interpreted their choice of Chinese poems against background videos themed on Chinese culture and created by respective contenders to elaborate stage effects.

Zhang Tao (R), charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy, takes photos with an award-winning Egyptian student at a Chinese poetry contest in Cairo, Egypt, on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)



Ten students were awarded prizes, and the top winner went to Nada Hosny, a student from the Al-Alsun Faculty at Suez Canal University in Ismailia province who performed on a poem written by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

"My ambition is to get a scholarship to travel to China and then study for a master's degree when I come back. I dream of becoming a Chinese-language teacher," Hosny told Xinhua.

Giving credit to her professors for her fluency in Chinese, Hosny said she decided to study Chinese because she "found that the Chinese language is one of the best for the job market."

Nada's professor Sheng Yusi, also goes by "Salma" in Arabic, told Xinhua during the event that she was very proud that her student made it top in the contest and felt that her efforts were rewarded.

"We teach foreign students the Chinese language and also convey the Chinese culture to them. We exchange our cultures," Salma said in fluent Arabic.

The ceremony was inaugurated by Zhang Tao, charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in Egypt, for inviting more "Egyptian friends" to learn about the Chinese culture and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Egyptian students are awarded prizes at a Chinese poetry contest in Cairo, Egypt, on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

For his part, Yang Ronghao, cultural counselor of the Chinese embassy and director of the China Cultural Center in Cairo, said he was impressed by the improvement of the students' language skills and their understanding of Chinese poetry this year.

El-Hassan Ali, a student at the Confucius Institute at Cairo University, was among the six students who achieved third place.

"I participated in many China-related activities including this one marking the Mid-Autumn Festival. Through these activities, I've learned a lot about Chinese culture and made many Chinese friends," he said.

A full moon is seen over Cairo, Egypt, on Sept. 10, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Dongzhen)

Chinese has become one of the most wanted languages among Egyptian learners, according to Hassan Ragab, dean of Al-Alsun Faculty at the Suez Canal University and director of Confucius Institute at the university.

"I believe this has to do with China's economic rise and cultural influence, the distinguished Egyptian-Chinese relations and the strategic ties between Egypt and China," Ragab told Xinhua. 
DAMASCUS, Sept. 11 (Xinhua)-- Islamic State (IS) militants killed six people driving on a road in the northeastern Syrian province of Hasakah on Sunday, a war monitor reported.

The six victims, whose identities are not yet known, were ambushed by IS militants on the Khurafi road leading to the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

With the latest ambush, the IS has carried out 130 attacks in 2022 in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, leaving 104 killed, including 37 civilians and 67 SDF fighters, according to the Britain-based watchdog. 
LAGOS, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 people were killed when two vehicles collided on a highway in southwest Nigeria on Friday, an official said on Saturday.

The collision occurred on Friday at a road in the Ibarapa East local government area of the Oyo state, Joshua Adekanye, head of the Federal Road Safety Corps in Oyo told Xinhua on the phone.

The road official said at least 15 people involved in the accident were burnt to death.

Adekanye attributed the cause of the accident to a speeding violation.

According to the official News Agency of Nigeria, the accident involved a commercial bus and a car traveling in opposite directions when they had a head-on collision, following which the vehicles caught fire immediately.

Fatal road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad road conditions, and reckless driving. 
A man cleans a cow at a cattle shed in a village in Punjab, India, Sept. 14, 2022.

More than 57,000 cattle have died in India over the past four-and-a-half months due to the lumpy skin disease (LSD), which is continuing to spread in the South Asian country.

The affected areas include the capital region of Delhi, and the states of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. (Str/Xinhua)

by Pankaj Yadav

NEW DELHI, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 57,000 cattle have died in India over the past four-and-a-half months due to the lumpy skin disease (LSD), which is continuing to spread in the South Asian country.

The affected areas include the capital region of Delhi, and the states of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The first case was reported in April from the western state of Gujarat, which has seen over 4,000 cattle deaths till date. Gujarat's neighboring state Rajasthan has reported around 27,000 cattle deaths so far.

Over the past 24 hours, several cases have been detected in the national capital, though no deaths have been reported so far from here.

More than 170 cases have been detected among cattle in the south and the southwest of the Indian capital, Delhi's Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Saturday evening. "In the past few days, symptoms similar to infection of lumpy virus have been found in cattle of Delhi," he told reporters.

According to Rai, the Delhi government is taking measures to control the spread of lumpy virus. The animal husbandry department has set up mobile veterinary clinics, a special isolation ward and a round-the-clock emergency helpline number to combat the spread of infection, he added.

On Saturday, Rai chaired a meeting to review preparedness and implementation of measures to arrest the virus' spread. "So far everything is under control. Two mobile veterinary clinics are being sent to affected areas. People can also contact on helpline numbers for treatment of infected cattle," said the official.

Eleven rapid response teams have been formed for the treatment of infected cattle, which will also collect samples, and four teams for raising awareness among farmers and cattle herders, he added.

Experts say that the LSD is a viral infection that affects cattle, and can be transmitted by flies, mosquitoes and ticks. It causes fever and nodules on the skin and can lead to death.

Taking a serious note of the evolving situation, the Indian government has asked states to boost the vaccination process in a bid to control the spread of the viral disease.

The federal government has issued an advisory for cattle owners, listing nine key measures to contain the LSD, including proper hygiene, not moving infected cattle outside, hand sanitization by caretakers, use of disinfectants to kill mosquitoes and flies, nutritious food to infected, isolated cattle, and burying the dead cattle with salt and lime.

People should contact the emergency helpline in case the cattle is ill, consult a vet and not try to treat the cattle on their own, the advisory said.

A month ago, federal Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar launched the indigenous vaccine Lumpi-ProVacInd to protect livestock animals from the LSD. The vaccine is developed by the National Research Center on Equines in the northern state of Haryana in collaboration with the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, based in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The outbreak of the LSD was first reported in India in 2019, after which research institutes in the country had been engaged in developing the vaccine. 

People check a cow suffering from lumpy skin disease in a village in Punjab, India, Sept. 14, 2022.

More than 57,000 cattle have died in India over the past four-and-a-half months due to the lumpy skin disease (LSD), which is continuing to spread in the South Asian country.

The affected areas include the capital region of Delhi, and the states of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. (Str/Xinhua)

Photo taken on Sept.14, 2022 shows a cow suffering from lumpy skin disease at a village in Punjab, India.

More than 57,000 cattle have died in India over the past four-and-a-half months due to the lumpy skin disease (LSD), which is continuing to spread in the South Asian country.

The affected areas include the capital region of Delhi, and the states of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. (Str/Xinhua)

A vet vaccinates a cow against the lumpy skin disease in a village in Punjab, India, Sept. 14, 2022.

More than 57,000 cattle have died in India over the past four-and-a-half months due to the lumpy skin disease (LSD), which is continuing to spread in the South Asian country.

The affected areas include the capital region of Delhi, and the states of Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. (Str/Xinhua)
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 people were killed Saturday when a tanker truck carrying fuel collided with a bus, catching fire on a highway in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, the state's Attorney General's Office reported.

The bus is from the Castanuelas Tours company and was traveling from the municipality of Huejutla when the accident occurred at km 67 on the Victoria-Monterrey Highway near the municipality of Hidalgo.

The driver of the truck fled after the crash, according to witnesses.

The highway was closed to conduct an investigation into the accident.

According to the National Public Security System, 9,315 people died in traffic accidents in Mexico from January to July this year. 
by Jian Ping

CHICAGO, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people gathered in Chicago's Chinatown Saturday to celebrate the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.

A make-shift platform rolled out performers from four to over 80 years old, who came from local communities, schools and professional groups to perform a lion dance, dragon dance, singing, traditional Chinese dance and Taichi.

Some 500 goodie bags were distributed to attendees at the scene, adding to the festive atmosphere.

"Our goal is to promote Asian culture in America," said Vivian Xu, founder of Asian American Culture Center, which organized the celebration. "Traditional holiday such as the Mid-Autumn Festival is a good opportunity to do so."

The celebration used to draw an estimated 30,000 people before the pandemic, Chris Huang, director of the cultural center, told Xinhua. He expects this year's attendees to be around 20,000.

"Chinatown is so vibrant and so rich in Chinese culture," Huang said. "We'd like to see people come to rejoice and celebrate family gatherings with us and walk away happily."

Embra Bolden, a 36-year-old karate amateur from Chicago, was at the festival with his fiance. He told Xinhua that they both love Chinese food and visit Chinatown to eat from time to time. They were pleasantly surprised by walking into the celebration that he described as "a good cultural exposure."

Shane Rivzi, 21, came especially for the celebration with a friend. The two were here last year and enjoyed the performances. They made a point to come back this year. "It's good to see more people this year," Rivzi said. "We loved the cultural experience."

Glenn Rhodes from Indiana came with his wife and two children. "We come to Chinatown for dinner and are delighted to see the celebration and performances."

The celebration in Chinatown was initially set to last six hours, but organizers extended the duration.

In addition to the celebration in Chinatown, the Field Museum and the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, along with other organizers and sponsors, co-hosted a celebration at Set in Stone Gathering Space in the South Side of Chicago, with activities including Chinese folk dance, mooncake sampling, storytelling, lantern making, games and music. 
CAIRO, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. authorities' move to "redefine" accountability over the killing of an Al Jazeera journalist exposes U.S. bias and failure to keep its own values, an opinion piece published on the Al-Jazeera English-language news channel has said.

Back in May when Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen, was fatally shot while covering conflicts in the West Bank, the U.S. State Department was quick to condemn the killing and urged that those responsible "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Months later, U.S. officials redefined the meaning of accountability in the case after Israel said this week that it was "highly possible" that one of its soldiers pulled the trigger, noted Ali Harb, author of the article published on Wednesday.

By calling on Israel to review its policies to mitigate civilian harm, the Biden administration effectively dropped its earlier demand for properly holding the perpetrator accountable, said Harb, a U.S.-based writer.

Washington made an about-face in its own definition just because Abu Akleh was a Palestinian American who was killed by Israel, said Lina Abu Akleh, the journalist's niece, in an interview with Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

"This just goes on to show the bias and their lack of commitment to accountability and to their own values," she told the news channel. 
A file photo to represent the Chure region exploitation

Nepal is a developing country, and like others, rapid urbanisation is taking place in various places in the country. To fulfil the high demand for sand and sediments need by the new trend, riverine material smuggling is taking place.

The changes brought by urbanisation are highly visible in the Terai and hilly regions of Nepal. Also, there is an increase in illegal extraction or mining of riverine materials from the Chure region.

Chure is the youngest hill of Nepal, formed from the deposition of sediments that come from the Himalayan range. From Illam in the east to Kanchanpur in the west, the Chure region spreads in 37 districts of Nepal. It consists of 164 river systems flowing from north to south in Nepal. The major rivers are Koshi, Rapti, Narayani, Mechi, Mahakali, Tinau, Karnali, etc.

If the timely control of riverine material smuggling is not done, there are high chances that the Terai region will too face the fate of the Melamchi and Helambu regions in Sindhupalchok which witnessed a huge loss due to unpredicted floods and landslides.

Reasons

The Chure region has been bearing the brunt of relentless riverine material smuggling.

In the name of development, riverine material smuggling is seen all over Nepal. River materials play a vital role in the development of infrastructure, so the demand for these materials is seen as high because of their importance in urban development.

As the urban growth in the Terai region is rapid, many people are migrating to Terai from the hilly and Himalayan ranges of Nepal in search of facilities and agricultural land. It is easier to conduct developmental work in the Terai region in comparison to the hilly and Himalayan regions. Terai is located on the lap of the Chure region, and hence it results in an increase in riverine material smuggling.

Moreover, the greed of people in the power is another reason why riverine material smuggling is taking place in the Chure region. Political leaders or the people associated with them run a number of illegal extractors in Nepal.

Due to the high value of these products, they are selling them illegally and earning money to cover their expenses during elections. However, no one is able to raise their voice against these mafias.

Deadly consequences

File: Floodwater inundates Parasi, the district headquarters of the Nawalparasi district, on Friday, August 27, 2021.

The rapid riverine material smuggling is causing serious problems in the Chure and Terai regions of Nepal. Due to the excessive mining at the riverbanks, landslides, debris flow, floods and water scarcity are seen in different areas of Nepal.

Prabhu Budhathoki, a former National Planning Commission member and biodiversity expert, refers to the ongoing sand extraction as plundering. According to him, the Chure and Bhawar areas and some parts of the Trishuli and Sunkoshi rivers have been exploited by contractors.

Excessive mining for riverine material smuggling affects the speed of the water. The moats created on the banks of the river become the death zone for many children in Nepal. The consequences are not limited to this, riverine material smuggling also affects the irrigation system of the agricultural land of the Terai region, the aquatic biodiversity of the river and the aesthetic of the river.

In recent years, we have seen that big cities like Itahari, Narayanghat and Butwal are facing the problem of flooding every year. Every year, the rivers are making new ways and annihilating the wealth of people.

Mining for riverine material smuggling needs to be controlled. Otherwise, we have to face serious consequences. Otherwise, it will cause an imbalance in the ecosystem and increase the effects of climate change.
File: Sohra Shraddha

As I walk along the banks of the Bagmati, I observe a lot of things. On one side of the banks, I see a family grieving and performing the last rites of its departed member, while on the other side, I see people paying homage and honouring their forefathers. As I sit there watching, a man takes a bath in the holy river and a foreigner asks me what he is doing.

I tell him he is taking a purifying bath in the river before he starts the rituals of Sohra Shraddha.

Sohra Shraddha also known as Pitri Paksha or Mahalaya is a 16-day period in the Hindu calendar when people pay homage to their ancestors or pitri. According to Hindu mythology, the souls of three preceding generations of ones ancestor reside in a realm between heaven and earth known as pitri lok. This realm is overseen by the god of death, Yama, who takes the spirit of a dying man from earth to the pitri lok.

The one who performs the shraddha, during Sohra Shraddha or any other time, must take a purifying dip before the ritual starts.

The offerings made to the priest during the ceremony are believed to reach the three generations caught in pitri lok.

It is often believed that when a person of the fourth generation dies, the first generation shifts to heaven and unites with God. Thus, only the three generations in pitri lok are given Sohra Shraddha rites, in which Yama plays a significant role.

But, why did this Sohra Shraddha ritual start? To find out, I talk to a few priests who tell me a story about Karna who died in the epic Mahabharata war. After his death, his soul transcended to heaven where he was offered gold and jewels as food. Karna was shocked and did not understand why he was not offered real food so he asked Indra, the lord of Heaven, why he was served gold instead of food. Indra told Karna that he had donated gold all his life, but had never donated food in the name of his ancestors.

Unaware of this, Karna told Indra he wanted to make amends. Indra was okay with it and Karna was to return to earth for a 16day period so that he could perform the shraddha rituals, and donate food and water.

It is compulsory that the shraddha is performed by a son to ensure that the soul of the ancestor goes to heaven.

Keeping that in mind, the practice of Sohra Shraddha has been passed down from one generation to another with its importance still remaining intact. Usually, the eldest son performs the puja while the other sons participate in it. It is conducted with the belief that this will ensure their ancestors souls will rest in peace in heaven.

A day before the shraddha during Sohra Shraddha or any other time, ekchhaki is performed, which is when the sons in the family eat only one meal for the day which usually consists of roti and vegetables without oil, spices or salt in it. The next day, the one who performs the shraddha must take a purifying dip before the ritual starts.

After that, the shraddha is performed bare-chested, as the position of the sacred thread, janai, worn by him needs to be changed multiple times during the ceremony. The shraddha involves pinda-daan, which is an offering to the ancestors of pinda (cooked rice or barley flour balls mixed with ghee and black sesame seeds). It is then followed by prayers to Lord Vishnu and Yama, the god of death.

After that, the shraddha is performed bare-chested, as the position of the sacred thread, janai, worn by him needs to be changed multiple times during the ceremony.

As per Hindu mythology, every individual who wants to perform this ritual should do it on the same tithi that one of their ancestors died on. During this period, the senior male member of the family gives tarpan (water) to the three preceding generations every day depending upon the death anniversary on the basis of the Hindu traditional calendar called patro.

One of the priests who was performing the rituals for a family says, It is compulsory that the shraddha is performed by a son to ensure that the soul of the ancestor goes to heaven.

He further mentions that if the ancestors are content with the shraddhas, they will bestow health, wealth, knowledge and longevity, and ultimately heaven and salvation upon the one who performs it.

The end of Sohra Shraddha marks the beginning of Dashain, the biggest festival of Hindus celebrated with a lot of fervour across the world.

Originally posted in September 2017.
Adroit Market Research

North America and Europe regions are projected to grow at a faster pace due to the high interest in language translation technology. Some of the key companies mentioned in the Global Language Translation Software Market are Lionbridge Incorporated, IBM, Microsoft, SDL/Trados, Google, Systran, Babylon Corporation, Bablefish, etc.

Dallas, Texas, Sept. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Language Translation Software Market was worth USD 8.39 billion in 2019 and is expected to be worth USD 24.66 billion by 2029, increasing at an 18.2% CAGR from 2019 to 2029.

A growing number of computational translation tools, such as free online translation tools, are expected to pose a substantial threat to the global language translation software market. The wide availability, accessibility, and low cost of translation software provide a possible constraint for the global language translation software market. Some of the major market drivers include the growing popularity of mobile translation and the globalization of commerce. Due to the flexibility and financial advantages of cloud services, the usage of cloud computing is fast rising around the world.

The rising popularity of online information searches may increase the demand for language translation software and services. Similarly, as a result of technological improvements and breakthroughs in the smartphone market, the global language translation software market is likely to grow dramatically in the coming years. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy S IV has multilingual capabilities. To maintain the fast-paced global market landscape, firms place a high value on efficient international networks and market penetration in local markets. This is projected to drive significant demand for the worldwide language translation software market as businesses seek to improve their efficiency. Furthermore, developing countries such as Brazil, India, and China are expected to experience strong expansion in their enterprise sectors, presenting huge potential opportunities in the global language translation software market. This scenario is projected to propel the language translation software industry forward.

Story continues

Request a pdf brochure @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/3479

Metrics Details Study Period 2019-2029 Market Size in 2031 USD 24.66 billion Segment Covered Component, Industry, Regions Component Covered solution, service Industry Covered banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, manufacturing, government, IT & telecom, education, commercial, others Regions Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, South America Key Players Profiled Lionbridge Incorporated, IBM, Microsoft, SDL/Trados, Google, Systran, Babylon Corporation, Bablefish, AlphaCRC, Bitext, CallMiner, Duolingo Corporation, inRiver, Cloudwords

On the basis of Type, it is anticipated that the rule-based sector will continue to hold the largest market share, while the demand for hybrid language translation software is anticipated to increase quickly. The approaches for parallel language machine translation, dictionary-based machine translation, and transfer-based machine translation are within the topic of rule-based machine translation. Most often, this kind of translation is employed in the development of grammar and dictionary software.

In terms of application, the legal segment accounted for the highest market share. While demand for language translation software in the tourism and travel sector is expected to rise rapidly during the forecast period as the legal sector reduces its investment in foreign language translators by using computer-based translation software.

Because of emigration from many countries and the presence of significant corporations, the North American region has the largest geographical market share in the language translation software sector. Additionally, the US and Canada are the nations in this region that provide the most market income. Furthermore, for the projected period of 2029, the Asia-Pacific area is anticipated to produce the greatest CAGR.

Purchase a single user copy @https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/researchreport/purchase/3479

By providing BPO services to several non-English speaking regions, the global Language Translation Software Market Trends are expanding the range of business chances for international manufacturers in this area. Additionally, the growing investments made by investors in technology and language translation software solutions are expanding the global language translation software market potential for the producers.

Over the projected period, mergers and acquisitions are anticipated to be the primary growth strategy in the global language translation software market for language translation software & services. For instance, Lionbridge announced its Gold membership collaboration with Oracle Network in May 2015 in order to offer its clients bilingual content. Lionbridge also announced a relationship with inRiver in April 2015 to streamline its worldwide content on the platform.

Major Points from Table of Contents:



1. Introduction

2. Research Methodology

3. Market Outlook

4. Component Overview, 2019-2029 (USD Million)

5. Industry Overview, 2019-2029 (USD Million)

6. Regional Overview, 2019-2029 (USD Million)

7. Competitive Landscape

8. Company Profiles

9. Appendix

Looking for DISCOUNT? If yes, then request for discount at https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/discount/3479





Access research repository of Upcoming Reports @ https://adroitmarketresearch.com/upcoming.html

About Us:

Adroit Market Research is a global business analytics and consulting company incorporated in 2018. Our target audience is a wide range of corporations, manufacturing companies, product/technology development institutions and industry associations that require understanding of a markets size, key trends, participants and future outlook of an industry. We intend to become our clients knowledge partner and provide them with valuable market insights to help create opportunities that increase their revenues. We follow a code Explore, Learn and Transform. At our core, we are curious people who love to identify and understand industry patterns, create an insightful study around our findings and churn out money-making roadmaps.

Contact Us:

Ryan Johnson

Account Manager - Global

3131 McKinney Ave Ste 600

Dallas, TX 75204

Email ID: sales@adroitmarketresearch.com

Phone No.: +1-9726644514, +91-9665341414

Connect with us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn




Bandung, Indonesia - (NewMediaWire) - September 10, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - PT Bio Farma, the holding company for state-owned pharmaceutical companies in Indonesia, announced a new milestone in the manufacturing of IndoVac, a Covid-19 vaccine brand it has developed since November 2021. Honesti Baasyir, President Director of PT Bio Farma, said the company collaborated with Baylor College of Medicine, a private, independent health sciences centre in Houston, Texas to develop IndoVac, a recombinant protein subunit vaccine produced from yeast.



Bio Farma has completed Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials and is currently in the Phase 3 stage, in producing primary series vaccines, or the two vaccine doses for everyone aged 18 years and older. "IndoVac uses vaccine technology platforms which are compatible with the equipment and facilities in our factories. The technology platforms for protein recombinant vaccines also offer other benefits: they adapt to new strains of Covid-19. The results from Phase 1 and Phase 2 show that IndoVac offers safety and efficacy, no less so than other Covid-19 vaccines.



"We are now documenting the study for completion of Phase 3." Honesti said Bio Farma has had intense communication with the Indonesian Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) since July to provide the necessary data, so BPOM can release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the IndoVac's vaccines in the shortest term. An EUA, released by a country's regulatory agency, is a permit to produce medical supplies (including vaccines) and medications during a public health emergency.



In Indonesia, BPOM plays the key role as the regulatory gatekeeper of medicines and vaccines used in the country. BPOM's head, Penny K. Lukito, said during a hearing at the Indonesian House of Representatives that the regulator expects to release an EUA for IndoVac's primary series vaccines by mid-September 2022.



Shariah Compliant



Bio Farma also has processed the Halal (or Shariah compliant) certification for IndoVac's primary series vaccines, to provide comfort to Indonesian Muslim consumers. The vaccines passed an audit from The Indonesian Ulema Council Food and Drug Analysis Agency (LPPOM MUI), which reviews the halal aspect of a product. The certificate from the Halal Certification Agency (BPJPH) of the Religious Affairs Ministry is expected soon after BPOM releases the EUA for IndoVac.



After securing all the necessary permits, Bio Farma is ready to move on to the mass production stage with IndoVac's primary series vaccines. Bio Farma plans to produce 20 million doses of the primary series vaccine in year one, before this is increased to 40 million doses in 2023, as the company expands its production facilities. In 2024, volume per year may further increase to 100 million doses, depending on the demand and market need.



Booster Vaccine and Vaccine for Children



At the same time, Bio Farma also started clinical trials for its booster vaccine on Sept 1, at Hasan Sadikin General Hospital, Bandung (Faculty of Medicine of Padjajaran Univ.) and Dr. I.G.N.G Ngoerah General Hospital in Bali (Children's Health Sciences, Udayana Univ .). Trials involved 900 subjects aged 8 and above to test IndoVac's booster vaccines. Bio Farma plans to conduct clinical trials for children next, after it secures the PPUK from BPOM.



All Covid-19 vaccines made by Bio Farma, including primary series, booster vaccines and vaccines for children, will be labelled IndoVac. Bio Farma began the process of registering IndoVac as the brand name for the vaccines with the Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights on July 29.



President Joko Widodo gave the IndoVac name to the vaccine. "We are in the process of securing the name. Should no-one object at this level, we will proceed to the next stage until we secure an IndoVac trade licence and patent from the ministry, as a product of Bio Farma," Honesti said.



For Bio Farma, it's not the first time in clinical trials. The company has conducted more than 30 clinical trials across Indonesia, including the Phase 3 clinical trials for the Covid-19 vaccine. Bio Farma also has experience conducting clinical trials overseas, for Pentabio and Novel Oral Polio Vaccine type 2 (nOPV2).



Made-in-Indonesia Vaccines



Honesti Basyir said IndoVac is special, as one of the few made-in-Indonesia vaccine products. The vaccines, which include the primary series vaccines, the booster vaccines and vaccines for children, are developed and manufactured for the nation's children. Bio Farma handles the complete manufacturing process from upstream to downstream.



The locally sourced content in the vaccines, according to Bio Farma, will be around 80%. "This is a step closer to achieving independence in the health sector. With such a high proportion of local content, we hope to reduce the nation's dependency on imported vaccines," Honesti said.



Bio Farma hopes to capture the export market with IndoVac vaccines. "We will not only produce them (in the three types of vaccines) to meet domestic needs but also target the supply of global markets," he said. "We registered for Emergency Use Listing (EUL) with the World Health Organization (for primary series), so this vaccine can be used in other countries through the Covax Facility (multilateral procurement). Through our Covid-19 vaccines, Bio Farma expects to contribute to the health industry, not just in Indonesia, but in the world.



Bio Farma's Success with Polio Vaccine



Honesti said apart from the Covid-19 primary series vaccines, Bio Farma previously secured the EUA from BPOM and the EUL from the WHO for its novel Oral Polio Vaccine type 2 (nOPV2). The EUL is a procedure for assessing and listing vaccines during public health emergencies in non-vaccine-producing countries. However, as Indonesia hasn't had any polio outbreaks since 2014, it never used nOPV2. The Bio Farma-manufactured vaccine was used by countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.



Among the countries that have used the polio vaccine are Algeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda. In Europe, the vaccine was used in Ukraine and in the Middle East, it was used in Israel, Egypt, Somalia and Yemen. In manufacturing the nOPV2 vaccine, Bio Farma collaborated with world-class research institutions like Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), PATH and the WHO, and has since become the main supplier of the vaccine in the world, currently contributing 67 per cent to the global supply. It distributes the vaccines via bilateral and multilateral means (through UNICEF).



Bio Farma's Laboratories have been internationally acknowledged as reference labs to check samples of polioviruses. The world was previously waiting for two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to combat polio diseases, for a 'polio-free world' to be declared. However, polio outbreaks occurred in Africa and the Middle East, so the nOPV2 vaccine became important in preventing spread of the disease. Bio Farma's success in producing and exporting nOPV2 vaccine shows the Indonesian state-owned company contributing to the world's health sector, apart from providing the vaccine for domestic use at home in Indonesia.



Media Contact:

R. Rifa Herdian

PT Bio Farma (Persero)

Corporate Secretary & Investor Relations

Tel: +62-81-2542-8844

Email: rifaherdian@biofarma.co.id

View the original release on www.newmediawire.com
Kansas City, Sept. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kansas City, Missouri -

Rockhurst Universitys suite of online MSN programs includes specializations in Master of Science in Nursing - Nurse Practitioner (MSN-FNP), Master of Science in Nursing - Adult Gerontology-Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (MSN-AGACNP), Master of Science in Nursing - Family Nurse Practitioner and Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Dual Track (MSN Dual Track) and Master of Science in Nursing - Leadership (MSN Leadership). The MSN suite helps meet the growing demand for advanced nursing professionals across the United States and allows passionate adult learners to prepare for clinical excellence through health care innovation, transformative learning, and quality outcomes.

The United States is facing a nursing shortage, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that more than 275,000 additional nurses will be needed from 2020 through 2030. The BLS is also expecting job growth for Nurse Anesthetists, Nurse Midwives, and Nurse Practitioners to be much higher than the national average for all other occupations (45% growth).

Patients demand high-quality, holistic, patient-first health care services, and nurse practitioners are integral to better health care outcomes. As the Baby Boomers age, the United States is seeing the highest population of elderly Americans (over the age of 65) than at any other time in history. In 2029, the youngest members of the Baby Boomer generation will retire, and the United States will see approximately a 73% increase in Americans aged 65 years and older (source: BLS.gov).

Adults aged 65 and older require a different level of health care and support, including managing chronic health concerns like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, or dementia. Adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioners (AGPCNP) are essential to fill the growing demand and deliver advanced health care for older adults. However, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) reports that with more than 355,000 licensed nurse practitioners (NPs) in the country, only 7% work in Adult-Gerontology Primary Care, and only 2.9% work in Adult-Gerontology Acute Care.

Story continues

Higher salaries also match the high demand for nursing practitioners with masters degrees. In May 2021, the median wage for registered nurses (RNs) in the United States was $77,600 per year compared to $123,780 per year for nursing careers that require a masters degree (source: BLS.gov).

Closing the education-practice gap in health care

In Rockhurst Universitys suite of online MSN programs, students choose their specialization in MSN-FNP, MSN-AGACNP, Dual MSN, or MSN Leadership, complete engaging coursework, and prepare to practice in todays modern health care landscape. Rockhurst Universitys nursing programs are delivered by the reputable Saint Lukes College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Students can choose from full- and part-time options, including masters degree nurse practitioner programs and post-master's certificates.

In addition to the flexibility to choose from part-time or full-time options, Rockhurst offers students numerous benefits, such as competitive tuition, clinical placement services, on-campus immersion in Rockhursts newly renovated and state-of-the-art facility Sedgwick Hall, and a learning experience founded in the Jesuit tradition, which welcomes students of all faiths.

Challenge oneself and inspire change across the United States health care system. Enrolling in Rockhursts online MSN programs will help fill the growing demand for skilled nursing professionals while giving back to one's community.

More details about the program can be viewed at:

onlinedegrees.rockhurst.edu

###

For more information about Rockhurst University, contact the company here:



Rockhurst University

Dave Hunt, Associate Vice President of Marketing

dave.hunt@rockhurst.edu

1100 Rockhurst Road, Kansas City, MO 64110

CONTACT: Dave Hunt, Associate Vice President of Marketing




Surprisingly, Nuclear is not one of Oliver Stones devils advocate documentaries, the spate of films he started making in the early 2000s that seemed to troll liberals everywhere by spending time with notorious human-rights abusers such as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin. In the real world right now, nuclear power is about as toxic as those three men put together, but this intelligent and surprising film is an investigation into how that PR damage came about, which makes it arguably more of a piece with his famous conspiracy thriller JFK than any of those. At nearly two hours, its a hard watch, being dominated by Stones dense, monotonous voice-over and featuring scientists with next to no screen presence (this explains a lot about Adam McKays decision to shoot Dont Look Up with A-listers). Nevertheless, it puts forward a lot of unexpected proposals about nuclear energy, debunking powerful myths along the way.

It begins with a very busy prologue, which actually sets the hectic pace for the whole thing, in which Stone relates the very modern history of its subject, starting with the discovery of radium by Marie Curie in 1898. Nuclear energy suffered a brief image setback in 1945 after the double bombing of Japan, but by 1953 President Eisenhower was all about it, making his famous Atoms For Peace speech to the United Nations. Nuclear was going to be the way forward until  who else?  the fossil fuel lobby took issue with its benefits and paid lobbyists to defame it. By the 1970s that work had paid off, and when the Three Mile Island reactor suffered a meltdown in 1979  the same year hit disaster movie The China Syndrome was in cinemas  rock stars were playing No Nukes concerts and Jane Fonda was on a mission to get the whole program shut down.

More from Deadline

Oliver Stone: Directors Career In Photos

Stone plays his hand early on with a very blunt mea culpa. I too once believed the environmentalists were right and that nuclear power was dangerous, he says. We were, in a way, terribly miseducated, subconsciously cross-wiring nuclear war with nuclear power. He has a valid point. People dont think well when theyre scared, he adds, and fear is a mind-killer. The reason Stone seems to have changed his own mind is simple: climate change, which has recently supplanted the threat of nuclear war as the storm cloud hanging over modern society. And he makes a very good point: nuclear energy is clean, cheap and much safer than its bad rep would suggest  although the disaster at Fukushima in 2011 was pretty major, the bulk of its casualties were a result of the tsunami that caused it. Indeed, as with the rather more ominous Chernobyl, a major factor was poor design and human error (the rest of Japans reactors survived).

Venice Film Festival Photo Gallery  Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody & Andrew Dominik Step Out For Blonde; Plus Cate Blanchett, Alejandro G. Inarritu, Hillary Clinton & More

Stone acknowledges that nuclear energy has an uphill struggle in emerging markets  China and India being especially obstreperous, although his thesis starts to fray when extoling the virtues of the Russians (the film was obviously made before the shocking events in the Ukraine brought back the specter of Chernobyl and many more potential horrors besides). But while it sometimes feels like being slapped around the head with a rolled-up copy of New Scientist (and the late Vangelis soothing synths can do nothing about that), its an occasionally inspiring film to dip into, making the surprising assertion that young people, once the most vocal in the campaign against all things nuclear, are now espousing it (we even meet a Nuclear power influencer who posts on TikTok). Stone sees this as the way forward, and the experts seem to agree  or as nuclear-tech entrepreneur Caroline Cochran puts it, For the younger generations, climate change is more of an imperative than worrying about nuclear war.

Venice Film Festival: Deadlines Complete Coverage

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.
I seldom write about politics. It gives me no pleasure, and Im not certain I have a view that hasnt already been shared by many. I scroll daily, hoping for some positive news.

For the record, I am one of those independents that both parties try hard to lure. I grew up a Democrat, but I dont recognize the party today. I am the kind of voter prone to doing a write-in. In marketing terms, I am a dissatisfied customer.

I wont bother detailing the horrendous behaviors of our fearful leaders because that would only incur a game of whataboutismthe comeback game where every bad action is motivated by a previous bad action. Its a game of moral revenge that serves no one, and certainly not us, the citizens.

What I will share is the greater cost of our current payback mood. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be in our rearview mirror someday. That day cant come soon enough. The problem is that the collateral damage left behind will make a recovery hard.

Here are just a few areas that incurred significant damage in our political uncivil war:

The FBI

The FBI was created in 1908 when then-Attorney General Charles Bonaparte created the bureau to investigate select cases of the Department of Justice. Its first major case was Charles Lindberghs baby kidnapping in 1932. J. Edgar Hoover served as director for 48 years, and his dubious (at best) record goes beyond the scope of this piece.

Today, as measured by a Gallup poll, the FBIs approval rating has gone down, from 57 percent in 2019 to 44 percent in 2021. Note that this is before the Mar-a-Lago search, which has only fueled its detractors and deepened the partisan divide.

Those who have lost faith in the FBI cite a high degree of politicization, a group of partisan agents acting on the presidents behalf, and a willingness to cut corners that circumvent the law.

Others still believe in the FBIs mission and find relief in its purpose. Hence the divide.

The CIA

President Harry Truman founded the National Intelligence Authority in 1946 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. From the beginning, its role was coordinating government intelligence efforts at home and abroad, which rankled the FBI in a serious turf war that hasnt served either agency well. Does an American Gestapo ring a bell (how the FBI referred to the CIA)? Some now say, President Bidens Gestapo.

A Gallup poll shows a similar decline in favorability, from 60 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2021. There are many reasons for this declinefrom acting outside the law to spying on Americans to losing some of the agencys best people to a high degree of politicization within the agency.

Again, an American institution has lost the faith of many Americans. We have forgotten that the CIA gave then-President John Kennedy a heads-up when the Russians planted missiles in Cuba. It also flew the U-2 spy plane to accurately assess Russian military strength. Those glory days feel long gone.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice has been deeply affected by the current environment. While most Americans approve of the DOJs investigation of Trump (54 percent, according to a Rasmussen poll), 60 percent think its likely that the investigation is politically motivated. So, what are we? Relieved or disturbed or both?

As with the CIA, DOJ had stellar moments, from civil rights enforcement to fighting organized crime. Still, its not how most Americans perceive the DOJ today.

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has taken the biggest beating in public confidence of all the institutions mentioned. Gallup Reports that only 25 percent of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 36 percent in 2021.

There have been other prior lows in confidence (30 percent in 2014), and the average since 2006 has only been 35 percent and never exceeded 40 percent in any survey. Hasnt our belief in the courts been a strong distinguisher between us and other countries? What would our Founding Fathers have to say?

Our News

Fake news has become common vernacular. The majority of Americans do not believe the reported news, and this is perhaps the costliest of all the collateral damage and maybe the most difficult to fix.

I grew up hearing Walter Cronkites nightly signoff, And thats the way it is. Todays riff might very well be, And thats the way it isnt.

Jill Ebstein is the editor of the At My Pace series of books and the founder of Sized Right Marketing, a Newton, Massachusetts, consulting firm. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
More international aid has arrived in Pakistan to help the victims of some of the worst flooding the country has ever experienced.

Two U.S. military planes -- each loaded with about 35 tons of relief aid -- touched down on September 11 in southern Sindh Province, one of the worst-affected regions.

Pakistan has suffered under extremely heavy monsoon rains that started early this year, in mid-June.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on September 10 visited several areas impacted by the flooding, calling for increased global financial support at the end of a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster.

"Today it's Pakistan; tomorrow it could be your country wherever you live. This is a global crisis.... It requires a global response," Guterres told a news conference at the end of his visit.

Pakistan estimates the damage at $30 billion, and both the government and Guterres have blamed the flooding on climate change.

The World Health Organization warned on September 7 of the widespread risk of disease due to the disruption of Pakistan's health system from the flooding.

On September 11, Saif Ullah, spokesman for the country's Civil Aviation Authority, said that two more flights bringing relief goods from the United Arab Emirates had landed at Karachi airport.

So far, UN agencies and several countries have sent multiple planeloads of aid, and authorities say the UAE has been one of the most generous contributors.

Near 1,400 people have been killed, 13,000 injured and millions left homeless by the heavy flooding since mid-June. The waters also destroyed road and communications infrastructure.

Pakistan's powerful army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, toured the badly affected district of Dadu in Sindh Province and its surroundings on September 11. Dadu could suffer further flooding from the rising waters of the Indus River.

"People will continue to suffer if we don't have a drainage system and dams," Bajwa told reporters.

He said constructing dams would help produce electricity, curb pollution, and decrease global warming and that army engineers have been asked to conduct an initial study.

Bajwa said working on alternate energy sources is essential and called for the gradual reduction of oil and coal as energy sources to minimal levels.

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen speaks Tuesday about the cross-town shooting spree that left five people dead the previous night during a news conference at the Lakewood Police Department.
Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy write about Colorado and national politics. Parts of this column were adapted from Tom Cronins new book, co-authored with Michael Genovese and Meena Bose, The Paradox of the American Presidency, 6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2022.
Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country

Sign Up View all of our newsletters.
FILE PHOTO: Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman delivers remarks as he attends a Labor Day celebration with U.S. President Joe Biden at the United Steelworkers of America Local Union 2227 in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 5, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China February 4, 2022. Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.
Luke Niforatos lives in Lone Tree and is executive vice president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Considering what is being reported as the most divisive presidential speech - September 1, 2022 - in modern American history, where over 74,000.000 people, many of whom are OUR greatest patriots, were named as fascists by inference or otherwise: Is Joe Biden clearly capable of governing all of the American People to the betterment of this Representative Republic? Yes, it is important that Haters are named. No, Joe Biden cannot accept criticism when the real truth is his cruelest taskmaster. I have no idea what is going on because I only consume Democratic Socialist Media. 170 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



poll#154

Inarguably, the policies of the Democrats in congress and Joe Biden as the Executive is plunging the United States into a recession, if we are not already there; a recession that was completely avoidable. Will abrupt changes in policies occur in time? Yes, the Democrats have a bold plan, yet to be revealed, to save us. No, there will have to be a complete undoing of the damage done by these Democrats. I can't do simple math, so how am I to understand the concept of basic economics. 597 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



poll#145

After one full year of the Biden /Harris Administration: Does Joe Biden have the intellectual capacity, and, or the energy to lead the United States of America through the mess that he predominately created ... in just one year? Yes No Unsure 622 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh blasted Pennsylvania Lt. Governor and Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman for arguing that racial minorities are less capable of getting voter ID.In a resurfaced clip from December 2021, the candidate remarked that Pennsylvania lawmakers were attempting to pass a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID for- a policy that he implied was discriminatory because peopleare less likelyWalsh remarked that Fetterman's remarks are worse than thebecause they reflectWalsh noted.Leftists have balked at Republican officials' attempts to strengthen election security requirements over the past year. After Georgia passed legislation that requires citizens to include a driver's license number when voting by mail, several companies sanctioned the state, while President Joe Biden argued that lawmakers werebecauseIn response to Fetterman's comments, Walsh added thatis one of the mostpushed by leftists.Walsh observed.In response to leftists making the argument that black people in particular cannot obtain photo ID, Walsh remarked that it isFetterman, who served as the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, before starting his tenure in Harrisburg, provoked controversy in 2013 after responding to what he believed was gunfire by pulling a firearm on an African American and detaining him until police arrived - an incident that has generated unease among black Democratic voters.The candidate, who often appears in public clad in a hoodie and basketball shorts, has nodded to drug decriminalization and publicly supported Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is currently under investigation from Republican and Democratic members of the Pennsylvania House for allegedly neglecting to enforce the city's laws.Fetterman is campaigning against Republican rival Dr. Mehmet Oz in one of the nation's most closely watched Senate contests. He currently leads Oz by 48.4% to 43.5%, according to a survey conducted by the Trafalgar Group.However, Fetterman suffered a stroke days ahead of the primary elections and has made few public appearances in recent months. Because he has slurred, repeated himself, and lost his train of thought in the handful of general election events he has attended, much of his campaign has centered upon online trolling of Dr. Oz over his links to New Jersey and ownership of multiple properties.
Randal OToole is a transportation and land-use analyst and author of, Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.
IOWA CITY  Six years after a Davenport veterans suicide sparked national attention and calls from members of Congress for an investigation after having been denied inpatient psychiatric care, the Iowa City Veterans Administration Medical Center is planning for a major expansion.

Over the past several years, mental health  both in the military and civilian sector  has been recognized as a shortcoming in our medical treatment of individuals, whether they veterans or civilians, Heath Streck, associate director for operations, said following a 9/11 flag-raising ceremony on Friday at the Iowa City VA Health Care System.

Streck, though, stressed several mental health initiatives and newly approved funding by Congress will facilitate infrastructure improvements and the hiring of additional mental health professionals and social workers to help with workload and increased need.

President Joe Biden in June signed the Sgt. Ketchum Rural Veterans Mental Health Act into law. The legislation was named for Sgt. Brandon Ketchum.

The 33-year-old served in Iraq and Afghanistan and struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse after serving in the U.S. Marines and the Iowa Army National Guard. He died by suicide in 2016 after being denied inpatient psychiatric care at the Iowa City Veterans Administration Medical Center.

The new law, supported by Iowas congressional delegation, will establish three new Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Rural Access Network for Growth Enhancement (RANGE) program centers, which provide a small team of specialists to meet the needs of rural veterans with serious mental health and daily living issues.

It also requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study and report on whether the VA has sufficient resources to serve rural veterans who need mental health care that is more intensive than traditional outpatient therapy.

The VAs Office of Inspector General concluded in a report that while VA staff were not directly to blame for the way Ketchum was treated by hospital staff, the system could be improved.

The psychiatrists decision not to admit the patient was within acceptable practice based on the information available to him at the time, the report states. However, if the admitting psychiatrist had been aware of the extent of the patients psychosocial struggles  the psychiatrist may have decided to admit the patient. Moreover, the psychiatrist made a good-faith effort to reengage the patient after he abruptly left the session.

Streck and Jamie Johnson, public affairs officer, said the Iowa City-based VA health system is in the process of developing a medical psych unit and plans to develop a community living center in addition to a residential rehabilitation treatment program to fill gaps and meet demand.

The VA Health Care System in Iowa City serves veterans and their families in Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. About 35 percent to 40 percent are enrolled in the VA and receiving treatment.

And demand for inpatient mental health care is expected to increase 6.2 percent by fiscal 2029, according to a VA market recommendation report for Eastern Iowa.

The demand for long-term care is expected to increase by 64.9 percent by fiscal 2029, the report states.

Johnson said that demand is mostly driven by the health care systems largely aging patient population, who mostly live in rural areas.

Theres a large swath of veterans out there that just arent seeking the services that we would really like to have come see us, he said. There are things that we are doing to improve the services, or expand the services and offerings, to veterans that might fall into that category.

The Biden administration announced plans in March to reposition the countrys veterans health care system to conform to new needs among patients in the coming years, which includes recommendations to build a new 30-bed residential rehabilitation and treatment program to provide mental health services and a partnership to expand long-term care services in a new community living center.

Johnson, the public affairs officer for Iowa City VA, said both projects had been planned for before the report was released. He also noted the recommendations must still be approved by Congress and Biden early next year.

Community Living Center

The VA will likely need to identify a new site to construct a stand-alone VA nursing home for dementia and post-surgical care, due to its Iowa City campus being small and landlocked, with a highway on one side and University of Iowa campus on the other.

If the proposal is approved, Johnson said he anticipates the VA would look to acquire land or partner with another organization in 2024 to lease a site to expand long-term care services

That is in the preliminary stages, and thats going to be a little further out, Johnson said.

Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program

Currently, Iowa City VA patients must travel to St. Cloud, Minn., or Des Moines to receive treatment under a rehabilitation and treatment program, which sometimes prevent veterans from engaging in inpatient treatment programs, due to the distance, transportation requirements and separation from family and local support networks, Johnson said.

Well be able to offer extended residential treatment locally without having to transport our patients to other VAs, he said. The programming is group-based and focused on helping patients manage chronic disorders, including depression, (post-traumatic stress disorder), substance use disorders and other conditions along those lines. Often patients need weeks, sometime months, to regain function and be able to recover as best they can. So having an RRTP here will allow us to provide that longer-term care to our acute-care unit.

Inpatient Medical Psych Unit

While the Iowa City VA Health Care System already has an inpatient mental health unit, its new medical psych unit will add 10 beds for veterans who have an acute medical issue combined with underlying mental health conditions.

Johnson said new inpatient unit  which would be housed in converted administrative office space at the VA hospital  is already being designed, and anticipates it will be ready for use in 2024.

It would be only the second such unit in the VA Health Care System nationwide, he said.

Staff would be specially trained to treat combined illness, such as addiction, depression and PTSD, and serve as a training site for the University of Iowa Internal Medicine and Psychiatry program, where resident physician will be trained in both specialties, Johnson said. Our veteran population is aging, and that aging population also suffers from illnesses associated with aging, such as mood disorders (and) dementia  things that can lead to hospitalization.

He noted many hospitals across the region have closed or reduced the census of their inpatient psychiatry units, resulting in more veterans seeking care within the VA due to a shortage of beds.

Those things will help us fill those gaps for veterans, Johnson said.
Read Full Article

 The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros volleyball team is now on a program-record 10-match winning streak after beating the University of Montana Grizzlies 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-20) to close out the UTRGV Tournament on Saturday at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.The previous record was nine-straight wins, accomplished Oct. 4-Nov. 2, 2002 and Nov. 3-15, 2001.At 10-1, the Vaqueros extend their record for best start as an NCAA Division I program.Seniorled the Vaqueros with 15 kills, two blocks and three digs. Sophomorerecorded her first double-double with 14 kills, 10 digs and one ace. Juniorposted 11 kills on an error-free .611 hitting and one block. Sophomoredished out 39 assists with nine digs and two aces.led the Grizzlies (5-4) with 10 kills on .348 hitting, six digs and three blocks.The Vaqueros jumped out to a 4-2 first set lead on a pair of Lupescu kills. The Grizzlies won the next three serves to take the lead before a kill by sophomorefueled a 4-1 run put the Vaqueros up 8-6. The Grizzlies came back to tie the set at 9 before a Cruz kill helped the Vaqueros score the next three points to go up 12-9. The Grizzlies tied the set three times more, at 14, 15 and 18, but back-to-back Cruz kills sparked a 6-1 run to get the Vaqueros to set point before they won on an error.The Vaqueros jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the second set. The Grizzlies responded with a 9-3 run to go up 10-7 before four Santos kills powered an 8-2 run to put the Vaqueros up 15-12. The Vaqueros still led by three at 18-15 on a Cruz kill when the Grizzlies scored three-straight points to tie the set. The Vaqueros and Grizzlies traded points until, with the set tied at 23, Lupescu came up with back-to-back kills end the set.The Grizzlies led early in the second set, going up 7-4 before Santos and Cruz kills sparked a 5-0 run to give the Vaqueros the advantage. The Grizzlies scored the next four points and five of the next six to go up 12-10. Cruz and Lupescu answered with kills to spark a 5-2 run to put the Vaqueros up 15-14. Then, with the Vaqueros up 18-17, Santos and Cruz kills sparked another 5-2 run to put the Vaqueros up 23-19. One serve later, an error got the Vaqueros to match point and a block by Santos and sophomoreended the match.UTRGV opens Texas Tech's Red Raider Classic on Friday at 10 a.m. against Oral Roberts before facing SMU at 5 p.m.
DANVILLE, Va.  City officials are working with the owners of Danville Mall to find new uses for the commercial site.

We envision that the Danville Mall property can become a lifestyle destination, where community, commercial and residential meet in one location, Danville Economic Development Director Corrie T. Bobe told the Danville Register & Bee.

Possible uses for the site include hospitality, residential, outdoor recreation, food and beverage, public gathering areas, and office space, Bobe said. The malls 87,000-square-foot footprint and about 17,000 square feet of outparcel development area could be redeveloped, she said.

A spokesperson for Hull Property Group, which owns Danville Mall, did not respond to numerous voice messages left this week by the Register & Bee.

City officials pointed to the malls central location as an ideal spot for redevelopment.

Where its geographically located, its perfectly situated to be a lifestyle destination, said City Councilman Lee Vogler. Its been a huge commercial site for many years. Its surrounded by commercial properties. Combining that with residential is a win-win.

City Manager Ken Larking said of the mall property, Its centrally located, has great access, its got really nice views and its a nice piece of property.

Malls have been on the decline for decades across the country and new uses must be found for them, said Vice Mayor Gary Miller.

Malls are closing all over the country every year, Miller said. Were going to have to reimagine what malls do.

Reimagine was a running theme among officials who spoke to the Register & Bee. Hull Property Group and the citys economic development office are working together to determine ways to reimagine this site, providing added enhanced offerings for our residents, Bobe said.

Hull Properties is open to exploring partnership opportunities for further residential and commercial redevelopment of this site, Bobe said.

Redevelopment at the site would not involve closing the mall, but would be in addition to whats already there, she said.

Miller believes examining redevelopment options for the mall is a great idea.

We dont want the mall going out of business, Miller said.

Danville serves as a commercial hub for surrounding communities in Southside Virginia and northern North Carolina, reaching about 625,000 residents, Bobe said. That and other factors make the mall property a perfect fit for redevelopment, she said.

This property is also located in close proximity to major assets within the city, including the River District, two of Averett Universitys campuses and the $650 million Caesars resort that is under construction, Bobe said. In addition, this site is located in heavily trafficked areas where between 17,000 and 24,000 cars pass by each day.

Bobe would not say whether potential developers are looking at the mall for possible projects.

At this time, we cannot comment on prospect activity related to this project, she said.

Any incentives that would be offered for an endeavor at the property would depend on the size of the project, Bobe said.

The city will evaluate any potential incentives based on the scope of the final development project, Bobe said.

A regional housing summit held at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research highlighted the need for more housing in the city and surrounding region, Miller said. That provides an opportunity for Danville to market the mall for mixed-use development.

We need to help our mall and were glad to do it, Miller said.

City officials are looking at other parts of the city for redevelopment as well, Bobe said.

Danvilles office of economic development recently evaluated the condition of the citys main corridors and prioritized areas for redevelopment efforts, Bobe said.

We are currently focused on the redevelopment of the Schoolfield District and West Main Street corridor that stretches from the North Carolina line and extends to the River District boundaries, she said.

A Philadelphia firm is working on a master plan for the corridor expected to be complete in October, Bobe said. The city will start concentrating its efforts on that area based on the results from the study, she said.

We will immediately begin planning for implementation of the recommendations from this study, Bobe said.

The economic development office is also partnering with the River District Association to evaluate redevelopment along North Main hill, she said.
N.C. A&T, UNCG, Wake Forest University and Appalachian State are among the schools adjusting to a different approach to COVID-19 this fall.

Many colleges and universities have discontinued their online COVID-19 dashboards, which displayed the number of active cases among students, staff and faculty.

Due to changes in testing, reporting, contact tracing and the reduced severity of the disease among a highly-vaccinated community, the number of positive cases is no longer a useful indicator of the overall health of our campus, said Cheryl Walker, a spokeswoman for Wake Forest. The dashboard previously served as a tool when we were managing a crisis.

Walker said that as COVID-19 becomes endemic, the university is providing care and support while continuing to monitor cases. Wake Forest sent a message in early August to students, faculty, staff and families about new COVID-19 protocols for fall, which are also posted online.

Current COVID-19 guidance from infectious disease experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is similar to the mitigation strategy for seasonal flu, Walker said. As a result, the university is encouraging students to continue to take measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and flu, including remaining current on vaccinations, she said.

UNCG also is among the schools that discontinued its COVID-19 dashboard. The university has outlined its latest protocols online at covid.uncg.edu/.

Our infection rate is similar to what we see in the larger Guilford County community, and we are well within our resource capacities on campus to assist those who test positive, Richard Campbell, a vice chancellor for strategic communications, said in an email.

Campbell said UNCG is following CDC guidelines and continues to stay in close contact with local and state health officials.

UNCG had not responded by press time to the News & Records request for the number of reported COVID-19 cases on campus.

At A&T, the school was well prepared to respond to COVID-19 as students returned to campus, according to Padonda Webb, executive director of the universitys student health center.Going into this fall semester, we knew that it would not take long for COVID-19 rates to begin to increase because of how contagious the omicron BA.5 subvariant has proven to be, Webb said. We were one of very few UNC System schools requiring reentry testing, but we wanted to be sure that we went into the semester feeling good about bringing students back into the residence halls and on campus. By Week 2 of school, we were seeing positivity rates of around 20%.

The university continues to offer free testing to its faculty, staff and students, Webb said, and is recommending testing only if someone is experiencing symptoms.

From the time new students began moving into dorms on Aug. 12 until Wednesday, A&T has identified 443 cases of COVID-19, according to Dr. Robert Doolittle, medical director of the student health center.

He explained that the total number includes faculty, staff and students  both in campus and private housing. More than 99% of the testing was done in the health center on campus, Doolittle said, with a small number of positive home test results reported to them.

Our wastewater analysis has identified virus in all 11 campus housing sites that are sampled, but no clusters of cases in specific dorms from interdorm transmission have been identified, Doolittle said.

At Appalachian State, spokeswoman Anna Oakes said the university also no longer publishes a COVID-19 dashboard. The school did not provide the number of cases on campus as of press time, instead saying that university data is included in the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services report for Watauga and surrounding counties.

As for COVID-19 protocols, Oakes said students and employees who test positive for the coronavirus are directed to stay home for at least five days, isolate from others and follow CDC guidance.

Students living in residence halls are strongly encouraged to go home, but may choose to isolate in their rooms if unable to return, Oakes said.

Its unclear how many college students in the region have tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to campus. A spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday in an email that is it recommended, but not required, for college and universities to report clusters in non-congregate living settings.

Currently in Guilford County we dont have any clusters reported from any campus, Kenya Smith Godette, a communications manager for the Guilford County Health Department, said in an email Tuesday afternoon.

Godette said a cluster is defined as five or more cases that are linked, or 15 or more cases in any one location such as a school/class setting.

Patricia Williams, a family nurse practitioner at Novant Health Yadkin Medical Associates, said COVID-19 is still very much an issue for college-age students.

We are beginning to see another rise in the occurrences among schools and colleges with the start of the school year, Williams said. Due to the rise, we need to refocus our efforts of prevention and protection.

Doolittle said that despite the recent surge of cases, the outcomes of recent COVID-19 infections have been better this fall as the overwhelming majority of A&Ts faculty, staff and students are vaccinated.

Wake Forests Walker said the good news is that colleges and universities now know how to navigate COVID-19.

Each of us has experienced the pandemic in unique and similar ways for more than two years, she said. As a campus community, the strategies we have used during this period have been very effective, and with continued teamwork and partnerships, we will keep the health of our campus at the center.
Spotting seriously injured deer is becoming the norm for residents of a neighborhood in south Charlotte.

A deer found near Huntingtowne Farms was reportedly struck by an arrow. The animal is expected to make a recovery.

It is the second deer to be discovered in the Charlotte area with similar injuries.

Another deer was euthanized earlier this year after it was found by an officer with an arrow through its neck, WSOC reported. According to wildlife officials, there have been three injured deer spotted in the Huntingtowne Farms area this year. They all seemed to be critically injured by a hunters bow and arrow.

Residents say they have found stray arrows throughout the neighborhood. The situation has prompted discussions about the legality of hunting in the Charlotte area.

According to North Carolina hunting regulations, its not illegal to hunt using a bow and arrow, although when you can hunt, where you can hunt and the specifications of the weapon are restricted.

Can you hunt deer in Charlotte?

As stated by the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department, hunting is generally not allowed in county parks, except within specially permitted hunts each fall.

Hunting season has not yet started and hunting is not allowed within Charlotte city limits.

The individual responsible for the injured deer in the Huntingtowne Farms area not only broke the law by hunting within city limits, but also by hunting outside of North Carolinas hunting season.

When does hunting season in NC begin?

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission says the earliest that North Carolina hunters are allowed to start hunting deer this year is Sept. 10.

Even the hunting season known as Urban Archery Season (archery only), which allows cities throughout North Carolina to hold archery seasons in their jurisdictions, doesnt begin until January 2023.

Charlotte is not a participating city in that season, although some municipalities in surrounding areas, like Belmont and Concord, do.

Municipalities that allow hunting in urban areas often restrict hunters to private land and require them to abide by very specific regulations put in place by corresponding townships.

Weapons that are legal to hunt with in NC

Hunters are permitted to use a bow and arrow for deer hunting in areas of the state that allow it as long as it is within season limits and the specifications of the weapon meet certain requirements.

For instance, longbows and recurve bows must have a minimum pull of 40 pounds. Compound bows must have a minimum pull of 35 pounds and crossbows must have a minimum pull of 100 pounds.

Additionally, only arrows and bolts that have a fixed minimum broadhead width of seven-eighths of an inch can be used. Mechanically-opening broadheads with a width of at least seven-eighths of an inch in the open position are also permitted for hunting in North Carolina.
On September 11, 2001, Paul Zois left for work, and as usual, he called his wife when he arrived at the office.

Minutes later Paul Zois was gone.

Paul lived in New York and worked for American Express Travel Services as a travel consultant, said Elle Wilk, a Martinsville real estate broker. The office was based at Marsh McLennan in the World Trade Center, and thats where he was when that tragedy occurred.

Zois was Wilks brother-in-law and although she realized where he worked and was listening to the news when she arrived at work that day, she hadnt made the connection.

It was so weird. I drove to work and parked the car and when I walked into the meeting at work everyone was silent, Wilk said. I didnt realize that people actually died, and then I thought, My brother-in-law works there.

Wilk said a brother-in-law of Zois was one of the captains of the Port Authority Police and searched extensively to find any remains of the people in the office that day.

There were no remains found, said Wilk. There is a memorial in his name at a cemetery in Long Island.

Wilk still gets emotional telling the story and says her family, along with others directly or indirectly affected by the September 11 attacks, have formed a network of support groups.

My sister-in-law still goes to help meetings, Wilk said. They had two children and she had to make sure that they had a normal life, so she took on the role of both mother and father and now shes the grandparent of five kids.

Zois, who was 46, had stopped at the office to pick up some papers when the attack occurred.

He wasnt supposed to be there, said Wilk.

He dropped in for a minute to pick up some papers and suddenly he was gone.

Deb Taphouse, who describes herself as a World Trade Center survivor, wrote about that day in her blog on the ninth anniversary of the attacks.

I was late for work at 40 Wall Street because I didnt have anything I wanted to wear  I also had a dentist appointment in Rockaway that I had to leave early for and had forgotten to mention it to my boss, Taphouse wrote. There were 11 people that worked in the office I was the manager at the previous summer that died that morning. We didnt know that for awhile though, everyone was just considered missing.

Taphouse wrote that the person who replaced her at Marsh McLennan on the 94th floor of 1 World Trade Center died that day along with Zois.

I had personally hired eight of the people there and worked with them for two years, Taphouse wrote. During the week immediately after 9/11 I spent some time trying to help out with some of the technical aspects of the missing office which handled travel arrangements for thousands of Marsh employees around the country. Our hotline was still issuing airline tickets to printers that no longer existed.

In addition to Zois, Taphouse remembered others in the office: Anne Ransom, Loretta Vero, Yvonne Bonomo, Luch Crifasi, Sigrid Wiswe, Gennady Boyarsky, Benito Valentin, Bridget Esposito, Karen Renda and Lisa Kearney-Griffin.

Id like to forget that surreal fall that I spent looking at pictures of people I used to work with posted on telephone poles as missing, wrote Taphouse. Coming out of the subway near my office on Wall Street into a movie scene complete with police with rifles, german shepherds and masks.

The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were determined to be terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda and directed by Osama bin Laden. Four airliners were hijacked that day and two of them crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City while a third aircraft crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington. Passengers attacked the terrorists that had taken control of a fourth plane and it crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. As a result, 2,996 people died that day.

It has impacted our lives and many all across America, said Wilk. I wish he was here and maybe we can learn from our mistakes, but this was just an unavoidable situation.
RALEIGH  Roughly everyone in the United States  with the possible exception of teacher-union leaders and their pet politicians  knew that learning losses from COVID-era school shutdowns were going to be big. But the latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) still retained their power to shock.

From 2020 to 2022, average scale scores for American nine-year-olds dropped by five points in reading and seven points in math. Thats the largest decline in reading scores since 1990. Its the first-ever decline in math scores. As might be expected, learning losses were largest among students who were already low-performing and among disadvantaged students with less access to parental support and resources while trying to learn at home.

Here in North Carolina, 51% of our public-school students scored at grade-level proficiency on state exams in 2022, up from a disastrous 45% in 2021 but still well below the 59% levels of 2017, 2018, and 2019. North Carolina also sets a higher bar, called college and career ready, for which the latest averages are even more sobering: 34% in 2022, compared with 30% in 2021 and 45% in 2019.

When the pandemic struck in early 2020, I wrote many times about the difficult tradeoffs our policymakers faced. Although I didnt always agree with the choices they made, I understood the reasoning behind the initial shutdowns and subsequent restrictions on commerce and travel. Presented with limited information, few therapeutic options, and no vaccines for this deadly disease, policymakers options were constrained and inherently costly.

Early in the pandemic, however, it became clear that the diseases risk profile was greatly skewed by age and preexisting conditions such as obesity. Young children faced (and still face) a tiny risk of serious illness from COVID-19. Other countries started reopening their public schools in the summer of 2020, as did some states. North Carolina didnt. As some of us argued at the time, and as most in retrospect now concede, this was a very bad call.

Defenders of Gov. Roy Cooper and his administration would hasten to point out that North Carolina has experienced a relatively low rate of COVID-19 deaths. Doesnt that prove that the states approach to school reopening, and to pandemic restrictions more generally, was the right one?

Not so fast. While North Carolinas COVID mortality compares favorably to that of neighboring states, the story is more complicated than that. For one thing, because the risk of serious illness is so strongly related to demographics, simply eyeballing raw totals is unwise. You have to adjust the data.

The most recent age-adjusted death rates Ive seen were produced in late August by the Bioinformatics CRO, an international research team. Its figure for North Carolina is 295 per 100,000 residents, ranking the state 29th in the nation. Thats clearly better than the age-adjusted death rates of Tennessee (403), Georgia (359), and South Carolina (356). But North Carolinas rate is actually a little higher than Floridas rate of 288 per 100,000.

Remember the furious criticism hurled at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for restricting his states businesses too little and reopening his schools too early? As it turned out, the Sunshine States risk-adjusted COVID deaths arent much different from those of, say, Illinois and Connecticut  and are significantly better than those of tightly controlled Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Indeed, according to a separate statistical analysis by the Bioinformatics CRO, the stringency of state lockdown measures  including school closures, workplace closures, and restrictions on public gatherings  shows no correlation with COVID deaths after adjusting for each states age and obesity rates.

We cant yet know for certain whether states that opened their schools early, such as Florida, experienced significantly less learning loss than North Carolina did. The NAEP reading and math trends I referenced earlier are not yet available at the state level, and its best to use a common yardstick for such measurements.

But Id say its a reasonable guess. Lengthy school closures were, in fact, unreasonable.
Delta Alpha Iota Zeta news

On Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Zeta Phi Beta Sorority chartered the Delta Alpha Iota Zeta Chapter in Reidsville/Rockingham County.

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority was founded on Jan. 16, 1920 in Washington, D.C. at Howard University.

The Delta Alpha Iota Zeta Chapter is the first African American sorority in Reidsville/Rockingham County.

The eight charter membersTeriyaki Perkins, Michelle Hawthorne, Tiana Thornton, Latanya Miller, Leatrecia Kinsey, Tonya Ammons, Arshena Overton and Joan Tatumdesire to foster the ideals of scholarship, service, sisterhood and finer womanhood within the Rockingham County area.

The newly chartered chapter seeks to serve as a change agent to the Rockingham County community with a focus on progressive initiatives that aim to develop strong, independent women and girls in the Rockingham County community.

The chapter is looking forward to establishing community partnerships with various organizations in the Rockingham County area.

The Delta Alpha Iota Zeta chapter held the chapters first leadership retreat in August, and it launched the sorority year with a chapter meeting on Sept. 10.

For information, email zetasofreidsville@gmail.com or follow the chapter on Facebook and Instagram at zetasofreidsville.

Roe v. Wade decision set to be discussed

Roe v. Wade Overturned: Constitutional Law & Womens Healthcare Perspectives is the theme of the next Lunch with the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad meeting, set for noon Sept. 20 at First Presbyterian Church, Mullin Life Center, 706 N. Greene St. in Greensboro.

Speakers include Steve Friedland, a professor of law at Elon University, and Dr. Kelly Leggett, a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist.

The program is free and includes an optional $15 lunch.

Doors open at 11:30 a.m. and lunch is served at noon.

RSVPs are requested by Sept. 13, with or without lunch, at my.lwv.org/north-carolina/piedmont-triad/lunch-league.

For information, visit www.lwvpt.org or email mail@lwvpt.org.

Genealogical Society swap meet Sept. 24

The Genealogical Society of Rockingham and Stokes Counties has planned a fall swap meet for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 24 at the Madison-Mayodan Public Library, 611 Burton St. in Madison.

Tables will be set up in the meeting room so patrons can spread out their genealogical materials to share. A printer will be available for a nominal fee.

The books published by the James Hunter DAR chapter will be available for purchase, some at discounted prices. Patrons looking for particular volumes should email Janelle Johnson at ButchJanel@triad.rr.com in advance.

There will be food available but patrons are encouraged to bring their favorite dish as well.

The public is welcome to attend this free event.

For information, find the society on Facebook.
Today's highlight:

On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed as 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, sending two of the planes into New York's World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.

On Sept. 11:

In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

In 1814, an American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.

In 1936, Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator.

In 1941, groundbreaking took place for the Pentagon. In a speech that drew accusations of anti-Semitism, Charles A. Lindbergh told an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" were pushing the United States toward war.

In 1954, the Miss America pageant made its network TV debut on ABC; Miss California, Lee Meriwether, was crowned the winner.

In 1967, the comedy-variety program "The Carol Burnett Show" premiered on CBS.

In 1972, the troubled Munich Summer Olympics ended. Northern California's Bay Area Rapid Transit system began operations.

In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende died during a violent military coup.

In 1997, Scots voted to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.

In 2006, in a prime-time address, President George W. Bush invoked the memory of the victims of the 9/11 attacks as he staunchly defended the war in Iraq, though he acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the attacks.

In 2008, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama put aside politics as they visited ground zero together on the anniversary of 9/11 to honor its victims.

In 2012, mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery nightlong attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney toned down the campaign rhetoric and pulled negative ads amid commemorations of the 9/11 attacks, saying it was not a day for politics.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton abruptly left a 9/11 anniversary event at ground zero in New York after feeling "overheated," according to her campaign, and hours later her doctor disclosed that the Democratic presidential nominee had pneumonia.

In 2017, authorities sent an aircraft carrier and other Navy ships to help with search-and-rescue operations in Florida, where a flyover of the Keys revealed what Gov. Rick Scott described as scenes of devastation from Hurricane Irma. Irma weakened to a tropical storm, and then a tropical depression, and finally left Florida after a run up the entire 400-mile length of the state. An estimated 13 million people in Florida remained without power.

In 2021, marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, victims' relatives and four U.S. presidents paid respects at the sites where hijacked planes killed nearly 3,000 people, while others gathered for observances or volunteer projects across the country; the anniversary was observed weeks after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, once again ruled by the same Taliban militant group that gave safe haven to the 9/11 plotters. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a video marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, attacks, months after rumors spread that he was dead. (The U.S. would kill al-Zawahri in a drone strike in Kabul in July 2022.) British teenager Emma Raducanu beat Canadian teen Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 6-3 in the U.S. Open final to become the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title in the professional era.
MATTOON  Cross County Mall was home to CIL-Con 2022 throughout the weekend as vendors, cosplayers, speakers and everything in between came to get their supernatural fix.

Dozens of tables were set up around the mall for those with paranormal products, crystals, card readings and more to engage with cosplayers and fans of the occult.

Candace Comelleri came to sell her artwork while assisting Tim Walden with his makeup for a zombie escape room featured at the event. The pair, who are both from Terre Haute, Indiana, said they wanted to see their "con family."

Comelleri said the event has a "nice environment and community" and helps her network with others in the convention community.

"Whether it's networking with artists to help them with their books or other artists themselves to work on projects together, it really gets your name out there and allows you to network with people you might not be able to reach in your own area," Comelleri said.

Crystal Remy, who returned to the area for the convention, said it was a good excuse to wear a costume. She came to the convention dressed as Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter series.

Remy said she came up with her costume to follow the theme of the convention, which focused on the paranormal. From the theme she decided on "ghost nerd" Moaning Myrtle.

She said Mattoon was a good fit for the convention.

"It is a good area to have it in and it brings more people to the area and shows that they have things to do here," Remy said.

"I don't live here anymore, but when I did live here, there was literally nothing to do," Remy said, "and so having something like this that brings people together, it gives people an opportunity to meet others."

Maia Dothager said she came to the event with her father, who was talking to people for his podcast, "The Riverlands Podcast." She said her father wanted to connect with others who have similar interests.

Dothager, who enjoys horror-related things, said she enjoyed seeing what vendors had to offer.

"I've gone to around two booths that had like paranormal stuff and what they're involved in, and it's been just overall really, really cool," Dothager said.

Ethan Goodey, of Bloomington, came as a handler for two big names in horror, Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees, to promote their upcoming Midwest Toy and Comic Fest.

"The vendors have been saying they like it a lot. They've been making a lot of money off it, so overall I think it's a big success," Goodey said. "We've had a lot of people really liking Jason and Mike coming out here. It's been a fun time."

Being involved with similar conventions, Goodey said Mattoon was a good area for the convention because it is central to small cities in and around Illinois.

The convention started Friday and ends at 8 p.m. Saturday, with free admission.
Into The Fire by Bruce Springsteen The sky was falling and streaked with blood I heard you calling me, then you disappeared into the dust Up the stairs, into the fire.  Into The Fire by Bruce Springsteen

BRISTOL, Tenn.  First responders, family members and regular citizens came together under a weeping sky Saturday morning at the Bristol Motor Speedway to honor the 343 firefighters killed in the Twin Towers during the eighth annual Tri-Cities 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.

Firefighters in full turnout gear, some carrying hoses, some carrying air tanks and one carrying a baby, marched up and down the steep grandstands of Bristol Motor Speedway emulating the brave journey up the 2,071 steps and 110 floors to the top of each of the Twin Towers on that bright September day in 2001 that turned into one of the most tragic days in the nations history.

The Bristol stair climb, which is one of the largest in the country, has raised nearly $250,000 for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

Every person had their own reason for being there Saturday. For Joe Horton of Tampa, Florida, the Bristol stair climb was one of more than 30 he has done since 2002. This was the third time Horton has done the Bristol climb. Although, climbers were cautioned the climb was not a race in the pre-race instructions, Horton, 60, was obviously no stranger to climbing stairs in full turnout gear as he quickly lapped the field at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Hortons connection with the events of 9/11 is a sad one. He said his cousins were New York City firefighters who swapped time with two of the 343 firefighters who died in the Twin Towers that fateful day. Hortons cousins were in Las Vegas gambling while the two firefighters who replaced them went to early graves. He said his cousins worked for 21 more years as firefighters with that on their consciences.

They would have been on duty that day, Horton, who served for 30 years as a firefighter in Largo, Florida said.

Horton said he climbs all around the country.

Im used to climbing high rises, he said. So the stadiums, they pose a little bit more difficulty. The stairs are steeper on the inside.

While Hortons trip up and down the Bristol Motor Speedway stairs was a familiar one for him, Whitney Landell, a Bristol, Tennessee resident and member of the Kingsport, Tennessee Fire Department, was participating in her first stair climb. In addition to full turnout gear, the 34-year-old was carrying a large roll of hose for part of her trip up and down the grandstands of BMS. She said the firefighters who made their way into the burning towers on Sept. 11, 2001 encountered much more harsh conditions than she did carrying a few feet of fire hose.

They had it worse, she said. They had air packs, hose, tools and they gave it their all. So Im going to do that. Thats all I can do is carry this big hose.

The first-year professional firefighter said her mom was driving her to middle school in California when school officials met them and told then to go back home and turn on the TV.

We just sat there all day and watched the coverage, she said while making her way down the outside of the speedway stairs for another trip up.

Sean Slone of the Washington County Virginia Fire and Rescue Department was not born yet when 9/11 occurred. Just 18, and in his first year as a firefighter, the Virginia High School senior said 9/11 event is part of the reason he became a firefighter.

Ive wanted to be a firefighter since I was 5 years old, he said while completing the second of three trips through the course. It drove me to learn more about the event, more about the risks and the job.

Each of the stair climbers carried with them the name of one of the firefighters who perished that September day in New York City. When they finished the climb, the name was read and a bell was rung in their honor.
CONCORD  Cabarrus College of Health Sciences continues to expand its program offerings by introducing two new options for prospective nursing students.

Beginning in fall 2023, the college will offer a four-year Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) designed for students seeking a traditional, four-year nursing degree and an accelerated BSN, designed for those who have earned a bachelors degree in any field and wish to pursue a career in nursing.

Cabarrus Colleges four-year BSN and accelerated BSN are new programs; approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and the North Carolina Board of Nursing is pending.

The need for nurses in our local health care facilities and across the country is a critical challenge and it is anticipated that there will be a great need for nurses for many years to come, said Cabarrus College President Cam Cruickshank, Ph.D. These programs offer new pathways for students who wish to enter the nursing profession, make a difference in their communities and find a rewarding, prosperous career with unlimited opportunity.

The new BSN programs increase the number of nursing degrees offered by Cabarrus Colleges Louise Harkey School of Nursing to five. The college also offers a two-year Associate of Science in nursing, an RN-to-BSN degree for working nurses seeking a BSN and a Master of Science in nursing with leadership and clinical research tracks.

As staffing shortages continue and health care systems shift to preferring, and in some cases requiring, that nurses be educated at the bachelors degree level, we believe these new programs fill a critical need, said Cristine Eudy, RN, FNP, CNE, dean of nursing at Cabarrus College.

The colleges new four-year degree offers a direct path to a BSN for those just entering the nursing profession. Many other colleges require students to apply separately to the nursing program after finishing their general education credits, said Eudy. Not here. We will be admitting students directly into the nursing program, so theyll know as long as they satisfactorily complete their gen eds, they are guaranteed a seat in the nursing program.

The colleges accelerated BSN offers a path into the nursing profession for college graduates with a bachelors degree who are looking for a new career. Whether they have a degree in the arts, business, education or any other field, anyone with a bachelors degree can apply to our accelerated BSN program, said Eudy. Maybe theyre looking for greater fulfillment in their job. Maybe theyre looking for more stability or mobility or opportunity. Nursing offers all those things, and students in both of these new programs will get the same great, immersive, affordable nursing education that Cabarrus College has been providing for the past 80 years.

The other difference is that we are a small college, said Eudy. Were able to give our students very individualized instruction, and no one feels lost in the crowd here. Were also unique in that we are affiliated with Atrium Health and housed on one of their hospital campuses. Our students have access to technology and clinical opportunities here that they just wont find at other colleges.

Cabarrus College is now accepting applications for the fall 2023 four-year BSN and accelerated BSN. Prospective students can call the college at 704-403-1555 or visit nursing.cabarruscollege.edu/bsn or nursing.cabarruscollege.edu/absn for more information.
Apple recently revealed a new version of its CarPlay system for vehicles, which include gauges like speedometers. But even Apple, the company that cast aside tradition when it reinvented phones, music players and headphones, bows to convention when it comes to speedometers. It displayed a classically-styled speedometer that reached 160 mph, an auto industry norm.

That's nearly twice the highest posted speed limit in the United States, 85 mph, on a stretch of highway in Texas. Why do our speedometers stretch to a speed that's illegal, and only race-car drivers will ever reach?

Toyota spokesman Paul Hogard said the automaker wants speedometers to be easy to read, so there's value in placing the typical operating speed of American cars, 45 mph to 70 mph, he said, at the top of the speedometer, which is the easiest place on the speedometer for the driver to read. To do this  while maintaining a visually-appealing, symmetrical speedometer  requires a gauge that displays well past operating speeds, he said.

So vehicles, like some Toyota Corollas, have a 160-mph speedometer despite coming nowhere close to reaching such speeds.

Speedometers that stretch far past legal driving speeds have long been the norm in the US, according to speedometer and auto safety experts. The trend has continued in the 21st century even as traffic deaths spike.

As early as the 1920s, cars could be purchased with speedometers going as high as 120 mph, according to Bruce Woolsey, president of Michigan-based auto parts supplier Bob's Speedometer.

Speedometers shifted even higher in the 1950s after Ford and Chrysler introduced the Thunderbird and 300, respectively, Woolsey said. Their speedometers reached 150 mph, he said, and were a stepping stone to the popularization of 160-mph speedometers. The first 160 mph speedometer he's aware of was in the Cunningham C-3 from the 1950s.

Such high speedometers have a controversial history, however.

Some auto safety experts say that far-reaching speedometers can normalize high-speed driving and subtly contribute to people traveling at dangerous speeds well over 100 mph.

Joan Claybrook, who served as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977 to 1981 told CNN Business that she was "absolutely infuriated" by high-speed speedometers during her tenure.

So NHTSA issued a rule in 1979 that speedometers should not indicate speeds over 85 mph.

"The auto industry went berserk," Claybrook recalled. "I wouldn't budge. I laid my body on the line on this one."

Claybrook said that high-speed speedometers are dangerous and can lead to young people testing the limits of their cars.

"For 16 to 25-year-olds, they always want to test," Claybrook said. "It's very tempting to kids to challenge and go that higher speed."

Speedometers were redone to adhere to the 1979 rule. But this was short-lived.

The limitation was abolished once the Reagan administration took power and Claybrook exited.

Joe Young, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told CNN Business he wasn't aware of any research that studied the relationship between speedometer design and travel speeds. But he said it's not out of the question that there's a connection.

"It's not a big leap to assume that drivers may feel more comfortable pushing their speed when there's still plenty of speedometer to go," Young said. The relationship between impact speed and crash energy isn't linear, so pushing the speed a bit can have big consequences, he said, pointing to research findings.

Some consumers can view a high-reaching speedometer as a selling point, as it suggests the driver has an especially powerful vehicle.

Many speedometers have transitioned to a digital display, which show exclusively the current speed of the vehicle. Apple includes such a potential layout in its CarPlay demo. Apple declined to comment for this story.

Following Claybrook, auto safety leaders have turned to other tactics to address speeding.

NHTSA launched a campaign this week, Speeding Wrecks Lives, that's aimed at changing general attitudes toward speeding.

It includes $8 million in media advertisements and targets drivers ages 18 to 44, who are most likely to be involved in speeding related fatal crashes, according to NHTSA.

"This guy was going a little over the speed limit," a narrator says, showing a driver, before cutting to a shot of a child in a hospital bed. "Look at the damage."

There were 11,258 deaths in speeding-related crashes in 2020, according to NHTSA data.
The conclusion of a yearlong research study of 267 people in the United Kingdom found a prominent reduced-risk role for British American Tobacco Plcs heat-not-burn traditional cigarette glo compared with traditional cigarettes.

The final report was published last week by the Journal of Internal and Emergency Medicine. A preliminary six-month report was released July 1.

The glo product has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

It is the latest in a long line of smokefree tobacco and nicotine product reports posted by the Italian research group.

The full results showed that smokers switching exclusively to glo ... achieved significant and sustained improvements in several indicators of potential harm associated with early disease development compared with smokers who continued to smoke, according to the study authors.

This included lung disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The publication notes the four primary researchers are employees of either BAT or R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and that BAT holds the intellectual property rights to the research. The report listed that glo is not risk-free and can be addictive.

Reynolds American Inc., BATs largest global subsidiary, has about 2,500 employees at its U.S. headquarters in Forsyth County.

Researchers reviewed smokers of traditional and heat-not-burn cigarettes for 12 months. The smokers were between ages 23 and 55, in good general health. Some wanted to quit and others did not.

Researchers determined that the individual health improvements of those smoking glo add to the weight of evidence that supports glo as a less risky alternative for adult smokers who would not otherwise quit.

David OReilly, director of scientific research at BAT, said the study allows us to assess the changes that adult smokers switching exclusively to glo experience, by assessing early indicators of potential harm associated with disease development.

It provides much-needed new evidence about the size of the change and durability of the effect switching completely to glo can have, and reinforces glos potential as a reduced-risk product.

Study findings

Smokers who did not intend to quit were randomized to either continue smoking cigarettes or switched to using only glo.

Smokers who indicated they wanted to stop smoking were offered nicotine replacement therapy and access to a cessation counselor.

Meanwhile, a group of never smokers was also included to act as a control group. They continued not to use any tobacco or nicotine products.

Participants were required to attend monthly clinic visits, where samples of blood, urine and other measurements were taken. These samples were tested for biomarkers of exposure (to selected cigarette smoke toxicants) and biomarkers of potential harm.

The primary study findings were:

Significant and sustained reduction in a biomarker with the potential to cause DNA damage associated with lung cancer;

Significant and sustained reduction in white blood cell count, an inflammatory marker associated with early development of cardiovascular disease and other smoking-related diseases;

Sustained improvement in HDL cholesterol associated with reduced development of cardiovascular disease;

Significant and sustained improvement in an indicator of lung health; and

Significant and sustained improvement in a key indicator of oxidative stress, a process implicated in several smoking-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease.

Our findings support the notion that the deleterious (causing harm or damage) health impacts of cigarette smoking may be reduced in smokers who completely switch to using tobacco heating products, according to the report.

For most biomarkers measured, the reductions seen in people using glo were similar to those in participants who stopped smoking completely.

Controversial

As BAT highlights how its efforts are increasingly in line with public-health goals to reduce U.S. and global traditional cigarette consumption, it continues to face deep skepticism from anti-tobacco and public health advocates.

Most anti-tobacco advocacy groups scrutinize smokeless innovations to determine whether they could serve a public-health benefit  or work as gateway products to cigarettes, particularly for youths.

In January 2020, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams released a 30-year update on smoking-cessation efforts that provided a mixed message on the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are not currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a quit-smoking aid, and are not considered as safe products for any user.

E-cigarettes, a continually changing and diverse group of products, are used in a variety of ways, Adams said in the 20-page consumer guide.

Therefore, it is difficult to make generalizations about efficacy for cessation based on clinical trials involving a particular e-cigarette. More research is needed on whether e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation and to better understand the health effects of e-cigarettes.

Adams also noted the need to connect with smokers where they are.

BAT has said it believes the cumulative nature of the report will show that, over the past decade, the number of people who incorrectly believe vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking conventional cigarettes has risen in the UK, Europe and the U.S.

This is despite several scientific reviews, published in the same period showing, that vaping products manufactured in accordance with quality standards present less risk to health than cigarettes.

The scientific evidence is clear  but consumer misperceptions remain, BAT said.

Market presence

glo is available primarily in Japan where it had a 6.2% market share among all nicotine products as of July.

Analysts note that BAT is playing catch-up development-wise to Philip Morris International, which has garnered the lions share of attention and public-health criticism with its pledge to eventually snuff out traditional cigarette sales.

For example, the FDA approved in June 2020 the companys international version of heat-not-burn traditional cigarettes being marketed as modified-risk tobacco products.

The heat-not-burn product is marketed globally as IQOS, but in the United States was being sold as Marlboro HeatSticks.

However, in November, the U.S. Trade Representative affirmed a pivotal legal victory by BAT involving its patent-infringement lawsuit against rival Philip Morris International.

On Sept. 29, 2021, the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a final determination of a violation of the Tariff Act of 1930 by Philip Morris USA Inc. and Altria Client Services LLC as it related to two BAT product patents.

As a result of the ITC ruling, PM USA is barred from importing PMIs IQOS 2.4, IQOS 3, IQOS 3 Duo heat-not-burn cigarette products.

It also was ordered to halt future sales of Marlboro HeatSticks already in the U.S. that included convenience stores in the Triad and North Carolina.

Altria filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles patent lawsuits. A hearing was held in June in which ITC attorneys recommend that the appellate court uphold the agencys decision.

That appeals process could take up to a year to reach a decision, with the likelihood of a successful appeal not favorable, according to industry analysts.

Transformation

The glo study comes as BAT is in the early stages of a transformation from traditional cigarettes to potentially reduced-risk tobacco and nicotine products.

BAT said in June it had reached 19.4 million consumers of next-generation products worldwide, up from 18.3 million on Dec. 31.

For fiscal 2021, new-category revenue, which has a heavy Reynolds influence, was at $2.79 billion, up 51.8% over fiscal 2020.

New category products are led by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.s Vuse  the top-selling U.S. electronic cigarette, along with glo and modern oral products led by top-selling Camel Snus and Velo.

Vuses market share rose from 37.4% in the previous report to 39%, compared with Juul declining from 30.7% to 29.4%. The latest Nielsen analysis of convenience-store data represented the four-week period ending Aug. 13.

According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes dont appear immediately in Nielsen.

In recent months, the shadow of a potential banning of Juul Labs Inc.s e-cigarettes from U.S. retail shelves has accelerated the market-share gains of Vuse.

In May, BAT debuted its Vuse Go disposable style in the U.K. with further market rollouts planned for the second half of 2022.

BAT chief executive Jack Bowles expressed confidence in June that BAT will meet its goal of at least $6.79 billion in annual new-category revenue by 2025.

The manufacturer said it has spent about $1.25 billion on next-generation product development during the first half of 2022.

A BAT-compiled report released in June summarizes the findings of 10 years worth of scientific studies on smoke-free products. Some of the studies found a reduced-risk element to electronic cigarettes while others cautioned that such products were no safer than traditional cigarettes.

This paper is a comprehensive summary of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers and other evidence published by an estimated 50 institutions over the past decade, OReilly said in June.

We hope this paper will be used as a resource by public health authorities, and support adult smokers seeking to understand the breadth of scientific evidence that exists to inform their choices.

In July, BAT unveiled its latest attempt at closing a substantial market share and innovation gap in the heat-not-burn category with the hyper X2 version of its glo brand in Tokyo. It is not available in the U.S.

How glo hyper X2 performs will be critical for BAT, considering that Japan is the top global market, representing about 85% of heat-not-burn traditional cigarette sales.

The hyper X2 version offers advanced induction heating technology in a smaller, lighter weight device ... with a separate boost function for faster heating, the company said.

Kingsley Wheaton, BATs chief growth officer, said hyper X2 marks another key milestone in our transformation as we build the brands of our future.

Since launching our first glo product in Japan in 2016, we have built glo into a billion-dollar global brand through our deep consumer insights, science and innovation.

There are plans for hyper X2 to be rolled out in the other 24 global markets in which glo products are sold.
N.C. A&T, UNCG, Wake Forest University and Appalachian State are among the schools adjusting to a different approach to COVID-19 this fall.

Many colleges and universities have discontinued their online COVID-19 dashboards, which displayed the number of active cases among students, staff and faculty.

Due to changes in testing, reporting, contact tracing and the reduced severity of the disease among a highly-vaccinated community, the number of positive cases is no longer a useful indicator of the overall health of our campus, said Cheryl Walker, a spokeswoman for Wake Forest. The dashboard previously served as a tool when we were managing a crisis.

Walker said that as COVID-19 becomes endemic, the university is providing care and support while continuing to monitor cases. Wake Forest sent a message in early August to students, faculty, staff and families about new COVID-19 protocols for fall, which are also posted online.

Current COVID-19 guidance from infectious disease experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is similar to the mitigation strategy for seasonal flu, Walker said. As a result, the university is encouraging students to continue to take measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and flu, including remaining current on vaccinations, she said.

UNCG also is among the schools that discontinued its COVID-19 dashboard. The university has outlined its latest protocols online at covid.uncg.edu/.

Our infection rate is similar to what we see in the larger Guilford County community, and we are well within our resource capacities on campus to assist those who test positive, Richard Campbell, a vice chancellor for strategic communications, said in an email.

Campbell said UNCG is following CDC guidelines and continues to stay in close contact with local and state health officials.

At A&T, the school was well prepared to respond to COVID-19 as students returned to campus, according to Padonda Webb, executive director of the universitys student health center.

Going into this fall semester, we knew that it would not take long for COVID-19 rates to begin to increase because of how contagious the omicron BA.5 subvariant has proven to be, Webb said. We were one of very few UNC System schools requiring reentry testing, but we wanted to be sure that we went into the semester feeling good about bringing students back into the residence halls and on campus. By Week 2 of school, we were seeing positivity rates of around 20%.

The university continues to offer free testing to its faculty, staff and students, Webb said, and is recommending testing only if someone is experiencing symptoms.

From the time new students began moving into dorms on Aug. 12 until recently, A&T has identified 443 cases of COVID-19, according to Dr. Robert Doolittle, medical director of the student health center.

He explained that the total number includes faculty, staff and students  both in campus and private housing. More than 99% of the testing was done in the health center on campus, Doolittle said, with a small number of positive home test results reported to them.

Our wastewater analysis has identified virus in all 11 campus housing sites that are sampled, but no clusters of cases in specific dorms from interdorm transmission have been identified, Doolittle said.

At Appalachian State, spokeswoman Anna Oakes said the university also no longer publishes a COVID-19 dashboard. The school did not provide the number of cases on campus as of press time, instead saying that university data is included in the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services report for Watauga and surrounding counties.

As for COVID-19 protocols, Oakes said students and employees who test positive for the coronavirus are directed to stay home for at least five days, isolate from others and follow CDC guidance.

Students living in residence halls are strongly encouraged to go home, but may choose to isolate in their rooms if unable to return, Oakes said.

Its unclear how many college students in the region have tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to campus. A spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said in an email that is it recommended, but not required, for college and universities to report clusters in non-congregate living settings.

Patricia Williams, a family nurse practitioner at Novant Health Yadkin Medical Associates, said COVID-19 is still very much an issue for college-age students.

We are beginning to see another rise in the occurrences among schools and colleges with the start of the school year, Williams said. Due to the rise, we need to refocus our efforts of prevention and protection.

Doolittle said that despite the recent surge of cases, the outcomes of recent COVID-19 infections have been better this fall as the overwhelming majority of A&Ts faculty, staff and students are vaccinated.

Wake Forests Walker said the good news is that colleges and universities now know how to navigate COVID-19.

Each of us has experienced the pandemic in unique and similar ways for more than two years, she said. As a campus community, the strategies we have used during this period have been very effective, and with continued teamwork and partnerships, we will keep the health of our campus at the center.
There comes a moment for every president when he or she must maneuver between the morass of the campaign pledge and reality to find congruence with the present moment.

For President Biden, that moment may have arrived some 20 months into his presidency during his recent prime-time speech at Philadelphias Independence Hall.

As others have opined, there was a partisan tone, along with the visible trappings of Marines standing at attention and the red, white and blue background that at times felt like a campaign whistle stop. But these were minor infractions in comparison to the reason for the presidents prime-time remarks to the nation.

To quibble with the shortcomings of the speech in retrospect risks missing the presidents thesis statement: But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.

The president did not tar and feather everyone in opposition with this anti-democratic brush; his target was specific: Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Two remarks made before and after the presidents speech in Philadelphia bolstered his claim.

S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested there would be riots in the streets if the presidents immediate predecessor was prosecuted for mishandling classified information. Graham later tried to walk back his remarks, saying that he was merely stating the obvious. It was, however, a careless statement by South Carolinas senior senator to suggest without knowledge of the evidence that violence would take place if the former president were prosecuted for something that would already garner formal legal action for anyone other than a former commander in chief.

After the presidents speech, his immediate predecessor, speaking on Wendy Bell Radio, stated he would seriously consider full pardons for those convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 riots, if he runs for reelection and wins. Well be looking very, very seriously at full pardons because we cant let that happen. ... And I mean full pardons with an apology to many, the presidents immediate predecessor said.

Does that mean those convicted in a court of law for their participation in the Jan. 6 riots, resulting in five deaths, putting an end to Americas longstanding peaceful transfer of power?

How is this not a threat to American democracy?

Those who prefer hairsplitting the partisan aspects of the presidents speech must do so under the backdrop that the National Republican Committee defined the Jan. 6 riots as legitimate political discourse.

Predictably, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the president for failing to keep his pledge to unite the country rather than contributing to what McCarthy called further division.

The Republican Party, of which McCarthy is a member in good standing, has over the last decade increasingly made its home further into the wilderness well beyond the nations democratic guardrails. Therefore, when Republicans criticize the opposition for its failure to unify the country, they mean capitulation to their desires.

Is it divisive to call out those devoted to a truth that is wedded more to conjecture and conspiracy theories? Should disproved innuendos be granted legitimacy in the public discourse?

Partisanship is not the highest rung on democracys ladder. If anything, it is the low-hanging fruit that titillates but rarely informs.

Some took exception to Biden accusing MAGA Republicans as possessing a semi-fascist ideology.

Assuming fascism is still defined as a political philosophy that exalts nation and often race above the individual and stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and forcible suppression of opposition, it is hard to take seriously their outrage  not when several mainstream Republican elected officials participated in the CPAC conference that hosted Hungarian President Viktor Orban. At what other conclusion can one arrive when CPAC invites Orban, who boasts about his anti-immigration positions, along with his anti-LGBT stance, that he claims violates Christian principles, and his crusade that extols the virtues of racial purity? Thats not among the ingredients that go into the recipe to create life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

More Republicans publicly opposed the presidents speech than Orban appearing at CPAC.

I agree with the president; not all Republicans are of the MAGA variety, but its enough to constitute a debilitating quorum.
RALEIGH

In what had once been a land of opportunity and progress, the state had grown large and oppressive. Its leaders lost their way. Its people nearly lost their freedom.

How oppressive had the state become? No matter how you chose to make your living, government officials made constant demands on you. Every major transaction was taxed, at escalating rates. If you couldnt pay the taxes, your goods and property were seized. In many cases, you had to have special permission from the state to enter your chosen occupation.

How did the government grow to be so oppressive? It didnt happen overnight. Instead, the encroachments were gradual, each one too small on its own to provoke large-scale opposition. Many of the taxes were originally enacted as temporary measures, in response to emergencies, but then lingered on in seeming perpetuity.

It was a great deal for the political class  at first. In earlier times, state revenues had been used primarily to fund critical infrastructure and maintain law and order. But as the money poured in, bureaucrats hired other bureaucrats, which boosted their power and stature. Government didnt just pay them directly. Precisely because government had become so burdensome, corruption was rampant. It was cheaper for merchants to pay off public officials than to comply fully with the taxes and regulations.

Over time, however, the abuses of the political class proved counterproductive. To the extent land confiscation moved taxable property into government ownership, the tax base shrank. To the extent government made it harder to start and run businesses, there were fewer businesses generating revenues and employing people  which led to financial problems for the state as well as idleness and discontent among the population.

Finally, a new leader emerged. He was honest and ethical. Most importantly, he was observant. He recognized that the expansion of government had discouraged private enterprise and bred public contempt. He resolved to fix the problem.

The new leader slashed taxes. He eliminated regulations, and the jobs of regulators who had enforced them. He ended abusive confiscations of land, reserving that power for parcels the state truly needed for infrastructure. He fought public corruption and ensured that rich, powerful interests did not receive special treatment when the state adjudicated legal disputes.

The government didnt wither away. Instead, the new leader refocused its attention on law and order. He codified and simplified the legal code. He increased penalties, particularly for violent offenses. Crime rates dropped, which made existing residents feel more secure about starting new businesses and encouraged new people to immigrate to the area.

Care to hazard a guess about the identity of this political reformer and the state he led? No, Im not talking about an American state, or recent events in a foreign land. The leaders name was Urukagina. He ruled the Sumerian state of Lagash, which included a capital and several nearby towns, more than 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. The site is in what is now southern Iraq.

The official chronicle of Urukaginas reforms contains the first recorded use of the word freedom. The Sumerian term was amargi, literally a return to the mother. The idea being conveyed was that human beings were naturally born into a state of freedom, not a state of subservience. Another way of saying it is that humans are endowed by their creator with certain rights that are not lost  alienated from them  just because they live in societies with governments.

Urukagina returned his peoples birthright to them, their freedom. It worked for a time. Unfortunately, he didnt tend sufficiently to a core function of government, national defense. Lagash fell prey to invaders. But his tale wasnt forgotten, then or now. In 1960, the founders of the Liberty Fund in Indianapolis chose the cuneiform version of amargi as the centerpiece of their logo.

When it comes to expanding freedom, there have been plenty of modern innovations. But theres nothing new about the underlying concept. Its ancient, and essential.
Once again, when wed prefer to think about the approach of autumn, our childrens return to the social and intellectual whirl of school days or pretty much anything else, we pause on this tragic anniversary to commemorate those we lost on Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 militants associated with the terrorist group al-Qaida hijacked four airplanes to carry out suicide attacks in the U.S.

Almost 3,000 Americans of all walks of life died that day. Hundreds of thousands were injured.

We will never forget.

We werent a people who were necessarily defined by innocence before that date, but its events opened our eyes in a way they hadnt been before. We learned that there were killers out there who, for reasons we didnt yet understand, desired to terrorize us: family people, mothers and fathers and children who would from then on ask, Are we safe?

And we knew that they could succeed.

In the days following the attack, we united as a people in a way we almost mythologize now: We united in our pain and grief; in our concern for our neighbors; in our determination to seek justice for the innocents who were ruthlessly but calculatedly murdered while simply living their lives.

The rest of the civilized world united with us.

Yet our unity was squandered, we realize now. It was squandered by a presidential administration that used the attack as an excuse to increase its influence in the Middle East, as exemplified by our occupation of Iraq, following false claims that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction that it planned to use against us.

It was squandered by religious and racial bigots who tried to portray every adherent of one major world religion as complicit with death-seeking terrorists  despite the condemnation of terrorist acts that flowed from their major advocacy organizations and their assistance in the war against terrorism.

It was squandered by people who chose to amplify fear rather than hope.

Is that  the squawking and confusion and hatred  is that the legacy of 9/11? Is that what well pass on to the next generation?

Our nation today faces many challenges. Were still struggling against a deadly, airborne virus that has taken more than a million American lives  yet some would prefer to fight their fellow Americans rather than COVID. We face ever-growing income inequality, with more of our economic pie going to those who have already glutted themselves at our table while working people and the vulnerable struggle to pay their bills. We face devastating environmental destruction that results from dirtying the very air that we breathe. Some still deny what we see with our own eyes. We continue to face bigotry, as exemplified by the increased attacks on Asian Americans who are supposedly in cahoots with China, where COVID began.

And we face lies and the threat of violence from a political movement that wants to rule rather than let the majority of the American people set their own course.

Unity seems like a mirage.

Is this the legacy of 9/11  a noble people, torn apart, never to work together again? Never to agree, even on whats real?

It cant be.

It will be difficult to claw our way back from this discord. It calls for humility; for compassion; for the ability to listen, even when what we hear is unpleasant or disagreeable. It calls for discernment; for intellect; for passing beyond Twitter-length slogans and cliches to the realm of detailed analysis. It calls for rejecting the most strident and extreme voices that profit, in terms of money and stature, from keeping us apart.

It calls for accepting that we have some differences that need to be honored rather than condemned, and finding strength in those differences.

It calls for prioritizing truth.

There are advocates of this unity  not a blind unity, but one based on reality  all around us. They seek whats good for the nation, not whats good for their party. They promote health and hope and personal empowerment.

Listen to them.
"Winter Work" by Dan Fesperman; Alfred A. Knopf, 352 pages, $28

Many a Berlin-set spy novel comprises a tale of two cities which plays out during the heated tensions of the Cold War. Dan Fesperman's latest spy thriller, "Winter Work," offers a refreshing variant on this by immersing its reader in the murky corners and wooded surroundings of the German capital at a brief yet pivotal stage in the city's history seldom depicted in fiction.

It is February 1990 and the Cold War is thawing. The Wall has recently fallen, East Germany is coming undone, and Stasi agents are either lying low or selling state secrets to the highest bidder. One disaffected Stasi agent, Emil Grimm, finds himself with other matters to think about when he comes across the body of his neighbor and colleague, Lothar Fischer, near his dacha in a patch of forest north of Berlin.

Two officers on the scene reveal their differences: One young detective is determined to catch a killer; the other is more concerned about fighting the new political order. Emil's priorities are twofold: He needs to complete a high-stakes mission that he and Lothar started, and he has to find a CIA agent he can trust  one with whom he can barter a file of sensitive information in exchange for safe harbor and a new start for himself, his sickly wife, and her caretaker.

That agent turns out to be Claire Saylor, who is in Berlin as part of a "mop-up action" against her agency's defeated enemies. When she first makes contact with Emil there is inevitable discomfort  they are "two people trained to mistrust, searching for any sign that it might be safe to do otherwise." In time, though, they suspend their doubts, pool their resources and set out to ensnare several particularly vengeful "comrades in arms."

"Winter Work" is a gripping, tightly plotted old-school spy novel. As the Baltimore-based writer informs us in his acknowledgments, it is also fiction born of historical fact: One plot strand takes its origins from a genuine CIA operation, and some of the characters, such as spy supremo Markus Wolf, are incarnations of real-life figures. Claire makes a welcome return from Fesperman's last book, "The Cover Wife," as does another character whose true identity is cannily kept under wraps until a decisive moment.

Occasionally Fesperman's prose comes across as either lofty (men are "fellows") or perfunctory ("his eyes as cold as January"). And despite all the dark deeds and cloak-and-dagger intrigue, the book lacks both the subtlety and the complexity of a more nuanced John le Carre work.

However, there is still a great deal to relish, not least a number of precision-tooled set pieces, from a taut safe-breaking scene to an exciting assault on a safe house. Berlin  "spying's most storied theme park"  is vividly rendered, as is a time of convulsive change and the hopes, anxieties and machinations of those caught up in the chaos.
OMAHA  Doug Rose has checked COVID-19 case counts and other data off and on during the pandemic, but he says he was never obsessed with it.

He has reviewed case counts for his destination when he planned to travel. Last year, the retired Omaha schoolteacher went to Galveston, Texas, instead of his usual spot in the Rio Grand Valley because of concerns about a potential for increased COVID-19 cases there.

But now that he's vaccinated and boosted, he doesn't worry much about the virus. "You read the data when it's put out and decide what you're going to do," he said.

Just like the public's interest, the data reported by public health agencies has ebbed and flowed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to operate a beefed-up dashboard, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has replaced its COVID-19 dashboard with a respiratory illness dashboard that includes data on COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Some school districts and colleges also have mothballed their dashboards, with some exceptions being Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But during the early days of the outbreak in 2020, the nation was dealing with an unknown opponent. The first case in Nebraska was announced March 6 of that year. A month later, the count had reached 255. Interest in the numbers intensified as cases mounted and schools and businesses closed.

Initially, data was hard to come by. People who were monitoring the numbers had to tap multiple sources. Individuals, academic institutions and news organizations such as Covid Act Now, Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times stepped in to provide data that the public could easily access and digest.

Public health agencies had to quickly ramp up systems for gathering, verifying and displaying data.

The CDC noted on its website that only a handful of health care facilities and states were capable of using electronic case reporting in early 2020. Reporting was slow and often relied on paper-based systems and fax machines.

By August 2021, all 50 states and some other jurisdictions had electronic reporting capabilities.

Justin Frederick, division chief of epidemiology and preparedness with the Douglas County Health Department, said counting cases seems like a simple process. But it's a complex endeavor to collect, verify and store it.

"Public health infrastructure, including our disease surveillance systems, were not set up for a pandemic," he said.

As a health care hub, the Omaha metro area attracts a lot of people for testing and treatment. The test results of out-of-towners who were tested in Omaha for COVID-19 had to be reported to their home counties, and rectifying numbers based on patients' residences is challenging, particularly in real time, Frederick said. When test results mounted to thousands a day, health officials had to sort positives and negatives to calculate positivity rates and break down results demographically by age, ethnicity and ZIP code.

Initially, test results coming in from laboratories had to be entered manually every day into the health department's surveillance system. Later, labs began reporting electronically, but new labs kept popping up and had to be added to the system. The health department eventually was able to funnel those results directly into its system.

The Douglas County Health Department, like those across the state, was trying to keep up with contact tracing, which was important in identifying the risk the virus posed to the population. That risk, in turn, drives public health mitigation efforts, such as closing bars and requiring masking. At one point, Frederick said, the county was receiving thousands of new cases a day. Frederick was overseeing nearly 50 of the county's own contact tracers, and the department had a contract with a firm in Omaha that could supply between 200 and 400 contact tracers at a time.

In the middle of that, the department put up an online dashboard because health officials wanted a way to communicate with the public. Douglas-Omaha GIS (for Geographic Information Systems) developed the dashboard, but the health department supplied the data and worked closely with the office to determine how to display it.

"I can't stress enough the importance of us reporting daily data," Frederick said. "There was a lot of demand from the public."

Lindsay Huse, the Douglas County Health Department's director, said the next challenge was interpreting the data and boiling it down in a way that people could understand it and use it to make decisions.

People stepped in to help with that, too.

On March 8, 2020, Dr. Bob Rauner, president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, began posting short YouTube videos sharing and explaining available COVID-19 data. He also walked through coronavirus research and trends as they emerged and included links to his sources.

More than two years later, on July 13, Rauner posted his 115th Community Coronavirus Update. One of his updates got as many as 28,000 views. He stopped counting when the series surpassed half a million views. Rauner, who serves on the Lincoln Board of Education, explored the impact of the pandemic in his videos, tallying COVID-related deaths in Nebraska and surrounding states.

"I think the reason they took off is because I just said, 'Here's what the data shows.' And if you wanted to look, you could go to the links and find it all," Rauner said.

Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln also began posting its own case charts, with county-by-county data, after Ted Fraser, its health data analyst, figured out how to retrieve it from the CDC.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services also launched a dashboard early in the pandemic. The dashboard, which changed nearly every month as conditions shifted, was a key piece of the agency's strategy for communicating with the public, said Ashley Newmyer, the agency's chief data strategist.

Dr. Gary Anthone, the state's chief medical officer, said another piece of that strategy were the public briefings he and Gov. Pete Ricketts held during the pandemic. They were held often during the early days of the pandemic and later when cases and hospitalizations spiked.

Early on, Anthone said, people mostly wanted to know why they couldn't get tested for COVID-19. Initially, all tests had to go through the CDC, and criteria for getting tested were stringent.

After the state launched TestNebraska and Nebraskans could get tests whenever they wanted, positivity rates became a less important metric, he said. The state began looking to the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 as its "north star" in measuring the stress COVID-19 patients were placing on the state's hospitals. The state therefore added a variety of hospital capacity metrics to the dashboard.

Both the Lincoln-Lancaster County and Sarpy/Cass health departments continue to operate detailed dashboards. Lincoln's Bryan Health reports on patients hospitalized with the virus by age and vaccination status as well as where they're from and whether they require intensive care or ventilators.

But much of the county-level reporting at the state level ended when the state retired its more detailed COVID-19 dashboard June 30, 2021, after Ricketts ended the state's COVID-19 state of emergency. At that point, Anthone said, 27 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID-19, down from a peak of 987 in November 2020.

The pandemic emergency had suspended some restrictions in state law on the release of communicable disease data, state officials said at the time, permitting them to release more information than otherwise would be allowed.

The expiration of an executive order at that time also prevented Nebraska's health districts from publicly reporting COVID-19 statistics, such as case numbers and vaccinations, for counties with fewer than 20,000 people.

At the time, Nebraska health care providers and a group of lawmakers called for Ricketts to reinstate the dashboard. The state, which had continued to post weekly summaries, redeployed the dashboard in August 2021, this time focusing on hospital data.

Newmyer said the public also faced a learning curve in figuring out what data the state collected and what it could make available to the public. In addition to trying to meet the public's demand for information, the state Department of Health and Human Services also sought to provide enough background information so users could understand the limits and nuances of that data.

Dr. James Lawler, a co-executive director with the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Global Center for Health Security, said getting good data into the systems remains his concern. The CDC's pediatric COVID-19 death data, for instance, has changed multiple times, he said.

Lawler said he doesn't think most people understand the difficulty of getting accurate health data, much of which is stored in systems that can't talk to each other. Health agencies, for instance, can't pull data from hospitals' electronic medical records, as they can in some European nations. Most health care in the U.S. is delivered by the private sector, where there's little incentive for competing systems to share information.

"These are all challenges we still need to grapple with, because it's impossible to effectively respond if you don't have good situational awareness," Lawler said.

Some new types of data also emerged during the pandemic. After establishing a wastewater-monitoring network, the state began posting weekly reports with those results. It also added a weekly report with the results of genomic sequencing. (Wastewater testing can provide an early warning about trends in cases, while genomic sequencing provides insights into what variants are circulating.)

Other health data also is getting a more public airing.

Newmyer said the state agency continues to evaluate whether other diseases or data should be added to the respiratory illness dashboard, which the agency plans to continue to update weekly.

About the series Health Matters in the Heartland is a monthly series by the Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha World-Herald, examining the evolution of the practice and policy of health care. Its produced with the support of presenting sponsor Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska and this months sponsor, Food Bank of the Heartland. Go to bit.ly/LJSHealthMatters for multimedia content, new stories and previous installments.

The agency also has launched a dashboard to display data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a telephone health survey of adults 18 and older that is conducted in all U.S. states and territories. Covering topics ranging from physical activity to alcohol use, the survey is used to identify new and emerging health issues, establish and track health objectives and evaluate disease-prevention activities in the state.

Newmyer said the agency also is working on a data initiative around drug overdoses and is looking at making annual reports across its departments available in dashboard forms that are more accessible to the public.

Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln already has begun charting maternal child health data for the state, some of it by county, sourced from the CDC.

Rauner said making such data easily accessible allows people to see how their community is doing on various health measures. It's also important in planning for health.

"The data transparency needs to be out there," he said. "You can't provide good governance without good data."

Huse said she plans to keep the Douglas County dashboard up at least through winter, depending on whether new COVID-19 variants emerge and how well the new boosters work. The department likely will keep providing some data until the virus settles into a more predictable pattern, like influenza.

"That transparency is so important," she said.

Huse said she hopes to put additional county health metrics, such as elements of the community health needs assessment that the agency conducts every few years, in a dashboard format.

"I hope people have more of an interest in the data," she said, "because it helps them understand a little bit more where our priorities are ... and what's happening in the community they live in."
Lancaster County Sheriff's deputies patrolling Interstate 80 on Sept. 1 pulled over a GMC Acadia that was linked to a Grand Island fraud case earlier in the day  occupied by four Los Angeles residents who had allegedly used a stolen credit card and ran up a five-figure bill at a Best Buy in the central Nebraska city.

When the four people left the store, they headed east on Interstate 80, passing through Hamilton, York and Seward counties before they reached Lancaster County, where deputies  who had their eyes peeled for the SUV after a heads-up from Grand Island police  stopped the GMC for an alleged traffic violation, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said.

The four suspects were taken to the county jail. Investigators recovered thousands in cash and fraudulently purchased merchandise. And Houchin touted the arrests at a media briefing the next morning.

"It was a very good catch," he said then. "I know Grand Islands very happy because it would've been very difficult, if we hadnt got them at that time, for them to identify everybody and figure out who it was.

What Houchin did not say is that deputies used automatic license plate readers to track the GMC, which passed a Seward County cruiser equipped with a plate reader not long before it neared mile marker 395, where Lancaster County deputies stopped the vehicle.

A Best Buy employee had noted the GMC's plate number before the four suspects left the Grand Island store and passed it along to local police, who entered it into a lookout system for the interstate, said Blake Swicord, the Federal Homeland Security Task Force Commander who oversees I-80 interdictions in Seward County.

A plate reader attached to a Seward County cruiser pinged the GMC as it drove along the interstate, Swicord said. The deputy in the cruiser called the sheriff's office in Lancaster County, where authorities found and stopped the SUV.

"That absolutely would not have happened if the tag readers were not in operational use," Swicord said.

Houchin did not mention the use of automatic plate readers in that case because he believes he cannot mention the use of plate readers in any case, according to the sheriff's office's interpretation of the Automatic License Plate Reader Privacy Act, the law that governs law enforcement's use of the controversial devices.

Championed by Sen. Matt Hansen of Lincoln and the ACLU of Nebraska, and signed into law by Gov. Pete Ricketts in February 2018, the privacy act limits how long law enforcement can retain images captured by the plate readers, which take photos of passing license plates, store the data for up to six months and have been touted by law enforcement and tech developers as a game-changing crime-solving tool.

The readers only capture still images of license plates, which are then stored by a third-party contractor  Motorola, in Lancaster County  for six months under Nebraska law. Police can flag images of specific plates as investigatory to prevent them from being erased after the 180-day time frame.

But the law  and the license plate readers themselves  are subjects of controversy and confusion in Nebraska, where an attempt to install automatic plate readers in Omaha last month was rebuffed over privacy concerns. Six law enforcement agencies in the state already use the technology.

"It's the second-worst (plate reader) bill for public safety in the United States," said Jason Mayo, a criminal interdiction task force sergeant at the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, which first deployed readers in 2018 after the bill became law.

"That's because the ACLU drafted that bill. One hundred percent, it was drafted by them, through Sen. Matt Hansen," he added. "I've read through it and I've ran this (plate reader system) for five years, and I still don't know what it means. I've had attorneys from the state, from federal entities, from our office  everyone look at it and go, 'This is nonsensical. We don't know what it means.'"

Among the sheriff office's qualms with the bill, introduced as LB93, is language it says prohibits officers from disclosing the use of the plate readers in criminal investigations or in court settings, both Mayo and Houchin said.

That interpretation  contested by the ACLU  has kept deputies from mentioning the use of plate readers in arrest affidavits to be used in prosecutions, leaving no public record linking the use of plate readers to specific arrests.

"The idea that Mayo says, 'Well, we're not gonna put it in a probable cause affidavit because we can't' is nonsense," said Spike Eickholt, the ACLU of Nebraska's lobbyist who also disputed Mayo's claim that ACLU of Nebraska drafted the privacy act.

"If they're using this as a part of a criminal investigation, the law allows it," he said. "This was a thoughtful bill that did strike that balance. And, thankfully, we have it. Because, otherwise, it'd be anything goes. I mean, the cities could do whatever they wanted to do and there wouldn't be (a limit) at all."

The law's language surrounding disclosure is muddled.

The act dictates that no captured plate data or evidence derived from the data can be disclosed as evidence in a court setting, "if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of the Automatic License Plate Reader Privacy Act." But it's unclear when such a disclosure would violate the law, or if the act actually prohibits law enforcement from noting the use of license plate readers in public records.

The secrecy surrounding law enforcement's use of plate readers only adds to the inherent angst that opponents of the devices have expressed since their introduction in Nebraska.

When the initial draft of the privacy act was first heard before a legislative committee in January 2016, Hansen warned that the readers could be used to "compile an extensive list of where citizens go, and that could be used to re-create their day-to-day habits," pointing to cases in Boston and Canada where police had either abused the technology or mishandled the data collected.

Both Houchin and Mayo dismissed such concerns, pointing to the "checks and balances" instituted by both internal policies and the 2018 law while touting the crime-solving benefits the technology provides.

"I know a lot of people believe that you get all this information when they (drive) by, that, 'Oh, you'll know who I am, where I live and what I'm doing and all this stuff,' but it's just not true," Houchin said.

The privacy act placed broad restrictions on when law enforcement can search for a specific license plate, allowing police to seek plates connected to outstanding traffic or parking violations, vehicle registration violations, stolen vehicles, missing or endangered people, people with outstanding warrants or "a vehicle that is relevant ... to an ongoing criminal investigation."

Despite those wide statutory limitations, Houchin and Mayo  and Swicord in Seward County  all insisted their agencies used the systems sparingly and responsibly, pointing to the arrests of suspects in sex-trafficking cases, homicides and other felonies.

None of the four people arrested in the Grand Island fraud case were charged with felonies in Lancaster County, though Houchin said he expected they would be when he announced their arrest.

"You need a doggone good reason why you need to be on it," Houchin said of the plate reader system, which can be accessed by about a dozen of the sheriff office's 84 sworn deputies.

Though he acknowledged the public safety value of plate readers and said the state's law enforcement officials were largely well-intended, Eickholt is not convinced of the technology's worth, nor of law enforcement's ardent defense of its use.

"The idea that the public should just trust law enforcement to do what's right is somewhat troubling, right?" Eickholt said.

"We should be concerned because this information can allow law enforcement officials to find out a lot of stuff about certain people," he added. "All they need is a plate number."

Already, at least two of the six Nebraska law enforcement agencies deploying plate readers have strayed from the reporting requirements outlined in the privacy act, which requires they submit an annual report to the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Justice summarizing their practices and use of the plate readers.

In Lancaster County, the sheriff's office has not submitted a report since June 2019. The Seward County Sheriff's Office  which began using plate readers in early 2019  has never submitted an annual report to the crime commission.

"(The privacy act) gives agencies the responsibility to send them in, but there is no stated penalty for not submitting the reports," said Don Arp, the executive director of the crime commission, which did not have a webpage dedicated to publishing the existing reports until after the Journal Star inquired about the requirement in late August.

"There are penalties for violating other portions of the act, but not reporting," Arp said in an email.

York County's sheriff's office and the Omaha Airport Authority police have each so far been compliant with the reporting requirement. The police departments in Bellevue and Kearney each began a plate reader pilot program in July. Their annual reports won't be due until next summer.

From 2018 to 2019, the year that encompasses the agency's only submitted report, deputies in Lancaster County scanned zero plates that matched cars flagged in the National Crime Information Center database, a system that allows law enforcement agencies nationwide to share information.

In the same year, the agency manually searched 45 plate numbers, according to the report. It came up with zero matches.

There are also discrepancies between the agencies  and their third-party contractors  in how the data is stored and can be accessed.

In Seward County, Swicord said that if his office searched for a specific license plate number, authorities would only be alerted for future matches on that specific plate and would not be able to review any prior images of the plate in their database or any database without a court order.

But in Lancaster County, Mayo said, every manual search of a plate number would also reveal six months' worth of local match data for that plate, if such data existed.

And the deputies have access to data from "several hundred" agencies across the country that either openly share their data or have signed mutual operating agreements with the sheriff's office, Houchin said. Nebraska deputies can access data from some out-of-state agencies  or private data collectors  longer than the six-month limit placed on Nebraska law enforcement, since out-of-state data isn't subject to the state's privacy act.

Agencies with a signed agreement with the sheriff's office also have access to the data collected here, though the images are still purged 180 days after they are collected.

Houchin said the sheriff's office can only share data with agencies or private collectors, such as car repo companies, that use Vigilant Solutions, the software developer owned by Motorola that provides the plate readers to the sheriff's offices in Lancaster and Seward counties and owns the data once law enforcement collects it, according to Lancaster County's contract with the company.

"I'm not trying to be paranoid, but this is Big Tech," Eickholt said. "These companies have nationwide service, sometimes worldwide service. ... That's got to have some sort of utility for various commercial purposes, and that's separate from the law enforcement and government interests that people might think is there when they agree to install these cameras."

Lancaster County's contract with Vigilant expressly mentions the privacy act, and as a part of the contract, Vigilant agrees to delete collected data in accordance with the law or even earlier at the written request of the sheriff's office.

The law does not place any constraints on the private collection or use of license plate data  which can be accessed by law enforcement indefinitely if private collectors utilize the same data host, such as Vigilant or Flock Safety, the contractor that operates cameras in Bellevue and Kearney.

Houchin said Lancaster County authorities had used private data collected in other states to make multiple arrests in homicide cases in recent years.

Mayo estimated that repo companies collect images of "billions" of plates across the country. Oversight laws nationwide, like in Nebraska, often don't constrain law enforcement's access to privately collected data.

That loophole has prompted somewhat of a reversal in tenor from Nebraska's ACLU, which twice testified at the Legislature's Judiciary Committee hearings in support of the bill that now governs the use of plate readers in Nebraska  saying the law's measures were "appropriate safeguards"  but last month publicly rebuked the readers as Omaha leaders weighed introducing them.

"I mean, we supported that because it was, at least, something, and before that we had nothing," Eickholt said. "Ideally, we probably wanted LB93 to be tighter, to have maybe a lower number of days that law enforcement could retain the data, for instance.

"Looking back, although it might be difficult to legislate, (we'd like) to have some kind of control over what these companies do with the data they collect, to at least maybe have people whose vehicles are captured regularly to have some sort of say. Because right now, those people are left out of the equation completely."

Houchin and Mayo said they would like to see the data retention period extended and the restrictions loosened. They also hope the public would view the technology in the same light they do: a tool that helps law enforcement keep the public safe.

"The average citizen has no concern about passing a license plate reader, because we're not even going to pay one little bit of attention to it," Houchin said. "And I think the average citizen would want us to catch a young gal who's being sex trafficked ... this is a good tool to do it."
A bike ride that organizers say is for everyone is back for a second year.

The Goldenride, a two-day bike ride from Lincoln to Beatrice and back, is Sept. 24-25.

The ride is a fundraising event for Bike Walk Nebraska, a nonprofit group that promotes safe and accessible transportation through partnerships, education and advocacy.

Last year's ride drew about 220 participants, said Julie Harris, executive director of Bike Walk Nebraska.

"Our tagline is, 'Honestly, it's for everyone,'" Harris said. "Last year, we had people quoting that back to us. They really felt like it lived up to that."

Cyclists will tackle a 44-mile route along Homestead Trail during the two-day event. Participants will start the ride at the Jayne Snyder Trails Center in Lincoln and ride to Chautauqua Park in Beatrice. They will return along the same route.

The trail-based route has rest stops in three towns along the route  Roca, Cortland and Pickrell. Residents rolled out the red carpet in the towns last year, Harris said. In Pickrell, residents brought TVs out to the park so cyclists could watch the Husker football game while they ate lunch. This year, the Huskers are off.

The ride is fully supported, meaning specialists are on hand to help with mechanical issues. Organizers will transport overnight gear.

Proceeds from the ride go to Bike Walk Nebraska's bicycle tourism initiatives. Harris said that might mean making cities along trails more bike-friendly, adding amenities along trails or improving trails.

Last year drew a mix of novice, expert and in-between cyclists, Harris said. Some bikes were high-end, while others had been dug out of the garage. Some riders sported shorts and T-shirts and others wore Spandex.

"You don't have to have a fancy bike or camping equipment. You don't have to be in tip-top shape. You can go at your own pace," Harris said. "It really is for everyone. It's a great opportunity to get out with friends and have a fun weekend."

A pre-ride party is slated for Sept. 23 at the Jayne Snyder Trails Center.

Registration is open through Sept. 23. To sign up or for more information, visit bikegoldenride.com.
OMAHA  After working to promote the film industry in the state for nearly three decades, Nebraska Film Officer Laurie Richards announced recently that she would be stepping down from her position.

The Nebraska Film Office is part of the state's economic development department that works to recruit filmmakers, producers and directors to do projects in Nebraska. From star-studded feature films to music videos and commercials, Richards has helped attract talent  and money  to the state through careful coordination and location scouting.

"Nebraska has been a well-kept secret for a long time," Richards said. "As more people come here, filmmakers and crews start to talk about their experiences, and people start to realize that there's an opportunity for great locations and resources."

Richards, who began her career with the department as a film liaison in 1994, has a long history of attracting high-profile talent in her 28-year career. She has worked with Alexander Payne, an Academy Award-winning director and Omaha native, on multiple projects filmed in the state including "Citizen Ruth," "Nebraska" and "Downsizing." Richards also helped scout locations for 2021 best picture Oscar winner "Nomadland," some of which was filmed in Scottsbluff.

Much of Richards' job revolved around scouting the perfect location for a particular screenplay. Over the years, she has seen more interest in the beauty and gravitas that rural scenery can bring to a film.

"As the audience and consumer base grows, the variety of content changes," she said. "It isn't just projects that are set in an urban environment all the time  sometimes it can be a little more pristine, more relaxing, more visually stimulating. And sometimes that is out in the sea of grass that is most of Nebraska."

In 2021, the film office got an extra boost in attracting talent: The Nebraska Legislature established a fund to offer incentives to filmmakers shooting in Nebraska. To entice creatives to spend money on local food, lodging and labor, the office offers grants of up to $400,000 for projects that spend a substantial amount of time and money in the state.

Richards said three projects are in the works that will use money from the newly established fund.

Richards will continue to work in the industry with her own production company, Flicka Films, which focuses on stories that center on Nebraska narratives. Gentri Shopp, who previously worked in marketing for the department, will take over as the Nebraska film officer.

"If I've done anything to help put Nebraska on the map for film production, I am happy about that," Richards said. "We have so much to offer here."
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.  Two American Indian tribes in South Dakota have joined forces to purchase 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of one of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history.

The Oglala Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux said the purchase of the land on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was an act of cooperation to ensure the area was preserved as a sacred site. More than 200 Natives  including children and elderly people  were killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. The bloodshed marked a seminal moment in the frontier battles the U.S. Army waged against tribes.

It's a small step toward healing and really making sure that we as a tribe are protecting our critical areas and assets, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer said.

The tribes agreed to petition the U.S. Department of the Interior to take the land into trust on behalf of both tribes. The Oglala Sioux tribe will pay $255,000 and the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe will pay $245,000 for the site, Indian Country Today reported. The title to the land will be held in the name of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

Marlis Afraid of Hawk, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe whose grandfather, Albert Afraid of Hawk, survived the 1890 massacre as a 13-year-old boy, said she was overjoyed to see the tribes take ownership. She said she carries on the oral tradition of telling her grandchildren how her grandfather survived by fleeing through a ravine after a rifle held by a U.S. calvary soldier failed to fire at him.

As a member of a group that represents the descendants of the massacre's survivors, she had initially raised objections to the Oglala Sioux Tribe's purchase of the land, but said the joint purchase made her feel honored and grateful.

Members of the Oglala Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes were all at Wounded Knee in 1890, Afraid of Hawk said.

She hoped the site could be used for education for the people who come and see the massacre site.

They need to know the history. It needs to come through the true, true Lakota people, she said.

The tribes' agreement ends a decades-long dispute over ownership of a site that has figured largely in Indigenous people's struggles with the U.S. government. Jeanette Czywczynski became sole owner of the property after her husband, James, died in 2019. He had purchased the property in 1968.

The Czywczynski family operated a trading post and museum there until 1973, when American Indian Movement protesters occupied the site, destroying both the post and Czywczynskis home.

The 71-day standoff that left two tribal members dead and a federal agent seriously wounded led to heightened awareness about Native struggles and propelled a wider protest movement.

The family moved away from the area and put the land up for sale, asking $3.9 million for the 40-acre parcel nearest the massacre site even though the land, including an additional adjacent 40-acre plot, had been assessed at $14,000.

In 2013, film star Johnny Depp announced a plan to buy the property and donate it to the Oglala Sioux tribe. Depp, who played the role of Tonto in a remake of the film, The Lone Ranger, was criticized for trying to capitalize on the film by making unsubstantiated claims of having Native ancestry. Depp did not follow through on the purchase.

Killer, the Oglala Sioux Tribe's president, said the tribe's resolution for the land purchase calls for it to be preserved as a sacred site.

He said, Theres still a lot of unresolved artifacts and items that should be left undisturbed."

Manny Iron Hawk, another member of the Wounded Knee Survivor's Association, said he saw the land acquisition as another step in the century-old Indian revival movement known as the Ghost Dance. The U.S. military was trying to suppress the Ghost Dance in 1890 after it had swept across Indigenous communities with a prophecy that colonial expansion would end and Native communities would unite for prosperity.

The Ghost Dance was a beautiful dream for our people. It wasnt a dream of death, it was a dream of life, Iron Hawk said. Today we are the new Ghost Dancers and we carry on a duty that came to us to do what we can for our relatives there at Wounded Knee.
RACINE  There is a direct correlation between homeownership and the stabilization of neighborhoods.

Dasheika Kidd, program manager of Housing Resources Inc. (HRI), said for families who have overcome housing insecurity, there is less stress on the family, the children do better in school, they feel like they belong, and they are driven to take care of their homes. It is also one of the fastest ways to build generational wealth.

Thats win-win.

HRI is a nonprofit that has worked for more than two decades in Racine with low and moderate income families to overcome barriers and help people  most of them first-generation homebuyers  achieve what is sometimes called the American dream.

We have a huge footprint in the community, Kidd said about the decades they have worked with Racine residents to educate them about the process of homeownership.

HRI Racine has been in the spotlight since the city announced the non-profit would be taking over the administration of the citys down payment assistance program.

HRI was the only firm to bid on the three-year contract, for $442,883. It is the only nonprofit certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing homebuyer education and counseling in the city, which are required for the program.

Financial literacy

Kidd explained one of the differences between the citys down payment assistance grant and other grants is there are no income restrictions. Applicants just have to be a first-time homebuyer and looking to buy in the City of Racine.

Many of the people who use the services provided by HRI are not only first-time homebuyers; they may also be first-generation homebuyers.

Kidd explained some clients do not come from families where they were taught financial literacy, the importance of credit in purchasing a home, or how to budget and save for a down payment.

HRI currently provides a six-hour homebuyer education class once a month where participants hear from the professionals involved in the process  such as realtors, lenders, home inspectors and insurance agents  so after the class they have a holistic understanding of the process and what is expected.

Before the pandemic, the class was held in-person. Since 2020, the classes have been virtual. The class costs $50 and are offered in English and Spanish.

Kidd explained that many of those participating in the program will also need guidance in preparing to buy a home.

Inspections and more

One of the things she sees frequently from first-time homebuyers is the inclination to waive the home inspection to save some money. Clients have to be told that is not the way to go. If the roof is in bad shape, or some other big expense is on the horizon, a home inspection should inform the buyer how much they might have to spend on repairs after the purchase.

A home inspection is not something you want to waive, Kidd said. Working with us, they know the importance of it.

HRI prepares their clients for the process. Some people cannot just go to a bank and borrow money to buy a house. They might have work to do to get their credit score up, pay down debt, and save for a down payment.

Participants may also need guidance in calculating just how much house they can afford.

Kidd said some of their clients have predatory loans, liens or judgements to overcome on their way to financial stability. They might need to learn how to negotiate to get debt down to something manageable or get out from underneath a predatory lender.

Some people do not understand credit, she said. If you were never taught credit, there is a lack of financial literacy and it may take a person into adulthood to understand.

For that reason, HRI and the citys Financial Empowerment Center work hand-in-hand. FEC provides free, professional, one-on-one expertise in financial literacy to city residents regardless of income.

HRI will work with clients as long as it takes to overcome barriers to homeownership. Whether it is six months or three years, homeownership specialists will continue to work with clients on an action plan, credit, and budget.

HRI has professional and dedicated staff that are passionate about the work that they do, Kidd said. We wouldnt be successful without their passionate efforts.

HRI will continue to work with clients after they have purchased a home offering post-purchase classes, which are $25. In the post-purchase class, HRI partners with another set of professionals, such as the Racine Fire Department to talk about fire safety, a financial advisor to talk about life insurance policies, wills and estate planning, a local hardware store to talk about home maintenance, and Racine Neighborhood Watch.

HRI also offers a $750 minor home repair grant based on income as applicants must be income eligible.

Additionally, HRI also offers free foreclosure services. If anyone is at risk of losing their home, they can work with a professional to help keep their house.

Challenges

There are also challenges to purchasing a home that are outside of the clients control. Right now, it is a sellers market. Prices are up and competition for affordable homes is fierce.

Racine is experiencing the same challenge as other cities; that is, investment buying. People are not necessarily buying a home to live in and maintain. Theyre buying to rent out the property for income.

These homes owned by absentee landlords are not always maintained in the standard of an owner-occupier and the practice does not contribute to neighborhood stabilization. The practice is also driving up both rent and the cost of housing.

Theyre really driving up the price of housing and placing first-time homebuyers out of the market, Kidd said and added that it can be discouraging for the clients.

They might put an offer on multiple houses and get rejected, she continued. That is when it is especially important for them to have the support system at HRI for encouragement, guidance, and support.

However, the city is moving forward with plans for additional affordable housing.

Kidd spoke with excitement about the $15 million grant from the states Neighborhood Investment grant that will add additional affordable housing to the Lincoln King neighborhood.

The grant will pay for the building of new homes as well as the rehabilitation of existing properties. The homes will be prioritized for city employees, essential workers, those with moderate to low incomes, and those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, the city dedicated $1.5 million ARPA funds to build five new homes on vacant lots in racially diverse neighborhoods. After those homes are sold, the proceeds will be returned to the Community Development Authority, who will build more homes on vacant lots until the money runs out.

Its exciting, and amazing, Kidd said. I cant wait to see what city is going to look like in three years with the building of this new affordable housing.

Kidd praised Mayor Cory Mason for his vision in establishing the Financial Empowerment Center and the city down payment assistance grant program

Mason has contributed in unprecedented ways in helping city residents overcome barriers in order to achieve financial literacy and homeownership, she said.

He recognized there were disparities and moved to address them, she added.

She also praised the City Council for their historic investments to help stabilize Racine neighborhoods.

Theyre doing a great job, she said. There are now more down payment assistance programs than Ive ever seen in my time working in this field.
KENOSHA  Major changes are coming for Froedtert Kenosha Hospital.

Froedtert South, 6308 Eighth Ave., is moving forward with plans to convert the sites emergency department into a 24/7 urgent care clinic.

The hospitals inpatient services and emergency department services will be transitioned to Froedtert Pleasant Prairie Hospital, 9555 76th St., in a continuation of repositioning efforts to centralize the surgical and interventional services at Froedtert Pleasant Prairie Hospital that began in 2019.

The transitions are expected to be complete by Oct. 1.

Other plans for the Downtown hospital include converting underutilized spaces into inpatient and outpatient mental health and inpatient rehabilitation services, among other projects.

Froedtert South indicated its repositioning efforts were put on hold with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, when the hospital expanded capacity to focus on providing essential care to patients suffering from the coronavirus. With COVID-19 admissions declining, Froedtert South leaders said they are confident that the time is right to convert underutilized space to host much-needed services for the community.

Were exceptionally proud of the role Froedtert Kenosha Hospital has played for our community as we weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, said Froedtert South President and CEO Ric Schmidt. Our pivot to treat COVID patients demonstrated our commitment to meeting the needs of our community. And now, with our plans to continue repositioning, we look forward to the next chapter in how well continue providing the care that members of our communities need most.

In addition to providing inpatient mental health and inpatient rehabilitation services, Schmidt said transition of the emergency department to urgent care will bring much-needed, cost-effective care for minor, non-life-threatening illness and injuries.

Our commitment to the people of Kenosha and to Kenosha County as a whole is strong, Schmidt said. We look forward to continuing to find ways to provide exceptional and compassionate care while we promote the well-being of those we serve.

CEO: No layoffs

Schmidt said no emergency department staff will be laid off or furloughed because of the transition to urgent care. He said some emergency department staff will be rotated between urgent care Downtown and emergency department care at Froedtert Pleasant Prairie Hospital.

You can work emergency full-time and occasionally go do urgent care, but you cant work urgent care full-time and occasionally go to emergency because you have to have the skill sets, he said. So we will rotate between the two hospitals. We havent got the exact ratio down but Id say its 3 to 1. That would be three weeks of emergency care (in Pleasant Prairie) and one week of urgent care (Downtown). There will be a handful of people who say I only want to do emergency care and theyll be (in Pleasant Prairie) and there will be handful of people who say I only want to do urgent care and theyll be (Downtown). Theyll be able to say what they want to do. The flexibility of being (in Pleasant Prairie) is you can lead a very complex environment of emergency care and easily go work in urgent care.

Schmidt said the current Downtown emergency department treats about 60 people each day but that only a handful of them need emergency care.

Ten percent of our patients are emergency patients and 90% of our patients, about 54, are urgent care or walk-in type patients, he said.

Schmidt said the emergency department is comprised of about 50 staff members, most of whom are registered nurses or emergency room technicians.

Schmidt said emergency department physicians and surgeons have long called for the changes.

They said This isnt working, this isnt the right way to do it. We need to consolidate services for emergency care at one place and urgent care at another, Schmidt said.

Because the Downtown hospital will expand to other areas of service, Schmidt said additional hiring will be needed.

He said the rehab facilities could be operational by the end of the year.

Were going to need more people, he said.

Mayor, senator respond

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said he has some concerns about the changes but believes the city will be able to ensure the health and safety of the public when the Downtown emergency department closes.

Were not pleased about the ER closing and our preference would be for the ER to stay open, he said. I understand its a business decision they are making, but it will potentially create some issues that the city will have to deal with in the future depending on how transport actually works through this process.  We will react accordingly and try to make sure public safety is kept up for the City of Kenosha.

Antaramian said anyone in the city who calls 911 after Sept. 30 in need of care in an emergency department will be transported by city ambulances to either Froedtert Pleasant Prairie Hospital or Aurora Medical Center, 10400 75th St.

Both are located in the Village of Pleasant Prairie and are about eight miles from Downtown Kenosha.

We wouldnt be taking them to (Froedtert Kenosha Hospital) because theyre not an emergency room, he said. There is a cost here (with transport) and there is an issue that is one that we are going to look at and see what options we have. But for the present time, our concern is always going to be the safety and the health of the community. That will be our first concern in what were dealing with.  There is a concern on how this is going to function and that as we get a little more into this we will continually look at what we can do to make modifications that are necessary to provide the best safety for the public.

Antaramian also said he would have preferred some more time to plan for the emergency departments closure with an earlier announcement from the hospital system.

Still, Antaramian said he believes the mental health facility be a benefit to many area residents in need of such care.

The mental health facility is a positive aspect of whats going on because theres been a need for a facility down here for a very long time, he said. That part of the plan is actually something that will be beneficial to the community.

State Sen. Bob Wirch, D-Kenosha, said he strongly supports efforts to help address mental health needs.

I am pleased that Froedtert Kenosha Hospital is taking action to address mental health issues at home in our community, he said. Those struggling with mental health concerns should be able to find their treatment at home without traveling across the state to receive the care they need. Establishing a place to seek care locally is good for people who need care, their families, and taxpayers.

In addition, Wirch said 24/7 urgent care within walking distance of many neighborhoods is a meaningful step towards assuring our neighbors that their community and city are here to help.

Fire chief responds

Kenosha Fire Chief Christopher Bigley said he has some serious concerns about the closure of the Downtown emergency department.

The first and foremost concern I have are the transport times, especially for Med 1 because instead of going to the Kenosha hospital they will be going out to the west end, Bigley said late Friday.

Id be foolish to think that its not going to have an impact on our services at all. Im very concerned. Im not going to speak for the hospital, but I dont think the closing of this (emergency department) is in the best interests of the citizens of Kenosha. Thats my opinion.

Bigley said other medical units may have to respond to areas served by Med 1 if Med 1 personnel are already busy transporting a patient out west to Pleasant Prairie.

Im preparing that were going to have to take some action but Im going to wait until I have some good information on how it truly is effecting us, he said.
1. Yes. COVID isnt over. Killeen and Cove ISD had 851 cases combined in August alone.

2. Yes. Parents should always be able to track cases in the schools on a daily basis.

3. No. The state isnt requiring school districts to post the numbers; it isnt necessary.

4. No. COVID isnt surging, but if it does, the website dashboards could be reinstated.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether the information is needed with the low threat level.

Vote

View Results
COLUMBIA, S.C.  Under pressure from his Republican rival, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman said last week he would participate in one debate before the November election.

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are working through the details of a debate. And in Arizona, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Katie Hobbs has declined a televised debate with Republican Kari Lake.

The tradition of televised debates as a forum for voters to evaluate candidates may be the latest casualty of constant media coverage, powerful digital platforms and the polarized political climate. For some Republicans, eschewing debates is a chance to sidestep a media structure some deride as biased and align with Donald Trump, who has blasted presidential debates. Some Democrats, including Hobbs, point to raucous GOP debates from the primary season as a reason to avoid tangling with opponents.

Still, veteran political consultant Terry Sullivan defended debates as "the one forum where candidates are forced into answering questions that they don't want to answer."

"They're not going to do it in their TV commercials," added Sullivan, who managed GOP Sen. Jim DeMint's 2004 bid in South Carolina and handled media for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential effort. "And in stump appearances, press conferences, they can evade, they can dodge."

And sometimes, Sullivan added, it's the media coverage of what happens onstage that can make a bigger impression.

In what "should have been the most boring debate in the history of mankind," Sullivan said that a 2004 panelist questioning DeMint and Democrat Inez Tenenbaum asked DeMint if he agreed with a state GOP platform tenet in opposition of openly gay teachers in South Carolina's public schools.

"That kind of turned the race on its head for the next three months," Sullivan said, noting headlines he characterized as "DeMint wants to fire gay teachers."

DeMint went on to win by nearly 10 percentage points, a margin typical in recent South Carolina statewide elections. But in more competitive states, Sullivan said, a debate can serve as "a good way to find out where candidates are on the issues."

Debate footage also can propel candidates' messages far more broadly  and cheaply  than television ads, said Michael Wukela, a South Carolina Democratic media consultant and veteran of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bids.

Refusal to participate can draw ire from rivals. The Republicans whom Walker refused to debate ahead of Georgia's primary critiqued him as ill-prepared to take on Warnock, a skilled orator.

"If you can't get on the stage and debate fellow Republicans, how the heck are you going to debate with Raphael Warnock in the general election?" said Latham Saddler, a Navy veteran and former Trump administration official who was among five Republicans challenging Walker. "Usually if you're hiding, you're hiding for a reason."

Walker proclaimed his eagerness to face off with Warnock in the fall but, instead of agreeing to Warnock's challenge to three debates, accepted an invitation to a different one altogether. Warnock said he would participate in that debate if Walker agrees to another forum Warnock wants.

In North Carolina, where U.S. Rep. Ted Budd skipped four Republican primary debates in his U.S. Senate bid, said Friday he wouldn't accept an invitation from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters to debate Democrat Cheri Beasley. Budd said he had accepted a cable debate invite, but there's no agreement with Beasley on that.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, mused about what would happen if voters elect a senator who never has "answered a legitimate question from a voter, from a newscaster in a non-taped setting, in a debate stage?" citing Fetterman's campaign-trail absence as he recovers from a stroke.

Fetterman's campaign said he will participate in a televised debate in October but gave no other details.

In Pennsylvania's governor's race, the Republican nominee Doug Mastriano rejected a media-moderated debate and instead reserved a hotel ballroom on Oct. 22 and picked a partisan moderator for himself: Mercedes Schlapp, who served Trump's White House and is married to the chair of the American Conservative Union.

The campaign of Democrat Josh Shapiro said Mastriano's refusal to accept an independent moderator blew up about a dozen invitations from news organizations and other groups.

Some incumbents with an edge on their rivals have rebuffed requests for debates.

South Carolina Democrat Joe Cunningham called for four general-election debates with Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, whose campaign dismissed the request as a "stunt" and agreed to one. In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has granted a single debate to Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Democratic opponent before U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist are set to spar in a single debate, shown only on a West Palm Beach TV station.

Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republican nominee Tudor Dixon finally agreed to a single October debate after a scheduling flap.
LINCOLN  Since taking over the role of Nebraska GOP chairman in July, Eric Underwood has filled most of the openings left in the wake of his election.

However, one big vacancy remains: the executive director. With Underwood focusing his energy on the November general election, he said its unlikely the position will be filled until the start of 2023 at the earliest.

Underwood was elected chairman during a tumultuous GOP convention this summer, which prompted more than a dozen resignations within the party, including the executive director, the national committeewoman and the first and second congressional district chairs.

Underwood said the party has filled all of its constitutionally required roles, with the executive director being one of the last remaining vacancies. He said he wants the position selected through a hiring process, with Underwood providing a range of in-state and out-of-state candidates for the partys executive committee to vet.

However, his plan presents multiple roadblocks that will delay the selection. Several of the candidates Underwood said he is considering are currently busy with upcoming elections, and the executive committee must convene in an official meeting to vet the candidates. Underwood said he would rather focus the partys energy on the general election, so he expects that meeting will have to wait until early 2023.

The executive director is a full-time job that oversees the partys operations. Without anyone in that position, Underwood said he will assume many of those responsibilities, but he doesnt consider it much of a sacrifice.

Most of the vacancies were either appointed by Underwood or elected at a state central committee meeting on Aug. 20. One of the notable elections at the meeting included new National Committeewoman Fanchon Blythe, who narrowly beat former gubernatorial candidate Theresa Thibodeau for the role, according to Underwood.

Blythe is a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump who was near the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot protesting President Joe Bidens election. Blythe told the Lincoln Journal Star that she moved away from the Capitol that day as law enforcements presence heightened and she wasnt fully aware of the situation inside the Capitol until she returned to her hotel. She also said she had no regrets about attending the event.

Blythe was one of seven delegates who had their credentials revoked before the state GOP convention in July, and was reinstated after a tense vote by the remaining delegates that preceded the former chairmans firing.

Blythe strongly supported Underwoods campaign for chairman at the convention, but Underwood said he didnt take sides during the central committees vote. He said he made an effort to make the process as fair as it can be.

Im not going to weaponize this party, Underwood said.

Blythe could not be reached for comment.

She replaces Lydia Brasch, who was the target of many delegates ire during the convention. Underwood said he didnt know Brasch well, but he is confident that Blythe will do a good job promoting engagement within the party.

Underwood, Blythe and National Committeeman J.L. Spray will represent Nebraska on the national level within the Republican National Committee.

Blythe and Underwood received intense criticism by central committee member Chris Chappelear in a column posted in the Nebraska Examiner last week. Chappelear said the direction the Nebraska GOP has gone following the convention has enforced a culture in which the only things that matter are supporting Trump and agreeing with the new party leadership. Chappelear called for Underwood to resign.

With Eric Underwood at the helm, the Nebraska GOP is a worthless entity, Chappelear said in the column. Our nominees need support, yes, but I cannot trust Eric Underwood.

Underwood declined to comment on Chappelears column in an interview. Instead, he provided a written statement via text, in which he praised Chappelear for exercising his right to free speech.

As Republicans move towards the Nov. 8th elections his unwavering support for our Republican nominees will be critical to the success of a #redwave in Nebraska, Underwood said in the statement. We look forward to Mr. Chappelears use of his journalistic talents to promote our candidates.

Another new face to the party establishment is Meg Kallina, who was elected as first congressional district chair and serves as the partys new communications director. Kallina replaced interim communications director Jack Riggins, who was removed from the role after an illustration depicting oral sex was posted to the NE GOPs Twitter page last month, which Underwood said Riggins was responsible for.

Underwood said Riggins was already looking to take a step back from the position before posting the tweet, and he had been in conversations with Kallina about taking over the role. He said Kallina assumed the position within a week of Riggins departure.

In addition to filling the vacant roles, Underwood said he has created a new position within the party, a volunteer to voter coordinator who will work with local party offices to organize volunteer campaign efforts. Mary Hilton, who worked with Underwood while he served with the Lancaster County Republicans, currently holds the role, he said. Hilton ran for the Lincoln City Council in 2021 but lost.

Underwood acknowledged that friction remains in the party, although he said he isnt sure if that is because the party is actually fractured or just filled with passionate members. He said he plans to focus the general election campaigning on the partys platform values, which he hopes will unite Republican voters.

By Nov. 8, we are going to be a unified party, Underwood said.
This November, voters in the School District of La Crosse will weigh in on a $194.7 million referendum, which will be one of the largest referendums in state history.

The referendum is specifically asking voters to approve funding to consolidate La Crosses two high schools at a new facility, and move its three current middle schools to the former high school buildings, all as a plan to address declining enrollment, rising maintenance costs and stagnant funding from the state.

The proposal has been met with questions from the community and a growing opposition movement.

So, what exactly has taken place throughout the yearslong process to get to this point?

The process largely started when the school district began its latest long-range facilities study in the fall of 2020.

This study, which was conducted by Bray Associates Architects Inc. analyzed all of the districts facilities.

The 344-page report gave an in-depth look into the 15 core facilities owned and used by the district, detailing things like the material each window and door is made of, and what conditions things like playgrounds and art room sinks were in. The report included recommended improvements, as well, and laid out the history of each building.

At the same time, an educational needs assessment was also done by surveying and meeting with staff members to get a better sense for how the facilities are serving students. Some schools are using makeshift classrooms and have limited outdoor space. Gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms are needed, and accessibility needs to be improved. And overall, learning spaces need modernizing.

A total of six buildings in the district are over 80 years old, including the three middle schools.

At the time of the facilities study, $76 million in maintenance needs were identified across the district, with up to $18.5 million of that at the middle schools alone, where staff said there is the greatest need for overall improvement.

Once these needs were assessed across the district, officials began to explore options and solutions over the winter of 2020, and eventually a long-range facilities plan was created, and five possible solutions were narrowed down.

These five solutions all used a combination of consolidations and closures, and some had a focus on elementary schools while others focused on middle and high schools.

The first three options all had a different approach to consolidating both Emerson and Spence elementary schools, either by moving them both into one new facility, or moving one into the other with an addition. These three options all also included absorbing Lincoln Middle School into the other two middle schools.

Options four and five laid out plans to consolidate both Central and Logan into one new high school and move the middle schools into the then-vacant high school buildings. Option four also included consolidating Emerson and Spence into the former Longfellow Middle School building, and option five proposed consolidating them into a new school.

All plans included moving the administrative offices from Hogan to Central.

After these plans were drafted and presented, the school district sent out its first of two community surveys in the fall of 2021.

A total of 4,664 people responded, which was just over 16% of the people in the district. This survey specifically asked residents broadly if they supported a long-range plan that right-sized the districts facilities, and asked them more specifically if they supported consolidating or reducing the number of elementary, middle and high schools.

Those who responded showed overwhelming support to consolidate middle schools and reduce the number of elementary schools. The support to consolidate two high schools wasnt as strong, with just over 50% saying they supported it.

After these results were shared, the district went to work to develop a plan over the winter. District officials have said with the feedback from the community, and recognizing that the middle schools have the most urgent need, they pursued the plan to consolidate a new high school and move middle schoolers into the high school buildings with fewer maintenance costs.

The district toured 11 possible sites for new high school, ultimately landing on the Trane site located at 3600 Pammel Creek Road because it was large enough and available.

After a plan was crafted, the second survey was sent to the community this past spring, asking them if they would support the $194.7 million referendum to fund the Trane site plan.

The initial results were a bit murky, and of 5,859 people that responded, support was hovering around 50% across three demographics, which parents and staff in the district showing the most support.

These results were presented to the La Crosse Board of Education in June, and in July, the board voted 8-1 to hold the referendum in November.

Understanding enrollment projections

One of the biggest pieces of the consolidation plan is enrollment  fewer students means less space is needed.

However, some community members have cast doubt on the projections that the school district is expected to continue to see declining enrollment, wondering why new housing developments in the area wont change outcomes.

So how are these projections crafted?

La Crosses most recent look into future enrollment numbers was completed in November 2020 by the UW-Madison Applied Population Lab, which has been routinely providing enrollment and population projections for school districts and communities around the state for more than 25 years.

The 2020 report found that the School District of La Crosse saw the greatest drop in enrollment in high schoolers and elementary students in the past 10 years, and that enrollment across the board would continue to decrease for the foreseeable future.

Specifically, in the 2011-12 school year, the district had 6,828 students, compared with 6,207 students in 2020-21, a 9% decrease.

Sarah Kemp, a researcher with the lab who conducted the districts most recent report, said that the biggest contributor to these trends is fewer and fewer children being born.

The main driver with this methodology is birth  the number of births and the number of kindergartners, Kemp told the Tribune, noting that both are declining.

The number of births has been declining steadily across the country in recent years, hitting a record low in 2020. Kemp said in Wisconsin, the numbers have been declining ever since the 2008 recession, and that these trends have a direct correlation with schools  because fewer kids being born means fewer students.

In the School District of La Crosse alone, birth rates have dropped from 706 in 2008 to 599 in 2019.

We just arent seeing young people having children or as many children as at one point, Kemp said.

But its not just the amount of children being born, but the amount that stick around to start school in the district. This can be telling for future enrollment rates, as kindergartners eventually become middle and high schoolers. And whether or not the amount of new kindergartners exceeds the amount of high schoolers graduating out of a district can be telling of whats to come.

When kindergarten enrollment is decreasing, elementary and middle school enrollment might be expected to decrease in the future, while high school enrollment may decrease farther in the future, the 2020 report states.

In the study, enrollment had the steepest drop for K-5 students at 2.5% over the last decade, and the amount of kindergartners has only outpaced the amount of outgoing students three times in that same time period, and not since 2016-17.

Kemp specifically looks at whats called a birth-to-kindergarten ratio, which essentially shows how many kids born in a school district eventually go to school there. In La Crosse, about 72% of kids born will join kindergarten in the next five years, meaning more than a quarter of children born in the district attend school elsewhere.

That is telling me that there are births that are occurring in the district, but that they arent showing up at the school, Kem said. Theyre born here but they move to some other district. She said private schools are only a small factor in these rates.

When Kemp conducted this study, she gathered information from the school district and the state, evaluating everything from the birth rates and enrollment to housing and population trends.

This includes the amount and types of new homes that were developed over the last 10 years.

Kemp said the impact of housing isnt as strong as some might think, especially in La Crosse.

The type of housing development and the affordability matters significantly, and most often, new single family homes bring in more students than multi-family buildings like apartments and condos.

And in La Crosse, the latter is what is most often being developed as the city faces a lack of land to expand any other way than up. Some of the new major developments coming to La Crosse include the 5th Ward Residences, Copper Rocks and River Point District, all of which will be mostly mixed-use, higher-density apartment buildings.

Oftentimes, some folks can think lots of houses means lots of kids. And especially in recent times, that really hasnt been happening in most districts. So even districts that see some new home development doesnt always translate into new students, Kemp said.

Kemp said that housing data is used generally when looking at enrollment, but it doesnt play a significant role.

There is a specific housing unit and residential development model that can be added on to the projections if requested by a school district, but that wasnt requested by La Crosse for the 2020 study.

But even when school districts do request that a specific housing lens be applied to enrollment projections, Kemp said it doesnt impact outcomes much at all.

What Im finding recently in the last several years is that it has not made a big difference for a district, Kemp said. She also noted that theres often a lag time, and that while housing developments take a while to build, it also takes a while for children to move in and start school.

As far as the accuracy of the projections, Kemp said they can change, but they generally dont, and typically something drastic must happen to alter the trajectory of enrollment and population. Instead, changes tend to happen gradually over time.
Greenhouses  buildings that are used for growing plants - have helped make the Netherlands the world's second largest agricultural exporter after the United States.

But the $7.9 billion industry developed when gas was less costly. A price crisis will likely speed up a change to other energy sources, but it could also cause many businesses to fail.

Price increase

European gas prices have increased by about 20 times the level they were at a year ago. The increase is mainly a result of Russia restricting gas supplies in answer to Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

Industry group Glastuinbouw Nederland says up to 40 percent of its 3,000 members are having financial problems. That could result in less out-of-season fruit, vegetables and flowers in European stores. It could also mean production might move to warmer countries such as Spain, Morocco and Kenya.

Greenhouse owner Pieter Wijnen would like to pay attention to growing vegetables. But his life has centered on gas and electricity prices rather than his vegetables - bell peppers and cucumbers.

"In a greenhouse like this in the wintertime, you need to heat it," he said of his 32 hectare property in the southern Dutch area of Limburg.

Wijnen added, "When prices are going up, and it will be much more than we are used to, then we must change our plans."

Among other measures, Wijnen is cutting the area he will keep warm at Wijnen Square Crops this winter. He plans to grow fewer, larger cucumbers - as well as selling additional electricity that he generates.

Until recently, Dutch greenhouses used around three billion cubic meters of gas a year, or about eight percent of the national total. That number has been falling as renewable choices become available.

According to Statistics Netherlands, the industry's gas usage fell 23 percent in the year through June.

But the amount of decrease this year is as much a sign of difficulty as it is of change, growers say.

Michel van Schie of Royal HollandFlora said, "A large number of growers are choosing to close down their business because they don't expect any change in the short term."

Stores have cut orders for flowers by around a third, expecting people to spend less as living costs increase, he added.

History and future

The Dutch greenhouse industry has a deep connection with natural gas due to the Groningen gas field, which was Europe's largest for many years. Production was cut back in the 2010s due to the earthquakes it caused.

Some larger greenhouses like Wijnen's have plants that burn gas to create both heat and electricity - a system with 2.4 gigawatts of capacity spread nationwide, about 14 percent of the Dutch total.

Many greenhouses need heat more than electricity, and can sell additional power during highest demand.

Some greenhouses have invested in biomass for warmth, though wood is becoming less available and more costly. A few have geothermal heating. All make use of solar power for warming and plant growth - the original greenhouse effect.

"Each and every grower is unique, which makes it very hard to draw conclusions about this crisis," said Cindy van Rijswick of Rabobank, a financial services company. Van Rijswick added that some Dutch greenhouses with lower cost gas contracts may do well.

As Groningen production went down, Wijnen invested 30 million euros in a geothermal project and biomass factories. But his gas plants that produce both heat and electricity are currently helpful.

"I do not need all the electricity, but the market needs the expensive electricity, so we make electricity, sell it to the grid, and then the heat is sometimes quite cheap for me," he said.

Still, Rabobank's Van Rijswick said the current crisis was likely to change the industry, with the move towards local production possibly reversing.

"It's like we will go back in history again with Spain producing in wintertime and the northern European countries producing their own vegetables in summertime. Some people say maybe that's the way it should be."

Im John Russell.

Toby Sterling reported on this story for Reuters. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

__________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

grid  n. a network of electrical wires and equipment that supplies electricity to a large area

capacity  n. the amount of something that can be produced or managed by a factory, company, etc.

geothermal  adj. of, relating to, or using the natural heat produced inside the Earth

biomass  n. plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel
A German farmer is successfully growing apples beneath solar power equipment that produces electricity.

It is currently harvest season for Christian Nachtwey, who operates an apple farm, or orchard, in the western German town of Gelsdorf. A reporter from The Associated Press recently visited Nachtwey as workers loaded up red Elstar apples ready to be shipped to stores.

In addition to apples, Nachtwey's farm also produces a second harvest: electricity. Many of the farms trees grow beneath solar panels that have been producing power during this year's unusually sunny summer. In addition to providing electricity, the panels protect the fruit below with shade.

Nachtwey said the idea behind the farm is simple. The design protects the trees from getting too much sun without reducing the available growing area. On top of that, there's the solar electricity being generated on the same land, Nachtwey said.

Putting solar equipment on the same land as crops is becoming increasingly popular in Europe and North America. Farmers are finding that this model can make the most of their land, while establishing a second way to earn money.

But getting the right mix of crop and solar is difficult. Most fruit requires specific growing conditions. Even small changes in the environment can harm crops and cause financial losses. Even if the fruit survives, it might turn the wrong color or be less sweet and may be difficult to sell.

For this reason, Nachtwey is working with researchers to test which kinds of apples do well under a solar cover. He is also investigating which kinds of solar panels work best in the orchard. For testing purposes, Nachtwey covered some of his trees with a traditional netting material. It is normally used to protect sensitive crops from damaging weather events.

Juergen Zimmer is an expert with the areas agricultural services department. He told the AP that apples grown under the solar covers were a little less sweet this year than those under the nets. But almost no solar-shaded apples got damaged in the intense sunlight that hit the area on July 24. In the non-shaded group, about 18 percent of apples suffered sun damage that day, Zimmer said.

We need at least two to three full years to record all the weather conditions that might occur, he added. Zimmer and Nachtwey will also need to look at crop production levels and how the solar covers affect fruit color.

Researchers hope the tests will show that fruit crops perform well under solar panels. This could help prevent renewable energy production from competing for valuable agricultural land. That competition has become an increasing concern as the need for renewable energy increases to fight climate change and rising food prices.

Nachtwey said he could use the solar electricity produced on the farm to power his own buildings and machines. But for now, he plans to provide electricity to homes in the surrounding area.

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English.

_______________________________________________________

Words in This Story

solar panel  n. a large, flat piece of equipment that uses the sun's light or heat to create electricity

shade  n. an area of slight darkness that is produced when something blocks the light of the sun

generate  v. to produce

net  n. a material made of crossed threads with holes between them

renewable  adj. any naturally occurring kind of energy, such as sunlight or wind

What do you think of this story? We want to hear from you. We have a new comment system. Here is how it works:

1. Write your comment in the box. 2. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. 3. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free.

Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here.
The state of Hawaii recently closed its last electricity production center fueled by coal.

The closure is part of its effort to decrease the use of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, and to increase the use of renewable energy resources.

The coal plant had operated for 30 years. It produced up to one-fifth of the electricity on the island of Oahu, the most populous island in Hawaii. The states population is nearly 1.5 million people.

In 2020, Hawaiis Legislature passed a law banning the use of coal for energy production by the start of 2023. Hawaii has set a goal to move to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. It was the first state to set such a goal.

Hawaiis Governor David Ige recently spoke with the Associated Press. He said: It really is about reducing greenhouse gases. Scientists say greenhouse gases in the Earths atmosphere trap heat and contribute to the warming of the atmosphere. Ige said the power plant emitted 1.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year.

People in the state say the Hawaiian Islands have suffered the effects of climate change. These effects include the destruction of coral reefs from warming sea temperatures, sea level rise, intense storms, and drought that is increasing the risk of wildfires in the state.

However, not everyone thinks closing the power plant is a good idea. They say the state will now have to burn more oil because the coal plant is no longer operating. And oil is currently a lot more expensive than coal and causes almost as much pollution.

Hawaii has the highest energy and living costs in the United States. Hawaii Electric Company estimated that ending the use of coal and the additional cost of oil will result in a seven percent increase in electricity bills for consumers. It later lowered the estimate to four percent based on reports of lower oil prices.

Democratic Party state Senator Glenn Wakai said Hawaii was changing from the cheapest fossil fuel to the most expensive fossil fuel. He also said, if you pay an electricity bill, this is a disastrous day for you.

Hawaii is joining 10 other states that do not produce electricity from coal. That information comes from Global Energy Monitor, an organization that promotes the use of renewable energy around the world.

In 2001, there were about 1,100 coal-burning plants in the United States. More than half have stopped operating since then, with most switching to natural gas.

Hawaii already gets about 40 percent of its power from sustainable sources including wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal energy. But oil provides more than half of its electricity.

Kurt Fevella is a State Senator from the Republican Party. He suggested that Hawaiian Electric Company and other energy companies should pay some of the additional cost of changing to renewable energy.

Hawaiian Electric Company is the states only provider of electricity. It said it cannot do very much to change the prices that consumers pay because it does not set prices. Jim Kelly, an official with the company, said, We dont make any money on the fuels that we use to generate electricity.

AES Corporation is the operator of Hawaiis last coal plant. Leonardo Moreno, president of AES Corporations clean energy division, said, Renewables are getting cheaper by the day. He said that he can see a future where renewable energy is low-cost and abundant.

Scott Glenn is Hawaiis Chief Energy Officer. He said that coal is getting more costly. He said Hawaii gets its coal from clearcut rainforests in Indonesia.

Glenn also said, We are already feeling the effects of climate change. He said it is not fair to ask other states or countries to help with climate change if Hawaii does not also help. If we dont, we drown, he said.

Im Andrew Smith.

Caleb Jones reported this story for the Associated Press. Andrew Smith adapted it for VOA Learning English.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

plant n. a building or factory where something is made

contribute to v. to share in bringing a result; to be partly responsible for the result

emit -v. to release a substance or energy into the environment, such as heat, gas, sound and the like.

drought -n. a long period of time without rain, often resulting in a lack of water.

consumers -n. those who use and/or buy materials and services

cheap adj. low in cost

promote -v. to encourage or advocate for

switch -v. to change from doing or using one thing to another thing

sustainable -adj. able to be used or renewed for an indefinite period of time into the future

generate v. to produce; to create

abundant -adj. in great amount, more than enough

clearcut -adj. in forests, areas where all of the trees and vegetation have been cut down and removed

We want to hear from you.

We have a new comment system. Here is how it works:

Write your comment in the box. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free.

Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here.
A farm on the U.S.-Mexico border has become part of a larger disagreement between local, state and federal governments. The disagreement centers on immigration enforcement on the southern border of the United States.

Heavenly Farms

The large pecan farm, known as Heavenly Farms, is owned by Hugo and Magali Urbina. They bought the farm, which is in Eagle Pass, Texas, in April 2021.

The farm is in the U.S. Border Patrols Del Rio sector, which is fast becoming the busiest area for illegal border crossings. Thousands of people pass each week onto the farm.

The Urbinas at first welcomed a new chain-link fence placed on their property earlier this year. The fence was paid for by the state of Texas. It is part of Governor Greg Abbotts campaign to stop illegal border crossings along the Rio Grande River, which forms the border between Texas and Mexico.

One day, the Urbinas found the fences main gate unexpectedly locked.

The lock was put there, they said, by Texas officials who have spent months arresting thousands of migrants on charges of illegally being on private land. But the Urbinas did not want the lock. The U.S. Border Patrol did not want the lock either. The federal agency said it hurt the agencys immigration enforcement efforts. The U.S. Border Patrol had it removed.

Now one gate on the 1,200-mile Texas border has become part of a dispute about migration on Americas southern border. But the Urbinas said they want no part of it.

State versus federal government

After the lock was removed last month, Governor Abbott criticized the action on social media. Unbelievable, Abbott wrote. While Texas secures the border, the federal government is enabling illegal immigration.

The Urbinas do not oppose Abbotts campaign. But in the case of the lock, they said it went too far. They blamed what they see as a lack of a single command in an area with many state troopers, Texas National Guard members, U.S. Border Patrol agents and local officials. Sometimes these groups work together.

They are all doing what they are being told, Magali Urbina said. It is really not their fault, but ... there is no boss.

Migrants had come to the Urbinas farm long before the two bought it.

Agents stopped migrants nearly 50,000 times in the Del Rio sector in July. About six of 10 stops in the Del Rio sector were migrants from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. They were likely to be released to bring their immigration cases in U.S. courts because poor diplomatic relations with those countries mean the U.S. cannot, in some cases, send them home.

Migrants cross the river and climb a few feet uphill into overgrown plants and concertina wire to surrender on the farms edge. They expect to be released. U.S. Border Patrol agents, state troopers and reporters are usually in the area.

Jon Anfinsen is president of the National Border Patrol Council union chapter that includes agents in Eagle Pass.

The governor is telling everyone, Secure the border. I have no doubt that is the intent but the reality of it is that its just not that simple, Anfinsen said.

Border Patrol officials declined to comment to the Associated Press.

Ericka Miller is a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. She said the agency is going along with the Urbinas request to have the gate unlocked. She said DPS is also working to remove overgrown plants on the property. But Miller said the Urbinas are permitting a barrier to stay on the property.

All landowner agreements are voluntary and can be ended at any time, Miller said in an email.

This is our land

At Heavenly Farms, the chain-link fence makes it easier for the Urbinas to bring trespassing charges against people crossing into their farm. However, the Urbinas have not done so yet, although they know cattle ranchers who have.

The state and federal governments are each wanting to pull all the levers and not working together, Hugo Urbina said. The two regret what they see as miscommunication.

The president is not here, the governor is not here, but this is our land, Magali Urbina said.

Im John Russell.

Acacia Coronado reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

______________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

pecan  n. a tall tree in the United States and Mexico that produces a nut that can be eaten

chain-link fence  n. a fence of heavy steel wire woven to form a diamond-shaped mesh

enable  v. to make (something) possible, practical, or easy

concertina wire -- n. a kind of barbed wire that is used as an obstacle

intent  n. the thing that you plan to do or achieve : an aim or purpose

trespassing n. to go on someones land without permission

lever  n. something used to achieve a desired result; a bar or rod that is used to operate or adjust something on a machine, vehicle, device, etc.
Selfless service and a sense of community were key themes at a 9/11 remembrance ceremony in Lebanon on Sunday.

Gathered at the Circle of Flags in Lebanon to remember a day of tragic loss, first-responders, military veterans, young people and community members came together to reaffirm their commitment to remember what happened and how people stood up in the face of terrorism.

All of us, we all promised to never forget, said Donnell Cheek, who served with the Marine Corps. He watched the events of Sept. 11, 2001 unfold while he was on duty.

Lebanon Fire Chief Joseph Rodondi recalled the events of the fateful day 21 years ago, saying its up to those who remember to continue sharing the history so it does not fade in the minds of Americans.

The ceremony was part of a nationwide commemoration of the 9/11 attacks, with Lebanon among 70 communities selected for the second annual 9/11 Day Flag of Honor Across America Memorial.

Each site was charged with reading the names and brief bios of 50 people who died in the attacks. Flags of Honor listing the names were presented to each city as well.

Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Lebanon Express.

Lebanon Police Capt. Kim Hyde said the day was dedicated to remembering 2,983 people who died in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Flights 175 and 93, and American Flights 11 and 77, as well as the six lives on Feb. 26, 1993 during the bombing of the World Trade Center.

The fallen included 343 firefighters and 61 police officers, Hyde said.

For all Americans, for all time, 9/11 will invoke a special meaning, said Lebanon Police Chief Frank Stevenson. A memory of a moment in our history when our world as we knew it changed forever.

The terror attacks that were meant to break the American spirit had the opposite effect, Stevenson said, drawing people together in the aftermath and inspiring acts of bravery and sacrifice.

The ceremony was held under a flag that was previously flown over the United Flight 93 crash site. It was one of four planes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Passengers fought back and crashed the plane, fearing it would target the U.S. Capitol.

In the wake of the attacks, many heard the call to service and joined the nations armed forces to fight. To date, 2,455 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan and 4,431 have died in Iraq, according to Lt. Col. Derrick Sorweide.

I sent American men and women home from Iraq with life-changing injuries and in caskets draped with our flag, Sorweide said. Those names, faces and places are not just in the news or on a monument for me  theyll be forever part of who I am.

Army Sgt. Gianluca Paparo spoke about the unity that comes from shared experiences, whether found digging through the rubble at Ground Zero, where professionals and volunteers scrambled together to help, or found on the battlefield afterwards as people of all walks lined up to serve.

All we have is each other, Paparo said. End of the day, all we can do as people is answer that call.
UW Health nurses and administrators have reached a tentative agreement to avert a strike that was scheduled to start Tuesday, a source said Sunday.

Gov. Tony Evers hosted the parties at the governors mansion for hours of negotiation, where they reached a proposed deal, a source with knowledge of the discussions said.

Spokespeople for UW Health and the union trying to organize the nurses, SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin, would not confirm an agreement late Sunday afternoon.

On Sept. 3, UW Health nurses gave administrators an official notice of their plan to strike Sept. 13-16, saying they seek quality patient care, safe staffing and recognition of their union.

The 10-day notice, required by labor law, came after nurses said the previous week they voted to strike unless UW Health administrators agreed to recognize and bargain with their union, a request they have been making since December 2019.

Im striking to take a stand for quality patient care for my community and the well-being of frontline nurses, Amanda Klinge, a nurse in the orthopedic trauma unit at UW Health, said in a statement. When my nurse colleagues and I see potentially preventable patient care problems occur day after day because of extreme understaffing, it is damaging to our psyche and our very soul.

SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin has said UW nurses have been struggling with a dangerous crisis of understaffing, turnover, cuts, exhaustion and burnout, which has been aggravated by the pandemic and puts patient care at risk.

UW Health said the strike would be unpleasant for patients and for our staff but we will get through it. The organization said it was ensuring patient care is impacted as minimally as possible and a strike would do nothing to alter the legal uncertainties surrounding the health systems ability to collectively bargain.

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walkers signature legislation, Act 10, banned collective bargaining for most public workers except for cost-of-living pay increases. At the time, UW Hospital administrators said the law abolished unions at the hospital even though they didnt seek that action. In 2014, when a contract for about 2,000 nurses and therapists represented by SEIU expired, they lost the union.

In December 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began, nurses announced they were restarting the union and asked the UW Hospital Board to voluntarily recognize it. The board and hospital leaders have repeatedly said the law doesnt allow them to recognize and bargain with the union.

Unlike other public employees affected by Act 10, UW Hospital workers are not state or municipal employees. When the hospital became a public authority separate from the university in 1996, it acquired its own special status. How Act 10 and other laws apply to that status has been the subject of various legal memos.

After two memos last year from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council appeared to reach different conclusions, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul in June said the hospital can contract with its employees and set their terms of employment through a voluntary collective bargaining process. Kauls nonbinding opinion came at the request of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

UW Health last week said: The Attorney General has said he believes we can, but by his own admission states that his opinion is not law and that only the courts or the legislature can provide a conclusive answer.
Nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for statewide offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race, according to an Associated Press review.

They include contenders from one end of the country to the other, often in pivotal swing states, for positions that are the linchpins of democracy.

In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who signed an affidavit to a lawsuit seeking to throw out President Joe Bidens win, is running to be the states top elections official. In Arizona, GOP candidates for the three top statewide offices all backed setting aside Bidens victory in their state.

The breadth of election denial among Republicans is a reminder of the grip that Donald Trump has on the party. As the midterm primary season reaches its conclusion next week, Trump has wielded the power of his endorsement with great effect, lifting candidates who parrot his conspiracy theories while largely sidelining those who accepted the legitimacy of Bidens election.

Thats raising the stakes for the November vote, particularly for contests that play a vital role in validating election results and ensuring peaceful transfers of power. Governors, for instance, often confirm the results of presidential elections. Most secretaries of state oversee their states election system. Attorneys general have the power to defend their states elections or investigate claims of wrongdoing.

Of the 86 Republican candidates vying for those positions in 37 states in the fall, one-third have echoed Trumps lies about widespread fraud costing him reelection, according to the AP review. Only 40% would directly say Biden was legitimately elected.

The ball is still in the voters court, said Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona election official who works at Democracy Fund, which advocates for election access. Depending on who they vote for in November, that may not be the case in the future.

There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in the 2020 election, underscored by repeated audits, court cases and the conclusions of Trumps own Department of Justice.

The prevalence of candidates who insist otherwise has fueled fears of state officials in 2024 trying to award presidential electors to a candidate who did not win them. But it could also cause disruption and distrust in thousands of other down-ballot races across the country.

Trumps falsehoods propelled the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Many of the most aggressive candidates see themselves as part of a movement to uncover a grand election conspiracy they blame for Trumps loss.

We have a fight on our hands, Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, the GOP nominee for secretary of state who was at the Jan. 6 protests, told a gathering of several dozen election skeptics in Omaha, Nebraska, late last month. The establishment and the Democrats want to do everything they can to subvert our elections.

Thats become an article of faith with much of the Republican electorate. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research from 2021 showed that 2 out of every 3 GOP voters believe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

Now, in all but one of the battleground states that decided the 2020 race, there is a Republican candidate on the ticket who, like Finchem, has suggested overturning the Democrats win. The exception is Georgia, where the GOP incumbents beat back a slate of challengers Trump supported to punish them for not awarding the state to him rather than Biden, the actual winner.

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor, attended the Jan. 6 rally near the White House shortly before the riot and arranged for buses to bring others from his state who wanted to stop Congress from certifying Bidens victory.

In Wisconsin, Trump-endorsed businessman Tim Michels, who is running for governor, said he is open to exploring how to decertify Bidens win in the state  something lawyers say is legally impossible.

In Michigan, the Republican candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general have all repeated Trumps election lies.

If even one or two of these people win, were in a full-blown constitutional crisis, said Ellen Kurz, a Democrat whose group, iVote, is involved in the swing state secretary of state races.

Other experts on voting are alarmed but warn against panic.

I dont want to give them more power than they actually have to undermine us and our faith in the election process, said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for expanded voter access. We have a huge infrastructure with thousands of election officials and checks and balance. In places where there are bad intentions to harm voters, we are all working to ensure those dont happen.

The candidates views are important in the key presidential states because a governor or secretary of state with a record of not respecting the actual vote count could introduce chaos into the selection of the next president. Some of the statewide candidates are likely to win in November because they are running in overwhelmingly Republican states. That includes former U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, the GOP nominee for attorney general in Idaho, and Alabama state Rep. Wes Allen, the nominee for secretary of state. Both candidates said they would have signed onto a 2020 Texas lawsuit to overturn Bidens win. That case was swiftly thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And in Wyoming, state Rep. Chuck Gray, who won last months GOP primary for secretary of state, faces no opponent in November in a state that Trump won by 43 percentage points. Gray has repeated Trumps lies about 2020 being rigged.

Yet even as Trump has made denial of the 2020 election results a litmus test in his party, many Republican elected officials have refused to go along.

Democracy is not a partisan issue, said Thania Sanchez of States United Action, an organization tracking candidates who deny the 2020 outcome. A lot of Republicans have been consistent about not spreading the lies about the 2020 election.
TWIN FALLS  The Vietnam War Veterans Memorial was donated by the Class of 1966, and since then, its been up to volunteers to contribute time, attention and care to keeping the memorial and accompanying flowerbeds in shape.

The memorial stands in City Park at Sixth Avenue and Shoshone Street East.

The memorial was dedicated in 1967 and at the time was just the second memorial to the fallen from that conflict. It features a plaque with the names of 17 men from Twin Falls County who gave their lives, and, as commemorated on the plaque, served us wisely, well, honorably.

On Tuesday, three members of the Twin Falls High School Class of 1966, along with one from the Class of 68, spent several hours in the mid-day heat cleaning up the flower beds, replanting annuals, and checking the irrigation system that keeps the flowerbed growing.

Since 2006, Terri Chris has come to town several times each year to take care of the flowerbeds. Chris, who now lives in Boise, made the trip back to town this week to help clean up the memorial. She said she wanted to get the work out of the way early to enjoy the classs upcoming 56th reunion at the park.

Carlene Pedersen of Twin Falls, a member of the Class of 66, said the upcoming reunion will feature a fallen soldier tribute.

Were going to have a table here during the reunion, set up for the fallen soldier, with the place setting, Pedersen said.

Pedersen and Chris were joined by fellow alum Ken Driscoll and Karla Hollifield, both of Boise.

We used to have a bigger crew, but this was just kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, Pedersen said. We decided wed come down and get it all cleaned up.

The reunion will start at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial in City Park.
BURLEY  Students and teachers welcomed cooler temperatures Friday after sweltering in Magic Valley classrooms that lacked air conditioning.

Now that temperatures are moderating, school officials are looking forward to a better learning environment  and hoping for more funding for cooling systems.

Cassia County School District might adjust its calendar to make it better suited for hot late-summer weather.

School Superintendent Sandra Miller said that a teacher reported that one day the temperature in a classroom reached 91 degrees.

It can be a challenging situation, Miller said.

Burley High School, Burley Junior High School, and several other schools, including those in Declo, Raft River and Oakley, have classrooms that are not air conditioned, Miller said. Some schools have air conditioning in only part of the building.

In Twin Falls School District, Harrison and Morningside elementary schools and parts of Robert Stuart Middle School do not have air conditioning or swamp coolers, district spokesperson Eva Craner said.

Lincoln Elementary has limited cooling with window swamp coolers.

While the swamp coolers help, they struggle to keep up when we have temperatures this high, Craner said.

All schools in the Jerome School District have air conditioning.

We are very fortunate, Assistant Superintendent Wendy Ohlensehlen said.

Central air conditioning can be costly. In 2016 and 2019, voters in Cassia County turned down school bond proposals that would have helped pay for an assortment of school improvements, including air conditioning. Miller said school officials will keep trying to get something passed, perhaps proposing a trimmed-down 10-year plant facility levy that would prioritize school cooling.

Craner said the Twin Falls district is using its plant facilities levy to update HVAC systems as funding allows.

That being said, these types of updates are very expensive, Craner said in an email. For example, updating the HVAC system at Lincoln Elementary would cost roughly $5.5 million.

The plant facilities levy provides $4.75 million per year to the district.

Miller has seen the same high expenses in Cassia County.

School district officials recently looked into updating Burley Junior High School, but the quote came in at $2 million when only $600,000 was available, she said.

The school district held a special board meeting Sept. 1 to discuss what options were available to address the sweltering heat. Canceling school for a few days  or at least dismissing school early  was mentioned, but no action was taken.

A factor in not taking action at the school board meeting, Miller said, was the results of a survey of affected teachers. Most teachers wanted school to go on as scheduled.

Miller said the school district might not have had to make up some of the days, but learning would go by the wayside.

It isnt the idea that the state wouldnt require us to make the days up, Miller said, it is that the students need instructional time at their grade levels.

Cassia County is on a four-day a week schedule, she said, and each day in the classroom is important.

We really care about students ability to learn and teachers being able to teach, Miller said, and the record hot temperatures challenged that.

Miller said the Cassia County schools might adjust the school calendar, starting school in September and having classes run further into June. The first day of school this year was Aug. 22.

Despite the struggle with the hot temperatures, Miller said they brought out the best in some people. Companies and individuals donated fans and portable air conditioning units. Administrators and school staff members arrived at schools at 5 a.m. to open the windows, allowing cool air inside the building before school started.

Teachers also worked together to allow more students into classrooms in cooler parts of the school.
Last week in Philadelphia, President Joe Biden gave the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president, so former President Donald Trump proclaimed at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday before proceeding to outdo Biden.

The two speeches  one decrying MAGA Republicans who represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic, the other condemning the radical left lunatics who are trying to destroy our country  mirrored each other in ways neither man would be willing to admit. Both portrayed the other side as not just mistaken but malevolent and warned that its victory this fall would doom everything Americans hold dear.

Biden prefaced his attack on Trump and his followers by drawing a distinction between MAGA Republicans and mainstream Republicans, whom Ive been able to work with. But even as he averred that not even the majority of Republicans are MAGA Republicans, Biden warned that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, who pose a threat to this country.

Trumps supporters, Biden explained, do not respect the Constitution, do not believe in the rule of law and do not recognize the will of the people. They promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence, which threatens the very soul of this country.

MAGA Republicans refuse to accept the results of a free election, which makes them a clear and present danger to our democracy. They dont understand what every patriotic American knows: You cant love your country only when you win. They embrace anger, thrive on chaos, and live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. They are committed to destroying American democracy and determined to take this country backwards.

Trump complained that Biden was trying to demonize half of the population  more than half, actually, since Trump still insists that he won the 2020 presidential election by a wide margin. Referring to the number of votes he received that year, Trump accused Biden of vilifying 75 million citizens  plus another probably 75 to 150 (million), if we want to be accurate about it  as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state.

Trumps rejoinder: I know you are, but what am I? The enemy of the state is him, Trump said. The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right.

Although Trump claimed to be dismayed by Bidens hatred and anger, his remarks in Wilkes-Barre were not exactly full of sweetness and light. Radical Democrats, he explained, are sick, sinister and evil people who are trying to destroy our country because they hate our country.

Democrats are against God, guns, oil, law enforcement, voter ID, tax cuts, regulation cuts, the Constitution, and ... our founding fathers, Trump said. Their agenda is so repellant that the way they win is to cheat in elections  the conviction that led Trump to embrace one wild election fraud claim after another.

Although those sore-loser excuses are at the core of the extreme MAGA ideology that Biden perceives, Trump insists the movement is about more than his vanity and lust for power. The 2020 election was rigged, and now our country is being destroyed by people who got into office through cheating and through fraud, he said in Wilkes-Barre. This battle is not about me. This is a struggle for the very fate of our republic.

Biden agrees, offering his own apocalyptic take on the next election. While he is obviously right that accepting electoral defeat is a crucial part of democracy, he has his own reasons for exaggerating the imminence of the republics demise.

Trump and Biden also agree that Americans should be united against division. Voting for Democrats, Biden said in Philadelphia, means choosing hope and unity and optimism over fear, division and darkness. Democrats think they can divide us, Trump said in Wilkes-Barre, but they cant.

Why is the other side always so divisive?
Although the number of deaths due to traffic crashes decreased over this years Labor Day weekend compared to last year, juveniles accounted for the majority, and two deaths occurred in the local area.

In Henry County, Vincent Nicholas Sciarabba, 85, of Warrenton, North Carolina, was struck and killed while crossing Virginia Avenue Saturday night, Sept. .

The Virginia State Police said the call came in at 8:53 p.m. after a 2012 Dodge Charger, traveling north in Collinsville, struck Sciarabba just south of Wheeler Avenue.

No charges were filed and the identity of the driver was not made known.

Earlier Saturday morning, six-year-old Kias Jordan Salas was ejected from a vehicle on Mount Cross Road, not far from the Henry County/Pittsylvania County line, and died at the scene.

The crash occurred at 3:37 a.m. near Log Haven Road when a 2007 Chevrolet Aveo, traveling west, ran off the right side of the roadway, struck a ditch and overturned.

The driver, Czachary Paul Roe, 37, of Callands, was injured and transported to the hospital.

Two other juveniles in the car suffered life-threatening injuries, a release from the Virginia State Police stated.

Police said charges were pending in the case, but nothing was listed under the drivers name with the Virginia Judiciary Online Case Information System on Thursday.

Statewide, even with a reduction in fatal traffic crashes compared to the 2021 Labor Day holiday weekend, there was a total of six reported traffic deaths. Four involved juveniles; two of the people who died were pedestrians, and three of the people who died in wrecks had not been wearing a seatbelt. During the 2021 Labor Day weekend, there were 10 traffic fatalities on Virginias highways the release said.

While the reduction in traffic deaths is encouraging, six families still lost loved ones this past weekend, said Colonel Gary T. Settle, Virginia State Police superintendent in a release on Thursday. Four of those tragically lost were young people with a full life ahead of them and two of those children were not wearing a seatbelt or safely secured in a child safety restraint. I implore all Virginians to wear their seatbelts and require all those riding with you to do the same.

In additional to Henry and Pittsylvania counties, during the 2022 four-day holiday statistical counting period, the six fatal traffic crashes occurred in the counties of Hanover, Shenandoah and Sussex and the city of Norfolk. A 7-year-old girl and Sciarabba were the two pedestrian fatalities. The two juveniles not wearing seatbelts were a 17-year-old girl and Salas. The fourth traffic death involving a juvenile was an 11-year-old girl.

State Police investigated a total of 772 traffic crashes during the holiday weekend, the release stated.
Lead author Professor John Haanen. Credit: European Society for Medical Oncology

A novel treatment strategy with personalized cell therapy significantly improves progression-free survival compared to standard immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma, according to ground-breaking results reported at the ESMO Congress 2022 from the phase 3 M14TIL trial.

"This study shows for the first time in a randomized, controlled trial that cell therapy can be efficacious and beneficial for patients with solid cancers," said lead author John Haanen, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands. "For patients with melanoma, we see a 50% reduction in the chance of progression of the disease or dying from the disease, which is absolutely practice changing. This is the first time that a TIL-based approach has been compared directly to standard-of-care treatment, in this case ipilimumab. So we are now able to position TIL treatment much better in the management landscape for patients with metastatic melanoma."

"TIL therapy is an extraordinary therapy," commented George Coukos, Lausanne University Hospital and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne, Switzerland, who was not involved in the study. "TIL is a new paradigm for treating cancers and, as these results clearly demonstrate, it's efficacious and feasible at large scale. The findings raise hopes for the management and potential cure of metastatic solid tumors."

The treatment essentially involves taking a small sample from a patient's resected tumor, growing immune T cells from the tumor in the laboratory and then infusing the personalized TIL therapy back into the patient following chemotherapy. TILs recognize tumor cells as abnormal, penetrate them and then work to kill them.

The phase 3 M14TIL trial randomized 168 patients with unresectable stage IIIC-IV melanoma to immunotherapy with the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab or to TIL treatment; most patients had failed prior anti-PD-1 treatment. Results reported for the first time at the ESMO Congress 2022 showed that patients treated with TIL therapy had significantly longer median progression-free survival of 7.2 months compared to 3.1 months in those receiving ipilimumab; the overall response rate to TILs was 49% versus 21% for ipilimumab; median overall survival was 25.8 months versus 18.9 months. Patients are still being followed up for overall survival.

Treatment options for patients with metastatic melanoma have changed considerably over the last 10 years with the development of checkpoint inhibitors, including the PD-1 inhibitors nivolumab and pembrolizumab and the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab. These drugs release a natural brake on the immune system so that the body's own immune cells can recognize and attack tumor cells. "They have a very good safety profile and quite high efficacy and are now often given as first-line therapy. But if patients fail first-line treatments then the options become very scarce, particularly for patients failing anti-PD-1 drugs so there is a real unmet need," explained Haanen. He added: "In our study, 89% of patients had failed anti-PD-1 treatment." The remaining patients joined the trial before anti-PD-1 therapies were licensed.

Exploring the possible mechanism by which TIL therapy is effective in patients who have failed anti-PD-1 treatment, Haanen suggested: "We think that the mechanism of resistance to anti-PD-1 treatment is mostly delivered by the tumor microenvironment. So when we take these cells out of their natural environment, reactivate them in the laboratory, grow them up to very large numbers and give them back to the patients we can overcome some of the escape mechanisms. And that's what we are seeingotherwise TILs wouldn't work in this setting."

Even though grade 3 or higher adverse events occurred in all patients treated with TIL therapy and 57% of those randomized to ipilimumab, Haanen specified: "The side-effects are well manageable and most resolve by the time patients leave the hospital after their TIL therapy". He also added that most side-effects are related to the other therapies, including chemotherapy and interleukin-2, that patients receive as part of the TIL regimen. About the impact of TIL therapy, Haanen concluded: "TIL has the potential to benefit patients with a wide range of solid tumors and trials are currently underway in many cancer types, including lung, cervical and head and neck cancers."

Haanen explained that the trial was run by academics in the Netherlands and Denmark, with no industry involvement. The researchers are now working to obtain EMA approval for their TIL therapy to try to ensure that it remains affordable, free from commercial pressures.

"The results from this phase 3 study could potentially lead to regulatory approval that would be practice changing," said Coukos. "It would enable countries that would consider this path to establish centers that can deliver TIL therapy for patients and establish this a potential second-line treatment in advanced melanoma."

Explore further Reversing resistance to PD-1 inhibitors with combination immunotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma

More information: LBA3 'Treatment with tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) versus ipilimumab (IPI) for advanced melanoma: results from a multicenter, randomized phase 3 trial' will be presented by John Haanen during Presidential Symposium 1 on Saturday, 10 September, 16:30 to 18:00 CEST in Paris Auditorium. Annals of Oncology, Volume 33 Supplement 7, September 2022. Journal information: Annals of Oncology LBA3 'Treatment with tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) versus ipilimumab (IPI) for advanced melanoma: results from a multicenter, randomized phase 3 trial' will be presented by John Haanen during Presidential Symposium 1 on Saturday, 10 September, 16:30 to 18:00 CEST in Paris Auditorium., Volume 33 Supplement 7, September 2022. www.esmo.org/meetings/esmo-congress-2022
A child is vaccinated with the R21 malaria vaccine at Nanoro, Burkina Faso. Credit: Prof. Katie Ewer

Researchers from the University of Oxford and their partners have today reported new findings from their Phase 2b trial following the administration of a booster dose of the candidate malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-Mwhich previously demonstrated high-level efficacy of 77% over the following 12 months in young west African children in 2021.

In their findings (reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases), they found that a vaccine booster dose at one year following a primary three-dose regime maintained high efficacy against malaria, and continued to meet the World Health Organization's Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap goal of a vaccine with at least 75% efficacy.

The authors report from a Phase IIb randomized, controlled, double-blind trial conducted at the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN) / Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Sante (IRSS), Burkina Faso. A total of 450 participants aged five to 17 months were recruited from the catchment area of Nanoro, with 409 receiving the booster.

The participants were randomly assigned to three groups, with the first two groups receiving the R21/Matrix-M (with either a low dose or high dose of the Matrix-M adjuvant) vaccine as a booster and the third a rabies vaccine as the control group. Each child received the same booster vaccination as their primary series of vaccinations. Doses were administered in June 2020, largely prior to the peak malaria season.

The researchers report a vaccine efficacy of 80% in the higher-dose adjuvant group, and 70% in the lower dose adjuvant group, over 12 months of follow-up. Antibody levels were restored to similar levels as those following the primary vaccinations 28 days after the booster doses were administered. No serious adverse events related to the vaccine were noted.

Halidou Tinto, Professor in Parasitology, Regional Director of IRSS in Nanoro, and the trial Principal Investigator, said, "It is fantastic so see such high efficacy again after a single booster dose of vaccine. We are currently part of a very large phase III trial aimed at licensing this vaccine for widespread use next year."

Professor Adrian Hill, the University of Oxford's Director of the Jenner Institute and Lakshmi Mittal and Family Professor of Vaccinology, and co-author of the paper, said, "We are delighted to find that a standard four dose immunization regime can now, for the first time, reach the high efficacy level over two years that has been an aspirational target for malaria vaccines for so many years."

The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine candidate created by the University of Oxford includes Novavax' proprietary saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant and is licensed to Serum Institute of India.

The trial has been extended for another two years to assess if further booster doses will be necessary to maintain high efficacy over time.

Results from the key ongoing Phase III licensure trial to assess large-scale safety and efficacy in 4,800 children aged five to 36 months across four African countries, are also expected later this year.

Gareth Jenkins, Director of Advocacy at Malaria No More UK said, "Today's R21 vaccine results from Oxford's renowned Jenner Institute are another encouraging signal that, with the right support, the world could end child deaths from malaria in our lifetimes.

"But for new British inventions to achieve their potential, British leadership must continue, not least at the imminent US-hosted Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria replenishment conference this September.

"This will be the new PM's first foreign policy testfor the sake of millions of children's lives, global health security, and British relations with its closest ally, it's a test they cannot fail."

Explore further New malaria vaccine results raise hopes of mass rollout

More information: Mehreen S Datoo et al, Efficacy and immunogenicity of R21/Matrix-M vaccine against clinical malaria after 2 years' follow-up in children in Burkina Faso: a phase 1/2b randomised controlled trial, The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2022). Journal information: Lancet Infectious Diseases Mehreen S Datoo et al, Efficacy and immunogenicity of R21/Matrix-M vaccine against clinical malaria after 2 years' follow-up in children in Burkina Faso: a phase 1/2b randomised controlled trial,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00442-X
ELK MILLS, Md. (AP)  Two parents and their three children were found fatally shot at a Maryland home, authorities said Saturday.

Autopsies confirmed that all five family members died from gunshot wounds, the Cecil County Sheriffs Office said in a news release. An unnamed man had called 911 on Friday morning from the Elk Mills home to report that a woman and three children had been shot and were dead, the sheriff's office said.

The parents were identified as Marcus Edward Milligan, 39, and Tara Devina Ricker Milligan, 37. Their two daughters and son were identified as Teresa Milligan, 14; Nora Milligan, 11; and Finn Milligan, 8. An earlier news release didn't specify that the two adults found in the home were the children's parents.

Investigators found a handgun near the fathers body, according to the sheriff's office.

The shooting remained under investigation on Saturday. A sheriff's office spokesman, Lt. Michael Holmes, declined to elaborate on the circumstances of the shooting.

I can say theres no threat to the public currently, Holmes said.

The spokesman wouldnt address whether they believe the deceased father is the same man who called 911 from the home.

The shooting occurred on a cul-de-sac in an area of residential streets interspersed with wooded areas about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of Baltimore and a few miles west of the Delaware state line.

Its a horrific day, and I know everybodys prayers are appreciated," Sheriff Scott Adams said on Friday. My phone hasnt stopped ringing from people concerned about this and upset about this.

The sheriff didn't provide a possible motive for the shooting. He said that his office has no records of deputies responding to calls at the house.
Ryan Zinke just announced that his first act in Congress would be a law he is calling the FEAR Act, which he claims reforms the government bureaucracy.

But this ill-conceived proposal is half-baked and threatens the livelihoods of our fellow Montanans who work to prevent and fight forest fires, keep planes from crashing into each other, maintain our national parks and federal public lands, assure workplace and product safety, assist farmers and ranchers, thin forests around our homes, advise small business, protect fish and game, provide services to tribes, and deliver the mail. Thats bad for everyone whose careers have been built around doing that work, and bad for all of us who rely on these vital public services.

More than 13,000 Montanans work for the federal government. Zinkes FEAR Act will disincentivize good people from entering public service and will fire experts whose knowledge and talents are needed.

Zinke admits that the law  as he wrote it  may mistakenly target front-line workers or interrupt essential services. But he assures us that once introduced in Congress, his bill will somehow magically be amended to protect the public and Montanas hard-working federal workers. But we dont need, and shouldnt elect, a Congressman who introduces bad bills with the hope that somehow more knowledgeable members of Congress will clean them up.

Over 125 years ago, Congress rejected the spoils system and provided that merit, not political connections, should determine who got hired to work for the federal government. Since then we have benefited from the experience and professional expertise of federal workers. They sent us to the moon, gave us the internet, the weather reports we check every day, and the Fort Peck dam that Zinke claims brought his family to Montana.

Zinkes FEAR Act would reverse all that. Make no mistake about it: Zinke is proposing to restore the bad old days when politicians handed out government jobs like candy and the public had to swallow the resulting incompetence and corruption.

The most glaring problem with Zinkes FEAR Act is that it does not stop the most obvious form of government corruption: the revolving door that lets former government officials profit from the companies they once regulated. I support closing that door by banning lobbyists from ever fundraising for candidates and increasing the cooling off period from its current one-year ban to a five-year ban for former Congress members to work in industries that have business before the federal government.

Its not surprising that Zinke would wrongly police competent essential workers and not police his own corruption because hes not serving the public, hes watching out for himself. As Interior Secretary, he recommended reducing the Bears Ears Monument by 85% so that oil, gas, and coal drilling could occur on sacred and public lands. After Zinke left office, he went on to earn lots of money consulting for companies that stood to profit from Zinkes trade of public land for private industry gain.

Last year alone, ConocoPhillips paid Zinke $460,000. Are they paying for Zinkes knowledge  or for his vote? Are we really expected to believe that Zinkes recommendation to take away land from the public was driven by the public good instead of his own private future earnings? Last week, Zinkes trail of corruption added another stop, with the Investigator General report that Zinke lied to investigators about his conduct.

If theres anything good about the FEAR Act, its its name. Because the act, and Zinkes intentions, are truly to be feared.
The Burke County Chamber of Commerce is trying something new this month to encourage local residents to clean up the community.

From Sept. 19-24, the chamber will hold the inaugural Burke County Chamber of Commerce Litter Sweep presented by Republic Services. According to the chambers website, the litter sweep is a perfect opportunity for families, boys' and girls' clubs, church groups and more to spend time together outside and make a positive impact on the community.

Were hoping that a lot of people will get together and get out and try to help with our litter problem, said Tonia Stephenson, president and CEO of the chamber.

To raise the stakes a little more, the chamber is introducing a competitive element to the week-long event. Participants are encouraged to register teams and compete for cash prizes.

The team that collects the most bags of trash, theres a $500 cash prize, Stephenson said. And then there will be a cash prize for second and third place as well.

Stephenson said there are no rules governing the size or make-up of the teams and encouraged people to get creative when pulling teams together.

Were really hoping to see a lot of groups, we think its a great opportunity for teams, she said. Were hoping businesses will put groups together or Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, youth groups at churches, key clubs at schools -- all kinds of groups.

Stephenson said teams can choose any street or neighborhood on which to focus their efforts. If teams are not sure where to begin, the chamber has a list of locations where clean-up is most needed. Teams are free to choose locations or streets that are not on the list but Stephenson asked that teams let her know the areas they plan to cover so she can make sure multiple groups are not planning to tackle the same location.

To get the competition started and distribute supplies and materials to the groups, the chamber has planned a kick-off event for Monday, Sept. 12 at Morganton City Hall. During the event, which will run from 4-5:30 p.m., teams can pick up supplies and sign the necessary paperwork to participate in the event.

This is our opportunity to get to know our teams, to gather together, thank them with a little bit of refreshments up front and give them their supplies, Stephenson said.

Teams dont have to attend the event in order to participate in the competition.

Of course, if they cant make the kickoff event, they can come by the chamber throughout the rest of the week, she said

Stephenson also said there will be a celebration after the Litter Sweep is over on Oct. 3.

Thats where well actually present the check to the winning team, she said.

Stephenson said she is grateful to Republic Services for donations that have made the Litter Sweep possible and for guidance helping her set up the event.

Theyve definitely been great advisers as well as giving monetary support, she said.

Stephenson said the idea came about after hearing the Burke County Commissioners address the issues of trash pick-up and litter in Burke County at the end of several of last years meetings.

I could tell that it was a real concern for our community, she said. I thought  'thats something that I feel like we could easily do to help raise awareness for our community that litter is a problem here.' It would also be an opportunity for the entire community to gather together to try to help beautify our community.

Depending on how this months Litter Sweep goes, Stephenson hopes to make it an annual event.

We definitely want to make it an annual event, she said. Its unknown how big itll be and how itll go, but were excited about it, and weve already had some teams to sign up.

Either way, she is looking forward to a week of community togetherness, giving back and caring for the community we all call home.

We want our streets to look like we care about them and not have litter taking the place of all the beauty that surrounds us, Stephenson said. I thought in general, it would be a great event for our community ... to really show our community that we really care about where we live, and we want to take care of where we live.
Local residents with ties to The United Kingdom are joining with people around the world mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

Peter Skelton, owner of The Levee Brewery & Pub in Valdese, is a British expat who still maintains close communication with many in his home country. He said Thursday was a day he knew was coming but was never quite ready for.

Its a surprise in some ways because she seemed like she was going to go on forever, he said. But equally, she was 96, as well, so its not a surprise.

He looks forward to see how King Charles III will carry his mothers legacy forward and how the country will receive its new king in the coming months.

I think the most interesting thing thats going to come from all of this is seeing how the U.K. reacts to a new monarch, he said. We havent had one since 1952  thats several generations ago. Itll be interesting to see how, one, Charles steps to the role, and two, if there is still such a solid place for the monarchy after so much time has passed and so much of the rest of the world has changed.

Skelton said Queen Elizabeth was a stabilizing force that saw the nation through seven decades of change and progress.

Very few people would be able to fill the role for such a long time with the competence, I suppose, that she demonstrated, he said. To be able to maintain that stability and the presence she showed over the decades.

Sharon McBrayer, a reporter for The News Herald, spent nearly a year living in England in 1995 and 1996. She agreed that the queen has been able to provide remarkable stability to the country for the last 70 years.

Americans have really no concept of how important Queen Elizabeth was to most people, she said. I think she brought a lot of stability because, when the prime ministers changed, the queen was always this stable figure head.

She also said despite deep political differences among people in the U.K., the queen was always a unifying figure for her people.

Theyre just as partisan as the U.S., McBrayer said. But I think, during times of national turmoil, they always look to her because she could never be outright political.

Skelton said the queen is a perfect example of the role soft power can play in a democracy.

Its interesting to see the effects that that long-term stability and the influence of soft power, rather than overtly exerted power, has on the world, he said. I think she had a much more outsized influence on global politics than people realize.

You can question whether theres a role for a non-elected monarch in a modern democracy. I dont think that you can question that she undertook her duties to the very best of her ability  no matter what your personal thoughts on the system are, thats a personal achievement of hers.

Burke County Commissioner Scott Mulwee, whose daughter lives near Manchester, England, summed up his thoughts on the queen saying she will be remembered as a remarkable symbol of strength and character.

What a historical figure, he said. Unbelievable legacy, unbelievable lady, she is absolutely her own chapter in history  amazing person.
When Rutherford College Elementary School closed several years ago, many former attendees from Rutherford College and Connelly Springs were saddened. Generations of our families had attended the school. However, despair changed to hope and joy when we heard the news of the old Rutherford College Elementary School becoming the new transitional kindergarten through grade 12 Christ Classical Academy.

Robin Cannon, founder and principal of Christ Classical Academy, sat down with me Aug. 27 to tell me the history of CCA. She was gracious to give me time to talk about CCA, its beginning, its journey and future endeavors.

Christ Classical Academy, a tuition-based school, opened in 2015 at the Drexel First Church of God with 20 students and four teachers, Robin said. By the end of the year, we had 24 students. We felt the need for a different location. We went to Crosslink Church, and they welcomed us with open arms. They opened their doors and all their facilities to us. They had a beautiful faculty and staff. We have been there six years and ended this year with 194 students.

When Rutherford College Elementary was put on the market at $2.1 million, Robin knew that was a hefty price for a young school. Even when it was bumped down to $1.9 million, Robin was told she couldnt afford it.

If its Gods will, we will get it, she said.

Each evening, Robin, her husband, the teachers and volunteers walked and prayed over the whole campus. When the school board voted to accept a bid for $300,000, the bidding process began. Robin was outbid by a developer in Southern California. The developer decided it was not good karma to bid against a Christian school.

We believe in God and not karma, Robin said. God allowed us to keep the whole property at $397,000, which is still valued at $1.5 million.

They closed in January 2022 and began renovating the main portion of the building in April.

The school now has a new roof where there was a leak in the connecting hallway between the two buildings. All the walls have fresh paint. The floors have new tile and vinyl. The inner court between the two elementary buildings has been made safe and secure with fences and gates for the younger children to play.

Volunteers have worked diligently, Robin said. Weve had missionaries from New Jersey. Volunteers from local churches, teachers, parents and grandparents have worked weeks at a time. If it werent for them, theres no way we would be ready Sept. 19.

They delayed the date to begin school in order to make sure the students are secure and start off strong. They did wiring for the internet and put in a new security system. The doors will be kept locked during the school day.

We have added a portable building so our band can be here, Robin said. God has provided everything. We know Gods hand is in it because of the way he brought it about. When we pushed the date back, Spectrum couldnt get internet until Sept. 15. Thats Gods timing, not ours. I wanted to start Aug. 15.

Starting this school year, the school will have almost 260 students in transitional kindergarten through high school. They will renovate the gym because it is not high school regulation, and add new classrooms. Transitional kindergarten through fourth-grade classes are full. Fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms still have room for growth.

We will utilize Crosslinks sanctuary for concerts, Robin said. Theyre only seven tenths a mile away. They have donated furniture. They gave me my desk and office furniture. They have been a blessing.

She explained how Christian instruction will be integrated into the curriculum.

They will have chapel once a week  first, praise and worship and then they break into small groups, Robin said. The pastors from the community will talk about Biblical character traits to the youngers.

We will be doing a program called Royal Ambassadors. We will be teaching some of them to raise and lower the Christian and American flags each day, so they can learn to be ambassadors for Christ within their own school.

Robin said the teachers at the school are required to be saved, but students are not.

Do we have perfect students? No, Robin said. Were not perfect. We have just as many behavior issues here as any school. We dont just do consequence for unacceptable behavior, but work toward reconciliation. Our desire is to partner with our parents, the students first teachers. We never feel like we replace the parents. We welcome dialogue with them. The parents have been generous and understanding about the push back date until Sept. 19.

She noted that the first school in Rutherford College was a seminary.

I was so glad to hear this, because what God started here, we can continue, Robin said. We want to be a light to our community. We pray they will come to our dedication on Sept. 16. We will pray for our schools in Burke County, as well as Christ Classical Academy.

Christ is at the center of it all. There is so much rich history here. People come on campus and say, I went to school here. Can we come in and walk around? My grandparents went to school here. My kids went here. I taught here. We welcome them.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  Eager to root for viewer favorites "Yellowstone," "NCIS" or "Young Sheldon" during the Emmy Awards? Save your breath.

They and other ratings successes failed to make a dent in nominations for Monday's ceremony. Instead, the haul went to shows that are critical darlings or possess a higher degree of cool, "Stranger Things" and "Squid Game" among them.

While it may be frustrating to fans, industry experts consider such omissions a sign that television's most prestigious honor is doing its job, or trying to, in the daunting age of "peak TV" overload.

"When the Emmys were created more than 70 years ago, there were so few shows. The public was familiar with what was being nominated," said TV producer-writer William Rosenthal. That remained the case for most of the 20th century, but today it's "a whole different game, with more than 500 series, and also international series."

Netflix's "Squid Game" is a case in point, a South Korean drama that's the first non-English language nominee for top series honors. The dystopian horror story is competing with seven other acclaimed shows, including "Succession" and "Severance."

The crush of programming means that even worthy shows struggle for recognition.

"You would have thought this bounty of quality would have been wonderful for the Emmys, but it's become one of their most significant challenges," said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. "What happens when an award that was originally designed to pick out the high points in what was called the 'idiot box' suddenly has more high points than they can possibly know what to do with?"

Which begs the question: Given the many options splintering the TV audience, how can an awards show draw a crowd?

The ceremony isn't limited to spotlighting only nominated shows, said returning executive producers Reginald Hudlin and Ian Stewart. The awards air 8 p.m. EDT Monday on NBC, with Kenan Thompson of "Saturday Night Live" as host.

"The writing, the filmmaking, the acting that you see on television is extraordinary," said Hudlin. "We want to celebrate all of TV ... the things we like to watch, whatever those are, yay!"

How to accomplish that? "Put a bit of 'Law & Order' in there for the people, and that's exactly what we're going to do," said Stewart, using the long-running franchise as shorthand for crowd favorites. "We want people to recognize their TV, not our TV, not just those things that are nominated but they've never heard of, or don't subscribe to the streaming service."

One approach, inviting actors from non-nominated shows to serve as presenters, is already evident: Mariska Hargitay of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and Christopher Meloni of "Law & Order: Organized Crime" will do just that (with both shows also conveniently on host network NBC).

The nominations winnowing process was particularly brutal this year. The farewell seasons of network favorites "black-ish" and "This Is Us" were snubbed, and FX's "Atlanta" was left out of the best comedy series category after two previous nods (although star-creator Donald Glover is up for an acting trophy, which he won in 2017).

Staples like NBC's "Chicago Fire" or CBS' "NCIS"  the No. 1 network drama with an average 10 million viewers last season  are awards longshots in any field, but particularly among TV's endless wave of innovative storytelling. The same goes for Paramount's "Yellowstone," well-crafted but not seen as cutting edge, which leaves even its deserving cast members out in the cold.

"It seems like a big oversight that Kelly Reilly hasn't been nominated," said Rosenthal, whose credits include "Nurse Jackie" and who is an assistant professor at Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. Reilly's performance as tough but troubled Beth Dutton in the modern Western is "really fantastic," he said.

Emmy nods largely favored shows from big-spending streaming services like Netflix, among the drivers of TV's explosive growth, alongside relatively old-guard premium cable channels including HBO and Showtime. Of the 21 nominees in the best drama, comedy and limited series categories, 11 are on streaming services and seven are on premium cable.

ABC's comedy "Abbott Elementary," stands alone as a broadcast network series nominee. Two series nods went to basic cable: AMC's "Better Call Saul" and FX's "What We Do in the Shadows."

When broadcast and daily ratings ruled TV, before DVRs and streaming, Emmy recognition could help make a show. The groundbreaking police drama "Hill Street Blues" is a vivid example cited by Syracuse's Thompson.

It was among the lowest-rated series when it was showered in 1981 with a then-record eight Emmys, he said, and spared cancellation. It aired until 1987 and won four consecutive best drama series awards.

The Emmys hunt still triggers splashy "for your consideration" promotional campaigns aimed at academy voters. But the overloaded pop culture environment has dimmed the appeal of Hollywood awards ceremonies across the board, as ebbing viewership proves, and maybe the cachet of the trophies themselves.

Emmy producer Stewart offers a counter perspective to the latter. Statistically, he said, the odds of winning one of the 25 Emmys to be given Monday are overwhelmingly long.

"Let's not forget that this is an incredible, incredible achievement," he said.

___
Americans are remembering 9/11 with tear-choked tributes and pleas to never forget, 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. Victims relatives and dignitaries gathered Sunday at all three places where hijacked jets crashed on Sept. 11, 2001  the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. President Joe Biden told the Pentagon gathering that the U.S. would continue working to root out terrorists. First lady Jill Biden spoke in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris attended the ceremony in New York, where politicians are not allowed to speak. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.
Most of the debates on the usage of Latinx  pronounced la-teen-ex  have taken place in the U.S. But the word has begun to spread into Spanish-speaking countries  where it hasnt exactly been embraced.

In July 2022, Argentina and Spain released public statements banning the use of Latinx, or any gender-neutral variant. Both governments reasoned that these new terms are violations of the rules of the Spanish language.

Latinx is used as an individual identity for those who are gender-nonconforming, and it can also describe an entire population without using Latinos, which is currently the default in Spanish for a group of men and women.

As a Mexican-born, U.S.-raised scholar, I agree with the official Argentine and Spanish stance on banning Latinx from the Spanish language  English, too.

When I first heard Latinx in 2017, I thought it was progressive and inclusive, but I quickly realized how problematic it was. Five years later, Latinx is not commonly used in Spanish-speaking countries, nor is it used by the majority of those identifying as Hispanic or Latino in the U.S.

In fact, theres a gender-inclusive term thats already being used by Spanish-speaking activists that works as a far more natural replacement.

Low usage

Though the exact origins of Latinx are unclear, it emerged sometime around 2004 and gained popularity around 2014. Merriam-Webster added it to its dictionary in 2018.

However, a 2019 Pew research study and 2021 Gallup poll indicated that less than 5% of the U.S. population used Latinx as a racial or ethnic identity.

Gallup asked Hispanic respondents about their preference among the terms "Hispanic," "Latino" and "Latinx. Results: https://t.co/LE1WRW98ah pic.twitter.com/BDh1NOn4XP  Catherine Rampell (@crampell) August 5, 2021

Nonetheless, Latinx is becoming commonplace among academics; its used at conferences, in communication and especially in publications.

But is it inclusive to use Latinx when most of the population does not?

Perpetuating elitism

The distinct demographic differences of those who are aware of or use Latinx calls into question whether the term is inclusive or just elitist.

Individuals who self-identify as Latinx or are aware of the term are most likely to be U.S.-born, young adults from 18 to 29 years old. They are predominately English-speakers and have some college education. In other words, the most marginalized communities do not use Latinx.

My problem with Latinx isnt using the term. Its that many Brown communities are still culturally isolated in the US, and our expectation that theyll just adopt it because affluent LGBTQ+ regions have is unfair and problematic. #Queer #SaturdayThoughts  David Arias  (@darias_tweets) January 22, 2022

Scholars, in my view, should never impose social identities onto groups that do not self-identify that way.

I once had a reviewer for an academic journal article I submitted about womens experiences with catcalling tell me to replace my use of Latino and Latina with Latinx. However, they had no issue with me using man or woman when it came to my white participants.

I was annoyed at the audacity of this reviewer. The goal of the study was to show catcalling, a gendered interaction, as an everyday form of sexism.

How was I supposed to differentiate my participants sexism experiences by gender and race if I labeled them all as Latinx?

The x factor

If a term is truly inclusive, it gives equitable weight to vastly diverse experiences and knowledge; it is not meant to be a blanket identity.

Women of color, in general, are severely underrepresented in leadership positions and STEM fields. Using Latinx for women further obscures their contributions and identity. I have even seen some academics try to get around the nebulous nature of Latinx by writing Latinx mothers or Latinx women instead of Latinas.

Furthermore, if the goal is to be inclusive, the x would be easily pronounceable and naturally applied to other parts of the Spanish language.

Some Spanish speakers would rather identify by nationality  say, Mexicano or Argentino  instead of using umbrella terms like Hispanic or Latino. But the x cant be easily applied to nationalities. Like Latinx, Mexicanx and Argentinx dont exactly roll off the tongue in any language. Meanwhile, gendered articles in Spanish  los and las for the plural the  become lxs, while gendered pronouns el and ella becomes ellx.

The utility and logic of it quickly falls apart.

Latine as an alternative

Many academics might feel compelled to continue to use Latinx because they fought hard to have it recognized by their institutions or have already published the term in an academic journal. But there is a much better gender-inclusive alternative, one thats been largely overlooked by the U.S. academic community and is already being used in Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America, especially among young social activists in those countries.

Its Latine  pronounced lah-teen-eh  and its far more adaptable to the Spanish language. It can be implemented as articles  les instead of los or las, the words for the. When it comes to pronouns, elle can become a singular form of they and used in place of the masculine el or feminine ella, which translate to he and she. It can also be readily applied to most nationalities, such as Mexicane or Argentine.

Because language shapes the way we think, its important to note that gendered languages like Spanish, German and French do facilitate gender stereotypes and discrimination. For example, in German, the word for bridge is feminine, and in Spanish, the word for bridge is masculine. Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky had German speakers and Spanish speakers describe a bridge. The German speakers were more likely to describe it using adjectives like beautiful or elegant, while the Spanish speakers were more likely to describe it in masculine ways  tall and strong.

Moreover, the existing gender rules in Spanish are not perfect. Usually words ending in -o are masculine and those ending in -a are feminine, but there are many common words that break those gender rules, like la mano, the word for hand. And, of course, Spanish already uses an e for gender-neutral words, such as estudiante, or student.

I believe Latine accomplishes what Latinx originally meant to and more. Similarly, it eliminates the gender binary in its singular and plural form. However, Latine is not confined to an elite, English-speaking population within the U.S. It is inclusive.

Nevertheless, problems can still arise when the word Latine is imposed onto others. Latina and Latino may still be preferable for many individuals. I dont think the -e should eliminate the existing -o and the -a. Instead, it could be a grammatically acceptable addition to the Spanish language.

Yes, Argentina and Spains ban of Latinx also included a ban on the use of Latine. Here is where I diverge from their directive. To me, the idea that language can be purist is nonsensical; language always evolves, whether its through technology  think emojis and textspeak  or increased social awareness, such as the evolution from wife beating to intimate partner violence.

Linguistic theory posits that language shapes reality, so cultures and communities can create words that shape the inclusive world they want to inhabit.

Language matters. Latine embodies that inclusivity  across socioeconomic status, citizenship, education, gender identity, age groups and nations, while honoring the Spanish language in the process.

___

Melissa K. Ochoa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

____
President Joe Biden has formally accepted an invitation to attend the state funeral service for Queen Elizabeth II. The White House said Sunday that the president will be accompanied by First Lady Jill Biden. The service will be held Sept. 19. Earlier in the day, Biden remembered the words of comfort that the late British monarch had provided the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Quoting the queen, Biden said, grief is the price we pay for love. Biden spoke at the Pentagon as the nation marked the 21st anniversary of the attacks. He said the queens words remain as poignant as they did 21 years ago.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Horseback riding with Ronald Reagan. Yachting with Bill Clinton. Sipping tea with Joe Biden.

Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at age 96, had met every American president since Dwight Eisenhower, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, who did not visit Britain during his presidency. Biden was the 13th and final U.S. president to meet the woman whose reign spanned seven decades.

Keep scrolling for a gallery of photos of U.S. presidents with Queen Elizabeth II

Every living former U.S. president  Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump  joined Biden in mourning her passing and sending condolences to her family.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden said the queen's legacy will loom large in the pages of British history, and in the story of our world.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, recalled the queen welcoming them, America's first Black president and first lady, to the world stage with open arms and extraordinary generosity.

Biden first met the queen in 1982 as a U.S. senator traveling in the U.K. with a delegation from Congress. He last saw her in 2021, several months after he became president, while attending a world leaders' summit in southwestern England.

She mingled with Group of Seven leaders at a reception that she and other royals hosted at an indoor rainforest. After the summit, the Bidens traveled to Windsor Castle, near London, at the queen's invitation for a private audience.

The queen was a 25-year-old princess when she came to Washington in 1951 and stayed with President Harry Truman and his family. She met Herbert Hoover in 1957, more than 20 years after he left office. Full story:

A look through the years:
The Auditor-General of South Africa recently released a report naming and shaming government departments who consistently incur fruitless and wasteful expenditure (FWE). Thats accounting talk for money being wasted.

In a briefing to Parliaments Standing Committee on Appropriations, the AGs CFO Bongi Ngoma told committee members that over the past five years, FWE to the value of R1.5bn had been incurred by the 41 national departments.

That equals R25m a month spent in what the AG calls expenditure which was made in vain and would have been avoided had reasonable care been exercised.

Simple maths tells you the South African government misspent an average of around R822,000 a day for the five years in question.

Lets use governments own R350 social distress relief grant  meant to keep the most vulnerable from starving to death  as an example.

In a country with so much desperation and need, that R822,000 spent in vain per day by government could have provided 2,348 people with that monthly R350 grant EVERY SINGLE DAY for five years.

According to SA Facts data regarding the cost to build a single RDP house, government could have built roughly eight homes a day with the money squandered. Thats 14,400 extra houses over five years.

Ngoma referred to 21 of the 41 departments, representing 51% of government, as consistent delinquents.

The AG looked at FWE during the period between 2016/17 and 2020/21. There was R132.5m captured as FWE in 2016/17.

That figured ballooned significantly to R625.9m in the following financial year. Between 2018 and 2021, FWE amounted to R763m.

Put another way, government departments wasted R21.2m a month, or roughly R700,000 a day over those three financial years.

Ngoma also reported to the committee the number of Material Irregularities (MIs) issued by the AG since October last year.

An astonishing R8.6bn was flagged for irregularities by national government departments alone.

The bulk of the 60 MI notices relate to non-compliance with procurement processes, payment for goods and services not received, or payment to incorrect beneficiaries.

If you include the quantum of local and provincial government MIs issued, the value rises to R14.7bn.

Here is a list of the top 15 fruitless and wasteful expenditure delinquents in national government over five years.

There are certainly some surprises on the list  with the top offender being the Department of Defence at R460m, followed by National Treasury at R340m.

The Basic Education Department comes in at number three with almost R107m squandered. The Tourism Department and Environment, Forestry and Fisheries are fourth and fifth on the list with R92m and R88m respectively.

Closer inspection of just what money is being wasted on by government departments is astonishing.

Travel cancellation costs is listed nine times on the document.

A committee member stated his surprise at the nonchalant manner in which government officials dont honour travel commitments saying when he misses a flight as an MP, the money is recouped from his salary the next month.

Apparently not so in government.

Other listed reasons constituting fruitless and wasteful expenditure include paying for unoccupied buildings, paying for software that isnt used, and damages to vehicles and infrastructure.

As for the general financial health of the 381 audits conducted on government departments, public entities, and state-owned entities (SOEs), the overall picture should keep any finance minister up at night.

According to the AGs report, only 29% of government departments, across local, provincial and national, are in a good financial position. Over 60% are of concern and 9% have intervention required.

As for SOEs, its a shocking state of affairs with only 9% on a good financial footing. That leaves 91% of South Africas parastatals in either a concerning position (76%) or requiring intervention (15%).

Committee member Shaik Emam of the National Freedom Party made an important observation about the lack of consequence management for officials who repeatedly break the law.

People get suspended from their positions, but there is no deterrent because they get suspended with full pay. By the time you find them guilty, their contracts have come to an end. Theyve received full pay and you get nothing back out of them. Companies that may have unduly benefited end up liquidating, very conveniently many of them liquidate, so you dont get anything back from them [either], said Emam.

The state continues to suffer from a dearth of skilled and competent people.

Ngoma highlighted that while there has been some improvement in the filling of critical vacancies, far too many jobs have no permanently appointed person one can hold accountable.

Lets start from 2018/19, the vacancies of key officials were at 39% [within government departments]. Then in 2019/20 those vacancies were at 37%. Then in 2021 they were at 33%. To have vacancies of this levelone third of critical positions are vacant. Chairperson, it speaks to all these issues that we have been talking about, because we know that capability enables accountability, said Ngoma.

She advised the committee that steps will be taken to work together with the Special Investigating Unit and the Hawks to clamp down on repeat offenders within government while acknowledging that cases brought against implicated officials are often beset with delays and drag on for years.

This article was first published by BizNews and is republished with permission.
Three sisters  Kholeka, Tobeka, and Bongeka Lwana  have launched an Internet service provider to make connectivity more accessible in South African townships.

Lokshin WiFi, a low-cost wireless Internet service provider (WISP), launched on 12 August 2022.

WISPs are Internet service providers offering subscribers a point-to-point wireless connection to the Internet, usually over a technology that uses unlicensed radio frequency spectrum like Wi-Fi.

Lokshin WiFi uses FibrePoynts  a fixed wireless broadband provider  cloud-based platform and solar-powered network infrastructure to provide low-cost Internet connectivity to consumers and small businesses.

The project aims to provide affordable connectivity in townships and semirural communities in Mpumalanga and Gauteng.

We are making technology easily accessible to this audience, where it was previously inaccessible, Kholeka Lwana said in an interview with City Press.

She added that mobile users could buy Wi-Fi access passwords for educational, skills development, and ecommerce purposes.

The company partnered with FibrePoynt as its solar-powered infrastructure helps its customers stay connected during load-shedding.

FibrePoynt is a technology developed by Poynting in South Africa to reduce the cost of fibre deployments in neighbourhoods.

This is especially helpful for students who need to study for exams or do their homework, and for entrepreneurs to keep businesses running, Kholeka Lwana said.

Lokshin WiFi also partnered with Flash  a payment platform provider  to manage points of sale with its vendors, which include spazas and shisa nyamas.

Lokshin WiFI has a fluid approach to backhaul management, using whichever network has existing infrastructure in the specific areas.

Its rollout strategy is to focus on communities that struggle with connectivity issues.

The choice of our current location in Olievenhoutbosch [in Centurion] is based on this, and our partners, Bellaggiotech, have an established footprint in Cosmo City, and we took learnings from Cosmo City, Kholeka Lwana said.

She added that Lokshin WiFi plans on expanding to townships in all provinces within six months.

Lokshin WiFi isnt alone in its intention to provide high-speed, low-cost Internet connectivity in South Africas townships.

eKasi Fibre, a prepaid fibre network operator, launched its services in the countrys fourth-largest township  Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal  in early 2022.

The company focuses on supplying low-cost fibre internet to previously disadvantaged regions of South Africa, and its customers can choose from speeds of 10Mbps, 25Mbps, or 50Mbps.

eKasi Fibre says it isnt like other South African fibre network operators, as its packages are based on varying durations of access  from daily to three-monthly.

We offer prepaid fibre internet in daily, weekly, monthly, two monthly and three monthly packages. We also offer speeds of 10, 25 and 50Mbps, eKasi Fibre director Brad Lowman told MyBroadband.

Our offering is uncapped and sold in windows of time rather than amounts of data. Our prices are not only competitive but also offer our target market a lot of flexibility.

The 50Mbps service will cost R49.00 for a day of access and R229.00 for a weeks worth of fibre connectivity.

eKasis customers also have the option to purchase one, two, or three-month packages. These cost R679.00, R1,199.00, or R1,799.00 for the 50Mbps offering, respectively.

Lowman said eKasi Fibre uses high-quality cable and termination equipment to provide a lasting network.

eKasi Fibre recognises that a network installed today needs to last and not only provide connectivity services to suit the needs of todays customers but also next-generation services, he said.
ST. HELENA  St. Helena could become the latest city to ban gasoline-powered leaf blowers, with a proposed ordinance heading to the City Council on Sept. 27.

The move would further the citys climate change goals and address a steady stream of complaints from neighbors irritated by the persistent whine of leaf blowers, especially in the mornings. The ordinance could also cap the volume of electric and battery-powered blowers, which are typically quieter than gas-powered blowers.

The ordinance is modeled on similar measures enacted in Yountville, American Canyon and Calistoga.

In 2013 St. Helena passed an ordinance limiting the maximum volume of gas-powered leaf blowers to 65 decibels at a distance of 50 feet. It also limited the operation of compliant leaf blowers in residential areas to between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, and 10 a.m. to noon on Sundays. Leaf blowers could operate as early as 5 a.m. in the largely commercial areas on Main Street between Pine and Grayson.

A draft ordinance reviewed by the citys Active Transportation and Sustainability Committee in July would ban gas-powered blowers while maintaining those same hours of operation. Members of the committee asked staff to add volume limits that would apply to battery-powered and electric leaf blowers.

To ease the burden on landscapers, the city would provide rebates for the purchase of electric leaf blowers.

The proposed ordinance has already drawn praise from residents.

We will all appreciate the quieting of our town, the commitment to cleaner air, and the reduction in fossil fuel use for healthier residents and a healthier planet, wrote Steve and Kellie Carlin in an email to the city.

St. Helena adopts limits on gas-powered leaf blowers ST. HELENA  Starting July 1, St. Helena residents and landscapers who use leaf blowers will have to keep the noise down.

Other residents are pleased with the proposed ordinance but worried about what they consider spotty enforcement of the 2013 regulations.

At the time the old ordinance was passed, St. Helena resident Lowell Young was irked when then-Police Chief Jackie Rubin said the department would not actively enforce the law, but rather rely on neighbors to notify them about illegal leaf blowers  the same approach the police take to loud parties and other noise complaints.

The group of 600 St. Helenans whose petition inspired the 2013 ordinance has probably grown as more and more people understand that the successive mayors and city councils are negligent in their constitutional duty to ensure domestic tranquility in our special town, Young told the Star.

In a statement, Mayor Geoff Ellsworth said the ordinance is heading to the council after much diligent work by ATSC, City Staff and our City legal team to craft an ordinance sensitive to all issues surrounding the matter, including health and safety, elimination of greenhouse gas emissions, realistic enforcement, fair application of the law, acceptable decibel levels and user and owner responsibility for compliance.

The ATSC, with Vice Mayor Paul Dohring as City Council liaison, has been instrumental in shaping a workable and responsive ordinance to address the many complex and nuanced issues presented. We have heard from the community, and we are moving forward to address the concerns in a comprehensive and responsible way.
SALINAS  More than 25 years ago, Paul Flores allegedly told a Santa Maria woman that he killed Kristin Smart.

Even after decades, his eyes are what made me believe it wasnt a joke, Jennifer Hudson testified Thursday in Monterey County Superior Court. There was nothing alive behind his eyes.

Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register.

Hudson said Flores told her he killed Smart, a onetime Napa resident, and buried her body at his place in Huasna while they were hanging out at a skate house in 1996  shortly after the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student went missing that May.

Flores is now on trial for Smarts murder. His father, Ruben Flores, is accused of helping him hide Smarts body.

Hudson testified Thursday that she, her boyfriend, her boyfriends friend and Paul Flores were in the backyard of a house that had a patio with two couches and a skate ramp in the summer of 1996.

It was a house where San Luis Obispo skaters were known to socialize, said Hudson, who was 17 at the time.

Hudson described the setup: Her boyfriend was on the skate ramp, she was on the couch facing the ramp with her boyfriends friend, and Flores was on the couch across from her about five feet away.

They were listening to music on the radio, Hudson recalled, adding that advertisements asking for help in locating Smart would play often.

It was after one of these ads, Hudson said, that Flores told her That bch was a dk tease. I was done playing with her and I put her (or buried her) under my place in Huasna.

Hudson doesnt remember if Flores said put her under or buried her under, she testified.

Flores demeanor when he said this was cold, no smirk, no smile, no tone of being Im funny or some sort of distorted sense of humor, Hudson said, describing Flores eyes like a dead persons eyes.

He was 1,000% serious, she said.

Hudson was frightened, and she left just minutes later, she said.

The Santa Maria woman said she didnt tell law enforcement about the conversation because she was a scared 17-year-old kid.

A few weeks later, some acquaintances asked Hudson for a ride to a skate ramp in Huasna, she testified.

As they drove out to Huasna Townsite Road, she said, the acquaintances told her to follow their friend, who was driving a white four-wheel-drive pickup truck.

Hudson said she remembers the truck being four-wheel-drive because she had just bought a new sedan and noticed that the truck in front of her was handling the winding dirt road they turned onto better than her car.

When they arrived at the ramp, Hudson got out of her car, she said. So did the driver of the white pickup truck.

It was Flores, she testified.

As soon as I saw him, I fell ill, she said. I vomited.

Hudson testified that she immediately got back in her car and left, and the people she dropped off ended up walking home.

Hudson said she never told anyone about her encounters with Flores until around 2002 when she lived with Justin Goodwin.

She said she confided in Goodwin on a night that the two had been heavily drinking.

Hudson doesnt remember exactly what she said, but she unknowingly prompted Goodwin to submit an anonymous tip about the conversation that year  the same anonymous tip that was mentioned in an episode of the Your Own Backyard podcast, which follows the investigation into Smarts disappearance.

Goodwin called Hudson after the Your Own Backyard episode aired in 2019 to let her know that he had submitted the tip, Hudson said.

He also urged her to talk to podcast creator Chris Lambert to help crack the case, she said.

Hudson said she pondered talking to Lambert for about a week because she didnt want her name out there and was still afraid to come forward.

When Hudson first visited Lambert, she said, the meeting took about 20 minutes.

According to Hudson, they met in Huasna, and Lambert followed her in his own car to try to locate the ramp where shed seen Flores more than two decades prior.

Hudson said she believes she and Lambert found the location of the ramp  noting that the dirt path off Huasna Townsite Road didnt have a name in 1996, didnt have a name in 2019 and likely still doesnt have a name today.

Hudson testified Lambert told her to not mention their meeting because he didnt want law enforcement to think her recollection had been distorted.

Lambert told The Tribune outside of court Thursday that Hudsons statement was inaccurate, adding that he plans to address it in a future podcast episode.

Also on Thursday, Hudson testified that Goodwin told her information about a white four-wheel-drive pickup truck that was connected to the Flores family and a drone video.

When Hudson met with San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Detective Clint Cole, she told him about her meeting with Lambert and the information Goodwin told her, she testified.

During cross-examination, Paul Flores defense attorney, Robert Sanger, questioned Hudson about her communications with Lambert and Goodwin.

Hudson again asserted she only met with Lambert for about 20 minutes and spoke briefly on the phone at least once.

Goodwin allegedly sent Hudson a Facebook message, telling her something to the effect of making her best show in order to get the reward meant for those who help solve Smarts case, Sanger said.

Hudson does not remember that message, she said, adding that, if it exists, there has to be more context because its offensive at the end of the day.

The messages, which were exhibits during the seven-week-long preliminary hearing for Paul and Ruben Flores, could not be introduced as evidence Thursday because the person who currently has custody at the court was in a meeting.

Hudsons testimony will resume Monday.

Smart graduated from high school in Stockton, but attended Vintage High School in Napa for her junior year. Her father, Stan Smart, was the Vintage principal at the time his daughter disappeared.
Militants from the Islamic State affiliate killed about 30 civilians in Mali in an attack this week in a town in a violent region bordering Burkina Faso and Niger, Reuters reported, citing a coalition of pro-government militias.

The coalition, known as the "platform," said several hundred fighters attacked its fighters and forced them to retreat Tuesday near Talataye in the Gao region, a longtime hot spot of jihadist and militia violence.

The fighters looted stores and burned food supplies, the Platform said in an online statement, adding that three of its fighters were also killed.

There has been no statement of responsibility for the alleged attack.

In March, UN peacekeeping forces in Mali expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in the same area of central Mali, claiming hundreds of civilians had been killed in a spike in attacks by an Islamic State affiliate.
MOD: No change on Armenian-Azerbaijani border as of 9pm

French MEP on torture of Armenian servicewoman: This is happening today and it is unacceptable

Statement of Stepanakert rally participants: Don't sign any document

Tokayev renames Kazakhstan's capital Astana and set 7-year presidential mandate

Erdogan says he will go to Karabakh and open airport with Aliyev

Charles Michel calls Aliyev

Armenia's deputy permanent representative to UN calls for end to ethnic cleansing campaign in Azerbaijan

Deceased soldier Narek Hayrapetyan was conscripted 3 months ago

White House: Relations between Russia and a number of its partners cannot be considered alliances

Erdogan announces completion of military operation on Armenian border

CSTO mission gets acquainted with consequences of Azerbaijani aggression in Armenia

Norat Ter-Grigoryants calls for martial law

Nancy Pelosi arrives in Yerevan

Nancy Pelosi: We will convey strong, ongoing support of US for lasting settlement to Karabakh conflict

Armenian Ombudsman: Gas pipeline and medical point damaged in Jermuk

Toivo Klaar on Azerbaijan attack on Armenia: Disturbing reports of crimes, violence targeting civilians

Azerbaijan announces new death toll due to own military aggression against Armenia

Armenia Investigative Committee chief: As of now we have 2 confirmed civilian casualties

Russia Orthodox Church ready to contribute to starting dialogue between Armenia, Azerbaijan spiritual leaders

Yerevan to host 9th Russia-Armenia interregional forum

CBN News: War in Ukraine, Russia oil shortfall spark Azerbaijan attack against world's first Christian country

Nancy Pelosi's Armenia visit agenda is announced

Karabakh President to deliver video message on September 19

Armenia ombudswoman visits some settlements recently targeted by Azerbaijan army (PHOTOS)

At least 14 dead in landslide caused by heavy rains in Nepal

CSTO stresses need to pacifically resolve Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border situation

Representation at ECHR: Armenia petitioned to International Court of Justice

Armenia PM, European Council chief discuss matters on settlement of situation

Iran objects to any change of internationally-recognized borders in region, Raisi tells Erdogan

Armenia representation at ECHR: More than dozen Armenian soldiers captured due to Azerbaijan attack

Iran ambassador in Baku details Tehran position towards Armenia, Azerbaijan

Biden threatens Russia with consequences in case of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine

Ombudsperson publishes report on consequences of Azerbaijan recent military attack on Armenia

Azerbaijan embassy representative in US curses at Armenian women, tears protesters banner

Germany deputy chief of mission to Armenia is shocked by destruction he saw in Jermuk city by Azerbaijan (PHOTOS)

Rally being held in Stepanakert for 3rd day

No change, as of 9am, in situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

5 Syria soldiers killed after Israel missile attack on Damascus airport

Newspaper: Armenia PM's not attending Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit not clearly understood

Newspaper: Situation at Armenia border with Azerbaijan still very tense despite relative calm

White House not ruling out new sanctions on Russia

Armenia parliament speaker: Let Russia tell us if it is unable to do anything at this moment

U.S. State Department announces updated strategy for Arctic

Alen Simonyan: Armenia is dissatisfied with CSTO reaction to Azerbaijani aggression, we made conclusions

China imposes sanctions on heads of U.S. companies for supplying weapons to Taiwan

Alen Simonyan: Azerbaijan wants Armenia and Armenians not to exist

Alen Simonyan: Introduction of martial law may be perceived as act of aggression

Japanese PM says he is ready to meet with Kim Jong-un without preconditions

Speaker of Parliament: One or two adversary groups who penetrated territory of Armenia are under search

Ten people die in Italy due to heavy rains

CSTO members do not agree: Kyrgyzstan uses drones to attack Tajik targets

Today Armenia will apply to International Court of Justice

Russian Defense Ministry: No violations of ceasefire in Karabakh in Russian zone of responsibility during day

Turkey wants more Russian gas

Putin: Turkey will pay for quarter of Russian gas supplies in rubles

Defense Ministry: As of 9 p.m., situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border remains unchanged

Putin: Erdogan keeps offering to arrange meeting with Zelenskyy

Putin announces Russia's role in localization of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict

Gas prices in Europe are getting down

Putin: Latest incident on border between Armenia and Azerbaijan has nothing to do with Karabakh

Poland signs $3 billion deal with South Korea to buy 48 FA-50 fighters

Aliyev: Events show that neither Baku nor Yerevan wants large-scale escalation

Scholz: German government ready to revise military export rules

Putin calls situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border tense

Putin briefs Aliyev on his talks with Pashinyan

Greece MFA welcomes Armenia-Azerabaijan ceasefire agreement

Digital technologies have no alternative: SAP signs cooperation agreement with Armenian Revytech (PHOTOS)

Mexican authorities arrest retired general in connection with kidnapping of 43 students

Putin and Aliyev's talks kick off

Orban calls the European Parliament's call to cut funding for Hungary 'boring joke'

Mourad Papazian and French Armenians hold rally in Paris against Azerbaijani aggression (PHOTOS)

Lebanese banks close all their offices after attacks by disgruntled depositors

Putin and Erdogan hold talks in Samarkand

Inflation in Eurozone hits another record 9.1%

Nancy Pelosi confirms reports on her upcoming visit to Armenia

State Department: Russia hoped to get military aid from China

At least 7,600 people from 3 Armenian regions leave their homes amid Azerbaijani aggression

World Bank: rising global interest rates may trigger recession in 2023

Secretary of Security Council of Armenia: Our expectations from CSTO are not justified

China hopes Yerevan and Baku will resolve their differences through political dialogue
Iran reacted to the unconstructive statement issued by the three major European powers France, Britain and Germany on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Mehr reports.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani pointed to Iran's seriousness in negotiating a conclusion and said that progress in the negotiations at various stages, including the last round of talks, has been achieved thanks to the initiatives and ideas of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Kanaani noted that the European powers fell under the influence of the psychological warfare of the Israeli regime, which spares no effort to bring the negotiations to a complete failure. He advised the three European countries to play a more active role instead of entering into a phase of destroying the diplomatic process in order to find a solution to end the few remaining disagreements.

The Iranian representative stressed the need to avoid politicizing the issue and making unfounded accusations against Iran and said that it is regrettable that European countries on the one hand fully support a regime that has hundreds of nuclear warheads and does not adhere to any international non-proliferation mechanisms, while on the other hand they create an atmosphere against the fully peaceful nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is under the most extensive inspections.

He also advised the Europeans to correct their failure to fulfill their many obligations to the Iranian people and warned them against using scare tactics. Kanaani went on to say that the ultimate failure of the U.S. campaign of maximum pressure should have served as a good lesson for all parties who ignorantly believe that threats and sanctions can prevent the Iranian people from pursuing their rights and protecting their interests.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman added that Iran still has the desire and willingness to conclude an agreement and believes that with the necessary will to refuse external pressure, an agreement can be reached as soon as possible. Earlier on Saturday, France, Britain and Germany expressed their disappointment over Iran's demand in the negotiations for the renewal of the 2015 nuclear agreement that the UN nuclear watchdog close the investigation into the uranium particles found at three sites.

Diplomats said Iran's response to the EU coordinator was a step backward as it tries to link the revival of the agreement to the closure of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation into uranium traces.

This latest demand raises serious doubts about Iran's intentions and its commitment to successfully conclude the JCPOA deal," the three countries participating in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action said in a statement. - Iran's position contradicts its legally binding commitments and jeopardizes prospects for reinstating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The-U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran. After Joe Biden came to power, the U.S. decided to return to the nuclear deal and initiated months of talks in Vienna to revive the JCPOA.
A magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Papua New Guinea on Sunday, damaging buildings, causing landslides: at least one person died and several others were seriously injured, AFP reported.

Residents in northern towns near the epicenter reported strong tremors.

Member of Parliament Kessy Sawang said that in the remote mountain village of Matoko, one person was buried under a landslide and died, while several others were seriously injured and were airlifted to a hospital.

She said there was serious damage in villages along Finisterre Ridge and in some coastal areas, and she fears more injuries and deaths.

The earthquake was felt even in the capital, Port Moresby, some 480 kilometers away.

The U.S. Geological Survey first issued a tsunami warning for nearby coastal areas, but later said the threat was already over.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at a depth of 61 kilometers, about 67 kilometers from the city of Cainantu.

In neighboring Indonesia, a 2004 magnitude 9.1 earthquake caused a tsunami that killed 220,000 people across the region, including about 170,000 in Indonesia.

The U.S. Geological Survey also reported two strong earthquakes in the remote Mentawai Islands off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck at a depth of 20 kilometers at about 6:10 a.m. local time, followed by a magnitude 5.7 quake at a shallower depth of 10 kilometers a few minutes later.

There were no reports of casualties or damage, but the tremors forced residents of the Mentawai Islands to flee to evacuation centers set up last week after another quake.

The earthquake was also felt in the city of Padang, capital of West Sumatra province, where residents fled their homes after tremors shook buildings.
Tourism in Greece will generate record high revenues this year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels, according to local officials, industry experts and analysts.

"2022 has been an amazing year for Greek tourism ... I'm very happy to say that both branded and alternative destinations, both on islands and the mainland, were full of travelers and tourists this year, and we are set to surpass this year the numbers recorded in 2019, which has so far been a record year in tourism," Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias told Xinhua.

In 2019, Greece recorded 32 million arrivals and about 18 billion euros in tourism revenue, according to the Bank of Greece.

This year's figures show a strong return. Tourism revenues were 224.5 percent higher in June and 329.3 percent higher in January-June 2022 than in the corresponding periods of 2021, according to the latest Bank of Greece statement.

Compared to 2019, June 2022 revenues were up 2.3 percent.

According to a recent Alpha Bank analysis, Greek tourism revenues will reach 20 billion euros this year thanks to a tourism frenzy after hotel closures during the pandemic, which will give a significant boost to GDP.

"After two very difficult years for tourism, we had an extremely positive rebound this year that helps us a lot and helps the Greek economy a lot. As a sector we usually account for 25 percent of the GDP, this is a very big number for a national economy," Alexandros Vassilikos, president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (HCH), told Xinhua on Friday.
MOD: No change on Armenian-Azerbaijani border as of 9pm

French MEP on torture of Armenian servicewoman: This is happening today and it is unacceptable

Statement of Stepanakert rally participants: Don't sign any document

Tokayev renames Kazakhstan's capital Astana and set 7-year presidential mandate

Erdogan says he will go to Karabakh and open airport with Aliyev

Charles Michel calls Aliyev

Armenia's deputy permanent representative to UN calls for end to ethnic cleansing campaign in Azerbaijan

Deceased soldier Narek Hayrapetyan was conscripted 3 months ago

White House: Relations between Russia and a number of its partners cannot be considered alliances

Erdogan announces completion of military operation on Armenian border

CSTO mission gets acquainted with consequences of Azerbaijani aggression in Armenia

Norat Ter-Grigoryants calls for martial law

Nancy Pelosi arrives in Yerevan

Nancy Pelosi: We will convey strong, ongoing support of US for lasting settlement to Karabakh conflict

Armenian Ombudsman: Gas pipeline and medical point damaged in Jermuk

Toivo Klaar on Azerbaijan attack on Armenia: Disturbing reports of crimes, violence targeting civilians

Azerbaijan announces new death toll due to own military aggression against Armenia

Armenia Investigative Committee chief: As of now we have 2 confirmed civilian casualties

Russia Orthodox Church ready to contribute to starting dialogue between Armenia, Azerbaijan spiritual leaders

Yerevan to host 9th Russia-Armenia interregional forum

CBN News: War in Ukraine, Russia oil shortfall spark Azerbaijan attack against world's first Christian country

Nancy Pelosi's Armenia visit agenda is announced

Karabakh President to deliver video message on September 19

Armenia ombudswoman visits some settlements recently targeted by Azerbaijan army (PHOTOS)

At least 14 dead in landslide caused by heavy rains in Nepal

CSTO stresses need to pacifically resolve Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border situation

Representation at ECHR: Armenia petitioned to International Court of Justice

Armenia PM, European Council chief discuss matters on settlement of situation

Iran objects to any change of internationally-recognized borders in region, Raisi tells Erdogan

Armenia representation at ECHR: More than dozen Armenian soldiers captured due to Azerbaijan attack

Iran ambassador in Baku details Tehran position towards Armenia, Azerbaijan

Biden threatens Russia with consequences in case of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine

Ombudsperson publishes report on consequences of Azerbaijan recent military attack on Armenia

Azerbaijan embassy representative in US curses at Armenian women, tears protesters banner

Germany deputy chief of mission to Armenia is shocked by destruction he saw in Jermuk city by Azerbaijan (PHOTOS)

Rally being held in Stepanakert for 3rd day

No change, as of 9am, in situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

5 Syria soldiers killed after Israel missile attack on Damascus airport

Newspaper: Armenia PM's not attending Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit not clearly understood

Newspaper: Situation at Armenia border with Azerbaijan still very tense despite relative calm

White House not ruling out new sanctions on Russia

Armenia parliament speaker: Let Russia tell us if it is unable to do anything at this moment

U.S. State Department announces updated strategy for Arctic

Alen Simonyan: Armenia is dissatisfied with CSTO reaction to Azerbaijani aggression, we made conclusions

China imposes sanctions on heads of U.S. companies for supplying weapons to Taiwan

Alen Simonyan: Azerbaijan wants Armenia and Armenians not to exist

Alen Simonyan: Introduction of martial law may be perceived as act of aggression

Japanese PM says he is ready to meet with Kim Jong-un without preconditions

Speaker of Parliament: One or two adversary groups who penetrated territory of Armenia are under search

Ten people die in Italy due to heavy rains

CSTO members do not agree: Kyrgyzstan uses drones to attack Tajik targets

Today Armenia will apply to International Court of Justice

Russian Defense Ministry: No violations of ceasefire in Karabakh in Russian zone of responsibility during day

Turkey wants more Russian gas

Putin: Turkey will pay for quarter of Russian gas supplies in rubles

Defense Ministry: As of 9 p.m., situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border remains unchanged

Putin: Erdogan keeps offering to arrange meeting with Zelenskyy

Putin announces Russia's role in localization of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict

Gas prices in Europe are getting down

Putin: Latest incident on border between Armenia and Azerbaijan has nothing to do with Karabakh

Poland signs $3 billion deal with South Korea to buy 48 FA-50 fighters

Aliyev: Events show that neither Baku nor Yerevan wants large-scale escalation

Scholz: German government ready to revise military export rules

Putin calls situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border tense

Putin briefs Aliyev on his talks with Pashinyan

Greece MFA welcomes Armenia-Azerabaijan ceasefire agreement

Digital technologies have no alternative: SAP signs cooperation agreement with Armenian Revytech (PHOTOS)

Mexican authorities arrest retired general in connection with kidnapping of 43 students

Putin and Aliyev's talks kick off

Orban calls the European Parliament's call to cut funding for Hungary 'boring joke'

Mourad Papazian and French Armenians hold rally in Paris against Azerbaijani aggression (PHOTOS)

Lebanese banks close all their offices after attacks by disgruntled depositors

Putin and Erdogan hold talks in Samarkand

Inflation in Eurozone hits another record 9.1%

Nancy Pelosi confirms reports on her upcoming visit to Armenia

State Department: Russia hoped to get military aid from China

At least 7,600 people from 3 Armenian regions leave their homes amid Azerbaijani aggression

World Bank: rising global interest rates may trigger recession in 2023

Secretary of Security Council of Armenia: Our expectations from CSTO are not justified

China hopes Yerevan and Baku will resolve their differences through political dialogue

EBRD President notes importance of road construction programs in Armenia

Lithuania MPs condemn Azerbaijan military attack against Armenia

Stepanakert rally continues for 2 days

Azerbaijan reports about death of 77 servicemen

German government tries to nationalize three major gas companies

CSTO mission receives operational information on situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

American journalist Lindsay Snell tweets about Azerbaijani atrocities

Development of private sector is our main focus and objective. Interview with EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso

UK retail sales fall, highlighting recession risk

Man arrested in Lebanon after bank robbery in attempt to access his own savings

Russia envoy: Armenia attaches special importance to CSTO mission

Athens: Turkish leadership made a choice that leaves no room for negotiation

Armenia army chief: 50-60 member group from Azerbaijan retreated to state border today

Armenia army chief: 10-12 member Azerbaijan army detachment is isolated on top of hill, under siege

Iranian diplomat: Ankara provokes Baku for war against Armenia on behalf of Israel

Armenia army chief: Azerbaijan penetrated 1-2km in Nerkin Hand, half km in Ishkhanasar, gained advantage in Shorzhas

National Interest: US actually rewarded Azerbaijan for aggression against Armenia

China hopes Yerevan and Baku will observe ceasefire agreement

Armenia Vayots Dzor provincial governor: No civilians at Jermuk city dangerous zone, schools closed

SCO countries are going to increase cooperation in defense and security field
What's on September 12-18/2022

MUSIC & PERFORMANCES





Hanoi- Vietnam  RoK cultural exchange

September 16-18.



Trinh Cong Son pedestrian street in Tay Ho district

Featuring more than 100 famous Korean opera and K-pop artists.

The event will also feature the participation of more than 50 businesses and investors from the RoK and Vietnam.

_____________________________________________________



EXHIBITION



Hanoi-Exhibition features dialogue between calligraphy, graffiti













Until Sep 30,



The Temple of Literature,



An exhibition named Calligraphy  Graffiti Dialogue featuring 39 works of calligraphy and graffiti by Vietnamese calligraphers and graffiti artists across the country.





The works are arranged like a story about two people with different personalities and the dialogue which brings them together to empathise and share with each other.



HCMC-Len Loi Exhibition















Until Sep 23, 8am-5pm

Gallery 1, Building 2, Level 1, Saigon South campus, RMIT University Vietnam, 702 Nguyen Van Linh Street,



From the organizer:



Len Loi Exhibition is a speculative spatial design project which intentionally challenges ones perception and understanding of hem (alley) in District 4, Ho Chi Minh city. Drawing from students multiple research approaches, engagement with locals and place experiences, a series of multifunctional adaptive reuse commercial spaces designed by students in Interior Stream  Design Studies at RMIT University is finally ready to be showcased.





HCMC-Exhibition: Illuminated Curiosities













Until Dec 2022

EMASI Nam Long

147 Street No.8, Nam Long Residential area, District 7,

EMASI Van Phuc

2 Street No.5, Van Phuc Residential City, Thu Duc District,



From the organizer:



Nguyen Art Foundation (NAF) proudly invites you to the opening of Illuminated Curiosities, a group exhibition with 26 artists featuring 46 artworks from within and outside NAFs Collection. Curated by art researcher Ace Le, with the curatorial assistance from Duong Manh Hung and Tam Nguyen, the exhibition will take place simultaneously across the campuses of EMASI Nam Long and EMASI Van Phuc, over the course of six months from May to December of 2022. Illuminated Curiosities is a collaborative effort between NAF and Lan Tinh Foundation.



_______________________________________________________________________



CINEMA





Hanoi-Film Screening & Talk: Looking For You







Sep 15, 8 pm

Manzi Art Space, 14 Phan Huy Ich Street

Registration link



From Manzi:



A short film by young filmmakers from the UK: LOOKING FOR YOU



A short film by Anna Nguyen & Kristine Landon-Smith

Produced by: Tuyet Van Huynh



Language: English & Vietnamese (with subtitles)

The screening will be followed by Q&A session with the film crew



A bilingual poignant and insightful film that weaves a rich tapestry of intergenerational stories through unfiltered conversations that examine the mother-daughter relationship in Vietnamese culture. Set in a cinematic metaphorical setting of home, the film evokes this sacred space where the discussion ranges from survival, shame, sacrifice, and the language of love: food.



Hanoi-Vietnamese short films to be screened











Sept 12-13 CGV Vincom Nguyen Chi Thanh, Dong Da District.

Featuring ten works of different genres on various topics by talented young filmmakers who have won top prizes at international film festivals and the CJ Short Film Making Project, a prominent national contest in the genre from 2018.



Highlighted works will include iem Bao (Fortune-telling) by Ho Thanh Thao, Ca Mat Trang (Moonfish) by Tran Thi Ha Trang, Con Dai Cai Mang (Mothers Love) by ao Thu Uyen, Nhung Con Voi Ben Ve uong (Elephants on the Streets) by ao Quang Trung, and Huong Ky Trong Trang (Dreaming a Dream) by Le Can Truong.



All of them were named as the best works at this year's CJ Short Films Filmmaking Project.



Free entry.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Canadas military ombudsman says his office has received fewer than a dozen complaints from service members about the Armed Forces vaccine requirement, and that he has not found any issues with how it is being enforced.

The Canadian Armed Forces since December has required that all troops receive two shots of a recognized COVID-19 vaccine or face disciplinary proceedings, including forced removal from the military.

While the vast majority of service members have bared their arms for shots, more than 1,100 have not. Several hundred of those have since hung up their uniforms, either voluntarily or involuntarily, with more on their way out.

Despite those numbers and the stakes involved, Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gregory Lick says only 10 of the more than 1,800 individual complaints received by his office over the past year related to the vaccine requirement.

Of those, he added, none were found to have constituted undue unfairness to the affected Armed Forces member.

Thats not a tremendous amount, he said in an interview. Particularly when weve looked at the individual complaints and found that they were treated fairly well.  There doesnt seem to be a systemic issue in the application of the policy.

Created in 1998 in the aftermath of the Somalia scandal, the military ombudsmans mandate is to assess whether government and military policies affecting Canadian troops are fairly and equitably applied.

While the ombudsman has previously investigated systemic issues, with a study on access to mental health services for reservists underway, Lick indicated he has no plans to conduct a similar review of the vaccine requirement.

Im not a medical expert, he said. But Im comfortable with the preponderance of medical research and advice supporting the use of vaccines to protect us from serious (illness). Therefore, Im comfortable with the policies governing their use in the CAF.

Lick said the 10 complaints  and his offices investigations into them  have revolved around individual cases, the majority involving troops facing expulsion after their request for a medical or religious exemption was rejected.

In each case, he said, investigators found the process unfolded in a fair manner.

An appropriate rationale was provided in detail, he said. The one that I remember looking at individually was very detailed in terms of the rationale and why this person could not receive an exemption.

The ombudsman nonetheless urged Armed Forces members who feel they have been treated unfairly to file a complaint.

If you have individual complaints, bring them forward, we want to hear about them, he said. It doesnt matter if its 10 or 100, we treat each individual exactly the same.

The militarys vaccine requirement has undergone significant legal and political scrutiny in Canada.

A number of serving members have unsuccessfully challenged the mandate in court, while some groups and individuals opposed to vaccine mandates, pandemic lockdowns and the Liberal government have used it as a rallying point for their grievances.

The frustration has only grown in some quarters with defence chief Gen. Wayne Eyres refusal to lift the requirement even after mandates for most other federal public servants were suspended in June.

One of the most high-profile critics has been Warrant Officer James Topp, the army reservist from British Columbia who has been walking across Canada since February to protest the militarys vaccine requirement.

Topp has been charged for speaking out against the militarys mandate while wearing his uniform, and has since become a celebrity for some opponents of vaccines and vaccine mandates.

He publicly asked for Lick to review the policy, and has encouraged attendees at some of his rallies across the country to write to the watchdog with a similar request.

The call to action doesnt seem to have received much pickup, however, as the ombudsmans office said most of the 10 letters it received were from non-military personnel.

Topp said he disagrees with Lick's rationale for not taking a closer look at the vaccine requirement, saying he planned to write another letter to the ombudsman outlining his concerns.

He also suggested the reason there havent been more formal complaints from Armed Forces members is a lack of awareness.

People that Ive encountered who have gotten released, a lot of them didnt even realize they had this legal option available to them, he said, speaking from a roadside near Fredericton. And I expect that as we move forward, theyll be getting more of these.

As for the lack of letters, Topp joked: Wow, I guess should just pack up and go home. On a more serious note, he said he remained undaunted in trying to call attention to what he sees as an injustice.

I continue to do what Im doing and marching to bring this issue to light with the Canadian public, he said. If theyre going to write, theyre going to write. This is the challenge we face here on the ground is encouraging folks to get involved.
14 families that were temporarily settled in the Nork neighborhood of Yerevan, displaced from Berdzor, were given AMD 10 million certificates of assistance to leave the buildings, Berdzor Mayor Narek Alexanyan told NEWS.am, adding that others have not yet been given similar certificates.

"The state helps the displaced people get a new apartment. We all understand that 10 million is not enough to buy a more or less comfortable apartment, but this is support of the state and the state provides new apartments for displaced families in Artsakh," he said.

Commenting on Azerbaijani policy of settling Berdzor with Azerbaijani, the Mayor said that so far only servicemen are located in the settlements of Berdzor, Aghavno and Sus, which have come under Azerbaijani control.

Narek Alexanyan said that most of the displaced residents of Berdzor were resettled to Armenia, and only a few families preferred to stay in Artsakh.

On August 26, the Azerbaijani army entered and deployed in the administrative center of Berdzor of Artsakh's Kashatagh region, in the villages of Akhavno and Sus.

A new route connects Artsakh with Armenia.
Queen's coffin arrives in Edinburgh

Queen's coffin arrives in Edinburgh

Tens of thousands of mourners lined the route of Queen Elizabeth's funeral cortege on Sunday as it left the Scottish retreat where she died, to bid farewell to their longest serving monarch.



The hearse carrying the 96-year-old's oak coffin, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, was driven from the Balmoral estate through Aberdeen and Dundee to the capital Edinburgh, where the streets were packed with well-wishers.



Some applauded, some cried, and then they fell silent as the coffin reached the Palace of Holyroodhouse, met by senior royals including the queen's daughter Anne, who curtseyed as it was carried inside.



"It was a very big sense of loss, but a sense of closure as well when you saw the coffin go past," said onlooker Lucy Hampshire, who came from the northern English city of York.



The queen died on Thursday after a record-breaking seven decades on the throne, her son Charles immediately taking over as king of the UK and 14 other realms.



Her coffin will be held overnight at Holyroodhouse  the monarch's official residence in Scotland  and on Monday, Charles III will lead it in procession to the nearby St Giles' Cathedral.



It will be flown to London on Tuesday for four days of lying-in-state before the funeral on September 19, an event expected to be attended by heads of state and watched by millions of viewers worldwide. (AFP)
UV Krishnam Raju, former Union Minister, and veteran Telugu actor, who was popularly known as the 'Rebel Star', died at the age of 83, while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Hyderabad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences on social media. Krishnam Raju was the uncle of 'Bahubali' actor Prabha. The veteran actor was the first actor who worked as a Union Minister under the cabinet of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He made his debut in the film industry with the Telugu film 'Chilaka Gorinka' in 1966 which was produced and directed by K. Pratyagatma. Raju did more than180 films in his career. PM Modi extended his condolence over the demise of a Telugu actor. He wrote, "Saddened by the passing away of Shri UV Krishnam Raju Garu. The coming generations will remember his cinematic brilliance and creativity. He was also at the forefront of community service and made a mark as a political leader. Condolences to his family and admirers. Om Shanti." Saddened with the veteran actor's demise, Amit Shah tweeted, "Pained to learn that the beloved star of Telugu Cinema and former Union Minister, U Krishnam Raju Garu has left us. He won millions of hearts with his versatile acting & worked for the betterment of society.His passing away leaves a deep void in our Telugu cinema. My condolences." According to Telangana CMO Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has directed Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar to conduct the funeral of his dearest friend and former Union Minister Krishnam Raju with an official ceremony. CS Somesh Kumar will make arrangements as per CM's orders. Earlier, Rajnath Singh took to his Twitter handle and wrote, "Shocked by the demise of Legendary Actor and former MP, Krishnam Raju garu. He will be remembered for his excellent performances in several Telugu films. He had a wonderful and magnanimous personality. My condolences to Prabhas, his entire family and admirers. Om Shanti." Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed grief over the demise of actor Prabhas's uncle Krishnam Raju. The Chief Minister lauded the contribution of the rebel star, as he was popularly known, to film land and public life and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved family members. Andhra Pradesh Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan also expressed grief after the demise of a veteran Tollywood actor. Governor Harichandan said, Krishnam Raju served as a Member of Lok Sabha from 1999 to 2004 and held the portfolios of Rural Development, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Defence and External Affairs as Union Minister. The Governor offered his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members and prayed for the departed soul to rest in peace. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao extended his deepest condolences to the family members of late Krishnam Raju. He said that the death of Krishnan Raju, who acted as a hero in many films during his fifty-year career and won the hearts of moviegoers as a 'rebel star' with his unique acting style, is a great loss for the Telugu silver screen. The CM added, the death of Krishnam Raju, who served the people of the country as a member of the Lok Sabha, as a Union Minister and through the field of political administration, is sad. Prayed for his soul to rest in peace. (ANI)
Electrical signals cause the heart to beat and can cause severe cardiac events like tachycardia and fibrillation as they spiral outward in spiral waves. The first high-resolution images of steady spiral waves in human ventricles are helping researchers get a fresh understanding of these complex circumstances. According to School of Physics Professor Flavio Fenton, "Clinicians have known for decades that spiral waves of electrical activity can occur in the heart and researchers have done studies in animal and human hearts before." The formation of rather stable spiral waves of voltage and calcium in the ventricles of human hearts, however, has never before been mapped with such fine spatial and temporal resolution. Studying live hearts from heart transplant recipients offers a unique perspective into the heart's intricate functioning amid challenging-to-treat diseases like fibrillation. As a result, medical professionals will have a better grasp of how spiral waves start and continue, which may result in the development of novel treatments. The Georgia Tech School of Physics and the Emory School of Medicine have worked together for ten years on the current project. "Direct observation of a stable spiral wave reentry in ventricles of a whole human heart using optical mapping for voltage and calcium" and "Spiral wave breakup: Optical mapping in an explanted human heart shows the transition from ventricular tachycardia to ventricular fibrillation and self-termination" are the most recent findings that the researchers have made, respectively, in the journals Heart Rhythm and Heart Rhythm. The researchers used timed electric shocks to the heart to create the conditions for spiral waves. Then, they introduced fluorescent calcium and voltage dyes into the artificial blood that keeps the heart beating in order to see and record the spiral waves. They are able to capture signals across the heart tissue via optical mapping, a process made possible by variations in light intensity. According to Ilija Uzelac, a physics research scientist at Georgia Tech, "by monitoring the changes in light intensity as direct changes in calcium and voltage in the cardiac cells, we can view simultaneously the calcium and electrical waves in the heart." The great thing about this method is that we can monitor voltage and calcium at very high spatial and temporal resolutions using a high-resolution camera that is not even achievable with thousands of recording electrodes all over the heart. Researchers may study the dynamics of spiral waves with various types and severity of disease since each heart has a little distinct ailment that necessitates a transplant. For more than 20 years, Fenton's team has been researching spiral waves in the heart. Spiral waves are a strong contender for the physics topic of nonlinear dynamics, where seemingly unpredictable systems are actually chaotic rather than random. As Fenton's group theoretically demonstrated earlier this year, techniques can be devised to manage and terminate spiral waves to cease fibrillation with little energy. The team has previously worked with hearts from certain mammalian species, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. However, as a result of their collaboration with Emory, they were able to investigate 10 human hearts from recipients of recent heart transplants. To conduct these tests, Emory and Georgia Tech have a solid relationship, which Fenton described as being quite lucky. Very few doctors desire to work with physicists to investigate arrhythmias in addition to treating patients. Medically speaking, the research has also been eye-opening. Shahriar Iravanian, an Emory cardiologist who was part of the study, said, "I had a simplistic view of ventricular fibrillation based on what I see in the clinic and what I have read. But actually looking at ventricular fibrillation directly through these experiments gives a different perspective of the complexity and of what's going on with their dynamics. Dr. Andre G. Kleber, Professor of Pathology in the Disease Biophysics Group at the A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard, stated that "mapping electrical and chemical waves simultaneously in the isolated human heart offers a unique opportunity to investigate mechanisms of sudden cardiac death at a new functional level and to associate the dynamic electrical changes characterising malignant arrhythmias to the specific and individual pathology of patients." The goal of the ongoing research on explanted hearts is to better understand how they function and to develop remedies. For instance, most arrhythmias are treated with electric shocks or ablation, which involves burning the substrate of malfunctioning circuits. This research may allow for more precise and even individualised ablation and ablation treatments. Such developments may have a significant impact on how cardiac arrhythmias, a leading cause of death in the US, are treated in the future. Because of patient instability and signal complexity, mapping ventricular fibrillation is challenging, according to Neal Bhatia, an associate professor of medicine at Emory University and a team member. "There could be serious clinical ramifications from our research. We can better understand spiral wave dynamics through precise mapping, which will help us decide if and when to use more effective catheter ablation techniques to treat the heart. (ANI)
The Jharkhand Crime Investigation Department filed a chargesheet against 11 named accused in the case related to police firing during Ranchi violence, said the officials on Saturday. The altercation took place on June 10 this year. This case was registered at the Daily market police station with FIR number 17/22. The case was transferred in the last week of June to CID following the NHRC guidelines. A three-member team of CID investigated the matter. The case 17/22 has been registered at Daily Market police station on the complaint of Circle Officer against 22 named and around 8-10 thousand unknown. Earlier on June 22, an FIR was registered in connection with Ranchi violence that took place on June 10, explaining how the mob turned violent and miscreants opened fire at police. According to FIR, 60 to 80 rounds of firing were done by the miscreants and they made attempt to climb on Hanuman Temple at Ranchi's main road. The particular FIR has been lodged by Circle Officer (CO) Amit Bhagat who said that he was patrolling when thousands of people took out a protest against Nupur Sharma's objectionable remark against Prophet Muhammad. The FIR quotes that the protest march was without permission. Police tried to stop the crowd but it turned violent. The FIR content states, "In a planned manner, miscreants wanted to target the Hanuman Temple to instigate religious riots and continued stone-pelting." According to the FIR, the mob broke the police blockade in an "attempt to climb on the temple"."In this process, the mob and the miscreants fired on the police...many in the crowd even tried to snatch weapons of police personnel," the FIR stated. The FIR further explained that minor force was used by police but it did not deter the mob. It said attempts by even the Deputy Commissioner and the Senior Superintendent of Police to talk to the protesters and pacify them yielded no results. Due to this, the FIR mentions that controlled air firing and use of force were ordered, which somewhat succeeded in dispersing the mob. "Five round of tear gas fired and several rounds of air firing was done and then lathi-charge...after which the crowd was controlled ""but again the crowd gathered, started stone pelting and firing while cornering the police teams from three directions...According to police officers at the spot, miscreants fired 60-80 rounds," the FIR further stated. As many as 29 persons have been arrested in connection with violence in Ranchi, informed police on Wednesday."A total of 29 people have been arrested so far in connection with the violence in Ranchi on Friday, 10th June," said Ranchi Police last week. A protest erupted in Ranchi after Friday prayers on June 10 against the controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad made by suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma and expelled leader Naveen Jindal. Two people died and several others sustained injuries as the protest turned violent. (ANI)
According to the police, the culprits were running call centres in Gurugram and Noida. Four persons have been arrested in connection with the case though the police are yet to disclose their identity.

"The accused registered a company under dummy directors and were running call centres to extort money from people by harassing them," said a senior police officer.

During interrogation, it was revealed that the accused used to provide loans to needy persons and then recovered higher amounts by blackmailing them with chats containing derogatory remarks and morphed photographs.

--IANS str/arm

( 134 Words)

2022-09-10-22:56:01 (IANS)
As many as three persons were arrested for the brutal stabbing that took place in the national capital on September 9, said the officials on Saturday. In a shocking stabbing incident in Delhi's Mangolpuri on Friday, a man was killed and four others got seriously injured, informed the police. "Around 8-9 boys attacked three boys with knives several times and because of this, one person died and two got seriously injured. All three boys are cousins and both the victims and the accused are neighbours in the block of Mangolpuri," the police said. "We have arrested three accused and sent four teams to Mangolpuri police station to arrest the remaining accused," said police. The deceased has been identified as Armaan and the other two who got injured are his cousins-- Fardeen and Moin Khan. The three were taken to SGM Hospital where Armaan was declared dead on arrival. According to Delhi Police, yesterday at around 2.15 pm Fardeen was going on his motorcycle in front of the house of accused Sharukh who is a notorious person and had an altercation with Shahbir (Shahrukh's brother) over touching the bike. Fardeen ran away from there. Following that Fardeen reached his house where his brother Monty decided to sort the matter out peacefully with Sharukh. Fardeen also followed his brother Monty where his brother had a heated argument with Sharukh as he had abused Monty. Their third cousin brother Armaan also reached there. Then Sharukh and Shahbir ordered his associates to bring knives and kill the three brothers. Sharukh caught hold of Armaan, Shahbir (Sharukh's brother) caught hold of Monty while Saif, Sameer and Vineet stabbed Arman and Sameer alias Muthu, Karan alias Badshah and Ajay Malik stabbed Monty. After this, all of them ran away. After this (during the absconding period) all these accused persons went to O Block Mangolpuri, Delhi to take revenge on one Matthi as Matthi had beaten Saif's brother Kaif a few days ago. At O Block, Mangolpuri, Delhi they all searched for Matthi. They found two boys sitting at O Block, Mangolpuri, Delhi where they found two friends of Matthi sitting there. They asked for Matthi from them and started stabbing Anurag and Ravi, informed the police. Anurag sustained major injuries and underwent surgery. Ravi has been discharged. Two cases have been registered--one under 302/34 for the stabbing incident at K block and one under Sections 307/34 of IPC against the accused persons are being registered in PS Mangolpiri. After this two accused persons, Saif and Vineet(after suspecting self-inflicted injuries) admitted themselves at B.S.A Hospital, Rohini, Delhi. The deceased's father Mohammad Salim told ANI, "Armaan had come after offering prayers, and was cleaning the bike when some of his friends took him on a Ganesh Visarjan Padyatra. Soon after he returned home, he heard some quarrels outside. He went there to intervene and resolve the matter peacefully. However, an argument broke out between him and the accused, when both Fardeen and his cousin and Armaan were also present. The accused and his brother then allegedly called their friends to attack them." Salim also alleged that the accused saw the colour on his clothes from the Ganpati festival and questioned him for roaming with colours despite being Muslim and that was the reason behind to stabbed him. Victim Fardeen said, "I was going on my motorcycle in front of the house of accused Sharukh when I had an altercation with Shahbir ( Shahrukh's brother) over touching hands. I went away from there. After that, my brother Monty decided to sort out this matter peacefully with Sharukh." "Arman also followed my brother Monty and reached the house of the accused where my brother had a heated argument with Sharukh as Sharukh had abused my brother.Then Sharukh and Shahbir ordered his associates to bring knives to kill Arman and Monty. (ANI)
Experts and environmentalists feel that the Himalayan region is facing new challenges and going through rapid changes due to unplanned development for economic growth. Participating in a discussion on 'Bioresources to Bioeconomy for the Himalayan states' here, the experts said that these unplanned developmental activities cause frequent flash floods, melting of glaciers, loss of habitats, land slides and several other devastations. The event was jointly organised by the Centre for Himalayan Studies, Delhi University, and the Himalayan Study Circle, Hindu College, to mark Himalaya Day. Speaking during the panel discussion, environmental scientist Dinabandhu Sahoo, Director at the Centre for Himalayan Studies in Delhi University, said that a bioresources based economy is the solution for the growth and development of the Himalayan states. Sahoo said bioeconomy has the potential to create new jobs and can generate new solutions for the planet's major challenges in the field of health, food, water, climate change and can deliver social, environmental and economic benefits. "Himalaya is our common heritage and the entire humanity should try and contribute to save it," he pointed out. Sahoo said that the region has several plants, animals and micro organisms which can be used to set up bioresource based industries in the Himalayan states. "Bioeconomy is a relatively new concept and rapidly developing in several nations. India can be a major player with its unique resources from the Himalayan region, especially from northeastern Himalayas," he said. Anju Srivatava, Principal of Hindu College, said that students from the college would visit the Himalayas and explore the various possibilities. The college would also stress on Himalayan research, Srivastava said. Panelist and writer C.K. Nayak urged the youth to take up protection and preservation of the Himalayas for their own generation. --IANS sc/arm ( 306 Words) 2022-09-10-23:14:01 (IANS)
According to Vijayanagar Police, the victim has been identified as Gaurav Dole, who was a native of Chhindwara and had come from Bhopal to witness the tableau of Anant Chaturdashi.

"The incident occurred on the night of Friday and Saturday, when Gaurav was returning after seeing the tableaux with his friends, during which he had a dispute with the miscreants on the matter of being first in the petrol line. In this dispute, the bike-riding miscreants stabbed him, due to which Gaurav was seriously injured," stated Suresh Bunkar, sub-inspector, Vijayanagar Police.

"The accused fled from the spot after the incident, but the dispute was caught on CCTV. Due to excessive bleeding here, Gaurav died in the hospital on Saturday during treatment," he added.

Police official further stated that Vijayanagar Police has registered a case of murder in this case and has detained a miscreant on the basis of suspicion, who is being interrogated.

Gaurav was an engineering student who was studying in Bhopal, while his father Ramesh is also posted in CRPF in Bhopal. (ANI)
Delhi Police on Friday busted a gang involved in online cheating and arrested two persons from Ghaziabad, police said on Sunday. According to police, a complaint was received at the Cyber Cell in which it was alleged that the accused named Robin Singh had called the complainant on WhatsApp and introduced himself as a seller of air guns, walkie talkies, telescopes, etc. The complainant had ordered 25 telescopes and paid a sum of Rs 2,49,000 online. He further informed that after taking the money from the complainant, Robin Singh sent one water filter and blocked his number. "During technical analysis of whatsapp mobile phone number and analysis of alleged beneficiary bank accounts transactions, one transaction was tracked as money transfer agent was identified and on interrogation of money transfer agent Yogesh Arora, identity of the accused persons namely Ravi Singh and Harish both real brothers was established," stated the police. "On Friday, a team was conducted to apprehend the culprits and finally caught them from their house in Ghaziabad, UP. From them, three smart/Android mobile phones, two Debit Cards which were used in the commission of the offence were recovered from their possession as a piece of evidence in the case," stated further. The accused were arrested in the case and were sent to judicial custody after the High Court orders. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tributes to advocate of non-violence Acharya Vinoba Bhave on his birth anniversary and said his life was a manifestation of Gandhian principles. "Remembering Acharya Vinoba Bhave on his Jayanti. His life was a manifestation of Gandhian principles. He was passionate about social empowerment and gave the clarion call of 'Jai Jagat.' We are inspired by his ideals and are committed to realising his dreams for our nation," PM Modi said in a tweet. Bhave is best known for starting the 'Bhoodan' (gift of land) movement in India. Today is his 125th Birth Anniversary. Vinoba Bhave is known as the originator of the Bhoodan Movement and was fluent in various languages including Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, English, Urdu and Sanskrit. PM Modi also remembered Swami Vivekananda's speech at Chicago in the US on this day in 1893. While on this day in 1893, Vivekananda delivered a speech at the World Parliament of Religions. He is believed to have introduced the concepts and ideals of the Vedanta to the Western world. On September 11 in 1893, more than a century ago, Swami Vivekananda delivered a speech at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago and introduced the world to the human values of India. Taking to Twitter, PM Modi said, "September 11 has a special connection with Swami Vivekananda. It was on this day in 1893 that he delivered one of his most outstanding speeches in Chicago. His address gave the world a glimpse of India's culture and ethos." Swami Vivekananda is believed to have introduced the concepts and ideals of the Vedanta to the Western world. He became popular in the West after his famous speech at the World's Parliament of Religions. He was also the chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. Swami Vivekananda was considered as a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India and bringing it to the status of major world religion in the late 19th century. Swami Vivekananda's birthday on January 12 is also observed as National Youth Day in the country. (ANI)
It was done due to heavy rainfall in the Kalaburagi area, as well as in neighbouring Maharashtra.

The inflow of the Sonna barrage is estimated to be around 1,22,634 cusecs.

Recently, Bengaluru reeled under severe waterlogging, as incessant heavy rainfall lashed the city. Waterlogging led to traffic jams and disruptions in the lives of people in several parts of Bengaluru.

Earlier on Monday, many IT professionals in India's silicon valley resorted to tractors to reach their workplaces amid waterlogging due to heavy rains.

Yemalur which is close to the HAL Airport was submerged in water. Many employees of IT companies living in the area on Monday took tractors to reach their offices.

Earlier on September 5, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai assured IT companies about a discussion on the estimated loss of Rs 225 crore due to rain and waterlogging in Bengaluru.

It came after the IT companies asked the Chief Minister to solve the outer ring road issue.

Earlier in July also, Karnataka suffered heavy floods due to rains, after which rescue missions and relief work had to be carried out. Chief Minister Bommai also had to seek financial assistance from the Centre. (ANI)
Both the leaders had breakfast together in Hyderabad and discussed national politics, including Telangana and Karnataka.

Apart from this, Kumaraswamy also held a meeting with Telangana Chief Minister KCR today.

Earlier last week, Kumaraswamy hit back at Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and demanded to issue a white paper on the encroachment of Bengaluru Lake and Rajkaluve.

Speaking to reporters, Kumaraswamy said, "Let the CM speak whatever he wants about Congress. Let him speak responsibly while talking about me. He said that it is better to speak carefully. I had made a plan estimating Rs 6,000 crore for Peripheral Ring Road. It is Rs 22,000 crores today. This is the achievement of Congress and BJP."

He demanded that Chief Minister Bommai issue a white paper on who has encroached on the lake and Rajkaluwe in Bengaluru. (ANI)
Gambhir was sent back to home with a summon to join the investigation on Monday, sources told ANI.

This is the third summon by ED issued to Gambhir.

Earlier she challenged the ED to summon in Calcutta High Court and was allowed to appear at ED's office at the Central Government Office (CGO) at Salt Lake in the northern outskirts of Kolkata, instead of appearing in New Delhi.

On Saturday when Gambhir reached Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata to catch a flight to Bangkok but on reaching the immigration counter, she was stopped and escorted to another room.

Immigration officials informed to ED officials about her, as a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against Ganbhir by the federal probe agency. ED officials denied giving her permission to travel to Bangkok. She was handed over a summon by Assistant Enforcement Officer to appear before him on Monday. After that Gambhir left for her residence.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) originally took over the investigation of the coal smuggling case by registering a case in November 2020. Later, the ED was roped in the investigation process to probe the money laundering angle. (ANI)
Uttarakhand government on Saturday ordered a vigilance inquiry against six people including top officials in the alleged irregularities in Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UKSSSC) examination. According to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), after the consent of the CM Pushkar orders for vigilance inquiry was issued against six people including former secretary of Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission, Santosh Badoni, former controller of examination Narayan Singh Dangi, three section officers of the commission and the owner of RMS company. Vigilance will register a case against them soon. After the question was raised on several examinations of the selection commission, the government had sought a report from the STF on the role of the commission officials in this matter, in which it came to light that the contract of the exam conducting company RMS Technosolutions ended in October 2019 itself. Despite this, not only the work was taken from the company but the payment was also made. The STF also clarified the role of the officers responsible for this. On the basis of this report, after taking approval from the CM, the Vigilance Department has issued orders for vigilance inquiry against six people, including the then Secretary of the Commission, the Controller of Examinations. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Dhami on Wednesday said that there should not be any delay in the examinations of the aspirants. The Chief Minister said that a proposal to ensure the recruitment process from the Service Commission will soon be placed before the cabinet. "There should be no delay in the examinations of our brothers and sisters, as well as their hope of employment should not turn into despair, for this, pending examinations are organized on the basis of the qualifications of the Subordinate Selection Commission. A proposal will soon be placed before the cabinet regarding ensuring the recruitment process from the Service Commission or other institutions," he said. "At present, the recruitment process was to be started on 12,000 posts, in which 7,000 posts of Group C were to be recruited through the Subordinate Selection Commission," Dhami added.Mentioning the irregularities in the SSSC recruitment, he said that the case is under investigation and a high-level committee has been constituted. "The irregularities found in the cases of recruitment made by the Subordinate Services Selection Commission are being investigated, as well as a high-level committee has been formed in connection with the investigation of the appointments made by the Speaker in the Vidhan Sabha has been constituted," he said. The Chief Minister assured of taking strict action against the culprits in the case, while also announcing a campaign to fill the vacant posts with a "transparent recruitment process" soon. Dhami said that the Director General of Police has also been directed to conduct an online forest inspector recruitment inquiry. The investigation of the said case was handed over to the STF by the DGP. The Chief Minister affirmed his government's commitment to not compromise on the policy of Zero Tolerance on Corruption and said "no guilty will be spared". "Our government will not allow injustice to happen to the honest and hardworking youth of the state," he said. The Chief Minister assured all the youth and citizens of the state that the state government will take strict action in all these matters as per their hopes and aspirations. "This is a very serious matter for our state and it is a matter related to employment of all the youth of our state. Wherever complaints of irregularities are being received in the recruitment of the SSSC, we have ordered a strict inquiry. Proceedings are going on on all the matters, the result of which is coming in front of you all," he said. In stern words, the Chief Minister said that "no matter how tall one's hands are", no one will be spared in the recruitment scams. (ANI)
Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust will hold its meeting today in Ayodhya to discuss the progress of the construction of the Ram Temple. The meeting will be held at the Circuit House. Eleven members of Ram Janmabhoomi Trust reached Ayodhya for the meeting. Nipendra Mishra, chairman of the building construction committee, will also attend the meeting of the trust. Before the meeting, the officials of the trust conducted site inspection in the Ram Janmabhoomi complex. According to sources, the process of construction of Ram Lalla's temple and the account of income expenditure will be presented in the meeting. Trust's general secretary Champat Rai, member Anil Mishra, Mahant Dinendra Das, Raja Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, Kameshwar Chaupal and treasurer of the trust Govind Dev Giri, reached Ayodhya. Sources said the progress of temple construction will be sent to the Prime Minister's Office. Ex-officio members of the trust will also attend the meeting. Mahant Nritya Gopal Das including K Parasaran and others will attend the meeting virtually. The meeting of the Building Construction Committee is held every month. According to the Trust, which is in charge of the construction of the temple, the sanctum sanctorum is expected to be completed by December 2023. The foundation stone for the construction of Ram Temple's 'Garbha Griha' or the sanctum sanctorum of the temple was laid by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in June this year. The construction of the temple of Lord Ram in Ayodhya is going on at a fast pace. On August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the construction of the Ram temple and since then the construction work of the temple is going on.The five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi (now retired) had on November 9, 2019, unanimously delivered its verdict that the land in Ayodhya where Babri Masjid once stood, belongs to Ram Lalla. (ANI)
The Ranchi police have filed an FIR against the accused. It was also found that the accused belonged to a minority community.

The incident happened on September 5, but the girls did not inform the police then.

The girls in their complaint have said that the accused were forcing them to befriend.

A complaint has been filed and has been registered under molestation and threatening charges.

According to the police a special team headed by a DySP has been formed to investigate the matter.

All angles and aspects are being investigated.

Further information in the case is awaited.

Months ago, the Jharkhand Police arrested the principal of a private school on charges of molesting minor girl students.

The Chaibasa Police said that seven girl students, who were staying in the school hostel, had complained about the principal.

On the complaint of the victims, Chaibasa Police came into action and arrested the accused principal.

"The principal of a private school has been arrested on the charges of molesting minor girl students. Seven students had complained about him. All the victims were staying in the school hostel," said Chaibasa Police.

Police further said that the accused has been sent to judicial custody. (ANI)
"In order to promote the police personnel on time, orders have been issued to sanction 1750 new posts by creating a new rank of Additional SI as per the instructions of CM," official said.

1750 new posts of head constable rank will also be created.

Dhami said that he is confident that this will provide more opportunities for promotion to the jawans and also solve the problem of grade pay of police personnel.

Police personnel of rank 'additional SI' will get paid in the pay grade of 4200.

Uttarakhand Director General of Police, Ashok Kumar expressed happiness over the decision taken by the government and thanked CM.

"I believe that this will give more opportunities for promotion to the jawans. Also, the quality of the investigation will improve due to the availability of new interpreters for the investigation. I hope that this decision will help all the constables at least," Ashok Kumar said. (ANI)
According to Delhi Police, after the incident, the boy and his friend, who is a foreign national allegedly left the car on the spot and fled. The accused is a Class 11 student.

The deceased has been identified as Rahul Kumar from Gole Market, who was working with Swiggy. He was travelling with his cousin and was on his way to meet his friends.

Police said they received a PCR call about the accident around 1.20 am. The victim and his cousin were shifted to RML hospital for treatment, where Rahul Kumar succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Police initially filed a case under IPC sections 279 and 337. During the investigation, police gathered details of the car from the transport department and went to the owner's home where the juvenile was apprehended today. IPC Section 304 A (causing death by negligence) has been added to the existing FIR.

Police said, the accused and his friend were returning from Connaught Place, where they had dinner and allegedly hit the victim's bike. The deceased's cousin Pawan Kumar, who was riding pillion sustained minor injuries.

The accused's father is a real estate baron who was arrested a few months ago in a multi-crore scam. (ANI)
Delhi Police busted a gang of cyber cheats that allegedly duped more than 200 people including a retired ACP of Delhi Police on the pretext of delivering liquor on their doorstep. Police arrested 23-year-old Azharuddin Khan from Jhenjpuri Kaman, District Bharatpur, Rajasthan, and recovered 3 Android mobile phones and one basic keypad phone. The cyber cell of the Delhi police received a complaint through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) by a retired ACP of the Delhi Police and started investigating the matter. The Retired ACP, alleged that while watching a YouTube channel, one phone number appeared on the screen for home delivery of liquor. He called on the given mobile number, which sent QR Code, bar code and account number and asked for OTP, which he shared and thereafter a total amount of Rs 78,374 was deducted from his account in various transactions. Thereafter the accused disconnected his phone and did not answer again. A case under section 420 IPS was registered at P.S Cyber OND and an investigation was taken up. Sensing the gravity of the offence, a team was constituted. During the investigation, it has been revealed that mobile numbers were found operating from a village near Jhenjhpuri of Kama tehsil of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan. A team was sent for an investigation to Bharatpur where the accused was nabbed. The accused is a Diploma in Pharmacy from a renowned college in Jaipur. The accused used to post advertisements on Google Ads in the name of a famous liquor shop situated in Gurgaon namely, Jagdish Wine L-1, Discovery Wines and Lake Forest and was running a racket since last year and is alleged to have duped many people throughout NCR. The Google ad posted by him also ran on YouTube. While watching YouTube, a number of fraudulent messages used to flash on screen with ads for home delivery of liquor. Once the victim dialled the number, all the victim's money used to get debited from his account through QR Code, Bar Code and OTP. After duping the victim they used to block the numbers. (ANI)
A 37-year-old woman allegedly hanged herself to death at Delhi's Sagar Pur area on September 10. The PS Sagarpur on September 10, received information regarding the suicide of a woman. The woman was admitted to Bhagat Hospital, Janakpuri, and was declared dead. On spot inspection by the police, it was found that she had hanged herself from the ceiling fan using a saree. She was married for 12 years and had a daughter aged 4 years. Her husband works in a factory in Mayapuri. After further investigation, it was found that the deceased was under depression for the last few years and was a heart patient undergoing treatment. As to the police, there is a medical history of her treatment and depression. No foul play has been suspected by the police yet. As of now proceedings under U/s 174 CrPC are being carried out by the police and further information on the matter is awaited. Months ago in Delhi, a 41-year-old man allegedly committed suicide as he was depressed due to a strained relationship with his wife, police confirmed on Thursday. The deceased's name was Umesh Dhar Trivedi, who was a resident of Uttam Nagar in Delhi. On Thursday, an officer at the Bindapur Police Station received a PCR call. Upon reaching the spot, the police saw that the gate had already been opened by the fire tender, who was called by locals. Further, the decomposed body of Umesh Dhar Trivedi was found hanging from the ceiling fan with a blue dupatta. The body was brought down by cutting the dupatta. A complete inspection of the scene of the crime was conducted by the Crime team of Delhi Police. After searching the body for further evidence, a four-page suicide note was found. The suicide note claimed that Umesh's wife had gone to Switzerland with their children. His wife had a strained relationship with him and therefore she blocked her husband on social media. The relationship with his wife took him into depression which led to his suicide. Other than the suicide note, a mobile phone and a purse were found in the pocket of the deceased's half-pants. Proceedings under CrPC 174 had been conducted. (ANI)
Pregnant women who had more changes had infants that were more fearful, sad, and distressed, according to the researchers. The findings of the study were published in the journal, 'Infancy'. Prior research has found that mothers' distress during pregnancy has been related to infant temperament and behavior, but this is one of the first studies to measure mothers' experience of stress in real time on many occasions, which enables a closer look at whether changes in mothers' stress across pregnancy matter for infant development. "Research often examines stress as a static, unchanging construct -- one that is either high or low, present or absent -- but most of us have a lot of ebbs and flows in our stress depending on what is going on around us," said lead study author Leigha MacNeill, research assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a member of the Northwestern Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences (DevSci). "That variability is inherent in our daily lives, so this lability is capturing an important aspect of stress and offers insight into how to measure stress going forward. This is of particular importance as we work to closely capture the maternal-fetal environment as it relates to how babies develop over time." For instance, one mother who has consistent levels of stress over pregnancy and another mother who moves between very low and very high levels of stress over pregnancy may in the end have a similar average level of stress across that time, but that average may not best capture meaningful differences in what the fetus is exposed to, MacNeill explained. "There may be something about that gestational experience when a mother moves between extremes, that shapes the child's disposition toward negative emotions," MacNeill said. "That kind of stress pattern could reflect instability in daily life experiences, unpredictable external stressors or instability in how a mother perceives her lived experiences, which may have important implications for children's emotional development." Having a better understanding of the nature of stress during pregnancy may inform prevention efforts, such as helping individuals reach a consistent level of calm before or at the onset of pregnancy, especially in the context of uncontrollable life events, MacNeill said. Since most expecting parents receive some form of prenatal care, she said stress measures, and ideally management, could be folded into those visits.'Stress was unrelated to the timing of the pandemic' The scientists didn't set out to conduct a study on prenatal stress during a pandemic. They encountered this "natural experiment" because some participants completed their assessments before the pandemic began; some before and during the pandemic; and some completely during the pandemic, MacNeill said."We asked about general stress -- not pandemic-related stress," MacNeill said. "But we took advantage of the occurrence of the pandemic during the course of the study to see if we could detect its impact on mothers' experiences. "We found that mothers' stress patterns were unrelated to the timing of the pandemic. Mothers reported similar levels of stress regardless of whether their stress measurements occurred before or during the pandemic." How they measured prenatal stress, infant temperament The study authors measured pregnant individuals' stress up to four different times per day for 14 weeks using questions sent to participants' phones. They identified three types of stress: stress at the first assessment (baseline), average or typical levels of stress across the 14-week period, and the amount a person changed in their stress from one time to the next across the 14-week period (lability). The authors measured infants' negative emotions via a temperament questionnaire given to mothers when their infants were three months old. Mothers answered questions about their child's sadness, distress to limitations and fearfulness (e.g., how much they clung to their parent when introduced to an unfamiliar adult). This formed an overall negative affect average score.Studying fluctuations in stress during pregnancy in relation to infant development is a relatively new idea, and the study authors said there is not yet a clear understanding of how stress and the gestational environment impact the developing fetus. More research in larger, more diverse samples is needed to find out if these patterns hold true for families from different contexts and with different types of supports, MacNeill said. "This is a really early index (three months), so we'd want to see how consistent their negative affect levels are in the first year of life," MacNeill said. "Parents are the ones who can soothe their infants and be really responsive to their needs, and as infants grow, there are things parents can do to help the child navigate situations and learn to regulate and cope with their negative emotions." "This study illustrates that links between parent and child are based on genes as well as experiences, even before birth," said Dr. Matthew Davis, chair of the department of pediatrics at Feinberg and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, who was not directly involved with the study. "One of the most important approaches to having a less distressed child is to support expectant parents and minimize their stress during pregnancy. That can be accomplished through clinical care, social supports and policies that are family- and pregnancy-friendly." (ANI)
Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) General Secretary Kamrul Islam Choudhury on Sunday tendered his resignation from the primary membership of the Congress party citing the "directionless and confused leadership" in the state during the last few months. He sent his resignation letter to AICC interim president Sonia Gandhi. "The present instability of Congress party in Assam due to the directionless and confused leadership of APCC during the last few months has left no reason for me to continue as a member of INC," he wrote in the letter. Choudhury further said that there was no action taken against the MLAs who cross-voted in the recently concluded presidential elections despite the acceptance by the party leaders of the same. "Despite the acceptance by most of the senior leaders of the Congress party of the State including PCC President Bhupen Bora publicly regarding the cross-voting of INC MLAs in the recently held election of President of India (he even termed the MLAs as "GADDAR"), but still there has been no action against the concerned MLAs, which has demoralized thousands of grassroot workers like me who have given blood and sweat for the party for years," he wrote. "Therefore. I do hereby tender my resignation from the post of General Secretary. APCC and primary membership of INC," Choudhury added. Choudhury was also the president of the Assam Pradesh Youth Congress (APYC) and National Secretary of the National Student Union of India (NSUI). (ANI)
A parade is held on the border in Jammu and Kashmir on the pattern of the parade of Indian and Pakistani forces at the Wagah border on the international border in Punjab. This traditional parade is held twice a week on the border in Suchetgarh, a border area 28 km from the winter capital of Jammu. It was inaugurated on October 3, 2021, by Manoj Sinha, the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. The 36th Battalion of the Border Security Forces takes part in this traditional one-hour parade on Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm. It is a one-way parade, not a joint parade of India and Pakistan in the style of Wagah. The area is emerging as a major tourist centre with the parade held at Oktroi Post. Suchetgarh is among the 181 villages recently selected by the LG administration to be developed as tourist centres in Jammu and Kashmir. Having parades here has made it more interesting for tourists. People from Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Udhampur and the Pir Panjal region visit with their families to attend the event in the evening. According to the officials, if the relations between India and Pakistan improve and there is an agreement in this regard at the country level, then in the future there can be a joint traditional parade in the Wagah style here as well. MS Mir, a lawyer by profession who came from Riasi to watch the event with his family, said, "It was a lot of fun to watch the parade, it's a strange feeling to come here, this place is full of patriotism, the children enjoyed it a lot. However, there is no reasonable provision of food and drink here. He said that tourists will be more attracted if there is a good restaurant here. It is noteworthy that a few kilometres away from Oktroi Post is the famous Gharana Wetland, where thousands of different species of birds visit during winter from different countries of the world. With time this entire area will develop well as a tourist destination adding to an already impressive list of tourism hotspots in J&K. (ANI)
The economic offences wing (EOW) of Delhi Police will issue another summon to Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez after she requested to postpone the questioning scheduled on Monday. Delhi Police has summoned her to join the investigation in connection with the Rs 200 crore extortion case allegedly involving conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar. A senior police officer has confirmed to ANI that Jacqueline has communicated to Delhi police via email that due to prior commitments, she won't be able to join the investigation on September 12. The officer added that Jacqueline was summoned to join the investigation on September 12 at the EOW office at Mandir Marg around 11 am. "Now, we will issue a fresh summon to Jacqueline to join the investigation in the case. The dates of fresh summon will be decided soon," the officer added. Enforcement Directorate (ED) has named Jacqueline in their chargesheet into the money laundering cases that involve Sukesh. ED chargesheet stated that Jacqueline knew about Sukesh involvement in criminal cases. Still, she chose to overlook his criminal past and despite of that she got indulged in financial transactions with him. ED had registered a case of money laundering in the alleged scam over the FIR registered by the Delhi Police. ED had earlier stated that Fernandez's statements were recorded on August 30 and October 20, 2021, where she admitted to having received gifts from Chandrashekar. ED also said that Fernandez had used proceeds of crime and valuable gifts bought using it for herself and her family members in India and abroad and that this amounts to an offence of money laundering under section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002. Sukesh Chandrashekhar, a native of Bengaluru in Karnataka, is currently lodged in a Delhi jail and faces over 10 criminal cases registered against him. Chandrashekhar has been accused of running an extortion racket worth Rs 200 crore when he was lodged in Rohini jail, from Aditi Singh, the wife of jailed former Ranbaxy owner Shivinder Singh, posing as officials from the union law ministry and the PMO, on the pretext of getting her husband out on bail. (ANI)
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav and Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar visited Kuno National Park on Sunday to inspect the area where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit and reintroduce cheetahs on September 17. Speaking to ANI at Kuno National Park, Bhupendra Yadav said, "The day is marked as the martyrdom of the forest personnel. Many people are engaged in forest protection and work across the country despite facing many challenges in adverse conditions. In order to increase work efficiency, we have also been working and a committee was constituted by the ministry also." Yadav further told ANI that cheetahs are returning to the country on September 17. "This is the first of its kind project in the world where wild cheetahs are being re-introduced. The project will go on for 5 years. PM Modi would grace the occasion of re-introduction and we are very thankful to Prime Minister for accepting our invitation," Yadav said. Appreciating Shivraj Singh Chouhan, he said that the state government has co-operated with the Centre for completing this project. "When scientists came here from South Africa and from Namibia, they got full cooperation and support from the Government of Madhya Pradesh to conduct scientific investigations" Union minister added. Speaking on the same, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that September 17 is going to be a historic day for the state. "Cheetah which had gone extinct not just from India but from the Asian continent is being re-introduced in presence of PM Modi. Cheetahs are being transported from Africa," CM Chouhan said. Under the ambitious project of the Indian government - Project Cheetah - the reintroduction of wild species particularly cheetah is being undertaken as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines. Project Cheetah is an ambitious project undertaken by the government which aims to re-establish the species in its historical range in the country. India has a long history of wildlife conservation. One of the most successful wildlife conservation ventures 'Project Tiger' which was initiated way back in 1972, has not only contributed to the conservation of tigers but also to the entire ecosystem. In continuation, the reintroduction of the cheetah which we have lost recently is one step ahead and a milestone in the history of wildlife conservation in India. (ANI)
Extreme temperatures are fuel for online hate speech, according to a recent study from the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). A recent study shows a sharp increase in violent online behaviour across the USA when temperatures are above or below a feel-good window of 12-21 degrees Celsius (54-70 F). Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research discovered an increase in hate speech across climate zones, income groups, and belief systems for too hot or cold temperatures after analysing billions of tweets on the social media network Twitter in the USA. This highlights the limitations of adaptation to intense heat and highlights a social aspect of climate change that has yet to be fully appreciated: conflict in the digital arena, which has repercussions for both societal cohesion and mental health. "We found that both the absolute number and the share of hate tweets rise outside a climate comfort zone: People tend to show a more aggressive online behaviour when it's either too cold or too hot outside," says PIK scientist Annika Stechemesser, first author of the study published in The Lancet Planetary Health. "We detected hate tweets in more than four billion tweets from U.S. users using our AI algorithm and combined them with weather data." "Receiving hate speech online poses a major risk to one's mental health. Online hatred can worsen mental health issues, particularly for young people and marginalised groups, according to psychiatric literature, Stechemesser continues. "We see that online hate increases up to 12% for colder temperatures and up to 22% for hotter temperatures across the USA outside the feel-good window of 12-21C (54-70F)." In order to reach these conclusions, the authors identified around 75 million English-phrased hate tweets using a machine-learning approach from a data set made up of more than 4 billion tweets sent from the US between 2014 and 2020. In order to reach these conclusions, the authors identified around 75 million English-phrased hate tweets using a machine-learning approach from a data set made up of more than 4 billion tweets sent from the US between 2014 and 2020. The authors next looked at how the number of hate tweets changed as local temperatures rose or fell. The researchers used the UN's official definition of hate speech as their guidance, which includes cases of language that disparages an individual or a group based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender, or other identification criteria. The smallest number of hate tweets is attained for temperatures between 15 and 18C (59-65F), according to the authors, who discovered low levels of hate tweets in the USA during a "feel-good window" of 12-21C (54-70F). Increases in hate tweets are correlated with hotter and colder temperatures. Depending on the typical temperatures, different climate zones have slightly different feel-good temperature windows. However, across all climate zones and socioeconomic distinctions like income, religious beliefs, or political inclinations, temperatures above 30C, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, are consistently connected to sharp rises in online hate. This underlines the limitations of the human capacity for climate adaptation: "Even in high-income neighbourhoods where residents can afford air conditioning and other heat mitigation alternatives, we detect an increase in hate speech on sweltering days. Or, to put it another way: People can only take so much. As a result, there are probably adaptation limits to extreme temperatures that are lower than our simple physiological limits, according to Anders Levermann, co-author of the study and head of the Potsdam Institute's Complexity Science department as well as a researcher at Columbia University in the United States. More aggressive online behaviour can have serious effects because hate speech has been shown to have a detrimental effect on the mental health of those who are the targets of it. It may also be a good indicator of hate crimes that occur offline. Researchers have been debating how society's stability and human behaviour are impacted by climate conditions for centuries. The study's author, Leonie Wenz, working group leader at the Potsdam Institute, says that it is now more crucial than ever because of the ongoing effects of climate change. Our findings demonstrate a novel effect pathway through which climate change can influence societal cohesion generally and people's mental health. Therefore, dramatically and quickly reducing emissions will have positive effects that extend beyond the environment. Our mental health also depends on preventing excessive global warming. (ANI)
"The bodies will be taken to hospital and after that, identification of the bodies will come to know," the Meghalaya DGP LP Bishnoi said.

Earlier on Saturday, six prisoners escaped from Jowai district jail after overpowering the jail staff.

"The criminals who escaped from the jail are- I Love You Talang, Ramesh Dkhar, Marsanki Tariang, Rikmenlang Lamare, Shidorki Dkhar and Lodestar Tang," DGP Bishnoi said.

Ramesh Dkhar was arrested along with I Love You Talang in a twin murder case.

More details are awaited. (ANI)
On August 23, Gupta was shot several times by unknown assailants in the Burari area of Delhi and he died later during treatment.

The gangster, who is part of the infamous Gogi gang, is currently absconding.

During the investigation, Delhi Police said that the killing of Gupta prima facie was a case of extortion and murder, and one accused was arrested.

The gangster Deepak Boxer, who runs the gang, has claimed by writing a post on Facebook that Gupta was murdered by him and the motive for the murder was not extortion at all, but it was revenge.

In the Facebook post, Deepak Boxer also claimed that the deceased was associated with the Gogi gang's known enemy Tillu Tajpuria gang and was the financier of that gang. In this context, he was killed, his post said.

The social media post also claimed that the main member of the Gogi gang, Kuldeep alias Fazza, whose encounter was done by the Special Cell, was also informed by Amit Gupta.

Further, in the social media post, Gogi gang gangster Deepak Boxer has openly threatened that whoever joins the Tillu gang will face the same consequences.

With this new twist, the feud between Gogi and Tillu Tajpuria gangs has erupted again, which is seen as a challenge for the Delhi Police. (ANI)
Sadar Bazar Police busted an interstate gang by arresting four persons who were allegedly involved in a case of duping many people by changing their ATM cards. An FIR was registered regarding the case under sections 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at PS Sadar Bazar. 25 ATM cards of victims, one ATM card swapping machine, Rs 63000, and four mobile phones were recovered from their possession. "During the investigation, it was revealed that the accused persons have cheated several persons and thus the team focused on collecting ATM footage. However, it was revealed that the gang targeted mostly those ATMs where the CCTV cameras malfunctioned. The team focused on interrogating the duped complainants and collected footage from nearby shops etc," the police said. With the arrest of the accused, the Police have worked out eight cases of Cheating and Theft registered at different Police Stations in Delhi. "The hard work of the team bore success and information was received that the gang is available at New Delhi Railway Station and is planning to abscond to Bihar. Consequently, a raid was conducted at NDRS, and all the four accused persons were arrested on Thursday," the police informed. On sustained interrogation, the accused persons disclosed that they mostly target Women, Children, Senior Citizens, or the persons who are inept in handling ATM Cards on the pretext of helping them. Moreover, they disclosed that they work all over India and cheated many people by this modus operandi outside Delhi and Haryana also. After committing fraud in one state they abscond to another state and commit such offense there, according to the police. "They would carry the ATM cards of all banks and stand outside the ATM kiosks. After spotting a person struggling to use the card, they would come to their rescue. They would help the victim to withdraw the money and they stealthily see the PIN, later deceitfully return an expired card to the unsuspecting victim. Further, if SMS for the transaction made by them is not received on the mobile phone of cheated persons and he does not get his ATM blocked then the accused persons transferred more than Rs. 40,000 in a single day from the ATM kiosks using the card," the police said. (ANI)
In wake of Prashant Kishor's (PK) attack on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, JD-U national President Lalan Singh retaliated on Sunday, dismissing the political strategist as "a businessman who does not even know Bihar". "PK is a businessman who is roaming to sell his products like a salesman. He does not have any knowledge of Bihar. He is not a political person. Hence, there is no need to comment on him. "If a salesman would not roam in the country, how could he sell his products. At present, he is advertising his products in Bihar. He has made no contribution in the development of Bihar in the last 17 years," Singh said. "Everyone knows he is working for BJP in Bihar. At present he is acting behind the screen. He should come in front of the screen and face us directly. He has nothing to do with Bihar. He is just doing branding for himself. He was taking an appointment to meet the Chief Minister and on the other hand, he is branding himself before a media person as that the Chief Minister wants to meet him," Singh said. PK is currently doing his 'Jan Suraj' campaign in Bihar and he will start a padyatra from October 2 from Champaran. Earlier, Nitish Kumar also slammed PK, saying that he has no knowledge of Bihar. "He is a businessman and giving statements against me to stay in the limelight," he had said. --IANS ajk/vd ( 253 Words) 2022-09-11-19:38:03 (IANS)
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and and JD-S leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday discussed the agenda of the national party proposed to be launched by the former. The Janata Dal-Secular leader met KCR, as the Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader is popularly known, at the latter's official residence and they discussed a wide range of issues relating to national politics during the three-hour long meeting. KCR told Kumaraswamy that the formation of the national party and formulation of policies will soon take place after continuing discussions with intellectuals, economists, and experts from various fields and reaching a consensus on an alternative national agenda. According to the Chief Minister's Office, they discussed the threat of a political and governance crisis in the country if the BJP's "destructive political moves are not stopped". They felt that people of the country are waiting for an alternative political platform that will carry on the spirit of the Indian Constitution by integrating all communities irrespective of castes, religions and regions, it said. The two leaders arrived at a consensus that they should put an end to the BJP rule, which is exploiting emotional issues, and use the upcoming general elections as a platform for that. Kumaraswamy asserted that the immense experience of KCR, who achieved Telangana state by uniting all sections and moving forward in a democratic and peaceful manner, is required by the country in the present situation. He felt that KCR should move forward to constitute an alternative front in the national politics and play a key role and assured his full support. He added that the country urgently needs a senior leader like KCR in the wake of the space for an alternative in the current national politics. Kumaraswamy congratulated KCR saying that the entire country is discussing the development achieved by Telangana in just a span of eight years and the whole nation also wants to have similar development. The TRS leader stressed the need to collectively thwart the conspiracies to create division among people. The two leaders discussed the "dangerous and selfish political path" adopted by the BJP government at the Centre and its consequences and expressed serious concerns. They arrived at a consensus that they will protect the country from being pushed into dangerous religious hatred in any situation. In this direction, they stressed the need for unity of all alternative political forces to safeguard the spirit of the country's democratic federalism. The former Karnataka Chief Minister said that people are waiting for an alternative to the BJP across the country. He urged KCR to foray into national politics and contribute his part for the qualitative progress of the country. He said he would extend full support if a political party is established for that purpose The two leaders felt that people have come to an opinion that the Congress is not a strong alternative to the BJP and they lost faith in the Congress leadership. They discussed the urgent need for the unity of regional parties so that the spirit of democratic federation will flourish. KCR told Kumaraswamy that there is increasing pressure on him to enter national politics and lead the country like Telangana. He said that people are extending their support in public meetings everywhere during his district tours with cheers and slogans to fight against the BJP and Modi's anti-people and autocratic attitude. He asserted that people are completely against the BJP, which is constantly creating problems in Telangana, which is running on the path of progress. The two leaders condemned the anti-farmer policies adopted by the BJP government at the Centre, which is acting as "an anti-farmer" government and is indulging in conspiracies to undermine domestic agriculture. --IANS ms/vd ( 633 Words) 2022-09-11-21:02:01 (IANS)
In another highlight of the Indian Defence Forces, the Indian Army's impressive engineering skills came to the fore on Sunday after a video depicted the troops constructing a bridge across the Indus river. The video was titled 'Bridging Challenges - No Terrain nor Altitude Insurmoutable' and was shared on Twitter by the South Western Command of the Indian Army. The drill was carried out by the Sapta Shakti Engineers in Eastern Ladakh. The building of the bridge included carrying out mobility tasks and training. "Bridging Challenges - No Terrain nor Altitude Insurmoutable'. SaptaShaktiEngineers in EasternLadakh carrying out mobility tasks and training. Bridging the mighty #Indus River, enabling movement of both combat and logistic echelons," tweeted South Western Command of the Indian Army. The video depicts the mechanical launch of heavy metal parts into the waterbody as the bridge is shown to be completed at the end of the video. Army personnel engrossed in teamwork can be seen in the exercise while heavy trucks cross the terrain after the bridge has been completed. Earlier on Sunday, the Indian Army chief General Manoj Pande, who is on a two-day visit to the Ladakh sector, flew in an Indian Air Force Apache attack helicopter. The request for a sortie from the Ladakh air base was received yesterday and today, the Army chief flew in the chopper over the area, IAF officials said. Gen Pande was familiarised with the flying characteristics of the platform and briefed about its capabilities and roles, they said. The Apache has been deployed in the Ladakh sector since the beginning of the military standoff with China along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. The Indian Air Force has 22 of these American-origin attack helicopters while the Indian Army is soon going to get six of its own. Indian Army teams were also in the US for training purposes led by the Director General of Army Aviation himself. However, the mainstay of the Army in the future would be the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter being developed by the HAL. The Army chief was in the Ladakh sector from Saturday where he visited forward areas during the ongoing disengagement in the Gogra Heights Hot Springs area near Patrolling Point 15. Earlier on Saturday, during his visit, General Pande witnessed the wargames codenamed Exercise Parvat Prahar and was briefed on operational preparedness by commanders on the ground, the Indian Army said. He interacted with the troops and complimented them for their steadfastness and professional standards, the officials said. Moving towards resolving the issues created on the LAC post-May 2020, India and China have agreed to dismantle and verify the temporary structures and other allied infrastructure created in the Gogra-Hot Springs (PP-15) area of the LAC in eastern Ladakh, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said on Friday. (ANI)
A life without despair is a life without hope, says the man at the center of Paul Schraders First Reformed. That paradox embraces the world as it is, and suggests a better world for the making. The movie it belongs to is an act of spiritual inquiry, a coolly assured example of cinematic scholarship in subtly deployed motion and one of the strongest pictures of 2018.

Its also one of those third-act miracles all too rare in American filmmaking. Now 71, writer-director Schrader has remained busy across five decades. He made a name for himself when Martin Scorsese pulled a vicious American masterwork from Schraders screenplay Taxi Driver. A critic and essayist before (and, to a degree, concurrent with) his moviemaking career, Schrader has plowed through bowl after bowl of forbidden fruit in a variety of genres. His latest work bears little surface resemblance to the pulpy extremes of so many Schrader pictures, both early (Rolling Thunder, which he cowrote and later disowned) and recent (Dog Eat Dog, The Canyons).

Advertisement

Nonetheless, the extremes of temperament and the atmosphere of coiled danger are there in First Reformed, just under the surface calm. You may not appreciate the direction it goes, ultimately, or make the leap alongside the storys protagonist, played by Ethan Hawke, at the unnerving close of a carefully calibrated crisis of faith. But its a beautiful crisis to witness, and to argue with internally.

Schrader keeps the film, set in upstate New York, visually close to his chief inspirations. The Rev. Ernst Toller is a man at a crossroads. He tends the radically dwindling attendees of his tiny Dutch Reformed church outside Albany, down the road from its parent establishment, the thriving megachurch known as Abundant Life.

Advertisement

Like the isolated man of faith in Robert Bressons Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Toller has embarked on a yearlong experiment of keeping a journal for his private confessions, doubts and prayers. Early in the film Toller is visited by Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a pregnant parishioner married to a fierce environmental activist (Philip Ettinger) recently returned to town, and utterly adrift. With climate change raging, unchecked, he does not see the point of bringing a child into the world. The early, artfully sustained scene between the husband and the minister is pretty amazing, slipping in bits of exposition (we learn of Tollers son, a casualty of the Iraq war; Toller himself is a former military chaplain) while Toller murmurs to us in voice-over about the ecstatic thrill of having his beliefs and ideology questioned, tested, probed.

That storyline intersects with an imminent celebration. The church, now primarily a tourist attraction, is turning 250 years old. For its re-consecration, a parade of dignitaries is being arranged by Abundant Lifes spiritual leader (Cedric Kyles, aka Cedric the Entertainer). Theres a shadowy figure of power in the background, a petroleum executive (Michael Gaston) who donates mightily to the megachurch. In a particularly rich scene, the oil exec locks horns with Toller, and the conservative man of business reveals that he can smell a meddling liberal of conscience a mile off.

Im being evasive about narrative details, not because Schrader constructs First Reformed like a mystery, exactly, but because its very real qualities of strangeness deserve a process of discovery. Tollers encounter with the troubled eco-activist, who turns out to be an extreme example of the breed, changes him in small and large ways. Toller, who is not a well man, has a turbulent past (Victoria Hill plays a onetime lover, a choir director at Abundant Life) bleeding into an increasingly addled and fraught present.

Hawke has never been better. Ive found much of his screen work mannered and overeager, in both drama and comedy, but here all is lean, and unvarnished, and thoughtfully compelling. Seyfried and Kyles are exemplary, maintaining a tone of quiet gentleness even when their hearts are breaking a little for the man of the cloth in their midst.

Schrader freely acknowledges the forerunners of First Reformed. In Ingmar Bergmans Winter Light (1963), a pastor contends with a man tortured by visions of nuclear apocalypse. In Carl Dreyers Ordet (1955), religious transcendence and ordinary despair feed each other, affecting the characters in different ways. Schrader lifts from both. These are all stories of men, inhabiting stark, bare-walled rooms where they can be alone with their angst. Schraders very much at home in these rooms. And yet First Reformed stakes out its own obsessive path, toward an ending that is uniquely Paul Schrader. (I dont think its entirely successful; by design its abrupt but it feels rhythmically off.)

Shooting on Long Island, N.Y., the films cinematographer, Alexander Dynan, responds to Schraders pristine compositions with precise shades of sunlight and interior shadows. Toller is in nearly every shot, and Hawke builds his portrait of a good man, lost, piece by piece. For such a deliberate exercise in a specific, methodical style, First Reformed is oddly bracing, full of unresolved, contradictory, vital ideas. The answers it provides hardly apply to the general flock, so to speak. But a spiritual inquiry can only care so much about the general audience. Its too busy trying to work things out for itself.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Advertisement

Twitter @phillipstribune

[ RELATED: 'First Reformed' director Paul Schrader talks to Michael Phillips about faith, hope and 'stealing around' ]

[ RECENTLY REVIEWED: 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' review: A solid look at Han's life ]

[ Interview with Sebastian Lelio, director of Oscar's best foreign film, 'A Fantastic Woman; ]
The increasing cases of atrocities against the Sikh community in Pakistan have exposed the false claim by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) founder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun who earlier stated that the minority community is "happily" living in Pakistan. According to Global Strat View, the incident of kidnapping, rape, and forced conversion and marriage of a young Sikh girl, Dina Kaur, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has revealed the true condition of the minority in the country. "There are 20,000 or 25,000 Sikhs who are living happily and they call Pakistan their home," Pannun had earlier claimed to respond to a question from Global Strat View on whether SFJ will include Pakistan's Sikh community in the Khalistan referendum. Meanwhile, in a demonstration in Buner district of KP on September 8, representatives of the Sikh community and organizations of the Pakistan Panchayat directly appealed to the global Sikh community to join them for the release 'of our daughter.' "Abduction, forced conversion to Islam, rape, and forced marriage remained imminent threats for religious minority women and children, particularly from the Christian, Hindu, and Sikh faiths" USCIRF's 2022 Annual Report stated, as per Global Strat View. In October 2021, a Pakistan parliamentary committee rejected a proposed bill to protect minorities against forced conversion. Notably, the Pakistan government is misleading Sikhs and the international community by maintaining only a handful of Gurudwaras in the country, whereas there are hundreds of such structures of historical significance that are being ruined and defiled, media reports said. Hurting the sentiments of the Sikh community, the local administration in Pakistan has been desecrating their places of worship and have been illegally occupying them. Gurudwaras in Pakistan are being blatantly neglected by the local authorities. The conditions of many gurudwaras are dilapidated. The Sikh community has alleged that Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETBP) and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC) have no regard for Sikh religious sentiments. (ANI)
In a recent report released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the suicide rate in Pakistan has crossed eight per cent raising concerns among the mental health experts in the country. According to the report, a mental health institution organised a seminar in Karachi on Saturday as one out of 200 people attempting suicide died in the South-Asian country, the Express Tribune reported citing the report. In order to create awareness of this alarming issue, the event featured insightful discussions on mental health awareness and the treatment of depression and other mental disorders responsible for suicide. Several experts expressed their concern over the upsurge in the suicide rate in Pakistan during the event as they said that treating suicide as a crime is a tragedy and it is unfortunate that many incidents of suicide go unreported, according to the Express Tribune. "The suicide rate in Pakistan has crossed the eight per cent mark and it is alarming," the experts added quoting the WHO report. Meanwhile, there has been an alarming rise in cases of suicide among the youth in Gilgit Baltistan recently. During the first six months of this year, as many as 15 cases of suicide were reported while over 222 people took their own life during the past five years, according to the Dawn newspaper. The exact causes of these suicide cases are not yet known, however, some researchers and experts said that the main cause behind rising cases of suicide was the unnerving pace of social change and mental disorders. Experts further said that many suicide cases go unreported across GB as many incidents of suicide were wrongly treated as murder or accidents. "19 suicide cases -- nine of them males and 10 females -- were reported this year, but investigations revealed that four out of the 19 individuals were, in fact, murdered," said the Senior Superintendent of Police of Ghizer district of Gilgit, Shahmeer Khalid. Deputy Inspector General of Police (Crime) of Gilgit division, Farman Ali said that even after so many deaths, neither the government nor social welfare organisations have woken up to the enormity of the matter. "Many cases went unreported due to social taboos, but police investigations threw a different light in a number of instances. Several cases in Ghizer which were initially declared suicide turned out to be homicide or murder," Farman Ali said. But he regretted that cases were not being investigated thoroughly. Even postmortem was not enough." He told that there are no facilities to treat mental disorders and depression in Gilgit-Baltistan. "Even well-equipped forensic labs are hard to find in the region. The government, as well as the public at large, needs to wake up from a state of denial." the Dawn newspaper quoted the DIG. (ANI)
In the wake of increasing fears of nuclear disaster, the last operational reactor at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine has been entirely shut, the state agency in charge of the plant, Energoatom said on Sunday. "The facility was "completely stopped" after it disconnected the Number 6 power unit from the grid at 3:41 am (00:41 GMT)," the statement read. "A decision was made to shut down power unit No 6 and transfer it to the safest state - cold shutdown," it said on Telegram, Al Jazeera reported. The company reiterated that the shutdown was necessary to avoid the risk of further damage to the power lines as it remained high. As per Al Jazeera, the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia plant was cut off from the grid last week after all its power lines were disconnected as a result of clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the area. However, Energoatom further said it restored to operational capacity a communications line to the power system, allowing the plant to be powered by Ukraine's energy system long enough to initiate the shutdown. Notably, Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of damaging power lines supplying the plant with rocket and artillery fire, risking a severe radiation disaster as war between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. Furthermore, Kyiv on Wednesday called for residents of Russian-occupied areas around the plant which is Europe's largest, to evacuate for their own safety. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long back called for the surrounding area to be demilitarized, according to Al Jazeera. On August 31, the fourteen-membered team of the IAEA arrived in Ukraine. During their visit, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that the physical integrity of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in south-eastern Ukraine has been "violated". "I worry, and I will continue to be worried about the plant until we have a situation which is more stable, which is more predictable. It is obvious that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant have been violated several times by chance [and] by deliberation," Grossi told reporters after his visit to the plant. During the military operation in Ukraine, launched by Russia on February 24, the nuclear plant and surrounding area fell under the control of the Russian forces. The NPP has recently been targeted by multiple shelling, raising international concerns over a possible nuclear accident while Russia and Ukraine continue to blame each other for the shelling incidents. (ANI)
The Taliban is in talks with Pakistan to free 300 Afghans detained for not having legal documents. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the officials of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad are in talks with Pakistani officials over the release of around 300 Afghans detained by Pakistani police, reported Tolo News. Pakistan remains the largest country of asylum for Afghans, with 1.5 million Afghans residing in Pakistan, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report. MoFA's deputy spokesman, Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal, said in a video that some of the detainees had been freed due to efforts of the Afghan embassy. Still, the rest of them will be released after paying the fines. "Some of them have been freed today and the decision to release others will be taken in the future. I must say that there are some individuals who are taking advantage of this issue and collecting money under the pretext of helping these detainees," he said. The Pakistani police have arrested around 300 Afghans including women and children, reported Tolo News. Some Afghan refugees in Karachi, Pakistan expressed frustration over their situation, saying that many members of their families have been held by the Pakistani police for over several months. They said that they have been fined by the court for not having legal documents but are now unable to pay their fines, reported Tolo News. "My mother and cousins are among them. It has been two months that they have been detained," said an Afghan refugee in Pakistan. "My four daughters and wife are among them. I have been dealing with this case for the past two months," said another Afghan refugee. The reports of the detention of around 300 Afghans by Pakistani police were published in early August. "Children and women are among them as well as some men... the ambassador has yet to follow up (with) this, neither the consulate. We don't have enough money to hire a lawyer. I came to Karachi and hired a lawyer for them," said Haji Nazar Khogianai, a civil rights activist in Pakistan. Pakistani human rights activists also voiced concerns over the attitude of the Pakistan government towards the Afghan refugees. For the past five years, Afghanistan's situation has been a peculiar one in the region with a steady increase of forcibly displaced people every year. Last year, Afghanistan's situation deteriorated dramatically with a 12 per cent increase of forcibly displaced persons by the end of the year compared to end-2020. UNHCR in Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan pre-screened/pre-registered Afghans who may be in need of international protection. By the end of 2021, the number of new arrivals who approached UNHCR and Ppartners was the following: in Pakistan (1,08,000), Tajikistan (2,700) and Iran (27,800) reached 1,38,500. "Pakistan remains the largest country of asylum for Afghans, with 1.5 million Afghans residing in Pakistan. This includes POR card holders, unregistered nuclear family members of POR card holders (UMRF), asylum-seekers, and newly arrived Afghans in 2021," the UNHCR report said. In Afghanistan, the number of internally displaced persons has been increasing rapidly in the past 5 years. Globally, Afghanistan remains the 6th largest IDP country and the largest IDP population in Asia and the Pacific region at 3.5 million -- a 20 per cent increase compared to the previous year. By the end of 2021, there were 7,77,000 newly displaced Afghans during the year due to the deterioration in conflict and insecurity in Afghanistan. 58 per cent of the IDP population in Afghanistan are children under 18 and 21 per cent are women. The UNHCR report has argued that durable solutions for Afghans include voluntary repatriation, resettlement to a third country, local integration, naturalization and return to the place of origin prior to displacement. However, a growing number of displaced populations have limited opportunities for a durable solution. As new refugee situations intensify and existing ones remain unsolved, there is an urgent need for durable solutions. Since the Taliban took over in mid-August last year, Afghanistan has not only seen a mass exodus but also the illegal crossings of Afghans into neighbouring countries like Iran via Nimroz province and Turkey. Although the fighting in the country has ended, Afghanistan's situation has been deteriorating as serious human rights violations continue unabated. (ANI)
The Taliban were publicly criticized globally for closing the girls' schools in Paktia after a brief opening. It sparked severe reactions inside and outside of Afghanistan. On Saturday, dozens of girls took to the streets in the centre of Paktia to protest the closing of their schools, reported Tolo News. The videos of the protests went viral on social media and triggered strong reactions by the Afghan public as well as famous politicians and human rights defenders. "The fight of Afghan girls/women for the right to education is important for the entire humanity because gender apartheid and contraction of freedom in one country can have fallout for the rest of humanity," said Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani senator and analyst of regional affairs. Earlier, some girls' schools above grade 6 in the province had been reopened due to a decision by tribal elders and local educational officials. Still, the schools were closed again, reported Tolo News. "The fight of Afghan girls/women for the right to education is important for the entire humanity because gender apartheid and contraction of freedom in one country can have fallout for the rest of humanity," said Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani senator and analyst of regional affairs. The founder and head of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Mazoor Pastheen, said that Saturday's protest for educational rights by the girls in Paktia is praiseworthy, reported Tolo News. "In the 21st century, the Afghan girls are being deprived of education by force," he said. Nazar Mohammad Motmaeen, head of the Afghan National Olympic Committee, on Twitter criticized the closure of schools and said there has yet to be a decision about whether to close or reopen the schools for girls, reported Tolo News. Heather Barr, director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch said on Twitter that the "Taliban just shut down girls' schools in Paktia--after community members pushed for them to open. What will the HRC do? We want a much tougher UN action on accountability." Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country as the Taliban's brutal regime in Afghanistan will soon complete a year in August. Young girls and women have been compromising with their aspirations for almost 300 days since their development was distorted. The activists added that if this situation persists, their aims and hopes will suffer greatly, reported Khaama Press. World leaders, regional allies, and international organizations were urged in the letter to take serious actions to fulfil their commitments in order to promote and protect Afghan girls' rights, especially the right to education which was snatched away from them after the Taliban-led Afghan government banned the education for girls in classes 6 and above. (ANI)
China's foreign firms are struggling to survive due to unprecedented difficulties and uncertainties amid strict COVID-19 lockdowns in the country. Kandy Wong and He Huifeng, writing in The Star said that even in one of China's most economically dynamic regions - the Greater Bay Area - several foreign firms that are intent on maintaining a presence in the country continue to put off expansion plans or have begun scaling back operations, according to business insiders and representatives. This comes after more than two years of strict and sometimes unscientific coronavirus controls, supply-chain problems, and a deterioration in bilateral relations with Western countries. "Japanese companies and other foreign companies are downsizing their operations in China," said Tace Chen, a senior executive at a Japanese consultancy firm in Guangzhou who declined to identify her business due to the sensitivity of the issue. China's hardline zero-Covid policy is deeply affecting the prospects of foreign firms in the country. This type of waning confidence among foreign investors - and the potential impact it has on China falling out of favour as an investment destination - is on the minds of policymakers in the lead-up to next month's 20th party congress, when leaders will outline the nation's focus of development for the next five years, reported The Star. External factors such as the war in Ukraine and tensions across the Taiwan Strait are among those creating conundrums for China on multiple fronts while also diminishing its appeal among multinationals. "An ever-growing list of political developments is now having an impact on business," said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. "For example, a third of European businesses report that China has become a less-attractive investment destination following Russia's invasion of Ukraine," added Wuttke. Wuttke also said China's stringent virus-control policy suggests that Beijing is "prioritising ideological factors at the expense of its economy." China's economic growth during the year's second quarter was a mere 0.4 per cent, weighed down by heavy-handed restrictions and large-scale lockdowns in major cities such as Shanghai, said Kandy and He. Meanwhile, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan last month led to China launching large-scale military drills that encircled the self-ruled island and prompted some to say that expats there would "not wait for the shooting to start" before leaving with their families. "Companies are assessing what impact a blockade or war would have on their global operations, particularly if they had to completely withdraw from the China market in the same way that many did from Russia," Wuttke said. An annual survey by the US-China Business Council similarly showed that American corporations in China were in "wait-and-see mode", not planning to make any changes over the next 12 months. The survey revealed record-low optimism about business conditions in China, with American firms citing weak domestic consumption, supply-chain disruptions and strained bilateral relations between the two countries, added Kandy and He. Tommy Wu, lead China economist at Oxford Economics, also said internal and external factors are clearly affecting the investment decisions of multinationals in China. "It just means that they will be more careful - not putting all of their eggs in one basket by implementing the 'China plus one' strategy," he said, noting how some foreign investments are being diversified elsewhere. The most recent figures show that investment from the United States slumped by 23.8 per cent in 2020, compared with 10 years earlier, and that investment from the European Union fell by 11.8 per cent in 2020 from the previous year. Navigating China's regulatory policies, often affected by political circumstances, also creates new challenges that weigh on the decision-making of foreign investors, according to Hugh Chow, a partner at the Greater Bay Area-focused Radiant Tech Ventures. (ANI)
While Australia, Canada and New Zealand have proclaimed King Charles III as the head of their states respectively, Antigua and Barbuda will vote on whether to remove the British monarch as head of state. The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne said that the Caribbean country will hold a referendum on whether to become a republic and remove King Charles III as the head of state within the next few years, reported CNN. After confirming King Charles III as the King of Antigua and Barbuda on Saturday, Browne told ITV News that he planned on holding a referendum on whether the country would become a republic in the next three years. "This is a matter that has to be taken to a referendum for the people to decide," he said, adding that it is not meant to "represent any form of disrespect to the monarch. This is not an act of hostility or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy." He explained that it would be "a final step to complete the circle of independence to become a truly sovereign nation." King Charles III was formally proclaimed as the UK's new monarch on Saturday. At his confirmation ceremony, he pledged to "follow the inspiring example" of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. In his declaration at St James's Palace, he paid tribute to his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He spoke of the "great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me." The former British colony gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1981 but is one of 14 countries to retain the British monarch as head of state. It is also a part of the Commonwealth, a 54-member organization of mostly former British territories. The Commonwealth realms include - Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. The king's role as monarch of these countries is largely symbolic, and he will not be directly involved in governing, as he is a head of state, not the head of government. Though the Commonwealth realms are a sign of the enduring legacy of the British Empire, the current state of affairs between the British monarchy and such nations is also a reminder that Queen Elizabeth presided over a dwindling empire during her reign. She was head of state of 32 countries over the course of her time on the throne, but 17 ultimately cut ties during the same period. In addition to Barbados, the 16 countries that removed Queen Elizabeth as head of state after she ascended the throne in 1952 are Sri Lanka, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, Malawi, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania (Tanganyika), Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda. Australia on Sunday proclaimed King Charles III as the head of state, the first new monarch in 70 years. The proclamation was made by Australia's Governor-General David Hurley at the nation's parliament in Canberra. A series of proclamation ceremonies will also take place across state parliaments in the country, reported CNN. King Charles-III was proclaimed as the new monarch of England on Saturday after his mother Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Thursday. Neighbouring commonwealth country New Zealand Sunday also officially proclaimed King Charles III as its head of state in a televised ceremony, reported CNN. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Queen Elizabeth served the people of New Zealand for 70 years with unwavering duty. Meanwhile, King Charles III has officially proclaimed Canada's monarch Saturday in a ceremony in Ottawa. Born on November 14, 1948, Charles was the first child of Elizabeth and Philip, then the princess and prince. At the age of 19, he formally became the Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969. He married Lady Diana Spencer on July 29, 1981, and became the first royal heir since 1660 to marry an English woman. In August 1996, Diana and Charles went their separate ways and got legally divorced. After Diana's demise in a car accident, Charles remarried Camilla Parker Bowles in April 2005. Soon, the couple got the royal title of Duke and Duchess of Cornwall. (ANI)
Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday signed the condolence book at the British High Commission in Colombo and extended his deepest condolences on the passing away of Queen Elizabeth II. The President also confirmed that he will travel to the UK to attend the funeral, the country's Department of Government Information said. The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on Thursday will take place at Westminster Abbey on September 19, a statement by the UK Royal Family said. King Charles-III was proclaimed as the new monarch of England on Saturday after his mother Queen Elizabeth II passed away. King Charles Philip Arthur George paid tribute to his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and spoke of the "great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty." Born on November 14, 1948, he was the first child of Elizabeth and Philip, then the princess and prince. At the age of 19, he formally became the Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969. William, the Prince of Wales, wrote a heartfelt message over the demise of his "Grannie", the late Queen Elizabeth II. Recalling the cherished memories with his grannie, Prince William expressed gratitude towards the Queen's wisdom and reassurance. Prince also reminisced his grannie's fond memories while thanking her for 20 years of guidance and support to the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton. Queen Elizabeth's coffin has arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, following a six-hour journey from Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital, media reports said. (ANI)
Drawing flak over the decision to close girls' schools in Afghanistan, the Taliban on Sunday shifted the blame on Afghan parents and said that people do not want their girls to attend school in the current situation. Acting education minister Noorullah Munir while visiting Uruzgan province said, "You wouldn't need to ask me the same question if you ask how many people in this mosque are willing to send their 16-year-old daughter to school. You and I both grew up in the same Afghan society, and the culture is clear to everyone." However, some Uruzgan residents stated that they are ready to send their daughters to school if the Taliban allows them, reported Tolo News. They asked the current government to reopen girls' schools as soon as possible. "I think that the minister came from Kabul and he cannot represent our people, because he came from Kabul. People in Uruzgan want their daughters to go back to school, and they used to go to school before," said Javid Khpolwak, civil society activist. "Those schools which are closed should be reopened as soon as possible because it is the demand of the people," said Mohammad Wali Samsor, a resident of Uruzgan. According to Munir, schools are closed to students above the sixth grade due to cultural constraints, but he emphasized that if a better environment is created, girls' schools above the sixth grade will be opened, reported Tolo News. Meanwhile, the Islamic Emirate's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, has previously stated that girls' schools were closed due to religious issues. Notably, The Taliban were publicly criticized globally after closing Paktia girls' schools after a brief opening. It sparked serious reactions inside and outside of Afghanistan. On Saturday, dozens of girls took to the streets in the centre of Paktia to protest the closing of their schools, reported Tolo News. The videos of the protests went viral on social media and triggered strong reactions by the Afghan public as well as famous politicians and human rights defenders. Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country as the Taliban's brutal regime in Afghanistan will soon complete a year in August. Young girls and women have been compromising with their aspirations as it has been almost 300 days since their development has been distorted, the activists said adding, that if this situation persists, their aims and hopes will suffer greatly, reported Khaama Press. World leaders, regional allies, and international organizations were urged in the letter to take serious actions to fulfil their commitments in order to promote and protect Afghan girls' rights, especially the right to education which was snatched away from them after the Taliban-led Afghan government banned the education for girls in classes 6 and above. (ANI)
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will embark on a visit to the United Kingdom on September 18, where he will likely attend the funeral of British Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on Thursday evening after 70 years of reign, local media reported. Before leaving for his trip to London on September 18, the Pakistani PM will visit Samarkand to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation scheduled on 15 and 16 September, ARY News reported citing sources. Sharif will then return to Pakistan and then after two days will embark on a London visit, where he will attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. He will also hold meetings with the political leaders during the visit, ARY News reported. Later, on September 19, Shehbaz Sharif will travel to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session on September 23. "He will then return to Pakistan after his UNGA address," sources said. Earlier, on Friday, President Arif Alvi and PM Shehbaz Sharif separately visited the British High Commission to offer condolences on the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, the Express Tribune reported. They met with British High Commissioner Christian Turner and expressed grief over the Queen's death on behalf of the government and the people of Pakistan. The two leaders also recorded their remarks in the condolence book placed at the high commission. "Her sad passing away marks an end of an era spanning over a period of seven decades, which was characterized by Her Majesty's graceful service to the British people and the Commonwealth," President Alvi wrote in the condolence book. "Her Majesty's life was devoted to public service and she performed her duties with dignity. I will always cherish my memory of seeing her as a 12-year-old when she came to Pakistan in 1961," he further wrote. "She was a symbol of poise, grace and dignity," Alvi added. Prime Minister Shehbaz, wrote that besides her services for the public interest, the Queen remained a symbol of unity and brotherhood. It is pertinent to mention here that on August 25, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif cancelled his visit to London while considering the flood situation in the country. According to details, the Prime Minister, while considering the flood situation in the country, cancelled his visit to London, where he planned to go to inquire about the health of Hamza Shehbaz's daughter and his granddaughter who is undergoing treatment in London. Earlier, Shehbaz Sharif intended to fly to London after his two-day official visit to Qatar, but he decided to travel back to Islamabad to review the ongoing rescue and relief operations in flood-hit areas. (ANI)
People walk near North Michigan Avenue as rain falls in the area on Sept. 11, 2022, in Chicago, Ill. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

The National Weather Service issued and later extended a flash flood warning for Chicago, Naperville and Cicero, which now will remain in effect until 1:45 p.m. Sunday. A beach hazards statement also was issued, until 4 p.m.

Chicagoans awakened to strong winds blowing through the city Sunday morning as heavy rain steadily pounded rooftops area-wide. And the gloomy weather isnt going anywhere.

Advertisement

Well have this period of heavy rain thats moving through the metro area right now, probably get a little bit of a break this afternoon (but) it may never actually stop raining, there might some showers that still go through, said Casey Sullivan, a meteorologist with the weather service.

Flash Flood Warning including Chicago IL, Naperville IL and Cicero IL until 12:15 PM CDT pic.twitter.com/6AL2KvvfCl  NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) September 11, 2022

With the Bears season opener taking place at Soldier Field at noon, traffic congestion had been expected on nearby roads. Drivers should use caution while driving in the rain  particularly through standing water on streets, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Advertisement

The agency also is monitoring weather conditions with the National Weather Service in Chicago and (is) advising residents to use caution and avoid driving through standing water on streets, viaducts and low-lying areas, according to a statement from a city spokeswoman.

People walk near North Michigan Avenue as rain falls in the area on Sept. 11, 2022, in Chicago, Ill. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

Forecasters also warned strong wind gusts will make for dangerous swimming conditions Sunday.

High waves up to 7 feet and dangerous currents are expected. Remain out of the water to avoid dangerous swimming conditions and do not venture out onto piers or other shoreline structures, the city statement said.

Moderate to heavy showers later in the evening might be more concentrated in the northwest suburbs, Sullivan added.

The city offered several tips for flood prevention, including:

Avoid running a dishwasher or washing machine during storms

Disconnect downspout connections from the sewer system

Make sure to direct flow to areas with permeable surfaces that can properly absorb the storm water or use rain barrels to collect the rain directly from the downspouts

Install rain gardens, green landscaping, or storm water trees in your yard to help retain rainwater

Resurface driveways, parking pads, or patios with permeable pavements

Do not dump fats/oils/greases in private drains or public catch basins

In addition, residents and motorists can contact 3-1-1 by visiting 311.chicago.gov to report water in their basement, standing water on their street, tree debris, flood viaducts and any traffic light outage, according to the city.

adperez@chicagotribune.com
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday remembered the victims of the September 11 terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans. "We will never forget the 2,977 lives lost on 9/11. Today standing at Ground Zero, I am reminded of the impact this attack had on our nation and those who lost loved ones. Doug and I stand with you today and every day," US Vice President tweeted. Twenty-one years after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City, the horrific event is still embedded in people's memories. To mark the milestone anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Harris attended an event at Ground Zero in Manhattan. She was accompanied by her husband and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Mayor Eric Adams and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. US Vice President said that she stood with those lost at Ground Zero, Shanksville, and the Pentagon twenty-one years ago. "On this solemn day of remembrance, we honour those who lost their lives, as well as our first responders who risked everything in the face of grave terrorism. Today, we continue to honour their courage and strength," Harris said, adding, "My heart is with those who lost loved ones." A total of 2,977 people lost their lives on this day, 21 years ago in a fatal terror attack. On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. More than 3,000 people were killed in the terror attacks. In a span of just 102 minutes, the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center collapsed after planes hijacked by Al Qaeda operatives crashed into them. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the northeastern US to California. They seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the American military) in Arlington, Virginia, and yet another one crashed in Pennsylvania before reaching its presumed target. The attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives. By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001, US Congress had designated September 11 of each year as "Patriot Day," and by Public Law 111-13, approved April 21, 2009, the Congress has requested the observance of September 11 as an annually recognized "National Day of Service and Remembrance." On September 10 last year, US President Joe Biden proclaimed September 11 as Patriot and National Day of Service and Remembrance and noted that on this day, all government entities should display the US flag at half-staff. (ANI)
Supporters and leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) held a protest outside the Pakistan High Commission in London against the "minus-one formula", a term used by PTI to describe the government's attempts to try and disqualify PTI Chairman from elections. The protest in London was held in coordination with the protests held across Pakistan on the call of Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's party central office, Geo News reported. The speakers at the protest said they had gathered to show their support for Khan and to send a clear message that the PTI chief should not be disqualified or knocked out through any other means as this will be damaging to Pakistan's democratic process. Protestors carrying placards and banners showing support for their leader said that they would not accept the "minus-one formula". They chanted slogans of "minus-one formula na manzoor" outside the Pakistan High Commission for three hours. The London demonstration was attended by the newly elected PTI office bearers, including PTI London's President Waqas Sagar, Secretary-General Nabeel Qureshi, Senior-Vice President Taqweem Ahsan, and Youth Secretary Aurangzeb Khan, as well as PTI UK's President Imran Khalil, General-Secretary Rana Hamid Afzal, and Women Secretary Nasreen Memon. Sahibzada Jahangir, Farzana Mukhtar, Maheen Faisal, Shahid Destageer, Amir Khan and Adnan Shareef, membership coordinator and co-head of the literary society, also addressed participants at the demonstration, Geo News reported. Secretary-General of the party, Nabeel Qureshi said Pakistanis had rejected the PTI chairman's removal from power through an alleged American conspiracy and stood by him against injustice to him. He said some elements had made a malicious conspiracy of "minus one" against Khan but "such plans will be defeated". Another speaker, Farzana Mukhtar said that Pakistan has been plunged into the worst crisis and the only way out is possible through free and fair elections. Maheen Faisal said nobody else other than Imran Khan will be accepted as the leader of Pakistan. "Imran Khan has fought hard and that's why some people want to knock him out from politics but PTI workers will never let such a nefarious plan succeed," she remarked. PTI UK's President, Imran Khalil said Pakistan was liberated in 1947 but the country never had real freedom. He said the "Haqeezi Azadi" movement was now being run by Khan and the whole nation stood by him. Sahibzada Jahangir announced that hunger strikes and protests will be held across the UK if the party's chief was disqualified in any of the cases against him. "We will go to every extent to protest and this will send a very bad message to the international community. Therefore it's important to not do anything that knocks out Imran Khan through any means other than the process of voting," he said. Earlier on Saturday, PTI in Pakistan called for nationwide protests against the 'minus-one formula'. The party called the protest to express their solidarity with their chief Imran Khan. This is a fresh phase of its anti-government campaign which was announced by PTI, Pakistan's local media outlet Dawn reported. In a tweet, Imran Khan said, "Tomorrow our Gujranwala jalsa will be the last of our present phase of Haqiqi Azadi Movement. I will announce the next critical phase at the jalsa. Imported govt and its handlers are so petrified that nation is standing firmly behind PTI they are desperately moving on Minus 1 formula." Other PTI leaders said that shelving of by-elections in 13 constituencies of the National Assembly, of which Khan was contesting in nine, endorsed their apprehension that Khan could be disqualified from holding a public office, as per Dawn. The Islamabad capital city police Saturday summoned PTI Chairman Imran Khan again to appear before a joint investigation team (JIT) probing a terrorism case against him. The notice was issued after the former prime minister failed to appear before the JIT at the Margalla Police Station in a case lodged against him for allegedly threatening a lower court judge, Zeba Chaudhry. The notice mentioned that Khan is on bail in the case till September 12, therefore, he should appear before the investigation team at 5 pm Saturday to ensure that he answers its questions. On Thursday, the Islamabad HC decided to indict the former Pakistan Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on September 22 after giving an "unsatisfactory" response in the contempt of court case. During the hearing of the case, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said, "Imran Khan's response was not satisfactory" and added that Imran Khan would be indicted in a contempt case after two weeks on September 22, ARY News reported. (ANI)
At least five people were killed and several households were damaged after a massive earthquake hit Papua New Guinea (PNG) early on Sunday morning, according to media reports. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake damaged buildings, triggered landslides and killed five people Al Jazeera reported. According to the media report, a local member of parliament, Kessy Sawang said at least two people were killed in remote mountain villages, with four others airlifted to hospital in critical condition. In nearby Wau, Koranga Alluvial Mining said three miners were buried alive. "There has been widespread damage," said Sawang, adding a landslide had buried homes and "split" one village where people "lost their houses". The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape, said that the earthquake was "massive" and told people to be cautious, but said he expected the damage to be less than that from a 2018 earthquake and series of aftershocks, which killed an estimated 150 people. However, the scale of the damage and number of casualties from Sunday's earthquake was still unclear. Marape said that the national and provincial disaster agencies, as well as leaders, had been asked to assess the scale of damage and injuries to people. As per the United States Geological Survey, the 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the Kainantu town in the eastern New Guinea region of the country at 23:46:55 GMT on Sunday. The tremor was recorded 67 km East of Kainantu, Papua New Guinea. The epicentre of the quake was located at a depth of 61.4 km. The latitude of the quake was 6.224S while the Longitude was 146.471E. The UN report said people had been injured by falling structures or debris, and there was damage to some health centres, homes, rural roads and highways. Power infrastructure was damaged in affected areas, causing an outage across the Eastern Highlands. Papua New Guinea lies in the "Ring of Fire", an area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean, which is vulnerable to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.There have been 22 M7.5+ earthquakes recorded in the New Guinea region since 1900. The largest earthquake in the region was an M8.2 shallow thrust fault event in the northern Papua province of Indonesia that killed 166 people in 1996. (ANI)
US President Joe Biden on Sunday paid tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terror attack by al-Qaeda terrorists, taking part in a remembrance event at the Pentagon, and delivered remarks to honour those killed. "I know for all those of you who lost someone, 21 years is both a lifetime and no time at all," Biden said at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. "It's good to remember. These memories help us heal, but they can also open up the hurt and take us back to that moment when the grief was so raw." Biden in his remarks urged for national unity on the 21st anniversary of the September 11, 2002 attack. "I hope we'll remember that in the midst of these dark days, we dug deep. We cared for each other. And we came together," Biden said, as rain fell on troops standing behind him. "We honour the police officers and firefighters, the passengers on Flight 93, and the civilians and service members who all leapt into action. And, we honour the young men and women who joined the thousands of American troops who served around the world to protect our nation," Biden said. The President talked about a message sent to the American people on September 11, 2001, from Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who died Thursday, recalling that she "pointedly reminded us, quote, 'Grief is the price we pay for love.' Before the speech, Biden participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon, pausing briefly before a ceremonial wreath to touch it and then putting his hand over his heart. He was joined at the event by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. A total of 2,977 people lost their lives on this day, 21 years ago in a fatal terror attack. On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. More than 3,000 people were killed in the terror attacks. In a span of just 102 minutes, the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center collapsed after planes hijacked by Al Qaeda operatives crashed into them. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the northeastern US to California. They seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the American military) in Arlington, Virginia, and yet another one crashed in Pennsylvania before reaching its presumed target. The attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 overcame the hijackers and the plane crashed in a field, preventing another target from being hit. The first lady, Jill Biden, attended a ceremony in Pennsylvania on Sunday morning, while Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff attended one in New York City. "We will never forget the 2,977 lives lost on 9/11. Today standing at Ground Zero, I am reminded of the impact this attack had on our nation and those who lost loved ones. Doug and I stand with you today and every day," US Vice President tweeted. Harris attended an event at Ground Zero in Manhattan. She said that she stood with those lost at Ground Zero, Shanksville, and the Pentagon twenty-one years ago. The vice President was accompanied by her husband and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Mayor Eric Adams and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "On this solemn day of remembrance, we honour those who lost their lives, as well as our first responders who risked everything in the face of grave terrorism. Today, we continue to honour their courage and strength," Harris said, adding, "My heart is with those who lost loved ones." By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001, US Congress had designated September 11 of each year as "Patriot Day," and by Public Law 111-13, approved April 21, 2009, the Congress has requested the observance of September 11 as an annually recognized "National Day of Service and Remembrance." Last year, on September 10, US President Joe Biden proclaimed September 11 as Patriot and National Day of Service and Remembrance and noted that on this day, all government entities should display the US flag at half-staff. (ANI)
Mohenjo-daro is an archaeological site in Pakistan. Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus Valley Civilization declined and the site was not rediscovered until the 1920s. During its heyday from about 2500 to 1900 B.C. the city was among the most important to the Indus civilization. Mohenjo daro designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. Getty Images

Some of the walls of Mohenjo-Daro have been destroyed as a result of Pakistan's historic flooding.

The Cultural, Tourism, Antiquities, and Archives Department of the Sindh province estimated that repairs would cost $45 million.

The site is also being used to shelter Pakistanis whose homes have been affected by flooding.

A preserved ancient city in Pakistan has witnessed "mass destruction" as a result of the country's historic rains and could cost millions of dollars to repair.



Ahsan Abbasi, a curator at Mohenjo Daro, told the Associated Press the outer walls of the city had been damaged by the rains.

The Mohenjo Daro's "Buddhist stupa"  a religious burial ground  survived the rains, however. Repairs to preserve the World Heritage site are now underway, Abbasi told the AP.

Mohenjo Daro  or Mound of the Dead in Sindhi is an ancient civilization in the heart of Pakistan that cropped up on the Indus river 4,500 years ago. The ruins of the city are now a UNESCO world heritage site.

Mojenjo Daro was discovered in the 1920s after mysteriously disappearing 4,000 years ago, according to National Geographic. Remnants of the city include bronze statues, pottery and a pool called the Great Bath.

The immaculately planned city, with endless rows of baked brick walls, was considered the "first great urban center" of the Indus Valley civilization and had complex drainage systems to address ancient floods, according to UNESCO.

The Indus Valley civilization is one of the world's earliest civilizations, lasting between 2500 and 1700 BCE, and consisted of over 100 towns and villages along the Indus river in modern-day Pakistan.

A letter sent to UNESCO by the Cultural, Tourism, Antiquities, and Archives Department of the Sindh province said the Indus Valley civilization site had seen "mass destruction" and requested $45 million for repairs, according to CNN.

During UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' visit to the country on Friday, UNESCO responded with $350,000 in funds to help rebuild the site, as well as other destroyed sites across the country. The money will help to address crucial repairs while UNESCO continues to assess the situation, CNN reported.

Story continues

The letter also said that various parts of the site and the museum were given to people to take refuge during the monsoon.

Over the last two months, Pakistan has endured heavy monsoon rains and glacier melts that have submerged one-third of the country and impacted 33 million Pakistanis. Over 1,100 people have died so far.

The Sindh province, where Mohenjo Daro is located, has been one of the worst hit by the flooding due to its location near the overflowing Lake Manchar.

Read the original article on Insider
U.S. Reps. Bennie Thompson and Kweisi Mfume, who sit on the nations top congressional committees on national security, tell theGrio there is a great need to strengthen U.S. intelligence.

As the country remembers the 9/11 terrorist attacks that forever changed the United States and its national security, members of Congress who lead on issues of homeland security and government oversight tell theGrio there remains a great need to strengthen U.S. intelligence to protect millions of Americans.

Smoke pours from the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Fabina Sbina/ Hugh Zareasky/Getty Images)

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, says the events of 9/11 exposed a colossal intelligence failure in the United States.

The congressman said Americas vulnerable intelligence system at the time was as if the right hand didnt know what the left hand was doing.

Twenty-one years ago today, three commercial U.S. planes were used as missiles to pierce and demolish American buildings, striking at the heart of the nation  the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the famous twin towers in New York City. A fourth plane that was thought to be on its way to D.C. was also downed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Thompson told theGrio that there was a clear lack of communication and intelligence gathered by government agencies that couldve prevented the 9/11 attack. The senior Democratic lawmaker noted that the CIA had information that individuals were perhaps coming into the U.S. to learn how to fly an aircraft and trained enough to know how to weaponize planes. Yet somehow the FBI never got the communication, said Thompson.

More than two decades later, Thompson says there is still a need for more intelligence integration efforts between federal law enforcement agencies.

The 9/11 attacks launched the creation of The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under Republican President George W. Bush as a cabinet department. Thompson remembered the U.S. government acting in record time in response to 9/11.

Story continues

US President George W. Bush poses before signing the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, 03 August 2007 in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. The bill would implement the recommendations of the commission and call for full inspections of air and sea cargo entering the US. Standing behind Bush from left: Fran Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; Representatives Peter King, Bennie Thompson; Senators Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Ted Stevens. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Democrats and Republicans came together overnight  to create a defense mechanism that would protect the homeland, he said.

DHS incorporated a historic 22 agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection, and the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), which Thompson noted is now in 450 airports across the country.

No plane can fly in the United States without adopting the United States regulation for planes, he said.

Before the creation of the nearly two dozen agencies under the DHS umbrella, Thompson points out that intelligence was not integrated among many agencies before 9/11  and continues to be a challenge today.

Thompson, who has become the face of accountability for the 2021 Capitol attack on Jan. 6 as his committee continues to investigate former President Donald Trump, as well as Trumps former staff and supporters, pointed out that an FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, had intelligence information leading up to the attack that was not disseminated to other law enforcement agencies.

Thompson believes if that information had been shared about Jan. 6, it could have changed the violent and deadly events of that day. Some Capitol Hill lawmakers believe there is a direct connection between the 9/11 and Jan. 6 attacks, which are undoubtedly two of the worst terror attacks in U.S. history. That thread revolves around national intelligence.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

As lessons learned are at the forefront when thinking about protecting the nation from future attacks like the ones seen on 9/11, Thompson says as far as Jan. 6, the Capitol must be fortified even as the public building remains open as the peoples house.

U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., who was president of the NAACP at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attack, told theGrio hed never forget learning about the tragedy during a staff meeting.

I got interrupted in the middle of that staff meeting by someone who said, Can you step outside for a minute? And I did. And they immediately pointed to the television screen, recalled Mfume. I went back in, alerted my staff, dismissed them, asked them to all be prepared to come outside of the building, because I didnt know if the attacks were going to be broad-based, not just on government buildings, but on other buildings  in this case, the civil rights headquarters of the NAACP.

At that time, the NAACP was headquartered in a multi-story, historic building in Baltimore, Maryland. When asked what he believes is the greatest threat facing the country, Mfume cited the loss of intelligence and having our intelligence community compromised.

The congressman, who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, pointed to the most recent FBI seizure of top secret documents found at Trumps private Mar~a-Lago home in Florida.

Pages from a FBI property list of items seized from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate and made public by the Department of Justice, are photographed Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. FBI agents who searched the home found empty folders marked with classified banners. The inventory reveals in general terms the contents of the 33 boxes taken during the Aug. 8 search. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

Rep. Mfume noted that had the documents  which contained highly sensitive information from our intelligence community  fallen in the wrong hands, it would have risked the lives of people who are undercover doing their jobs because they would have been exposed.

Mfume is sure that after the Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack finishes its work, the House Reform and Oversight Committee will then begin its work on where the Select Committee left off, with a focus on national security infractions revealed from recent findings by the committee led by Chairman Thompson.

Mfume said concerns shared by him and many others regarding classified documents found at Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence are not about politics, but about the national security of the United States.

Thats just too much sensitive information regarding the security of this country. And without it, things like 9/11 and other kinds of incidences can and probably will be attempted, he said.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today!

The post 9/11 forever changed US national security, but intelligence flaws remain a threat appeared first on TheGrio.
This story originally published on Sept. 11, 2002. It is being republished as part of the commemoration of USA TODAY's 40th anniversary on Sept. 15, 2022.

In this two-part series, USA TODAY reconstructed how the unprecedented order to clear the skies on Sept. 11 played out.

Aboard Delta Flight 1989, Capt. Paul Werner learns of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks from his cockpit radio.

The time: around 9:15 a.m.

Werner, 54, figures the planes that hit the World Trade Center must be small ones  not passenger jets like the Boeing 767 he commands. He has no idea what the FBI and air traffic controllers suspect: that terrorists plan to hijack his flight next.

Shortly after the second attack on the Trade Center at 9:03 a.m., FBI agents called an air traffic facility in Ohio that was tracking Flight 1989. Watch what the Delta flight does, agents told controllers at Cleveland Center.

Controllers there had already been watching.

Like the FBI, they realized that the Delta flight had taken off from Boston just minutes after American Flight 11 and United Flight 175  the two jets that crashed into the Trade Center towers. The similarities didn't end there.

Three were bound for Los Angeles.

All were heavy with fuel.

On this day, as Werner flies west over Pennsylvania, the similarities can't be dismissed.

Now around 9:30 a.m., controllers hear words that seem to confirm their worst fears. They hear shouting as Flight 1989 approaches the Ohio border. Then they hear a voice: "Get out of there!" Then what sounds like a scuffle.

Minutes later, a new voice, this one with a heavy accent: "Ladies and gentlemen, here it's the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard."

No one who hears those words believes they are coming from Werner. Not with such a heavy accent. No way. Rather, the transmission seems to be from a hijacker who unwittingly spoke over the radio when he meant to address passengers.

Officials at Cleveland Center rush word to Washington: Hijackers have another flight.

Story continues

At the Federal Aviation Administration's command center in Herndon, Virginia, Delta Flight 1989 joins a growing list of suspicious jets. Some of their flight numbers will be scrawled on a white dry-erase board throughout the morning. Eventually, the list will grow to 11.

One, a TWA flight, refuses to land in Pittsburgh and wants to fly on toward Washington. Another, a Midwest Express flight, disappears from radar over West Virginia. And three jets over the Atlantic Ocean are sending out distress signals, the Coast Guard reports.

Top managers at the FAA's command center fear the worst: Jets all over the country  including some over the oceans  are being hijacked. One after another.

And why shouldn't they believe that, after all that has happened already this morning?

After the first two jets were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center, FAA managers had directed all planes out of New York airspace. Next they had stopped takeoffs nationwide. Minutes after a third jet hit the Pentagon, they had ordered controllers nationwide to undertake the most massive effort in aviation history: clearing the skies.

Now they face an unprecedented challenge. They must land as fast as possible almost 4,500 planes in or headed toward U.S. airspace. Their goal is to bring 350,000 passengers and crew safely to the ground. But the order carries with it another prospect.

By ordering all jets to land, controllers may discover more planes that don't respond.

Jets that are in the hands of terrorists.

Jets the U.S. military might have to shoot down.

No one has ever contemplated such a scenario. Not since the days of the Cold War have controllers even simulated landing the fleet. The plan then was called SCATANA, an acronym for "security control of air traffic and navigation aids." Its intent: to empty the skies and give control of the nation's airspace to the military in the event of an attack by the Soviet Union.

Now, controllers must do much the same thing but with one major difference: During the Cold War, the threat would have been a Soviet fighter or missile. Today, a passenger jet might hold the enemy, and any plane could be a missile.

During the frantic hours after the order to ground the fleet is issued, controllers will reroute at least 1,300 flights. They will land 48 planes, on average, each minute. Another hijacked plane will crash in Pennsylvania after passengers fight terrorists who took over the jet. A SWAT team will await the landing of another.

These minutes  from the time the order is issued until noon Eastern Time  will prove the most critical of the day for controllers, air traffic officials, pilots and crews. They need to know quickly if each flight is safe.

Each missed radio call and every odd transmission will prompt them to worry: How many other flights have been hijacked?

Mistake realized

9:45 a.m. ET: 3,949 planes in the air

Silence.

Controllers at Cleveland Center can't raise United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying over Ohio.

Perhaps the strange radio transmissions  the reference to a bomb and the heavy accent of a "captain"  hadn't come from the Delta flight. Maybe Capt. Werner's Flight 1989 is fine after all.

At least, that's the way it seems to the controllers. The United flight had been just 25 miles ahead of the Delta flight when the radio transmissions came through  close enough to account for the confusion.

Then, at 9:35 a.m., the United jet had climbed unexpectedly and turned back toward the Delta flight. Then...

Silence. The United flight stopped talking.

It must be United that's hijacked.

When controllers ordered Werner to change course to avoid Flight 93, he had complied quickly. Yes, Delta Flight 1989 must be fine.

But now ... what's this?

The Delta flight wants to land in Cleveland? And the captain's request comes before he can know that the FAA wants every flight down. On this day, the fact that the pilot requests to be rerouted before he is ordered to land seems suspicious. Why the urgency?

Controllers don't know that Delta officials, also concerned about the flight, have ordered Werner to land in Cleveland. They continue to send messages to Werner. In code, they ask him if all is OK. Yes, he responds time and again. He doesn't know why they're so worried.

And now, preparing for landing, Werner has more important things to worry about. He was too close to Cleveland when he got the order to land. So he loops back, over Michigan, and heads toward the city.

As the jet begins its descent, another message comes through. Busy, Werner fails to respond.

On the ground, controllers in Cleveland Center grow alarmed. Why didn't he respond? Have both jets  the United and the Delta flights  been hijacked?

As a SWAT team gathers on the tarmac in Cleveland, controllers and airline dispatchers around the nation continue to contact hundreds of flights.

Each receives the warning: Terrorists might be aboard.

Protect the cockpit

The steak knives. Get the steak knives. And the crash ax. And wine! Full bottles of wine.

Aboard hundreds of flights, pilots and crews begin a quiet scramble for makeshift weapons. Just minutes before, they heard radio reports or received word through their cockpit computers about the hijackings and Trade Center crashes.

What they don't know, what no one on the ground can tell them, is whether their flights may be next.

The pilots need to protect the cockpit. But with what?

They don't want to alarm passengers. More important, they don't want terrorists to know that they know, to know that they'll be waiting, even if it is with only cutlery, a cockpit hatchet and a year-old chardonnay.

Over the Atlantic Ocean, the crew aboard United Flight 963 learns of the attacks from the BBC. Four hours remain on the flight from Munich to Washington, D.C. Two off-duty pilots are summoned to the cockpit and stationed outside. One tucks an unopened bottle of wine beneath a blanket. A flight attendant rolls the beverage cart in front of the cockpit door.

Aboard American Flight 71, now over Greenland, the captain tells flight attendants to gather steak knives from first class. The knives seem hopelessly inadequate, especially if hijackers have guns, but what choice do they have?

On American Flight 84 from Frankfurt to Chicago, Marcia Wilks, a flight attendant for more than 30 years, is dispatched to the back of the jet. Her job: to look for terrorists. On her way, she gathers the other crewmembers to tell them what she knows.

"We're not going home to Chicago today," she says.

A spunky Boston native, Wilks joined American in the late 1960s, bored with typing briefs for a lawyer and intrigued by the planes that flew past her office window. She wanted to see the world, and what better way than to fly? She even had a feel for the job; her father once worked for an airline.

Now, she resolves that on this day she will behave no differently from any other. Maintain service. That's what they always say during training. Maintain service.

When the pilot receives word to fly to Toronto instead of Chicago, he tells passengers the jet will have to stop in Canada because a crewmember is sick.

"How long will we be there?" a passenger asks Wilks. "Are we going to miss our connections?" another asks.

"It won't be long. Don't worry," she says over and over. Each time, she feels shame.

Oh my God, what you don't know, she thinks. You don't know what's happened to the world. Wait until we open the door.

She can't shake the thoughts as she lies down for a break in the back of the jet. She closes her eyes, but she doesn't sleep. She prays for the world she expects to find when  if  her flight lands.

What will it be like?

What's the target?

9:55 a.m. 3,520 planes

From aboard United Flight 93, a handful of passengers contact family and friends. What they learn  that three jets have already been hijacked and crashed into buildings  will prompt one of the most heroic efforts of the day. Within moments, they will rush the cockpit to try to regain control of the jet.

On the ground, controllers know nothing of their plans. They became convinced the flight was hijacked when it turned back toward the east over Ohio. But they have no idea where the hijackers plan to take the flight.

At first, the jet flew toward Pittsburgh  so low to the ground that controllers at Pittsburgh International Airport fled. They feared the jet might be headed for them.

Then Flight 93 turned south. Toward Washington. Toward the White House? The Capitol? Or maybe Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland?

In the FAA's command center in Herndon, workers are concerned. "Are we secure here?" one asks Ben Sliney, the man in charge of overseeing the nation's airspace.

Sliney answers quickly and firmly. "Yes. We've taken measures to increase our security."

In truth, he has no idea. He sidles back to where officials are gathered around his desk. "What have we done to increase security?" he asks quietly.

But like the others who remain at their posts, Sliney and controllers around the nation realize their safety is secondary. Some try to steal away to make calls home, but they know they must continue to work. Thousands of jets remain in the sky; more could be in danger.

In Cleveland Center, controllers still wonder why the Delta captain failed to respond to their coded message. In Washington, the fears are even more pronounced. As they watch on radar as Flight 93 heads toward them, they can't help worrying: What is its target?

Shoot it down?

10:05 a.m. 2,985 planes

At United Airline's crisis center, a solitary blip glows red on a big screen. It transfixes Hank Krakowski, the airline's flight operations director. Although the airline still has hundreds of flights in the air, officials at the airline's headquarters outside Chicago choose to illuminate only the path of Flight 93 on the status board.

Are they gonna have to shoot it down? he wonders.

A 737 captain who flies vintage fighter planes at air shows, Krakowski, 47, isn't the only one wondering. Military jets already are closing on the Boeing 767 as it barrels toward Washington.

Then, at 10:06 a.m., the blip stops moving over Pennsylvania.

"Latitude and longitude," Krakowski snaps. The coordinates put the jet at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, about 120 miles from the nation's capital.

Krakowski picks up the phone and is patched through to the Johnstown airport. No answer.

No answer? How can there not be an answer?

A staffer finds the cell phone number for the airport manager. Krakowski tries again. "We might have a plane down in your area there," he says calmly. "See anything unusual?"

The answer is the one Krakowski fears. A black column of smoke rises from a field due south of the airport, near the town of Shanksville, the manager tells him. Krakowski feels numb as he looks at the screen. We just watched one of our airplanes crash.

But at least the jet hadn't reached Washington. No one would have to shoot it down.

Flight quarantined

10:30 a.m. 1,505 planes

On a remote taxiway at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Delta Flight 1989 is quarantined.

Since early reports that a bomb, then hijackers, might be aboard, Delta CEO Leo Mullin, 58, had nervously tracked the flight from the company's headquarters in Atlanta. Every five minutes, a new report came in. None seemed clear.

Still, the flight landed uneventfully in Cleveland at 10:10 a.m.

But what now? Mullin wonders.

For two hours, passengers and crew will stay aboard the jet. Cautiously, federal investigators will talk with Capt. Werner through an open cockpit window. Finally, they will board the flight and interview its passengers and crew.

Not until midafternoon will Mullin learn the flight never was in danger. No bomb, no hijackers.

On United Flight 890, Capt. Jim Hosking remains more than an hour from North America, more than an hour from knowing whether terrorists are somewhere in the cabin. The message about the hijackings had come an hour earlier, while the flight was over the Pacific. He had been headed from Japan to Los Angeles, also the destination for three of the hijacked flights.

Then came orders to fly to Canada, where some 250 flights have been rerouted. Now, he's bound for Vancouver, British Columbia. He elects to tell the passengers nothing.

They won't notice where they're going anyway, he reasons. Not until the flight is close to landing....Unless they're looking at the maps.

On the in-flight TVs, passengers can tune to a channel that shows the course of the flight. Hosking pulls the circuit breaker to disconnect the channel. Other pilots aboard other flights do the same. Passengers will be blind to where they are and where their flights are headed. As far as they know, nothing is amiss.

Deploying the snowplows

10:45 a.m. 1,081 planes

At one of the world's busiest airports, Chicago's O'Hare International, passengers who came expecting to catch flights now crowd the turnstiles at the airport's train station, trying to leave.

The lines stretch so long that Patrick Harney, a city transportation official, calls the transit authority and pleads with officials there to let passengers board for free. "A lot of people just want to get out," he explains.

Many aren't even certain why they're being herded from the airport so fast. After the first Trade Center attack, the airport authority shut off the TVs in every concourse. The practice was adopted years ago, at the request of airline officials who knew news of any crash would unnerve travelers.

But airport officials are watching. As more details stream in  the second tower of the Trade Center fell just minutes ago  authorities begin a response that seems more befitting a blizzard than a terrorist attack.

Workers stand ready to set up 2,000 cots set aside for travelers stranded during snowstorms. Outside, along the airport's edges, O'Hare's 187 snowplows are deployed as roadblocks. They encircle the base of the control tower, their blades pointed toward anything that might approach.

A helicopter flies over the Pentagon in Washington as smoke billows over the building, after being hit by Flight 77.

Rumors and relief

11 a.m. 923 planes

When is this going to end?

And what more can she do?

Throughout the morning, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey has witnessed the most painful hours in the agency's history.

She and her deputy, Monte Belger, approved orders to close airspace over major cities. Then they approved stopping takeoffs nationwide. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m., they seconded the decision of managers in Herndon to order every flight to land.

But the reports of more suspicious flights didn't stop.

A bomb is reported aboard a United Airlines jet that just landed in Rockford, Illinois. Another jet disappears from radar and might have crashed in Kentucky.

The reports are so serious that Garvey notifies the White House that there has been another crash. Only later does she learn the reports are erroneous.

Now, almost 1,000 planes remain in the air. And at FAA headquarters in Washington, Garvey and Belger try to focus on what to do next. Still, they can't avoid another thought: Whoever hijacked the four jets that crashed somehow got past the airport security forces they oversee.

What could we have done? Garvey thinks. What did we miss?

In Belger's office, the phone rings. It's the Herndon command center. For once it's good news. Every commercial flight in U.S. airspace  about a quarter of the planes still in the air  is within 40 miles of its destination. The others are still over the oceans, and many are heading toward Canada. But at least all the flights over the United States are accounted for and complying with controllers.

"Thank God," Garvey says.

For the first time this morning, she takes a moment alone to call her family in Massachusetts.

A battle won

11:30 a.m. 758 planes

It seems small consolation, but Ben Sliney can't help thinking it: At least no one has run into anything in a couple hours.

When he accepted the job overseeing the nation's airspace a few months earlier, Sliney wanted to be sure he had the power to do the job as he saw fit.

"What is the limit of my authority?" he asked the man who had promoted him. "Unlimited," he was told.

Weeks later, as Sliney orders every flight to land on his first day on the job, he recalls the conversation.

He expects questions and complaints from his colleagues. But there are none.

At this time on most days, the screen at the command center is choked with so many green flight markers that the East Coast is almost obscured. Now, Sliney watches as a mere hundred commercial and private flights fly over the lower 48 states.

The skies seem manageable.

Then, an aide tells him about a serious car accident in Georgia. The pilot of a rescue helicopter is begging for permission to pick up someone who is critically injured.

"If it was my family lying in a wreck on the highway, I would hope you would let him go," the aide tells him.

All morning, Sliney has refused to make exceptions. Three times he ordered a jet carrying Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was heading to Washington, to land. I can't be sure who's on that jet, Sliney reasoned. The nation's top law enforcement official wouldn't make it back to the capitol until afternoon.

Sliney knew that decision could have political consequences. But this one could mean life or death. Do I have the authority to do this?

Sliney knows he can't wait. He tells the aide to give permission to launch the helicopter. There's been enough death today. Maybe he can save a life.

A safe landing

Noon 669 planes

Capt. Hosking begins to direct his jet into Vancouver. Though he's only minutes from landing, he still isn't sure all is safe. If hijackers have been waiting until the jet is close to its destination, something still may happen.

But what can he do? The cockpit door has been barricaded and his first officer still has the crash ax out.

As the snow-covered peaks of the Canadian Rockies come into view, one of the flight attendants calls the cockpit. "Where are we going?" Even she doesn't know.

"I can't tell you," Hosking says. "And don't call back anymore."

They land just after noon Eastern Time. Hosking taxis the jet to a remote runway near other airliners that had been rerouted to Vancouver.

Not until he shuts off the engines does he reach for his handset. He pushes the button that turns on the jet's public-address system, but he doesn't say a word.

What can I say? How do I tell them?

He recalls how he felt when he heard the news. How he wondered what had happened, how none of it had made any sense. He still isn't sure what to tell those in the back of the jet. He knows so little himself.

What he's sure of is that they've made it. Perhaps that's what's most important. Perhaps that's the way to start.

They are safe, and so are thousands of other flights that have made it to the ground. Yes, that's what they should know. That's what he will tell them first.

His voice quavers: "The experienced fliers in the cabin know we're not in Los Angeles..."

On this day, it is the best he can offer.

PHOTOS Associated Press, USA TODAY

GRAPHICS AND PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS Veronica Bravo and Janet Loehrke/USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amid 9/11 attack, pilots, officials feared for hijackers' next target
KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO  SUNDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2022, 16:37

Before continuing the counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces shoot at the occupiers with leaflet projectiles, which contain the instructions on how to surrender.

Source: Hanna Maliar, the Deputy Minister of Defence of Ukraine, on Facebook

Quote: "[This is] one of the ways to conduct informational work with the enemy in the areas with no Internet connection  launching the leaflet projectiles.

Before advancing, our Defence Forces give the Russian occupiers one last chance to yield themselves prisoners. Otherwise, the only thing which awaits them on the Ukrainian land is death".

Details: Maliar published a video showing projectiles filled with leaflets, which call upon the occupiers to surrender and contain instructions on how to do it properly.

Each projectile contains 1500 such leaflets.

These projectiles are being launched from RM-70 Vampire multiple-launch rocket systems [122-mm MLRS provided by Czech Republic - ed.].



Journalists fight on their own frontline. Become our patron, support our work!
A look at some of today's top stories, the weather forecast and a peek back in history.

A Valley nonprofit invites Spanish speakers with autism and those with intellectual or developmental disabilities and their families to participate in a study on housing needs.

Dancers can now compete alongside bands and solo acts for up to $1,000 in Alice Cooper's annual talent search for youths throughout the Phoenix area.

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen can set a franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings in his start today vs. the Colorado Rockies.

Today, you can expect it to be partly sunny with a high near 100 degrees. At night, expect it to be cloudy with a couple of thunderstorms and a low near 80 degrees. Get the full forecast here.

For more stories that matter, subscribe to azcentral.com.

Today in history

On this date in 1941, groundbreaking took place for the Pentagon. In a speech that drew accusations of anti-Semitism, Charles A. Lindbergh told an America First rally in Des Moines, Iowa, that the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration were pushing the United States toward war.

In 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed as 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, sending two of the planes into New Yorks World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.

In 2008, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama put aside politics as they visited ground zero together on the anniversary of 9/11 to honor its victims.

In 2012, a mob armed with guns and grenades launched a fiery nightlong attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost and a CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney toned down the campaign rhetoric and pulled negative ads amid commemorations of the 9/11 attacks, saying it was not a day for politics.

In 2017, authorities sent an aircraft carrier and other Navy ships to help with search-and-rescue operations in Florida, where a flyover of the Keys revealed what Gov. Rick Scott described as scenes of devastation from Hurricane Irma. Irma weakened to a tropical storm, and then a tropical depression, and finally left Florida after a run up the entire 400-mile length of the state. An estimated 13 million people in Florida remained without power.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ Briefing: Housing study seeks Spanish speakers with disabilities
Baltimore County Police say an officer shot a woman who allegedly dragged a police officer with her car Saturday night.

County police spokeswoman Joy Lepola-Stewart said a Baltimore County officer was working an off-duty job at The Avenue shopping center in White Marsh when shortly after 8 p.m., a woman hit him with a car, dragging the officer. The officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries, and the driver fled the scene.

Lepola-Stewart said officers later spotted the car and performed a traffic stop several miles away in Rosedale near the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Maryland Route 7. There were two women in the car at that time. Lepola-Stewart said police were able to arrest one woman, but the other woman began to ram the car into officers vehicles and a bystanders vehicle.

At least one officer fired at the driver, striking her, Lepola-Stewart said, though she continued to flee. Baltimore County Police officers apprehended the woman outside the Johns Hopkins Hospital, approaching her car and applying a tourniquet near her gunshot wound, Lepola-Stewart said. The woman suffered non-life-threatening injuries, she said.

Police on Sunday declined to specify where on her body the woman was shot, the criminal charges she faces or her name. Once the investigation and court proceedings allow, the name of the suspect will be able to be released, said Trae Corbin, a police spokesperson.

At the site of the shooting, police cordoned off the intersection with yellow tape and shut down several nearby streets. Detectives were walking through the intersection and a police employee was seen taking photos of a window in a nearby business that appeared to be shattered by a gunshot. Police said Sunday that it was not related to the Saturday incident.

At one point during the night, officers had shut down a stretch of Pulaski Highway eastbound. At least four police cars and multiple officers were on the scene, routing traffic through a Royal Farms gas station. Three police also were stationed along Moravia Road with lights flashing, including one next to a streetlight that appeared to have been recently knocked over.

Its unclear whether only one officer or multiple officers fired at the woman. Police said Sunday that the number of officers who fired a weapon is under investigation. Details about the women, the car and the initial incident at the shopping mall were not released Saturday night. Lepola-Stewart said officers were wearing body cameras at the time of the shooting.

Baltimore Sun reporter Lillian Price contributed to this article.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot greets the crowd as she enters the room during a petition launch party for her reelection at Plumbers Local 130 in the West Loop on Aug. 30, 2022. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

At a South Side diner one recent morning, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot served up a cautionary tale about what might happen if Black voters dont unite behind her reelection bid.

She told the mostly Black crowd at Huddle House on Stony Island Avenue that the citys first African American mayor, Harold Washington, spent years feuding with a racist mob in City Council. When he died in office in 1987, they voted to replace him with Ald. Eugene Sawyer, who they thought they could control, but two years later they dropped him like a bad habit and went all in for (Richard M.) Daley, she said.

Advertisement

The result? Daleys long tenure at City Hall and 30 years of people struggling, Lightfoot said.

Not having the resources and the control of the city government left Black and brown Chicago the worse for it, Lightfoot said. So when you think about whats up on the ballot, in February of next year, our destiny is on the ballot.

Advertisement

Lightfoots comments during a petition kickoff event led to criticism from some who said she had distorted history and disrespected the memory of Sawyer, whose son is running against her. But it also underscored the mayors strategy in the 2023 mayoral campaign as her political base of support has shifted from the lakefront to the South and West sides, creating a unique dynamic for Lightfoot as she seeks a second term.

In the first round of the 2019 mayoral race, Lightfoot emerged from a historic 14-candidate field with roughly 18% of the vote. Much of it came from white lakefront residents on the North Side who backed her over more established politicians. Many of those voters are now disenchanted with Lightfoot, and she has been working vigorously to lock in support from the Black community.

To be sure, Lightfoot is expected to campaign for votes across the city but her attempts to build a new political base with Black voters face real hurdles. Five candidates who have announced their campaigns to unseat her are also Black and enter the contest with their own bases of support on the South and West sides. That large field includes businessman Willie Wilson, who won the citys Black vote in the first round of the 2019 race and has loaned $6 million to his campaign this year. Wilson has more money in the bank than any candidate, including Lightfoot, an unusual development in a city where incumbents have often handily outspent opponents.

If no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote in the February election  as was the case in 2019  the race will proceed to a second round between the top two finishers. Lightfoot won all 50 wards in the runoff the last time, but whether she can solidify Black support, expand her base and reclaim disaffected supporters remains an open question that will help determine whether she finishes first, second, or out of the running.

Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, with wife Janette, greets attendees before marching in the Bud Billiken Parade on South King Drive on Aug. 13. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

For their part, Lightfoots rivals say her argument presents an antiquated notion of racial politics in the city. Three of the four leading vote-getters last time were Black, which challengers say proves that an African American can win even in a crowded field.

Its fine for her to rely on the Black community and embrace them as her new base because, shes correct, thats the base that still is with her. ... Black people tend to be relational and white people tend to be transactional, veteran Chicago political strategist Delmarie Cobb said. We will stick with you even when we know youre not the best for us. Proof of that was sticking with Rahm Emanuel because of (his ties to) Barack Obama.

But, Cobb added, Lightfoot may run into problems keeping the Black communitys support.

She can make the argument that Ive done X, Y, Z after almost 40 years of disinvestment and Ive come along channeling Harold Washington, I understand what these neighborhoods need. But someone else can make the argument, Where have you been? Where were you?  Cobb said. This didnt happen overnight. There are people who can make that argument, who are going to be running against her, who can show where they were. They werent on the North Side in a nice cozy community with all the resources and amenities.

Advertisement

Political analyst Ameshia Cross said the mayor has a lot of work to do to regain the ground she lost and her message that the Black community may struggle if they dont vote her may not resonate when youre in a sea of Black candidates.

High crime and politically controversial decisions, such as raising bridges downtown during the height of civil unrest, might cause South and West side residents to be wary of her candidacy, Cross said.

Lori Lightfoot has a problem and its interesting for a Black woman to have a Black problem, Cross said. It is a large part of her own doing.

That was then, but now is now

Lightfoot appeared pleased as she stood next to three political heavyweights within Black Chicago in June. Underneath the DuSable Museums black-and-white mural of African American faces, U.S. Reps. Robin Kelly, Bobby Rush and Danny Davis sang Lightfoots praises as they endorsed her for reelection.

Combined, their speeches aimed to paint the mayor as a stalwart for the citys majority-Black neighborhoods, where she has launched the Invest South/West program to fund business development in disinvested neighborhoods.

Lightfoot returned the love and described the trio as three of the most iconic Black leaders in our country.

Advertisement

The session highlighted an important aspect of Lightfoots strategy: Standing with the Black political establishment. To that end, she also recently announced the backing of outgoing Secretary of State Jesse White, and most of her endorsements from sitting aldermen come from Black and Latino officials.

It wasnt always like this. Much of the Black political establishment supported Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in 2019. During the runoff that year, Davis knocked Lightfoots lack of experience holding elected office, while Rush had said her supporters would have the blood of the next young Black man or Black woman killed by the police on their hands. White also supported Preckwinkle.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot greets a guest before the Wendell Phillips Academy High School Hall of Fame and gymnasium unveiling ceremony in Bronzeville. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

More than three years later, that hatchet seemed long buried as Rush shrugged off his past criticism.

That was then, but now is now, Rush said, drawing a round of laughter from Lightfoot and her supporters.

She has also worked to establish friendlier ties with Black politicians she has previously criticized. Early in her term, Lightfoot feuded with Black Caucus chairman Jason Ervin, who she once slammed in a text as full of crap. Lightfoot also battled Ervins wife, city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, after the mayors administration stripped her of her security detail.

Advertisement

But in recent years, Ervin has emerged as one of her closest allies. After Ald. Sophia King announced her bid for mayor, Ervin released a statement warning that with so many Black candidates in the race and more expected to enter, we run the risk of losing it all.

As a community, it behooves us to come together and figure this out or end up walking away with nothing, Ervin said.

In August, Lightfoot took the stage at the Black Womens Expo in Bronzeville where she gave shout-outs to Black elected officials including Conyears-Ervin and our great states attorney, Kim Foxx.

Keep fighting that fight, keep fighting that fight, Lightfoot told Foxx from the stage.

Lightfoots comments raised eyebrows in political circles because the mayor has been critical of Foxx and the criminal justice reforms she has pushed. Lightfoot has publicly attacked Foxxs office at least twice and has long spoken out against bond reform, though she often aims her criticism toward judges rather than naming Foxx.

Race is a recurring theme when Lightfoot is defending her actions. She has said about 99% of the criticism she gets is because shes a Black woman.

Advertisement

Lightfoot created an uproar when she refused to grant interviews to white journalists for her two-year anniversary. She said that was meant to highlight the lack of diversity in the press corps, but it led Brandon Pope, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, to later tell WBEZ, It does feel like we were used for political props.

Lightfoot also stumbled during an interview with the Triibe, a Black news website, where she was asked about Black businesses she frequents and didnt name any except one on the South Side.

She never backed down

The Bud Billiken Parade has long been a highlight of campaign season that can illustrate potential pitfalls for a candidate. Glad-handing along the route last month, Lightfoot received a warm reception from the crowd  but so did other candidates.

One paradegoer, Erica AnnMarie Vassell, said shed found comfort in the mayors words in the scary early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. She recalled an April 2020 news conference in which Lightfoot said she personally drove around neighborhoods scolding people who werent social distancing.

Vassell, 51, has worked as a nurses assistant is now bouncing around shelters on the West Side. She has never voted but is planning to cast a ballot for Lightfoot in 2023, saying she found the mayors confidence as a woman inspiring.

Advertisement

Lori Lightfoot? Shes strong, Vassell said. Im very strong. So I see the strongness that is in me in her. I respect her for being a woman that stands up to so many challenges and changes thats been going on. She never backed down.

Carla Johnson, 66, waved a Pan-African flag on the sidelines of the parade as she watched Wilson march past her, wearing a shirt with his face on it.

Yeah, Wilson! Johnson shouted with both her arms up.

Johnson said she was a Lightfoot voter in 2019 but is planning on backing Wilson this time. One reason? The sentiment that Lightfoot has caved to the whims of politicians instead of everyday residents like Johnson.

Willie Wilson is more in tune with what the community is looking for, Johnson said. He has gotten out more with the people and got in touch and listened to our needs and our concerns more than I feel Mayor Lightfoot has. I feel like shes caught in the system.

Johnson said this years spike in gas prices has worried her, and she found Wilsons multiple rounds of gas giveaways impressive. Though Lightfoot passed her own measure giving away tens of thousands of dollars in free gas and CTA cards in April, Johnson said she had hoped the mayor could have used her influence to freeze the city fuel tax.

Advertisement

Black folks are not a monolith

Lightfoots opponents have been critical of her remarks about Black voters and pledged to compete for their support and others.

State Rep. Kambium Kam Buckner, whose district includes downtown and a large segment of the South Side, said hes offended by the idea pushed by Lightfoot and Ervin that the Black vote will split. He pointed out that four of the six leading vote-getters in the first round of the 2019 race were Black.

Black folks are not a monolith, and those of us who have spent lifetimes in the Black community in this city know that, Buckner said. There are differing opinions that are going to be across the board, but we saw in 2019 that splitting the Black vote trope is not a thing.

Mayoral candidate and state Rep. Kam Buckner greets attendees during the Fourth of July parade in Chicago's Hyde Park. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Still, Buckner said he has doubts about her appeal to Black voters.

The question thats going to be asked by many people of the Black community is, Where were you?, not just the last four years, but the four years before that and the four years before that, he said. Frankly, I dont think the mayor has an answer to that thatll be in line with what my neighbors want to hear.

Activist JaMal Green, another challenger, said its just incorrect to assume that the majority of people will vote based on ethnicity. ... Chicagoans will vote based on the leadership they want to see going forward and many ethnic groups will coalesce together behind candidates that represent their values.

Advertisement

Wilson, who won most of the Black wards in the first round of 2019 voting, said he expects to be even stronger this time on the South and West sides.

He contended no other candidate showed the minority community, particularly people of color, that they care about them. Ive been supporting the Black community ... for the last 30 to 40 years, Wilson said of his practice of giving away money to needy people. I havent seen anybody else do that.

South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, whos also in the race and whose father was the subject of the mayors breakfast comments, said Lightfoots version of history was reckless and irresponsible, one of Lightfoots go-to lines against critics. Sawyer predicted it wouldnt be effective and that candidates should be playing to as broad a field of support as they can.

I think her pandering to the Black community is going to be seen as just that. In order to run an effective race, you should be appealing to everybody in Chicago, Sawyer said. And Im speaking as someone whos proudly Black, been active in Black causes all my life, not just recently.

Fellow contender Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO, criticized Lightfoots pitch to Black voters as one of rhetoric and one-off projects on the South and West side.

With all the talk of equity, whether its her record on crime, schools or her taxes and fines, its been the citys African American residents that have been hurt the most, Vallas said in a statement. The growing number of Black candidates in the race reflect the great dissatisfaction with her in the Black community.

Advertisement

Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, who is running for mayor, greets a parade watcher at the Chicago Labor Day parade in the East Side neighborhood on Sept. 3. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Another mayoral candidate, Ald. Raymond Lopez, whose ward includes Back of the Yards and West Englewood, dismissed Lightfoots comparison of herself with Washington.

She has not delivered for the Black community and they know it. She has never worked or lived their experience, and they havent forgotten that, Lopez said. And now at the eleventh hour trying to portray herself as the victim of racial politics? I dont think people are going to buy it.

Ald. Sophia King, 4th, who is running for mayor, marches in the Bud Billiken Parade on South King Drive. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Ald. Sophia King, who has criticized the argument made by Ervin and Lightfoot about dividing up the Black vote, said the mayor is failing to keep Black Chicagoans safe, just like shes failing to keep everyone else safe.

I will keep making the case to voters of every race, that Ill be a mayor who brings public safety and investments to every neighborhood, King said.

gpratt@chicagotribune.com

ayin@chicagotribune.com
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel (L) praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo and Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Thiel said Republicans need to do more than point to problems in liberal states like California.

Of all GOP governors, DeSantis was the one doing it right, Thiel said.

But he added that he worried about soaring housing prices in the Sunshine State.

AVENTURA, Florida  Billionaire investor Peter Thiel on Sunday said he feared Republicans were too focused on bashing liberal states such as California, when they should instead be offering a "positive agenda" for the future of the party.

In a speech delivered at the National Conservatism Conference, Thiel painted a bleak picture of his home state of California and said at least one governor was going about alternative policymaking the right way: Florida's Ron DeSantis.

"DeSantis in Florida is probably the best of the governors in terms of offering a real alternative to California," Thiel said, speaking before a crowd of attendees at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort.

But Thiel also had one major disclaimer, saying that he worried about how expensive housing in Florida had become. Thiel said he bought an $18 million home in Miami in 2020 that was now worth about $35 million. A test for the state's policies, he said, would be whether housing prices fall.

"The fact that real estate in Florida or Texas has melted up over the last two or three years is not evidence that you're succeeding and building a better model than California," he said. "I'm worried that that's evidence that you're becoming like California."

Housing prices are among the top issues Democrats are weaponizing against DeSantis as he seeks reelection in November. The state has faced an influx of residents since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has contributed to rising costs.

DeSantis has pushed through numerous policies as governor that have drawn the ire of the left, including policies on abortion, voting rights, and limiting the way race, gender, and sexuality are discussed in schools.

DeSantis also faced his fair share of tussles with California. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has criticized the governor and has run ads attacking him in Florida. The dispute led to speculation that the two could potentially face off in the 2024 presidential race if they both decided to run for their respective parties' nominations.

Story continues

Thiel cofounded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, the company now known as Meta. He was one of former President Donald Trump's most outspoken supporters and has criticized Silicon Valley, relocating to Los Angeles in 2018.

On Sunday, Thiel said during his remarks that his "intuition" told him that Republicans' "nihilistic negation" wouldn't suffice in creating an alternative vision for growth.

"The temptation on our side is always going to be that all we have to do is say that we're not California," he said. "It is just such an ugly picture, the homeless poop, people pooping all over the place, it's the ridiculous rat-infested apartments that don't work anymore, it's the woke insanities, there's so much that it feels like shooting fish in a barrel. It's so easy, so ridiculous to denounce."

The question Republicans should be asking, he said, was: "How can we concretely offer a vision for the 21st century that's better than California?"

Bashing California "might be enough to win in the midterms in '22," Thiel said, "It might be enough to win in '24. But we want to have more of a program positive vision, something like that to be credible."

Thiel raised concerns about the 2022 cycle, saying Republicans weren't doing as well as during the Tea Party swell in 2010, or in 1994 when then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich presented the GOP agenda in the form of the Contract for America.

Thiel didn't raise any specific senators by name, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has not offered an agenda for the party ahead of the 2022 midterms, while National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott of Florida has, in the form of a "12-point Plan to Rescue America."

Several news articles have indicated there's a rift between the two GOP leaders. But Scott, in a letter to supporters, accused the media of trying to "divide and defeat Republicans."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, bashed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's record in California. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

DeSantis hasn't received a campaign donation from Thiel, records show

As of May 2022, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $7.19 billion and was ranked 297th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Though Thiel praised DeSantis on Sunday, he has not given to the governor's reelection efforts, according to a disclosure document from his political action committee, Friends of Ron DeSantis, and campaign finance disclosures from the State Division of Elections. The DeSantis campaign declined to comment on campaign donations.

DeSantis has become one of the most famous Republicans in America and has raised more than $140 million for his reelection bid, an extraordinary sum for a governor's race. The money puts him on track to break a national fundraising record.

GOP Senate candidates and Thiel proteges Blake Masters and JD Vance each received $15 million. Thiel was also one of Trump's biggest donors when he ran in 2016, and this cycle has donated to at least 14 other MAGA-aligned House and Senate candidates. Thiel, who is openly gay, has also donated to politicians who have backed anti-LGBTQ rights policies.

Asked by Insider at NatCon whether Thiel should donate to DeSantis' campaign, Masters replied, "Sure."

In mid-August, DeSantis campaigned with Masters and GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in Arizona. Masters said he hadn't yet caught up with DeSantis at the conference  the governor isn't expected to speak until Sunday evening.

"I think he's great," Masters said when asked about the impact DeSantis had on the Republican Party. But Masters didn't offer a direct answer on whether he thought DeSantis should run for president in 2024.

"We'll see what he chooses to do," Masters said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel (L) praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo and Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Thiel said Republicans need to do more than point to problems in liberal states like California.

Of all GOP governors, DeSantis was the one doing it right, Thiel said.

But he added that he worried about soaring housing prices in the Sunshine State.

AVENTURA, Florida  Billionaire investor Peter Thiel on Sunday said he feared Republicans were too focused on bashing liberal states such as California, when they should instead be offering a "positive agenda" for the future of the party.

In a speech delivered at the National Conservatism Conference, Thiel painted a bleak picture of his home state of California and said at least one governor was going about alternative policymaking the right way: Florida's Ron DeSantis.

"DeSantis in Florida is probably the best of the governors in terms of offering a real alternative to California," Thiel said, speaking before a crowd of attendees at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort.

But Thiel also had one major disclaimer, saying that he worried about how expensive housing in Florida had become. Thiel said he bought an $18 million home in Miami in 2020 that was now worth about $35 million. A test for the state's policies, he said, would be whether housing prices fall.

"The fact that real estate in Florida or Texas has melted up over the last two or three years is not evidence that you're succeeding and building a better model than California," he said. "I'm worried that that's evidence that you're becoming like California."

Housing prices are among the top issues Democrats are weaponizing against DeSantis as he seeks reelection in November. The state has faced an influx of residents since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has contributed to rising costs.

DeSantis has pushed through numerous policies as governor that have drawn the ire of the left, including policies on abortion, voting rights, and limiting the way race, gender, and sexuality are discussed in schools.

DeSantis also faced his fair share of tussles with California. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has criticized the governor and has run ads attacking him in Florida. The dispute led to speculation that the two could potentially face off in the 2024 presidential race if they both decided to run for their respective parties' nominations.

Story continues

Thiel cofounded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook, the company now known as Meta. He was one of former President Donald Trump's most outspoken supporters and has criticized Silicon Valley, relocating to Los Angeles in 2018.

On Sunday, Thiel said during his remarks that his "intuition" told him that Republicans' "nihilistic negation" wouldn't suffice in creating an alternative vision for growth.

"The temptation on our side is always going to be that all we have to do is say that we're not California," he said. "It is just such an ugly picture, the homeless poop, people pooping all over the place, it's the ridiculous rat-infested apartments that don't work anymore, it's the woke insanities, there's so much that it feels like shooting fish in a barrel. It's so easy, so ridiculous to denounce."

The question Republicans should be asking, he said, was: "How can we concretely offer a vision for the 21st century that's better than California?"

Bashing California "might be enough to win in the midterms in '22," Thiel said, "It might be enough to win in '24. But we want to have more of a program positive vision, something like that to be credible."

Thiel raised concerns about the 2022 cycle, saying Republicans weren't doing as well as during the Tea Party swell in 2010, or in 1994 when then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich presented the GOP agenda in the form of the Contract for America.

Thiel didn't raise any specific senators by name, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has not offered an agenda for the party ahead of the 2022 midterms, while National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott of Florida has, in the form of an "11-point Plan to Rescue America."

Several news articles have indicated there's a rift between the two GOP leaders. But Scott, in a letter to supporters, accused the media of trying to "divide and defeat Republicans."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, bashed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's record in California. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

DeSantis hasn't received a campaign donation from Thiel, records show

As of May 2022, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $7.19 billion and was ranked 297th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Though Thiel praised DeSantis on Sunday, he has not given to the governor's reelection efforts, according to a disclosure document from his political action committee, Friends of Ron DeSantis, and campaign finance disclosures from the State Division of Elections. The DeSantis campaign declined to comment on campaign donations.

DeSantis has become one of the most famous Republicans in America and has raised more than $140 million for his reelection bid, an extraordinary sum for a governor's race. The money puts him on track to break a national fundraising record.

GOP Senate candidates and Thiel proteges Blake Masters and JD Vance each received $15 million. Thiel was also one of Trump's biggest donors when he ran in 2016, and this cycle has donated to at least 14 other MAGA-aligned House and Senate candidates. Thiel, who is openly gay, has also donated to politicians who have backed anti-LGBTQ rights policies.

Asked by Insider at NatCon whether Thiel should donate to DeSantis' campaign, Masters replied, "Sure."

In mid-August, DeSantis campaigned with Masters and GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in Arizona. Masters said he hadn't yet caught up with DeSantis at the conference  the governor isn't expected to speak until Sunday evening.

"I think he's great," Masters said when asked about the impact DeSantis had on the Republican Party. But Masters didn't offer a direct answer on whether he thought DeSantis should run for president in 2024.

"We'll see what he chooses to do," Masters said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Conservative Party of Canada on Saturday picked populist Pierre Poilievre to lead the party and challenge sitting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Poilievre, a lifelong conservative who first snagged a seat in Canadas Parliament in 2004, supported the weeks-long Freedom Convoy of Canadian truckers protesting vaccine requirements and other COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Up against four other candidates, Poilievre was declared the winner with 68 percent of the vote, according to the CBC.

Canadas Conservatives have lost three elections to Trudeau, and are now rallying behind Poilievres potential to unseat the Liberal leader.

The party voted to oust former leader Erin OToole, who assumed the role in 2020, earlier this year after he worked to keep his party close to center on some issues.

Congratulations to @PierrePoilievre on his decisive victory in the @CPC_HQ leadership. Conservatives need to be united, strong and compassionate as we earn the trust of more Canadians to bring the country together, OToole wrote on Twitter Saturday.

Poilievre has positioned himself in opposition to what he sees as the Canadian establishment and Liberal policies on topics like the economy and the pandemic  and worked to appeal to Canadians frustrated with government calling the shots and dictating how you should live your life, according to his campaign site.

Tonight begins the journey to replace an old government that costs you more and delivers you less with a new government that puts you firstyour paycheck, your retirement, your home, your country, Poilievre said in an address Saturday, in video shared by CPAC.

An election date for a Poilievre-Trudeau matchup hasnt been set, and could be held off until as late as 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal, due to an agreement between Canadas New Democrats party and the minority Liberal government.

Trudeau took to Twitter to congratulate Poilievre and note that as Parliamentarians, we must work together to deliver results for people across the country. Canadians expect  and deserve  nothing less.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Honoring the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Central Florida firefighters climbed from the bottom floor to the top of the City National Bank of Florida four times, simulating the 110 stories that first responders who reached the top of the World Trade Center climbed more than two decades ago.

Over 100 Central Florida firefighters suited up and climbed 110 floors, carrying with them over 45 pounds of gear in a ceremony that paid homage to the heroes who risked their lives and did the very same thing 21 years ago.

>>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<<

Trying to pay our respects in simulating what those firefighters went through before they died, said Orlando Fire Department Lieutenant Bassel Ibrahim. They knew that they were going into a risky situation. Some of them knew that they probably wouldnt make it but when there are lives on the line. Thats what firefighters do.

A total of 343 members of New York Citys Fire Department walked into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11th, 2001 and never made it home.

First responders across Central Florida are suiting up. Over 100 firefighters are preparing to climb 110 floors at the City National Bank of Florida to pay respects to FDNY 343 who died in the line of duty 21 years ago. #911NeverForget pic.twitter.com/8MF8fhNIvf  Sabrina Maggiore (@SabrinaWFTV) September 11, 2022

Ibrahim has helped organize this tribute for the last 10 years and told Channel 9 that more than two decades after 9/11, this tribute serves multiple purposes.

We have firefighters that werent even born on 9/11 on the job right now. Its our job to educate the next generation, Ibrahim said.

Read: Happening Sunday: 9/11 remembrance events in Central Florida

Story continues

With every step, we are going to be thinking about each and every one of those firefighters that put their life on the line that day and did what they had to do to perform rescues, said Orlando Fire Department Chief Charlie Salazar. And each and every one of these guys, they would do the very same thing.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City.

Read: 9/11: Biden speaks at Pentagon ceremony honoring victims of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

Every year, thousands of first responders participate in 9/11 stair climbs.

Its a tradition that the Orlando Fire Department told Channel 9 has gotten stronger every year, with several different departments across Central Florida participating in todays climb.

Read: Queen Elizabeth dies: Queens coffin arrives in Scotlands capital

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
A full moon rises over Beijing in May. Getty Images

China aims to launch three moon missions over the next decade as part of its Chang'e lunar program.

China's National Space Administration won approval for the missions after it found a new mineral.



The mineral, Changesite-(Y), could be a future source of energy and was found in lunar samples.





China is aiming to launch three unmanned missions to the moon after discovering a new lunar mineral that could be an energy source in the future.

The space race between China and the US is accelerating after Beijing's National Space Administration got the go-ahead to launch three orbiters to the moon over the next 10 years, it announced on Saturday. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.



It comes a day after China became the third country to discover a new lunar mineral, which it called Changesite-(Y), according to Chinese state-controlled newspaper the Global Times.

China's Chang'e-5 mission retrieved samples from the moon in 2020 and it has been described by Global Times as a "phosphate mineral in columnar crystal" found in lunar rock particles. The mineral contains helium-3, which could be a future source of energy.

The discovery may put more pressure on the US to ramp up its efforts after its Artemis I moon mission was postponed for a second time.

Moon mining could be the next source of tension between the countries as NASA is also probing the moon's south pole where China plans to build a research station in conjunction with Russia.

China has accelerated its efforts in space exploration of late by building a space station, launching a number of missions to collect moon samples and putting a rover called Zhurong on Mars earlier this year to rival NASA.



The US remains the only country to put astronauts on the moon, with the last landing almost 50 years ago in the Apollo 17 mission, according to NASA's website.

The US Apollo 11 mission was the first to bring samples from the moon back to Earth in July 1969, with about 49 pounds (22 kilograms) of material from the moon's surface.

China's National Space Administration was contacted for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory message to King Charles on his accession to the British throne, official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday. Xi said in the message sent on Saturday that he is ready to work with King Charles to improve mutual understanding and friendship between the two nations' people, and strengthen communication on global issues.

Relations between London and Beijing have worsened in the last decade, and new British Prime Minister Liz Truss has been one of China's firmest critics.

Xi also noted that this year is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, according to the Xinhua report.

(Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by John Stonestreet and Raissa Kasolowsky)
New NFL season, same Washington Commanders. The team became the butt of jokes early in Week 1 of the 2022 season after trying to sell a mug that featured an outline of Washington state.

The mugs were being sold by a team truck just outside the stadium. They featured the "W" logo in front of an outline of Washington state. The Commanders' field is located in Maryland, but the Washington in front of their name refers to D.C., not Washington state.

From team official: These were not INSIDE the stadium. Instead, they were being sold at a truck just outside it https://t.co/DoXPlXEbIJ  Pete Hailey (@PeteHaileyNBCS) September 11, 2022

Pete Hailey of NBC Sports confirmed that the mugs were being sold in an official team truck. After images of the mugs went viral, they were quickly removed.

The mugs were sold by the official team truck (note the NFL logo) right outside the team shop. They have since been removed, the volunteers working the truck said. https://t.co/ZnXJvHVz97 pic.twitter.com/9GWaEaEjxX  Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) September 11, 2022

It's a tough start for the Commanders, who unveiled their new team name in the offseason. The club operated as the Washington Football Team last year and needed to order new merchandise to sell to fans after becoming the Commanders.

Unfortunately for the team, these mugs didn't get a second glance before they were made available.

Despite the pre-game snafu, the Commanders picked up a big win on the field. Carson Wentz threw four touchdowns as the team took down the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1.
Visa, the worlds largest payments processor, said on Saturday it would implement a new merchant category code for US gun sellers, which will identify transactions at firearms stores.

A slew of mass shootings in the US in 2022 has again reignited calls for stricter gun control and now credit card companies are moving to help track the purchase of weapons.

Tragedies this year include those at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois; a mass shooting that left 10 Black people dead in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York on 14 May; and  the deadliest mass shooting of the year  the massacre of 19 schoolchildren and two fourth-grade teachers in Uvalde, Texas on 24 May.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved the creation of the merchant code on Friday following pressure from gun-control activists who say it will help track suspicious weapons purchases.

Following ISOs decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules, Visa said in a statement.

On Friday, Mastercard said that following ISOs approval it too will focus on how the new cose will be implemented by merchants and their banks to continue the support of lawful purchases on its network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.

American Express also said that when ISO develops a new code it will work on implementation with third-party processors and partners.

The code will show where an individual spends money but not what items were purchased.

Several top US pension funds including those for government workers in New York City and California had submitted shareholder resolutions asking payment companies to weigh in on the issue.

Some gun-rights activists have worried the new code could lead to unauthorised surveillance.

President Joe Biden has called for Congress to pass an assault weapons ban as well as $37bn for crime prevention programs, with $13bn to hire and train an additional 100,000 police officers over the next five years.

With reporting by Reuters
Deputies in Polk County are asking the public to help find a man who broke the glass front door at the Puppy Boutique in Bartow.

Deputies said the man went into the store and searched the place, looking for cash.

>>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<<

According to a news release, the suspect arrived and left in a white four-door Hyundai Sonata.

No animals were taken during the break-in, according to deputies.

Read: Police: Cruel prank led to panic at Mainland High School Friday

If you have any information about this crime, contact Detective Haynes at 863-427-8098 or contact Heartland Crime Stoppers by calling 1-800-226 TIPS (8477).

Read: Suspect arrested, victim identified in Arabian Place shooting

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
By Aidan Lewis

CAIRO (Reuters) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will help finance the decommissioning of 5GW of inefficient gas-fired power plants in Egypt from 2023 while pledging up to $1 billion for renewables, its regional director said on Sunday.

EBRD would raise up to $300 million in sovereign financing for projects including work to stabilise Egypt's grid, adding battery storage, developing the local supply chain for renewables, and retraining workers, said Heike Harmgart, EBRD's managing director for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean.

A separate $1 billion pledged for renewables would be about one tenth of the private funding needed for 10GW of mainly wind-powered projects planned by the government by 2028, she added.

Egypt is a natural gas producer that is trying to cut down on domestic consumption so that it can export more to Europe at a time of high prices and demand resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It has a power surplus after installing three huge gas-fired power plants built by Siemens from 2015.

The government is hoping gas exports can help contain pressure on Egypt's currency after the Ukraine war triggered the latest dip in dollar inflows from portfolio investment and tourism.

The role of gas is set to be an issue of dispute at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November.

Climate activists say there should a rapid transition away from gas. As host of COP27, Egypt is giving a voice to some African states that want to continue using gas as a transition fuel to develop their economies.

About 3GW of the planned 10GW of new renewable power would be made available for a pilot phase in the production of green hydrogen in Egypt's Red Sea port of Ain Sokhna, Harmgart said.

Some would go to replacing capacity lost through the decommissioning of the thermal power plants.

Egypt has announced a string of memoranda of understanding for green hydrogen and ammonia projects at Ain Sokhna.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)
An Oswego man was killed in a motorcycle crash Friday in the village, officials said.

Austin Komar, 21, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash near Route 34 and Boulder Hill Pass in Oswego despite lifesaving measures performed by police officers and paramedics, Oswego police said in a press release Saturday.

Advertisement

Oswego police responded to the scene at around 8 p.m. A preliminary investigation determined the motorcycle driver was traveling westbound on Route 34 at a high rate of speed when the motorcycle left the roadway and struck a utility pole, according to the release.

No one else was injured or involved in the crash, police said.

Advertisement

The Oswego Police Departments Reconstruction Unit responded to the scene to conduct a reconstruction of the crash, the release stated. Route 34 was closed to traffic between Boulder Hill Pass and Wolfs Crossing Road for about five hours following the crash, police said.

Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
The New York Times

LONDON  All Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, did was put on a somber outfit and a sympathetic expression and walk around in public with three other people for 45 minutes. But the pointillistic armchair analysis of that brief event  a surprise outing outside Windsor Castle last Saturday featuring Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, and Prince William and his wife  has gone on ever since. The incident, for those following this particular saga, represented a brief cessation of, or maybe presaged
(Bloomberg) -- A Hong Kong court has sentenced five former speech therapists to 19 months each for publishing seditious childrens books that incited hatred of the government, the South China Morning Post reported.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The former members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists were handed their punishments by Judge Wai-kin Kwok at the District Court on Saturday, according to the report. They were convicted Wednesday of conspiring to publish, distribute, display or reproduce seditious publications.

The two men and three women in their 20s were arrested in July last year for publishing three books with the intention of inciting hatred or contempt against the Hong Kong government and justice administration. They were detained before a Saturday reading session for children by their union, and were held for more than a year without bail.

Their case continues a crackdown on free speech in the former British colony in the wake of the mass anti-government protests that swept the city in 2019. China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong the following year, and city authorities have revived the long-dormant colonial era sedition offense as part of a campaign against dissent.

About 60 people have been arrested for sedition under the 1938 Crimes Ordinance since September 2020.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2022 Bloomberg L.P.
Sep. 11In an unusual case of a former top-level DOE employee talking publicly and at length about the inner workings of a massive department often criticized for being unresponsive, Chambers agreed to share her story in detail for the first time.

It was frightening enough for then-state Department of Education Communications Director Lindsay Chambers to be the target of one school parent's repeated furious calls and voicemails to the DOE, including some that contained intimidating, vulgar and racist language, and that indicated Chambers and her husband were being surveilled.

But a Sept. 24, 2020, voicemail in which the agitated parent declared that Chambers would be "terminated, " she said, made it clear to her she was in danger.

"I promise you, when this is all said and done, you will be begging on the side of the street because you will be terminated ... , " the man said in a voicemail left on a non-DOE line in which he repeatedly referred to Chambers by name.

While the man goes on to say he hopes Chambers would never work again in education, she said that given the man's pattern of threats, "I took this as a not-so-veiled threat to kill me. The tone, delivery and intent behind what he said was absolutely physical harm to me."

But worsening the trauma of the two-plus years of harassment and threats, Chambers said, was what she and her union advocates call a failure by DOE officials to support her with an adequate safety plan for her situation and to provide legal assistance to protect her and her staff from harm on the job.RELATED :

She also believes some DOE officials tried to retaliate against her for speaking up.

In an unusual case of a former top-level DOE employee talking publicly and at length about the inner workings of a massive department often criticized for being unresponsive, Chambers agreed to share her story in detail for the first time. She said she wants to draw attention to a need for the DOE to create a stronger and more transparent system for protecting the growing number of public-school employees who are harassed and /or threatened by members of the public.

Story continues

"My goal is to make sure no other employees go through what I did, " Chambers said.

Her story also sheds light on the tenuous path DOE treads as it attempts to discern which employees are under legitimate threats to their safety and how to best protect them, while still honoring an obligation to recognize parents' needs and rights to express concerns and advocate for their children. Many education officials, however, say some parents have crossed the line into excessive aggressiveness.

Chambers is shielded now from the man's threats by a three-year injunction against harassmentlegal protection she had to pay for out of her own pocketplus a job change into the private sector. But the fight to get to this point has come at a cost. She said she still struggles with anxiety and trauma, still fears for her and her family's safety, still looks constantly over her shoulder.

The need for change at the DOE is urgent, Chambers and her supporters say, as reports of against school employees have grown in number and severity across Hawaii and the U.S.roughly one-third of educators nationwide have reported being harassed or threatened by parentsand in the nation's schools and other locations has spiked.

The Hawaii Government Employees Association currently is helping several DOE employees seek protection following severe harassment and threats, said Randy Perreira, executive director of the union, which represents principals and other educational officers.

"We've been lucky in Hawaii, where we haven't seen the level of school violence that we see elsewhere, " Perreira said. "I'm not trying to be a doomsayer. We're just concerned that at some point, there's going to be a situation that boils over. And schools will be truly facing harm. And, you know, it starts with things like this, where a guy can call for an individual at the school ... a hundred times a day and make whatever threatsit starts with stuff like that. But then it only gets worse and escalates."

In a separate case, principal of Stevenson Middle School, has reported receiving terrifying threats of violence and death against her and her children. She also has said the DOE has not done enough to keep her, her staff and her family safe. HGEA has helped both Balatico and Chambers file grievances against the department, which are still pending.

The DOE did not grant Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests for interviews with officials or provide Hawaii data on harassment of its employees, but in a written statement it said in part that it "does all that it can to support its employees when they are harassed. The department provides supervision and support to its employees at the workplace, during work hours. Counseling and other support services are also made available to support employees.

"When harassment goes beyond the workplace, the employee must rely upon the police department for assistance, " the DOE statement continued. "If the employee wishes to seek other remedies, such as seeking a temporary restraining order or injunction, the law does not permit the department to provide legal representation to pursue such actions."

The state Department of the Attorney General did not grant an interview, but Gary Yamashiroya, special assistant to the attorney general, said in an email that his office would "continue to consult with and assist our client agency, the Department of Education, to maintain a secure school environment."

State Board of Education Chair Bruce Voss said he could not comment on the Chambers case because she is a friend and her husband is employed at Voss' law firm. Several other board members did not respond to emails requesting comment.

In reporting Chambers' story, the Star-Advertiser reviewed nine recordings of harassing calls in which the caller identifies himself and names Chambers ; excerpts of DOE records that document calls from the man and occasionally his wife, and their interactions with DOE staff ; court documents ; and written exchanges between Chambers, DOE administrators, representatives of the state attorney general's office, union representatives and others.

The man is not named in this news story because the Star-Advertiser is not aware of any convictions related to his harassment of DOE employees.

Harassment intensifies As Chambers sees it, she was caught in the middle, in the worst ways.

When she landed the job of communications director in 2019, the Communications Branch of the DOE by default handled complaints from parents and the public, despite making no educational decisions for individual students.

From as far back as 2011, the man had been calling with complaints to various DOE offices about the programs and treatment his children had received from their public schools. His messages and interactions with DOE staff often were aggressive and sometimes included profane language, racist statements and a mocking tone, according to staff logs.

Sometimes he called the DOE up to nine times in a day. Occasionally his wife called as well. Court and DOE documents indicate at least a half dozen employees across the department have separately filed TROs against the same parent, among his other court cases.

In September 2019, after the man began to target a member of Chambers' staff and she filed a police report, Chambers says she was advised by DOE administrators to seek a TRO to protect staff members. She was surprised when the DOE later declined to assist with the filing or provide an attorney ; she said their argument was that a TRO is considered a personal matter.

Chambers' husband, attorney Christian Chambers, represented her in court but the petition was denied after the judge said Lindsay Chambers was not the specific target of the harassment at that time.

That first TRO attempt then led the man to make her one of his primary targets.

The threats and harassment aimed at Chambers came in streaks. In a four-minute-long voicemail from July 15, 2020, for instance, the man made disparaging remarks about her and called Hawaiian culture "that degenerate culture, " with accusations of cannibalism, sexual impropriety and political wrongdoing. Chambers said she thinks he said this because she was adopted by a Hawaiian family and signed her Hawaiian middle name to her emails.

He also mocked her husband, saying if the attorney wanted to defend Chambers, "we can do this in the parking lot and we can talk story all day, " which Chambers took as a local-style reference to physical fighting.

In the same voicemail, the man later turned his anger at then-state Schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto over the COVID-19 indoor masking rule in effect at the time. "Second Amendment. Second Amendment ! Look it up, Miss Superintendent, " he shouted, referring to the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

In another call to the DOE 10 days later, he threatened to "take care of things himself, " and that he would "take whoever down, " according to staff call records.

In August 2020, the DOE blocked the man's known phone numbers from reaching the Communications Branch. A shaken Chambers shifted into a different DOE job supporting its COVID-19 response team. But the man continued to find ways to harass her.

Claims of retaliation In October 2020 the man told a staff member that he knew where Chambers and her family lived, and "made some kind of a veiled threat about meeting them on a hiking trail, " the staff member said in call records.

Chambers filed a second police report and asked the DOE to request representation by the attorney general's office for a TRO, but neither agency assisted, she said.

"That makes no sense because it's through the course of my employment that this was happening, " Chambers said.

She also sought unsuccessfully to get an investigation of sex-based harassment initiated through the DOE's Civil Rights Compliance Office and Title IX specialist. Chambers said she was told her case did not qualify for Title IX protection.

At one point, a DOE official assigned a security guard to stay with Chambers through the work day. But Chambers said she did not ask for or want that because she felt it made her more conspicuous. She asked for a safety plan tailored to her case, to include measures such as being notified if the man contacted other departments. She was offered a draft originally made for someone else and no customized plan for her case was made, she said.

In a lawsuit that Chambers drafted but said she later decided not to file, her attorneys, James Koshiba and Jonathan Spiker, argued that the DOE had "an obligation to provide for the safety and well-being of its employees in the course of employees' work duties and while employees are at DOE facilities /campuses and at DOE off-campus functions."

The draft suit also alleged that because she questioned the DOE's response to the harassment and threats made against her and requested assistance from the department, officials retaliated by refusing to provide assistance and resources, increasing its scrutiny and showing more hostility toward her.

The retaliation sometimes was subtle, Chambers told the Star-Advertiser, such as when she was uninvited to top-level meetings with no notice. Sometimes it was blatant, she said, as when she was told a DOE official was heard accusing her of exaggerating the threat and calling her a "hysterical wahine."

In January 2021, Chambers won the three-year injunction against harassment. This year she left the coveted high-level DOE communications job. The reason she has not sued, she said, is that "the burden of living through a lawsuit was not worth it. I don't think I would've survived."

Chambers has undergone therapy to cope with fear and depression. For years she dared take her young daughter to only one restaurant where she felt safe.

"It has changed how I do things, my patterns, my habits, " she said.

It changed her young daughter too. The 10-year-old still constantly locks the house and car doors.

Chambers said she hopes telling her story will help other school employees who have been targeted.

"For people in the DOE, it's hard to speak up, " she said. "I hope people will get the courage to speak up, because that's when change will happen."
George Rotondo, a Revere City Councillor, has died, Boston 25 learned Sunday.

It is with deep sadness that we offer our sincere condolences on the passing of Revere City Councillor George Rotondo, a spokesperson from Mayor Brian Arrigos Office told Boston 25. Councillor Rotondo served the City of Revere over the last two decades and will be missed by many in our community. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Rotondo family.

Boston 25 has reached out to the Revere Police Department for further information.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Australian Unity Office Fund (ASX:AOF) shareholders will have a reason to smile today, with the analysts making substantial upgrades to this year's forecasts. The revenue forecast for this year has experienced a facelift, with analysts now much more optimistic on its sales pipeline.

Following the latest upgrade, the current consensus, from the three analysts covering Australian Unity Office Fund, is for revenues of AU$28m in 2023, which would reflect a sizeable 43% reduction in Australian Unity Office Fund's sales over the past 12 months. Losses are predicted to fall substantially, shrinking 56% to AU$0.13. However, before this estimates update, the consensus had been expecting revenues of AU$22m and AU$0.13 per share in losses. So there's been quite a change-up of views after the recent consensus updates, withthe analysts noticeably increasing their revenue forecasts while also expecting losses per share to hold steady.

See our latest analysis for Australian Unity Office Fund

The consensus price target fell 25% to AU$1.60 asthe analysts signal that ongoing losses are likely to weigh on the stock price. Fixating on a single price target can be unwise though, since the consensus target is effectively the average of analyst price targets. As a result, some investors like to look at the range of estimates to see if there are any diverging opinions on the company's valuation. Currently, the most bullish analyst values Australian Unity Office Fund at AU$1.91 per share, while the most bearish prices it at AU$1.32. There are definitely some different views on the stock, but the range of estimates is not wide enough as to imply that the situation is unforecastable, in our view.

These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Australian Unity Office Fund's past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with a forecast 43% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2023. That is a notable change from historical growth of 3.1% over the last five years. Yet aggregate analyst estimates for other companies in the industry suggest that industry revenues are forecast to decline 5.5% per year. So it's pretty clear that Australian Unity Office Fund's revenues are expected to shrink faster than the wider industry.

Story continues

The Bottom Line

The highlight for us was that the consensus reduced its estimated losses this year, perhaps suggesting Australian Unity Office Fund is moving incrementally towards profitability. They also upgraded their revenue estimates, with sales apparently performing well even though revenue growth expected to decline against the wider market this year. Furthermore, there was a cut to the price target, suggesting that the latest news has led to more pessimism about the intrinsic value of the business. Seeing the dramatic upgrade to this year's forecasts, it might be time to take another look at Australian Unity Office Fund.

Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. We have estimates - from multiple Australian Unity Office Fund analysts - going out to 2025, and you can see them free on our platform here.

Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Join A Paid User Research Session

Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
Another suburban Chicago town received a busload of migrants who were originally dropped off at the city's Union Station.

The migrants arrived at Union Station after being bused from Texas, according to FOX 32, and were then taken to suburban Elk Grove Village.

Elk Grove Village officials said they were informed by state officials at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 9 that the town would be receiving a busload of 90 migrants on Sept. 10.

In a press release, Elk Grove Village officials said that they received "no prior notification" of the migrants' arrival, and also said that they received "no direction from state, county or City of Chicago authorities with respect to how municipalities are expected to handle this unanticipated situation."

ILLINOIS MAYOR BLASTS CHICAGO MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT'S 'HYPOCRISY' AFTER MIGRANTS SHIPPED TO 'REPUBLICAN SUBURB'

After Elk Grove Village officials pressed the state for answers, the busload of migrants, which was originally set to arrive on Sept. 9, was delayed for one day.

Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said in a robocall to residents that he's "disappointed" in the "haphazard" way that the situation has been handled by officials from the state and City of Chicago.

"While the Village is now well-informed about what is taking place, I cannot tell you how disappointing it is to see the haphazard way in which this has been handled by county, state, and City of Chicago officials. The Village received no advanced notice that the migrants would be arriving here. We received no information about when the bus would arrive, where the migrants would stay or whose responsibility it was to provide food or medical care. Only after we began making phone calls and asking tough questions did we get the answers we were looking for," Johnson said.

After pressing for answers, Johnson said that he's satisfied that "the federal agencies tasked with performing health and safety screening on the migrants are doing their job."

Story continues

ILLINOIS MAYOR 'UNHAPPY,' SAYS CHICAGO OFFICIALS FAILED TO INFORM HIM ABOUT MIGRANTS SENT TO TOWN

Mayor Lori Lightfoot introduces Jazmine Sullivan during 2022 Lollapalooza day one at Grant Park on July 28, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

The migrants will be staying at a La Quinta Hotel in Elk Grove Village, according to officials.

This isn't the first time that migrants were bused from Chicago to the city's suburbs.

64 migrants were taken from Chicago to a Hampton Inn hotel in Burr Ridge, Illinois, on Sept. 7, and Mayor Gary Grasso, a Republican, said that he received no notification from city or state officials.

"Im glad that the American dream is still alive for a lot of people as it was for my grandparents when they came here and for most people that are in this country. So very happy for them," Grasso said. "But unhappy that nobody from the city, from the state called and told me or my village administrator or any of our elected officials that this was happening."

Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso (Left) and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (Right). FOX 32 and Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Grasso told Fox News that the migrants are being used as "political pawns" by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker.

"As is my understanding, this hotel, about a year ago, when refugees came in from Afghanistan, apparently accepted several either through faith-based or charitable organizations, but now the state assumes they can just send migrants this isnt about them, the migrants is fine, theyre being used as political pawns by the governor and mayor," Grasso said.

Jordan Abudayyeh, press secretary for Pritzker, told WGN that it's interesting local officials are complaining about the issue of migrants being bused to suburbs.

"The state is working with our partners at the City of Chicago and Cook County along with advocacy organizations to welcome those seeking asylum in the United States and provide them stability as they work to build a new life in Illinois. The state has a prior relationship with the hotel being used in the suburbs and their staff has done amazing work welcoming refugees and asylum seekers before, so it is interesting that local officials are choosing this specific instance to gripe to the press about this specific group of asylum seekers that consists of about 30 families. Gov. Pritzker has made it clear that Illinois is [a] welcoming state and xenophobia has no home here," Abudayyeh said.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel does not anticipate a renewal of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers before the U.S. mid-term elections in November, an Israeli official said on Sunday, after European parties to the negotiations voiced frustration with Tehran.

Having supported then-U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a 2015 Iranian nuclear deal which it deemed too limited, Israel has similarly been advocating against the re-entry sought by the current U.S. administration.

On Saturday, Britain, France and Germany said they had "serious doubts" about Iran's intentions after it tried to link a revival of the deal with a closure of U.N. watchdog probes into uranium traces at three of its nuclear sites.

Tehran called the European statement "unconstructive".

"At this point in time, it appears that a nuclear agreement with Iran will not be signed at least until after the (U.S.) mid-term elections," the Israeli official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Some Israeli commentators saw the remark as anticipating reluctance by U.S. President Joe Biden to enter a deal close enough to the vote for Republican rivals to use it in their domestic campaigns against his Democratic Party.

Briefing the Israeli cabinet on Sunday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid thanked the European powers "for their forthright stand".

"Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic drive to halt the nuclear deal and prevent the lifting of sanction on Iran," he said. "It's not over yet. The road is long. But there are encouraging signs."

Iran, which denies seeking nuclear arms, has since the U.S. walkout itself breached the 2015 deal with ramped-up uranium enrichment, a process that can create bomb fuel down the line.

Israel is not a party to the Vienna talks. But its worries about Iran and threats to take military action against its arch-foe if it deems diplomacy a dead end keep Western capitals attentive.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Louis during the Trooping the Colour in June. Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Kate Middleton reportedly "welled up" recounting a moment with Prince Louis after the Queen died.

Speaking to members of the public on Saturday, Middleton said Louis told her not to worry.

"She's now with great-grandpa," 4-year-old Louis said, according to the Princess of Wales.

Prince Louis had comforting words to share following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, according to his mother, Kate Middleton.

Speaking with members of the public outside of Windsor Castle during an appearance alongside Prince William, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle, the Princess of Wales shared the reaction her youngest son had to the news of the Queen's death on Thursday.

The moment was captured on video and shared by @magsmay1 via TikTok on Saturday, which had over 1.9 million views as of Sunday. Speaking to Insider, the TikToker said the clip was taken by her daughter, Nicole Anna Gumienny, who joined her from Hampshire, England, to see the royals at Windsor.

"My little Louis is just so sweet," Middleton can be heard telling the crowd about how he handled hearing of the Queen's death in the clip. "He was like, 'Mummy, don't worry. She's now with great-grandpa.'"

Gumienny told Insider that she was honored to meet the royals during an emotional moment for their family. "When Kate was telling the story you could feel the emotion," she said. "My eyes started watering when she talked about her Prince Louise saying that the Queen is now with great grandpa."

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II (who was Princess Elizabeth at the time) on their honeymoon in 1947. Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Rebecca English, the royal editor at the Daily Mail, also tweeted on Saturday that one well-wisher called Banita Ranow said Middleton shared the story with a group of children at Windsor.

"Ms Ranow said Kate was 'welling up' as she spoke," English wrote.

Louis, 4, referenced Prince Philip  his great-grandfather  who died at the age of 99 in April 2021. He and Queen Elizabeth II were married for 73 years and he remains the longest-serving British consort in history.

Louis's words echoed some of the final remarks made by Charles III in his first speech as king on Friday.

Story continues

"To my darling Mama, as you begin your last great journey to join my dear late Papa, I want simply to say this: thank you," Charles, 73, said.

Louis is one of 10 great-grandchildren left behind by Queen Elizabeth II. The pair shared several memorable moments together, including some funny ones from the Platinum Jubilee in June.

Charles, the Queen, Prince Louis, Kate Middleton, Prince Charlotte, Prince George, and Prince William. Getty/Chris Jackson

During the Trooping the Colour, Louis stood beside his great-grandmother and didn't hold back on his reactions to the pageantry and celebrations, held in honor of the monarch's 70-year anniversary on the throne.

Other photos from the day showed the pair interacting with each other, and the Queen smiling at one of her youngest family members.

Read the original article on Insider
For just the second time in 43 years, Kentucky found a way to win in The Swamp.

It wasnt always pretty, but the No. 20 Wildcats overcame offensive struggles and special teams sloppiness with an excellent effort on defense in a 26-16 victory over No. 12 Florida.

Of those 26 points, 13 came directly off interceptions of Floridas Anthony Richardson. Richardson was phenomenal in Floridas Week 1 win over Utah but struggled mightily in this one. After rushing for 106 yards and three touchdowns last week, Richardson was limited to just four yards on the ground in this one. As a passer, he completed only 14 of his 35 attempts for 143 yards with those two costly interceptions.

The first interception came late in the first half when Florida had a 16-7 lead. Richardson rolled right and tried to sling one to his running back but Kentuckys Jordan Wright made an excellent individual effort. After a return to the Florida 6-yard line, Kentucky was in the end zone thanks to a Will Levis sneak.

Kentucky botched the extra point but was down just 16-13 at halftime.

The Wildcats tied the score 16-16 with a short field goal at the 6:35 mark of the third quarter before going ahead by intercepting Richardson again. This time, Keidron Smith returned an errant Richardson throw 65 yards for the go-ahead Kentucky touchdown.

It looked like a miscommunication between Richardson and his receiver. No matter the reason for the miscue, it proved costly.

Floridas next three drives would result in a punt and two turnovers on downs. The second of those fourth-down failures came with 4:02 to play and gave the Wildcats the ball deep in Gators territory. Kentucky drained some of the remaining clock and put the game away with a 26-yard field goal.

Story continues

With the win, Kentucky has now notched back-to-back victories over Florida for the first time since 1976 and 1977. Kentucky has won three of the last five in the series, including the 2018 win in Gainesville that snapped a 31-game losing streak to the Gators.

On top of that, Mark Stoops passed Bear Bryant on Kentuckys all-time wins list with the victory.

Kentucky linebacker Jordan Wright (15) helped his team beat Florida for the second straight season on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

What does this mean for Kentucky?

From a big picture standpoint, it's significant any time Kentucky beats Florida. As previously mentioned, Florida has owned this series but Stoops has built this program into a consistent winner.

With this season specifically, Kentucky's offense hasn't looked very good in the early going, but UK has found a way to start 2-0. First it was a 37-13 win over Miami (Ohio) that was closer than the final score makes it seem.

And then on Saturday night, UK could muster only 272 yards. Levis made some good throws early but wasn't especially sharp as he finished just 13-of-24 for 202 yards.

Kavosiey Smoke was solid in a lead back role, but Kentucky clearly misses pairing him with Chris Rodriguez, who remains suspended due to an apparent NCAA issue.

The offense has games against Youngstown State and Northern Illinois to clean things up before returning to SEC play at Ole Miss on Oct. 1.

What's next for Florida?

The Gators had a Week 1 triumph by beating Utah to open the Billy Napier era. It was going to be hard to replicate that level of play, especially for Richardson. But this was a surprising level down for Richardson.

UF relied on his legs last week but he barely tried to run in this game. With that element of the offense missing, the Gators couldn't get much going and were shutout in the second half.

Florida getting vaulted up to No. 12 in the AP poll after beating Utah certainly looks like an overreaction, but Saturday night's loss will serve as a big learning moment for Richardson.

The Gators host USF next weekend before traveling to Tennessee on Sept. 24.
King Charles III waves to well-wishers outside Buckingham Palace, London, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday. Picture date: Sunday September 11, 2022. (Photo by Beresford Hodge/PA Images via Getty Images)

Beresford Hodge/PA Images via Getty King Charles

King Charles assumed the throne on Thursday, immediately following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth. In the days that followed, His Majesty proceeded with a series of formal duties, including addressing his new subjects on television and meeting with Prime Minister Liz Truss.

On Sunday, King Charles will host a number of stately officials at Buckingham Palace, where he arrived by car this morning. The new monarch waved to the waiting public as he drove through the streets of London.

Charles is set to meet with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland. They are set to meet in the 1844 Room, a setting considered to be one of the most important rooms in the place. Named for the year of Tsar Nicholas I's visit to the room, past visitors have included the Obamas and Angelina Jolie. The Queen's annual Christmas address has been filmed in the 1844 Room several times as well.

For more on King Charles, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.

The King will next attend a reception with Realm High Commissioners in the Bow Room. Fellow attendees will include senior diplomats from Commonwealth countries such as Antigua, Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by George Cracknell Wright/LNP/Shutterstock (13381957au) King Charles III waves as he is driven into Buckingham Palace. Earlier this week Britain's longest reigning monarch ,Queen Elizabeth II, passed away at Balmoral Castle at the age of 96. Death of Queen Elizabeth II, London, UK - 11 Sep 2022

George Cracknell Wright/LNP/Shutterstock

The United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, will also be present at the event.

RELATED: King Charles and Queen Camilla Shut Down Former Twitter and Instagram Pages

King Charles will return to the 1844 room to receive the Dean of Windsor, David Conner, in a private meeting. Conner has served in the estate clergy position since 1998, and spoke at Prince Philip's memorial service earlier this year, per the late royal's request.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Peter MacDiarmid/Shutterstock (13381074m) King Charles III waves to onlookers as he is driven to Buckingham Palace. Charles has been proclaimed King at St James's Palace this morning during The Accession Council ceremony. The new King swore an oath in the presence of Privy Counsellors. Queen Elizabeth II, The United Kingdom's longest reigning monarch, has died at the age of 96. King Charles III is now The Queen Elizabeth II dies, London, UK - 10 Sep 2022

Peter MacDiarmid/Shutterstock

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

On Monday, Charles will likely kick off his day with a visit to Westminster Hall, where both Houses of Parliament will share their condolences for the Queen's passing. His Majesty will then fly to visit Edinburgh with Queen Camilla, beginning their tour of all four nations of the United Kingdom.
A grand gala, designed to provide aesthetic education for children across the country, will greet young audiences online tonight.

Children perform at Grow Together: My Country and I gala at China's National Centre for the Performing Arts on Sept. 9. The gala was jointly organized by China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), China Welfare Institute (CWI), and the NCPA. [Photo courtesy of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation]

The gala, titled Grow Together: My Country and I, was staged at China's National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing on Sept. 9, one day ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival and Teachers' Day. It will be broadcast online at 7:30 p.m. through several other online platforms including the Classic Channel of the NCPA.

The gala was jointly organized by China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), China Welfare Institute (CWI), and the NCPA, and co-sponsored by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, as part of their efforts to welcome the upcoming 20th CPC National Congress.

The online show will feature singing, dancing, martial arts, and poetry reading to portray the everyday life of today's children and showcase their youthful vitality.

Grow Together: My Country and I is a signature activity co-organized by the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF), China Welfare Institute (CWI), and the NCPA. It aimed at inspiring children to integrate their growth into the country's overall development. Since its launch in 2019, it has enjoyed enduring popularity among young viewers.
The King and the Princess Royal were the only two senior members of the Royal family who made it to Balmoral - Max Mumby/Indigo

The King and the Princess Royal were the only two senior members of the Royal family who made it to Balmoral before Queen Elizabeth IIs death, it is understood.

Queen Elizabeth's sudden decline in health saw her nearest and dearest make an eleventh hour dash to be by her side on Thursday.

But only two of her four children were already in Scotland and managed to make it in time.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, as they were then, were at Dumfries House, his estate in East Ayrshire, when they got the call on Thursday morning and the Queens Helicopter Flight was scrambled.

Photographs showed the Prince wearing a light grey suit and clutching a large briefcase as he walked from his official car to the helicopter.

King Charles III at Ballater after leaving Balmoral on the way to Aberdeen Airport on Friday - Wattie Cheung

The Princess Royal was already at Balmoral, undertaking various engagements in Scotland and is said to have greeted her brother on his arrival.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex convened at RAF Northolt in Ruislip, west London.

Royal Air Force flight KRF23R took off shortly after 2.30pm, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.com, landing in Aberdeen at 3.50pm.

Prince William drove the quartet from the airport to Balmoral and they were pictured sweeping into the gates of the castle shortly after 5pm.

It is possible they had known they would not make it, perhaps even before their plane took off.

In the event, by the time they arrived, it was too late.

Prince William drives the quartet from the airport to Balmoral

Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, had been informed of the Queens death at 4.30pm, according to her official spokesman.

The Duke of Sussex was also en route to Balmoral but travelling separately from other members of his family and was some time behind.

As such, he is believed to have been mid-air when Buckingham Palace announced at 6.30pm that the Queen had died, arriving at Balmoral an hour and a half later.

The Dukes Cessna had been due to land at 6.29pm, a minute before the historic statement. But it was 20 minutes late taking off at Luton Airport, meaning he did not land in Aberdeen until 6.46pm.

Story continues

The grief-stricken Duke was photographed as he was driven into Balmoral Castle just before 8pm to join other members of his family.

Prince Harry arrives at Balmoral just before 8pm - Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock

By the time he arrived, the homepage of his Archewell website had been blacked out, simply bearing the words: In loving memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022.

Prince Harry was the first to leave Balmoral on Friday morning, driven out of the gates at 8.20am.

Prince Harry boards a British Airways flight from Aberdeen to Heathrow - PHIL NOBLE/ REUTERS

He later boarded a British Airways flight from Aberdeen to Heathrow and is thought to have returned to Frogmore Cottage, Windsor, where the Duchess of Sussex was waiting for him.
Photo credit: Netflix

The critics reviews are in for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery aka Knives Out 2 and they're overwhelmingly positive.



The sequel will see Daniel Craig reprise his role as detective Benoit Blanc to investigate a brand new murder mystery with a whole new cast of characters.

Set in Greece, Knives Out 2 follows the new group as they are brought to a private island by a tech billionaire called Miles, played by Edward Norton.

Related: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery 's first trailer is here!

As is the case with any murder mystery, one of the new gang turns up dead and Blanc will have to get to the bottom of it.

So far, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating after 8 critic reviews.

Among the reviews, Screen International's Wendy Ide described Glass Onion as "an immensely enjoyable movie which is at least as funny as the first outing, if not more".

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter's John DeFore wrote that the film "offers more action, more delicious comeuppances, more daring design and a few genuinely surprising cameos just for good measure".

Photo credit: Netflix

Related: How Bond prepared Daniel Craig for Knives Out 2

In particular, the reviews praised director and writer Rian Johnson  Chris Evangelista from Slash film said: "Rian Johnson outdoes himself with Glass Onion."

"It's so much fun to watch Johnson in this mode," wrote Ross Bonaime from Collider.

"Especially with a cast this relentlessly fun and playful. With Glass Onion, Johnson proves himself to be a film disruptor of the highest order," he added.

"In Glass Onion, the filmmaker shows absolute mastery of his genre and his craft. Its pure pop pleasure," said Jason Bailey of The Playlist.

Joining Edward Norton in the star studded cast are Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Ethan Hawke, Janelle Monae, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline and Kate Hudson.

Knives Out is available to rent or buy on DVD, Blu-ray or as a digital download  and its sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is on the way for Netflix.

You Might Also Like
Memphis Police is asking the publics help for information on a Hickory Hill Saturday night shooting.

At approximately 9:15 PM, MPD responded to a shooting at Sandy Park Drive.

At 9:15 pm, officers responded to a shooting in the 4300 Block of Sandy Park Drive. A male was located and transported critical to ROH. There is no suspect info. Please call 901-528-CASH w/tips. pic.twitter.com/T9MGruBnoj  Memphis Police Dept (@MEM_PoliceDept) September 11, 2022

When officers arrived, they found a man with a gunshot wound.

The victim was taken to Regional One in critical condition, police said.

There is no suspect information at this time.

This is still an ongoing investigation.

Call 901-528-CASH with tips.

Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Trending stories:
Marion County Public Schools announced Thursday they will add two schools to the Community Eligibility Provision initiative.

This will allow students to receive free breakfast and lunch meals at the following schools:

Fordham Early Learning Academy

Ocali Charter Middle School

Read: Ocala man, 25, accused of killing toddler

Regardless of family income, and across 54 sites, over 44,000 students will receive free meals this school year within the Food and Nutrition Department of Marion County Public Schools.

Students do not need to fill out an application to participate.

Read: False alarm: No threat found after emergency button activated at Mainland High, police say

This program is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Schools were selected based on the percentage of students who participate in public assistance or service programs.

Read: 160 arrested in 7-day human trafficking investigation, Polk County sheriff says

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Villages who called the Queen their neighbour paid tribute to the late monarch as her coffin passed by on Sunday morning.

To people living in Ballater, a village 15 minutes drive from Balmoral, the Queens death on Thursday was like losing your nan.

Crowds filled Ballater to pay their respects (Andrew Milligan/PA) (PA Wire)

The Queens coffin began its slow procession through the Scottish Highlands on Sunday, with hundreds of people lining the streets of the village of Ballater to see it pass.

The procession left Balmoral castle at around 10am to begin a 100 mile journey to Edinburgh, where the Queen will lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Mourners were arriving at Ballater from 7am with many travelling hours to get there. The local residents who turned out said they were grieving for one of their own.

As news spread that the Queens coffin had left Balmoral castle, the crowds grew silent and dignitaries lined the street in front of Glenmuick Church in preparation.

Richard Baird, commander of Clan Bairgh and a member of the Queens ceremonial bodyguard (Holly Bancroft)

The Queens coffin passes through Ballater as mourners look on (Holly Bancroft)

When the hearse arrived, onlookers wiped back tears as they watched the coffin, draped in the royal banner of Scotland, drive past.

Richard Baird, commander of Clan Bairgh and a member of the Queens ceremonial bodyguard, who was watching the procession, said it was a very emotional day for the whole country but particularly for Aberdeenshire.

The royal family saw Balmoral very much as a home and we all enjoyed having them in the area. They obviously felt very relaxed up here. We think the right place for the Queen to depart this world was in Scotland, he told The Independent.

It was an emotional moment for many as cortege drove through (Getty Images)

Colin and Patricia Dunmore had travelled from Liverpool on Saturday to be at Ballater to watch the procession. It took us seven hours, Mr Dunmore, 58, said.

We tried to find a hotel near here but the nearest one we could get was 40 miles away. We set the alarm for eight oclock this morning but I woke up a 5am anyway and thought we best just get here early.

Colin and Patricia Dunmore had travelled to Ballater from Liverpool (Holly Bancroft)

Margaret Phinn spent three hours travelling from Glasgow (Holly Bancroft/The Independent)

Roe Turrell, 78, who has lived in Ballater for 21 years, said that the royals felt like neighbours.

Story continues

Describing the Highland village, which is nestled on the edges of the Cairngorms national park, she said: Its got a fabulous aura. I came here for the first time 30 years ago and stood on one of the roads and thought I could live here.

Heating engineer, Martin Conn, 64, said it was an extremely tight-knit community who looked after the royals when they are here. We give them privacy and they are one of the village, he said.

Ballater minister Rev David Barr said villagers felt the Queen was part of the community (PA)

Reverend David Barr, of the local Glenmwick church, said that people in the area felt like their nan has passed away.

In this village everyone knows each other, everyones related to each other. The Queen was part of the community, he said.

Margaret Phinn, 57, had travelled three hours from Glasgow on Saturday night to be at Ballater on Sunday morning. Clutching a thermos full of tea and a bunch of yellow roses, she told said she wanted to be in Ballater because it has such close links to the family.

The family have always felt more comfortable here. I was so shocked when the Queen died. I thought she would always be here, she added.
Staff members were rushed into the White House Mess  then rushed out when they were told a plane was heading for the White House. Tina Hager/George W. Bush Presidential Center

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I anticipated a busy but relatively calm day at the White House.

I was the special assistant to the president for management and administration, and President George W. Bush was in Sarasota, Florida, promoting the No Child Left Behind legislation. The senior official in the White House was Vice President Dick Cheney. First lady Laura Bush was scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill to brief senators on early childhood education. On the South Lawn, tables were being set up for that evenings congressional barbecue.

With the president away, I arrived later than usual that morning and headed to a breakfast in the small senior staff dining room known as the White House Mess, on the ground floor of the West Wing.

I was sitting at a table eating my toast and drinking coffee when a colleague came over and told us about news reports of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City. We thought it had to be a terrible accident. We left the Mess shortly thereafter, unaware of the impact of the second plane.

Secret Service agents, weapons drawn, ordered everyone on staff, and visitors, to Get out now. George W. Bush Presidential Center

Get out now

This story began as an assignment from the White House Historical Association to write about that day for its 9/11 20th-anniversary edition of the White House History Quarterly. I interviewed a range of White House staffers, from Cabinet officials and aides assisting the vice president and the National Security Council to the interns from around the country who had begun their service at the White House that momentous day.

In the minutes after we heard about the plane crashing, there was a rush of activity in the ground-floor hallway. I was directed by the Secret Service to get West Wing staff out of their offices and into the windowless Mess, which was thought to be the safest place at the time.

But then, the agents, weapons drawn, ordered everyone to get out now, sending staffers racing through the iron gates that had been opened at both ends of West Executive Avenue outside the West Wing. Women were advised to kick off their heels and run for their lives. Tourists at the White House ran from the building, leaving strollers on the lawn.

Story continues

Across the White House complex, the Secret Service ordered staff to evacuate as quickly as possible. In the five-story Old Executive Office Building next door, however, many staffers learned about these orders only by watching TV and seeing the chyron: White House being evacuated.

Women staffers were advised to kick off their heels to get out of the White House faster. Here, Anita McBride, left, and Mary Matalin, right, on Pennsylvania Avenue. George W. Bush Presidential Center

The frantic evacuation was a response to the urgent call the Secret Service had received from air traffic control at Ronald Reagan National Airport  in which Secret Service staffers were told, There is an aircraft coming at you and What I am telling you, buddy, is that if youve got people, you better get them out of there. And I mean right goddamned now.

Moments later, hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. The vice president had been evacuated from his West Wing office to the presidents emergency operations center, also called The Bunker. An agent later said, We had 56 seconds to move him.

The Dead List

In the White House Situation Room, which served as the vital link for secure communications and information for the president, staff were told by their senior duty officer that we have been ordered to evacuate  If you want to go, go now.

But no one moved.

The communications technician transmitted the list of personnel who remained to the CIA Operations Center. The duty officers there called it the Dead List. Thankfully, their description was ultimately wrong.

I left the White House and joined staffers across the street in Lafayette Park. I instinctively sought to find a safer place to congregate and thought of the DaimlerChrysler office on H Street, a short walk away. My husband, Tim McBride, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush, was serving as director of government affairs for DaimlerChrysler in its Washington office.

I called Tim and asked if I could bring White House staff members there. Tim had already begun to send his staff home, and thought quickly to ask them to leave their computers on with their passwords written down, so that White House staffers would be able to work in the office.

Ultimately, more than 70 White House personnel from offices including speechwriting, scheduling, communications, Oval Office operations and legislative affairs worked from DaimlerChrysler on 9/11. I asked one of the first staff members to arrive to sit at the front desk and record everyones name and contact number and fax that list to the White House Situation Room, notifying them who was at this location.

White House staffers working on 9/11 in the DaimlerChrysler building. George W. Bush Presidential Center

Bond deepened

Speechwriters began researching for presidential remarks, communications staff were monitoring reports from around the country and keeping contact with the media, and senior staff took charge, giving directions to create a schedule of events for the presidents next few days, including going to New York and the Pentagon.

In horror and grief, we watched the news of the hijacked plane that went down in a field in Pennsylvania, but the mood in the DaimlerChrysler office was focused and determined. As one colleague said, the culture of the White House stuck with people in the face of an emergency.

Word reached us around 5 p.m. that West Wing staff should head back to the White House. The president was returning. Going room by room at the DaimlerChrysler office, I collected any documents that were left behind. These materials were now presidential records to be preserved at the National Archives.

Making my way back to the White House to get my car, I walked through Lafayette Park. The country was now at war, and everyone knew it was the start of a new chapter in our nations history. As one former colleague told me, Working at the White House is a binding experience in itself, but the strengthening of that bond deepened after an experience like this.

[Get The Conversations most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Anita McBride, American University.

Read more:



Anita McBride does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Elaine Lies and Yoshifumi Takemoto

TOKYO (Reuters) -Voters in Japan's Okinawa re-elected Denny Tamaki as governor on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK and other media said, backing an independent candidate who wants a smaller U.S. military footprint on the chain of islands near Taiwan.

The anticipated re-election of Tamaki, who was supported by a coalition of opposition parties, is a sign of pushback against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ruling party, which has been hit by scandal over members' ties to the Unification Church.

Okinawa prefecture is far closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo, putting it front and centre to growing tension in the region.

China this summer launched five missiles into the sea close to Okinawa, and within Japan's exclusive economic zone, during military exercises after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

NHK and other Japanese media declared Tamaki the winner, citing exit polls. Official results are expected overnight.

The son of a U.S. Marine and a Japanese mother, Tamaki was first elected as governor four years ago when he campaigned against U.S. military presence. This time, he focused more on the economy, after the pandemic battered Okinawa's tourism industry.

He told cheering supporters that he would continue to work to bolster the social safety net for the poor, although he did not skirt the contentious issue of U.S. military bases.

"I have not wavered one millimetre, nor will I, in my efforts to resolve the base issue and I will continue to share my thoughts with the people of the prefecture and seek a solution from the government," he said.

His victory is likely to be seen as a setback for Kishida's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has seen approval ratings slide over revelations about the long-running links between some lawmakers and the Unification Church, which critics call a cult.

Kishida has apologised for his party's ties to the church and vowed to win back public trust by severing them. The backlash has also fanned public opposition to a planned state funeral for slain former premier Shinzo Abe, who delivered a speech at an event hosted by a church affiliate last year.

Story continues

"The governor's re-election was expected, but the issues at stake were not only bases," said Hiroshi Shiratori, a professor of political science at Hosei University in Tokyo. He said Abe's funeral and the Unification Church scandal also played a role. "They also had an impact."

Kishida's ruling (LDP) has pushed for increased defence spending to counter Beijing and backed former local mayor Atsushi Sakima. Tamaki defeated Sakima in 2018, partly by calling for the large Futenma U.S. air base to be moved outside the prefecture.

Okinawa saw some of the bloodiest fighting in World War Two and has long resented the burden of hosting the majority of U.S. troops in Japan on facilities that take up 5% of its land.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies and Yoshifumi Takemoto; Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo and David Dolan; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, William Mallard, Frances Kerry, Alexander Smith and Tomasz Janowski)
Onyx Magazine hosted the third Men of Honor ceremony on Saturday, honoring 20 of Floridas most influential Black men.

The event paid tribute to the tireless contributions of Black men throughout the state.

>>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<<

This years Man of the Year is Central Floridas own Dr. George Tinsley, a Central Florida pioneer in Black business ownership and six-time Hall of Famer.

My seventh-grade school teacher was the one who looked at me and said, You could be someone, Tinsley said. I feel that I have no other choice but to give back.

Read: 5-year-old autistic boy found dead in South Florida waterway near home

The Onyx Foundation also awarded scholarships to four students.

These powerful and innovative achievers are the architects of thriving workplaces and communities around our great state, said Rich Black, ONYX Magazines publisher, CEO, and editor-in-chief. We admire them for the important roles they humbly accept and for the steadfast approaches they take to achieving success in each one. Further, we thank our sponsors and other supporters - who are key in making this the most prestigious event to recognize men across Florida - for their unwavering vote of confidence in our efforts.

Read: Happening Sunday: 9/11 remembrance events in Central Florida

This year, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings served as honorary chair.

Through the leadership and vision of our honorees, they are actively transforming their communities and professions to benefit future generations, said Demings. I am honored to be this years honorary chair and I applaud Mr. Rich Black and ONYX Magazine for recognizing these men.

Read: Queen Elizabeth dies: Queens coffin travels to Scotlands capital

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Western presumptions about what constitutes a person don't fit well with the ambiguity of the mother-fetus complex. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

A pregnant body is an anomaly. I mean this in a technical sense, because the body of a woman with a developing child growing in her belly literally does not fit into the system of categorization thats long been the de facto standard for Western culture.

Is a pregnant body one person or two? If you believe the antiabortion movement, the answer is clear: A pregnant body is two distinct persons and one of those persons  the woman  does not have the right to take away the life of the other.

But this argument rests on a presumption about what constitutes a person.

Is a tiny clump of cells a distinct human being? And what do we even mean by distinct human being?

In modern Western philosophy, particularly since Descartes, a person is conceived of as an entity with independent intellectual agency. I think therefore I am, he famously declared. Descartes, a Catholic, was putting into secular terms a way of categorizing that hed adapted from the church, which has traditionally held that human being-ness is predicated on an individual self with free will, and thus the capacity to distinguish right from wrong.

For Catholics, then and now, the key issue is not thinking, but the ability to make moral decisions.

I was raised Catholic, and the concept of moral choice was ingrained in me. For Christians, free will isnt an abstract academic issue. Its the foundation for an ethical life that truly has consequences, the ultimate one being whether you end up in heaven or hell.

So, lets get back to the fetus. A small bunch of cells clearly doesnt have free will. It doesnt have a will at all. It cant make moral or intellectual choices. It doesnt yet have a brain, let alone a mind. If, as Christianity and modern Western philosophy predicate, humanness requires mental agency, in what sense is a cluster of cells a human being?

Reading claims made by antiabortion advocates that a group of cells is a "person" from conception onward calls to mind the endless medieval debates about the resurrection of the body.

Story continues

For premodern Christians, resurrection was a very real event, and it wasnt just the soul that would live again in paradise. The body too would be revived and received into the light of the Lord.

But this raised problems. As Caroline Walker Bynum, a scholar of medieval Christianity, has written about eloquently, if a body is going to be resurrected into heaven, then which version of that body will it be? Will my body be resurrected at age 90, when I die old and decrepit. Or will I get the body I had in my fit-as-a-fiddle 20s?

According to medieval theology, animals are also going to be resurrected, so what will happen to the cows and pigs and fish whose bodies have been consumed and reincorporated in other animals or humans? Is the consumed flesh theirs or their consumers? Which flesh will be resurrected?

What about cannibalism? If a person eats another person, whose flesh is whose, and what will this mean when Judgment Day arrives and all beings are revitalized?

Today these questions sound absurd, but in antiabortion arguments we are witnessing the reemergence of a similar fanatical desire to draw irrevocable distinctions around personhood and bodies.

As we have seen, the mother-fetus complex does not fit comfortably into either the Catholic or Cartesian concepts of an independent agent. And it is no coincidence both ideas have been promulgated by men, who have never had to deal with the ambiguity of bodily entanglement.

We might all agree that at some point the fetus becomes an independent being. But when does this differentiation occur? Certainly not at conception.

Growing up Catholic, it always seemed to me the churchs theology was based on an obsession with the adult male, a person who could choose the life he wanted to live: Jesus chose martydom, the apostles opted for discipleship, St. Francis of Assisi gave up his wealth for a life of poverty.

My mother, however, was perpetually pregnant, with little choice of her own in determining the kind of life she might have wanted to lead. She had six children in 5 years when the rhythm method was the only method of contraception available to Catholics in 1960s Australia. Giving it all up" was hardly an option.

Bynum has written about the contortions medieval theologians got into with their interminable parsings about the ownership of flesh. The antiabortion movement engages in a similar rhetorical exercise. Its adherents want to insist that every bit of flesh belongs clearly to some body, including the fetal body. Thus the fetus must at all points be accorded the status of an independent being.

Both philosophically and practically, the mother-fetus relationship stands outside Western obsessions with individuality. A person bearing a child is at once an individual and a collective. Neither Christian theology nor modern philosophy seem able to accommodate this ambiguity or comprehend the tension of being ones own self, with an as-yet-unrealized potential self forming within ones flesh.

Margaret Wertheim is a science writer and artist. She is the author of "Pythagoras Trousers," a cultural history of physics and religion, and six other books.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
China's central bank has called for efforts to facilitate interconnectivity between the digital yuan system and traditional e-payment tools to make it more convenient for customers to use digital currency.

To realize this goal, more efforts should be made to expand the scenarios and environment for the use of the digital yuan, Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said at a recent forum on digital finance in Beijing.

Specifically, regulations and standards in areas such as digital identities, Bluetooth, and QR codes should be unified to improve the interconnectivity of various types of payment tools, according to Fan.

The deputy governor also underscored improving the security of digital yuan use via upgrading relevant technologies to avoid user-information leakage and eliminate data security risks.
We live in turbulent times. Just out of a worldwide epidemic and now in the midst of civil and political unrest, were not eager to deal with yet another social evil. Now, however, is the time to address an ongoing crisis that yearly claims thousands of American lives. The United States has an epidemic of gun violence. At 45,000 gun fatalities per year, we lead the worlds industrial nations with a rate 30 times higher than France, Israel and Britain, according to the Pew Research Center. In nine of our states gun deaths exceed traffic fatalities. Guns are now the number one cause of death of children in the United States.

Within this larger epidemic is a silent one. The astounding fact hidden in the numbers is that two-thirds of these gun deaths are suicides, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The gun problem in America, then, is not really due to a bad guy with a gun causing a tragedy nor a good guy with a gun stopping one. It is primarily about a good guy  hopeless and isolated from support  with a gun.

Exclusive: Three people die in 8 weeks at Barnstable County jail. Here's what we know

Studies show he is most often white and between the ages of 52 and 59. If he lives on Cape Cod, hes 1 times more likely to take his own life than if he lived elsewhere in Massachusetts. If he is a veteran, hes four times more likely to kill himself with a gun. 22KILL, an organization focused on veteran suicide, chose its name from statistics from the Veterans' Affairs office. Twenty-two veterans die by suicide each day. If hes a cop, hes also at a heightened risk. His action is impulsive  90% of survivors do not make another attempt  and sadly it is preventable. All of which leads us to another slogan, one from the Harvard school of public health  MEANS MATTER.

Regarding victims of suicide, we tend to ask who and why, but how is of primary importance in determining whether they live or die. Were not referring to gun owners, who are not more prone to be depressed or suicidal. The problem is when a person with suicidal thoughts has access to and uses a gun, he is unlikely to survive. MEANS MATTER is not gun control. Its suicide control.

Story continues

Tragedy: Victims identified in suspected Hyannis murder-death by suicide

Since the onset of the pandemic, firearm purchases in the U.S. have surged to a 64% increase, estimated to be over 21 million purchases. This buying frenzy and the residual stresses of the virus create a perfect storm for potential suicides and put many more ordinary citizens at a heightened risk.

What can be done? There is no one solution that will keep every last suicidal person from obtaining a firearm. There are, however, organizations, programs and interventions that have been successful in preventing a substantial number of such deaths.

Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, a local nonprofit group dedicated to firearm safety, has recently launched its You Can Save a Life Now campaign. Its brochure (found at https://www.capecodgag.org/suicide_prevention.pdf) offers valuable resources and contact information for suicide prevention and safe storage. It also explains Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO/Red Flag Laws). If a loved one has too much to drink, you take his car keys because you care for him. ERPO empowers the people closest to a person at risk of harming himself or others to intervene and prevent a gun tragedy before it happens. In Indiana, which has had the law for some years, researchers tracked a 7.5% drop in the predicted rate of firearm suicides.

Harvesting more than tomatoes: Do you know the story behind Cape Abilities' tomatoes? Here it is.

September is National Suicide Awareness month. This is a good time to educate oneself regarding an ongoing epidemic that has claimed countless American lives for over half a century. The "You Can Save a Life Now" campaign was conceived before the pandemic but is now, because of it, more timely and more vital than ever. Further information may be found at www.capecodgag.org. Businesses, groups or individuals who would like brochures may email to capecodgagv@gmail.com.

If you need help

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 988.

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can also use the Bay Cove Crisis Hotline at 1-833-229-2683. For more information about suicide prevention and how you can help, visit https://www.suicideispreventable.net/.

Donna Hannigan of Dennis is a member of Grandmothers Against Gun Violence/Cape Cod.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: OpED: National Suicide Month: Guns are leading means of suicide deaths
TORONTO (AP)  Oprah Winfrey was discussing her profound affection for trailblazing actor Sidney Poitier  a longtime friend and mentor to her  when she was overcome by emotion during an interview on the upcoming documentary  Sidney, a life-spanning portrait. She plunged her head into her hands and cried, I just love him so much.

Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Morgan Freeman, George Nelson, Robert Redford and Halle Berry were all interviewed in Sidney, and their reflections on the iconic performer and civil-rights activist are often illuminating. But Sidney" means something intensely personal for Winfrey, a producer on the film.

I was trying not to lose it, actually, because my love for him is as deep and as strong as for any human being I know," Winfrey said in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sidney premiered Saturday. He was my adviser, my counselor, my friend, my comfort, my balm, my joy.

Sidney, which Apple TV+ will premiere Sept. 23, arrives eight months after the death of Poitier, the groundbreaking actor who paved the way for countless Black actors in Hollywood and single-handedly revolutionized how they were portrayed on screen. Directed by Reginald Hudlin, Sidney was made with the cooperation of Poitier's family. Much of it had been completed before he died in January at the age of 94, including his interview with Winfrey.

But the loss of Poitier  whom Winfrey at the time of his death called the greatest of the Great Trees  has made Sidney only more poignant.

The film is an act of love for me for him, Winfrey said as tears again welled up. I dont know why Im breaking down. My opportunity to do this was my offering to him.

Winfrey has said her life was irrevocably altered when she saw Poitier become the first Black performer to win best actor at the Academy Awards (for 1963s Lilies in the Field). A life in show business suddenly became attainable to her. They later met for the first time when Winfrey's talk show was taking off. Poitier was one of the few who could understand what she was going through as a Black entertainer.

Story continues

During the early days of navigating fame and all that comes with fame, being assaulted on all sides by Black people, white people, people saying youre not this or you should be doing that, he was the person I turned to, said Winfrey. He said, Its always a struggle and a challenge when you're carrying other people's dreams.'"

It was the first of many conversations over the years.

Remember Tuesdays with Morrie? I could have done Sundays with Sidney,' says Winfrey. He was my person. He was my guy. He was my friend and my brother.

Hudlin, the director of House Party and the Thurgood Marshall drama Marshall," estimates he had completed about 90% of the interviews on the film when Poitier died.

Whatever pressure I was putting on myself basically doubled, Hudlin said. There was a disappointment to know that he would never see it, but I was glad at a time when everyone wanted to touch him and connect with him, we would have this movie.

Interviews with Poitier were conducted earlier, separate of the film, before the stars health deteriorated. But the footage of Poitier speaking directly to camera, and hearing that voice narrate his life story, makes for one last chance to be in his regal presence. Poitier, born in the Bahamas, talks about how his young identity was forged without racisms influence. It wasnt until he left for Miami at 15 that he encountered it.

I left the Bahamas with this sense of myself, Poitier says in the film. And from the time I got off the boat, America began to say to me, Youre not who you think you are."

Sidney, which draws on Poitiers memoir, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, touches on some of his seminal films, including The Defiant Ones (1958), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Guess Whos Coming to Dinner. It also delves into how he connected to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement with Hollywood; his friendship with Harry Belafonte; and his move into directing with Buck and Preacher (1972). Above all, it captures how racism, or anything else, was never a match for Poitiers unshakable integrity.

For me, personally, I look and go: How did he do it, with no role model? marveled Hudlin. Hes looking at a wooded forest and he just carves a path, always making the right choice. How did he always know the right thing to do without a road map? To single-handedly take on decades of racist imagery in cinema, right from its inception, and shatter all of that misbegotten imagery with the truth of who he was.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Maayan Ziv after boarding the plane, and her damaged wheelchair after the flight. Maayan Ziv

Maayan Ziv was traveling from Toronto to Tel Aviv last week for an accessibility conference.

Her $40,000 specialized wheelchair was damaged on her Air Canada flight.

The airline agreed to replace the wheelchair but a new one will take months to be delivered.

Maayan Ziv was prepared for problems handling her specialized wheelchair on a flight from Toronto to Tel Aviv on Wednesday to attend a conference on accessibility in transport and tourism.

Ziv, who was born with muscular dystrophy, told Insider she brought a duffel bag of bubble wrap to protect the $40,000 wheelchair before checking it in.

"I've had my wheelchairs damaged and I've been without wheelchairs for months in the past because of airline negligence," she said. "So this is not something I'm new to, but you kind of hope for the best."

After getting the wheelchair back in Tel Aviv following her 10-hour flight on Air Canada, Ziv realized it had been damaged despite her best efforts but was not approached by any airline or airport staff.

"It was up to us to basically be funnel-led through to baggage claims at the airport and file a claim as if someone had lost their suitcase," she said.

Ziv initially was offered a $300 voucher by Air Canada, which she thought could be sent to anyone filing a complaint about lost luggage.

"This just added fuel to the fire," Ziv said. "The difference here is that I'm not talking about some clothing or personal items. I'm literally talking about my mobility and independence. And they treated it like luggage, literally in the luggage department."

Her wheelchair before (left) and after the flight. Maayan Ziv

Ziv said her wheelchair has an extender device to help her reach for items, and tilts to allow her to relieve pressure and cost about $40,000.

After an email exchange, Air Canada agreed to pay for a replacement. However, it takes months for such wheelchairs to be ordered and delivered.

Insider contacted the airline for comment.

Until the replacement arrives, Ziv said she has been left in severe pain without access to her specialized wheelchair that she uses all day every day.

Story continues

The tech entrepreneur, who was named one of Canada's 40 under 40 last year, was also left to deal with the loss of business due to the disruption.

"This has put a permanent stall on the next six months. That's it  that's just how it is," Ziv said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Philadelphia officials are preparing the city to receive busses of migrants from Texas in the event Gov. Greg Abbott targets Philadelphia as the next destination for migrants being bussed to Democrat-led cities.

"The city is inventorying existing resources should those seeking safe refuge find their way to Philadelphia," Kevin Lessard, a spokesperson for Democratics Mayor Jim Kenney, told Axios.

There has been no confirmation that busses of migrants from Texas will be directed to Philadelphia. Kenneys office says it does not anticipate any notice if busses are directed to the City of Brotherly Love, Axios reported. Kenney's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on Sunday.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent busses carrying more than 7,600 migrants to Washington, D.C., since April. The governor began sending busses of migrants to New York City early last month and busses to Chicago at the end of August. Roughly 1,900 migrants have so far been bussed to New York City, Fox News Digital previously reported.

TEXAS BUSES TAKING MIGRANTS TO NYC SETS OFF FIRESTORM FROM DEMS, ABBOTT TELLS THEM TO TAKE IT UP WITH BIDEN

Mayor Jim Kenney speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Nov. 6, 2020. Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

Abbott's office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on whether busses will be sent to Philadelphia. An Abbott spokesperson did tell Axios to "stay tuned" when asked what other cities will see busses of migrants.

Conservative leaders in border states and across the country have slammed President Biden for his immigration policies amid the crisis at the border, including ending the Trump administrations "Remain in Mexico" policy, announcing an ultimately-failed plan to offer citizenship to 11 million illegal immigrants at the start of his presidential tenure, and loosening border enforcement policies.

TENNESSEE MCDONALDS EMPLOYEE CALLS POLICE AFTER MIGRANTS BEGIN PANHANDLING DURING STOP ON WAY TO EAST COAST

"President Biden has never visited the border to understand the magnitude of the crisis he created. His Border Czar Vice President Kamala Harris has similarly taken no meaningful actions to address the gravity of the situation, except one visit to the El Paso sector over a year ago. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently testified that the southern border is 'safe and secure.' As thousands of illegal immigrants cross the border each day, that statement is either shockingly uninformed or intentionally deceptive," Abbott wrote in an op-ed published on Fox News Digital last month.

Story continues

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during a press conference in Austin on May 18, 2020. Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool/Getty Images

Abbott and his office have issued repeated statements that Democratic leaders denouncing the strategy of bussing migrants should speak with Biden about securing the border.

LORI LIGHTFOOT DOUBTS GOV. ABBOTTS FAITH AS MIGRANT BUSES ARRIVE IN CHICAGO: 'HE PROFESSES TO BE A CHRISTIAN'

"If [D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser] wants a solution to this crisis, she should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border  something he has failed to do. The true ongoing humanitarian crisis is along our southern border," the governors office said in July following criticisms from the D.C. mayor.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has joined Bowser and New York City Mayor Eric Adams in condemning Abbott for the strategy, with Lightfoot doubting Abbotts Christian faith as busses arrived in Chicago last weekend.

"He professes to be a Christian," Lightfoot said at a press conference last Sunday. "This is not the Christianity and the teachings of the Bible that I know. And I think religious leaders all across the country are standing up and denouncing exactly this."

Abbott's office told Fox News Digital last week that "attacking the governors commitment to his faith is a pathetic political ploy to change the conversation away from Mayor Lightfoots unwillingness to uphold her citys self-declared sanctuary status."
TheStreet.com

Chief executives and political commentary rarely go well together  when outgoing Whole Foods CEO John Mackey went on a podcast to say that the "socialists are taking over" and young people "don't seem like they want to work," the internet did not let him retire without one last scandal. The latest person to make a splash with his remarks is McDonald's chief executive Chris Kempczinski. During a conference at the Economic Club of Chicago, Kempczinski drew attention to the issue of crime in the Midwestern metropolis that serves as the headquarters of the Golden Arches.
Two people are dead after a Friday shooting in Deming, according to police. Police suspect it was a murder-suicide.

DEMING - Two people are dead after a Friday shooting in Deming, according to police. Police suspect it was a murder-suicide.

At around 11:30 p.m., the City of Deming Police Department responded to the 500 block of Nickel Street regarding reports of multiple gunshots, the department announced in a post on its Facebook page.

During the department's investigation of the original call, another 911 call came in from a male subject who claimed that his sister had been shot. Officers then responded to a home in the 200 block of Nickel Street, where they made contact with the caller and learned the victim's location.

Upon arrival, Deming police found a 2019 Dodge Caravan along with a deceased female who police say had sustained "multiple gunshot wounds."

In the process of securing the scene, they also encountered a male who was also deceased. Officers found a handgun "near the male subject," the release states.

The female has been identified as 38-year-old Jana Hart Ledesma. Ledesma had been employed by Mimbres Memorial Hospital since 2014, according to previous reporting in the Sun-News and Deming Headlight.

Hart Ledesma started her career with Mimbres in the environmental services department. She moved to the nursing home as a hospitality aid, then became a certified nursing aid. She was then the assistant to the nursing home Activities Director, and then became the Activities Director herself, according to a May 2022 report. This year, she was recognized as a 2021 co-employee of the year for Mimbres Memorial Hospital and Nursing Home and Mimbres Valley Medical Group.

The deceased male was identified as her husband, Walter Ledesma, 47, of Lubbock, Texas.

Authorities say this is currently being investigated as a murder-suicide. Anyone with information about Friday night's incident is asked to call Lt. Lara or Cpt. Montoya of the DPD at 575-546-3011.

Damien Willis is a Lead Reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News. He can be reached at 575-541-5443, dwillis@lcsun-news.com or @DamienWillis on Twitter.

Story continues

Keep reading:

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Police investigate possible murder-suicide in Deming
President Biden will attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral service on Sept. 19 and formally accepted the invitation on Sunday morning.

He will be accompanied by the First Lady, Jill Biden, the White House also announced.

Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Sept. 8 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the age of 96.

In a statement following Queen Elizabeth II's passing, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said that she was "more than a monarch" and was someone who "defined an era."

QUEEN ELIZABETH II'S COFFIN ARRIVES IN EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II (R) speaks with US President Joe Biden and US First Lady Jill Biden and leaders of the G7 during a reception at The Eden Project in south west England on June 11, 2021. Photo by Jack Hill/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

"In a world of constant change, she was a steadying presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations of Britons, including many who have never known their country without her," they said. "An enduring admiration for Queen Elizabeth II united people across the Commonwealth. The seven decades of her history-making reign bore witness to an age of unprecedented human advancement and the forward march of human dignity."

Biden first met Queen Elizabeth II when he traveled to the United Kingdom with a Senate delegation, according to the statement, and recently saw her again in June 2021.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S MANY TRIBUTES TO 9/11 VICTIMS INCLUDED 2010 TRIP TO NEW YORK CITY'S GROUND ZERO

Queen Elizabeth II stands with US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden during their visit to Windsor Castle on June 13, 2021, in Windsor, England. Queen Elizabeth II hosts US President, Joe Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden at Windsor Castle. Photo by Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool/Getty Images

"She charmed us with her wit, moved us with her kindness, and generously shared with us her wisdom," they said of the June 2021 trip.

Queen Elizabeth II met with 13 U.S. presidents in total, including every president since Dwight Eisenhower, excluding Lyndon Johnson.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Queen Elizabeth II with US President Joe Biden in the Grand Corridor during their visit to Windsor Castle on June 13, 2021, in Windsor, England. Queen Elizabeth II hosts US President, Joe Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden at Windsor Castle. Photo by Steve Parsons - WPA Pool/Getty Images

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II will take place on Sept. 19 at Westminster Abbey.

Fox News' Tara Prindiville and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Princess of Wales has revealed her youngest son's reaction to hearing that his great-grandmother had passed away. (Getty Images)

The Princess of Wales has shared the "sweet" reaction Prince Louis had to hearing that the Queen had passed away earlier this week.

A video has captured the moment the royal mother-of-three gave an insight into how how she had broken the sad news to her three children of their great-grandmother's passing on Thursday.

Prince William's wife revealed to a well-wisher during a walkabout outside Windsor Castle on Saturday how her youngest son, four, had consoled her in response.

She said: "My little Louis is just so sweet. He said, 'Mummy don't worry, because she is now with great grandpa.'"

The royal mother-of-three accompanied husband Prince William and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in greeting crowds outside Windsor Castle on Saturday. (Getty Images)

Towards the end of the clip, which has been shared on TikTok and viewed more than 1.7 million times, the princess appears to be trying to hold back tears.

Her children  Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis  are three of the Queen's 12 great-grandchildren.

Read more: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take on new title following Queen's death

On Saturday, she joined her husband William, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to greet the crowds that had gathered outside Windsor Castle, Her Majesty's Berkshire residence, to pay their respects.

It came shortly after the Prince of Wales  who has become the official heir to the throne on the ascension of his father King Charles III  released a heartfelt statement that paid tribute to "Grannie".

Kate revealed Louis' reaction to a well-wisher during a walkabout outside Windsor Castle on Saturday. (PA)

The message, which was posted on Instagram, read: "On Thursday, the world lost an extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute. So much will be said in the days ahead about the meaning of her historic reign.

"I, however, have lost a grandmother. And while I will grieve her loss, I also feel incredibly grateful. I have had the benefit of The Queen's wisdom and reassurance into my fifth decade.

Read more: How the Queen showed her support for Kate and Meghan

"My wife has had 20 years of her guidance and support. My three children have got to spend holidays with her and create memories that will last their whole lives.

Story continues

"She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life. I knew this day would come, but it will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real."

Prince Louis, pictured with the rest of his family earlier this week, is one of the Queen's 12 great-grandchildren. (Getty Images)

The prince added: "I thank her for the kindness she showed my family and me. And I thank her on behalf of my generation for providing an example of service and dignity in public life that was from a different age, but always relevant to us all.

"My grandmother famously said that grief was the price we pay for love. All of the sadness we will feel in the coming weeks will be testament to the love we felt for our extraordinary Queen. I will honour her memory by supporting my father, the King, in every way I can."

Earlier this week, Kate and William were pictured accompanying their three children on their first day of school.

The Queen passed away, aged 96, on Thursday afternoon at her Scottish residence of Balmoral in Scotland, where she had been spending the summer.

Watch: William and Kate update social media to show new titles
The Princess of Wales greets well-wishers outside Windsor Castle on Saturday. (Getty Images)

The Princess of Wales has paid a subtle tribute to the Queen with her choice of jewellery to greet well-wishers outside Windsor Castle.

Catherine wore a pair of pearl-drop earrings as a sign of respect following Her Majesty's passing on Thursday.

The royal mother-of-three wore them along with her all-black outfit, which comprised of a long-sleeved midi-dress, tights and heels.

On Saturday, she appeared alongside her husband Prince William  now the heir to the throne  and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to meet the crowds who had gathered at the late monarch's Berkshire residence.

The royal mother-of-three wore a pair of pear-drop earrings for the poignant outing. (Getty Images)

According to The Telegraph, pearls are considered "mourning jewellery" and are thought to commemorate loved ones because they symbolise tears.

They have been a tradition for royal women since Queen Victoria's reign, when she only appeared in strands of pearls following the death of husband Prince Albert in 1861.

Read more: 'Mummy don't worry'  Princess of Wales reveals how Prince Louis consoled her

Since the late monarch's passing was announced, the princess has been pictured in the same pair of 18-carat gold baroque pearl earrings.

She has previously worn the jewellery from the brand Annoushka  which she has owned since 2012  for dozens of royal engagements, including Wimbledon.

The princess joined husband Prince William, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for the walkabout. (Getty Images)

The Queen Consort was wearing pearls beside the Prince of Wales at the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday. (Getty Images)

On Saturday, the Queen Consort was also pictured wearing pearls around her neck at the Accession Council for King Charles III at St James's Palace in London.

Last year, for the funeral of Prince Philip, the Princess of Wales wore a pearl choker necklace and the Bahrain Pearl Earrings loaned to her by the Queen.

Read more: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take on new title following Queen's death

During a period of mourning, like this, the royal family is expected to dress differently.

Before the late Duke of Edinburgh was laid to rest in April 2021, members were expected to wear black or dark clothes throughout this time, The Telegraph reported.

Watch: William, Catherine, Harry and Meghan reunite to meet crowds
First-ever rescue drill of Laos-Vietnam-Cambodia troops

The first-ever joint rescue drill organised by the Ministries of National Defense of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia began on Saturday in Naxaythong District, Vientiane City in Laos.











Helicopters of the Vietnamese army participate in the rescue on water in a hypothetical situation at the exercise.

The drill is held under an agreement of the ministers at the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Defence Ministers Conference in 2019 in Hanoi.



Speaking at the opening of the exercise, Lieutenant General Chanthong Soneta-at, Deputy Minister of National Defence of Laos, said natural disasters and issues related to climate change, such as floods, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, drought and pandemics were not only major threats to people's lives, property and livelihoods but could also cause great damage to the economy and the environment.



Governments and armed forces of the three countries have prioritised the tasks of preventing and responding to natural disasters.



He emphasised that the exercise was an important and very meaningful event, not only to enhance the capacity to respond to disasters in all situations but also to create opportunities for participants to exchange experiences and cultures, strengthening solidarity and trust between the armed forces of the three countries.



Chanthong Soneta-at called on officers and soldiers participating in the exercise to strictly observe, have a high sense of responsibility, discipline, and orders as well as ensure solidarity and safety throughout the exercise.



Nearly 500 soldiers from the three countries joined the exercise.



During the drill, which last until Thursday this week, the rescue forces will focus on search and rescue in flooded areas, landslide-prone areas, collapsed construction sites and leaks of toxic chemicals into the environment.



Colonel Phatthana Bouthichack, chief of the Office of the General Staff under the Lao Ministry of National Defence said that during the exercise, every day the three countries would exchange experiences and turn what they learn into practical applications when natural disasters occurred.



He hoped that this exercise would create a good foundation for the three countries to continue to organise similar drills in the future.



Colonel Pham Hai Chau, deputy director of the Rescue Department under the Vietnams Ministry of National Defence, said Vietnam participated in almost every performance.



He believed the event would help the armies not only gain useful lessons on coordination and force organisation when situations arise, but also help improve understanding, solidarity and friendship.
You are here: Business

Foreign trade levels of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region soared 49.6 percent year on year to nearly 145.6 billion yuan (about 21 billion U.S. dollars) from January to August this year.

Urumqi Customs said that during this period, Xinjiang exports reached over 120.9 billion yuan, up 58.2 percent year on year, while its imports grew by 18 percent year on year to 24.6 billion yuan.

The increase in foreign trade in the region is attributed to a series of steps taken to ensure stability in employment, the financial sector, foreign trade, foreign investment, and domestic investment, according to Urumqi Customs.

Urumqi Customs also noted that thanks to streamlined customs clearance measures, the operation of China-Europe freight train services in Xinjiang had been continuously improved.

From January to August, Alataw Pass and Horgos Port, both major rail ports in Xinjiang, achieved a record high in handling 8,701 China-Europe freight trains, up 6.5 percent compared to the previous year.
Watch: Queen's cortege passes over Queensferry Crossing

Thousands of well-wishers lined the streets in Scotland as the Queens coffin began its journey to its final resting place ahead of her funeral.

The cortege left Balmoral Castle, where Her Majesty died aged 96 on Thursday, for the last time at 10am on Sunday.

It made a six-hour, 180-mile journey to Edinburgh, where crowds packed onto the city's famous Royal Mile  which stretches from Edinburgh Castle at one end to the royal residence of the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the other.

A ripple of gentle applause started as the cortege went past but there was silence as it entered the forecourt at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the Queen's coffin was received by the Duke of York and the Duke and Duchess of Wessex, and a guard of honour was formed by the Kings Bodyguard for Scotland (Royal Company of Archers).

Members of the Royal Company of Archers acted as pallbearers, carrying the Queens coffin into the throne room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. (PA)

Members of the Royal family met the Queen's coffin as it made its way to Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, including (L-R): the Princess Royal's husband Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Countess of Wessex and the Earl of Wessex. (PA)

The Princess Royal, who had travelled from Balmoral in the group of cars, and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence also stood alongside Andrew, Edward and Sophie  while members of the Royal Company of Archers acted as pallbearers, carrying the Queens coffin into the throne room at the palace.

As well as those who packed the streets throughout Edinburgh, others had clambered on to Arthurs Seat and the Salisbury Crags, trying to get the citys best view of the gardens and courtyard of Holyroodhouse.

Among those lining the streets was James Kinlock, who said he felt an enormous pull to watch the procession through the Scottish capital.

"I felt it [the Queen's death] far more personally than I ever thought I would," he said.

"I just felt compelled to come, utterly compelled to come."

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Edinburgh towards the Palace of Holyroodhouse. (AFP via Getty Images)

Crowds watch the cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II by Mercat Cross in Edinburgh. (Getty Images)

Discussing the moment the coffin went past them, Susanne Sedel said: It was a touching moment, it was really touching.

"I was happy that it was quiet at the moment when she went past, but glad that people then broke out into a round of applause. I felt she deserved that."

Crowds watch the cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II by Mercat Cross in Edinburgh. (Getty Images)

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passing through the outskirts of Edinburgh. (PA Images via Getty Images)

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II after going over the Queensferry Crossing on its way to Edinburgh. (PA Images via Getty Images)

Earlier, hundreds of people had gathered on a roundabout of the Kingsway A90 dual carriageway, on the outskirts of Dundee, to get a glimpse of the procession. The crowd was 10 people deep on parts of the major junction, known locally as the Swallow Roundabout.

Story continues

Afterwards Gillian Nicholl, from St Andrews, who had come with her two children, said: It went very still and it was very atmospheric. I have never seen such a large crowd go so quiet. It was very sombre, there was a wee clap but it didnt feel right.

People gather in tribute as the cortege carrying the coffin of the Queen passes through Perth. (Getty Images)

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes through Aberdeen as it continues its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral. (PA)

It had previously passed through Aberdeen, where Elizabeth Taylor had tears in her eyes as she reflected on what she had just seen. It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the Queen."

In bright sunshine at 10am, the hearse carrying the late monarch had passed through the gates of Balmoral, the royal residence which was the summer refuge for the former head of state.

It first headed to the nearby town of Ballater in Aberdeenshire, where many locals considered the Queen as a neighbour.

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, leaving Balmoral as it begins its journey to Edinburgh. (PA)

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing through Ballater as it continues its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral. (PA)

Members of the public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater. (AFP via Getty Images)

Well-wishers who had waited patiently for the opportunity to pay their respects bowed their heads, while others saluted as the hearse drove slowly by.

Flowers were also thrown into the hearses path by people on both sides of the road.

The town's minister said there was "overwhelming emotion given the Queen had been coming to Balmoral since she was a girl.

Route of the Queen's coffin from Balmoral to Edinburgh. (PA)

A woman lays flowers outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh earlier in the day. (PA)

Reverend David Barr said: "As you stand here today and you watch Her Majesty pass, that will be very tangible and be very real for people, and I think that will bring on an overwhelming amount of emotion.

Margaret MacKenzie, from Inverness, said of the procession: It was very dignified. It was nice to see that a lot of people came out to support and pay their respects.

Elizabeth Alexander, who gathered in Ballater with her two daughters and three grandchildren, said: "Shes the kind of person we should all be, but sometimes fail to be."

As the hearse carrying the queens coffin departed Balmoral on Sunday morning, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was a sad and poignant moment as Her Majesty, The Queen leaves her beloved Balmoral for the final time.

Ms Sturgeon added: As she makes her journey to Edinburgh, Scotland will pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.

Where will the Queen's coffin go in the following days?

The Queen's body will now lie at rest in the royal residence overnight, before being taken to St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh on Monday, where it will be carried inside at 2.55pm.

The King and Queen Consort, who are expected to arrive in Scotland again on Monday, along with members of the Royal Family, will follow the procession on foot before attending a service of reflection for the life of the Queen in the cathedral at 3pm.

Members of the public will also get the chance to see the coffin there, before it is taken to Edinburgh Airport for the journey down to London.

The Queen pictured during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June. (AFP via Getty Images)

At 5pm on Tuesday, the Queens coffin will travel by road from St Giles Cathedral to Edinburgh Airport, where it will be flown to London, departing at 6pm.

After arriving at RAF Northolt at 6.55pm, the coffin will be driven to Buckingham Palace. Its arrival at 8pm will be witnessed by the King and Queen Consort, with other members of the Royal Family.

On Wednesday, Charles and Camilla, with other members of the Royal Family, will lead a procession behind the late Queens coffin.

It will leave Buckingham Palace, carried on a gun carriage to the Palace of Westminster, at 2.22pm and arrive at Westminster Hall at 3pm.

The Queen's death: what happens next. (PA)

After a short service the Queens lying in state will begin, lasting for four days and ending on the morning of the state funeral on Monday, 19 September.

At 10.44am the Queens coffin will be taken in procession from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey in central London, where her state funeral will take place at 11am.

After the service, the coffin will be taken in procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch. From Wellington Arch, the coffin will travel to Windsor.

Once there, the hearse will travel in procession to St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle via the Long Walk, after which a Committal Service will take place in the chapel.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wa.) at her home on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022, in Seattle, Wash Jovelle Tamayo/ forThe Washington Post via Getty Images

Rep. Pramila Jayapal says former President Trump's rhetoric encourages violence against Congress members.

Jayapal released voicemails on Thursday that included threats to "go back to India."

Capitol Police data shows that threats to members of Congress have increased 144% since 2017.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who was harassed and threatened outside her home by a man with a gun, says the increase in threats to Congressional members is linked to rhetoric about the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and other members of the GOP.

In July, an armed man was arrested and charged with felony stalking after camping outside Jayapal's neighborhood and threatening her. One neighbor told police she heard the man shout: "Go back to India, I'm going to kill you."

Jayapal told MSNBC's Ali Velshi on Saturday that she wanted people to understand the connections between stolen election rhetoric and the increased threats that Congressional members are facing.

"I think that what has changed is there's a sense that everything is so unfair and it's been propelled by Donald Trump," Jayapal said. "'The institutions are unfair,' and that the only recourse is to violence and that is an extremely dangerous thing. And we saw it come to fruition on January 6, and now in ways that you know, I've seen outside my door."

On Thursday, Jayapal released voicemails of threats against her and her family. The person in the recording tells Jayapal she is going to get "exactly what you deserve" and tells her to "go back to India."

"Typically, political figures don't show their vulnerability," Jayapal wrote. "I chose to do so here because we cannot accept violence as our new norm. We also cannot accept the racism and sexism that underlies and propels so much of this violence."

Threats to lawmakers in congress have increased by 144% since 2022, according to Capitol Police data shared with Axios. In the first three months of 2022, nearly 2,000 threats made to Congress members resulted in the Capitol Police opening cases.



Congress members like California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is on the House Committee Investigating Jan. 6, have also released threatening voicemails targeting them and their families.

Story continues

In a Washington Post profile released Thursday, Jayapal recounted her experiences dealing with harassing and threatening voicemails. She said she often wanted to hide the threats because she didn't want people to know how they emotionally affected her.

"But at the same time," Jayapal told the Post, "it's important people understand how ubiquitous this is, and how much a part of our psyche it is taking up."

Read the original article on Business Insider
No action has been taken for 15 months on a pending state grand jury indictment against Richard Quinn, the alleged mastermind of a web of underground influence peddling that thrived for years in the the S.C. General Assembly.

The 38-page indictment, issued by a state grand jury in May 2021, charges Quinn with 12 counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice.

The charges contain alleged details of how Quinn, 77, for years kept secret payments by his lobbying corporation, Richard Quinn & Associates, to top lawmakers in the S.C. House and Senate to influence legislation. Quinn then lied about those associations to a special state grand jury under the direction of former special prosecutor David Pascoe, the indictment alleged.

The indictment also alleged that Quinn lied to the state grand jury in sworn testimony when he told them he wasnt being paid by state Attorney General Alan Wilson when Quinn wrote press statements and other documents for the attorney general while on retainer for Wilson.

Rauch Wise, a lawyer for Quinn, told The State newspaper last week that he has been trying to get a motion to dismiss the charges against his client heard before South Carolina Judge Carmen Mullen, the trial judge in the case.

But hes been unable to. Attorneys Cindy Crick and Shaun Kent also represent Quinn.

We re awaiting a hearing on our motion to dismiss the case, Wise said. A hearing has been tentatively scheduled, but it keeps getting bumped back.

Wises motion, filed last October, contends that in 2017 when Quinn pleaded guilty before Mullen to the misdemeanor charge of failing to register as a lobbyist, he agreed to a plea agreement. That plea agreement prevented any evidence gathered in that investigation from being used in any way against Quinn.

Evidence in the 2021 indictment against Quinn grew out of the earlier investigation and therefore cannot be used as a basis for the new indictment, the motion says.

Story continues

The plea agreement was designed to avoid this very scenario (perjury charges), and the states promises must be fulfilled, the motion says.

However, in 2017 and in 2018, Pascoe said in open court that if Quinn testified about what he knew before a state grand jury and lied, Quinn would be prosecuted for perjury. Pascoe has since been replaced as prosecutor by 7th Judicial Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette, who brought the new indictment against Quinn in May 2021 based on what Quinn told the state grand jury in 2018.

Mullen, of Beaufort County, was the original judge appointed to hear General Assembly public corruption cases in a wide-ranging State Law Enforcement Division investigation from 2016 to about 2020 involving Pascoe and a state grand jury.

Mullen has recently been mentioned in news reports about disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh, who is facing murder and fraud charges.

She was the judge in the now-acknowledged distribution of $4.3 million in Murdaughs liability insurance payout, most of which wound up in Murdaughs accounts instead of going to the estate of his longtime late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. Satterfield died after being injured in a 2019 fall at Murdaughs house.

Mullen did not respond to an email asking when a hearing would be scheduled.

Quinns political empire

Pascoe and SLEDs investigation became one of the most successful public corruption probes in recent state history.

It exposed a hidden political empire dubbed the Quinndom that was nourished by Quinns hidden money streams.

It also led to the convictions and guilty pleas of three now former lawmakers: Rep. Rick Quinn, R-Lexington, the elder Quinns son; Sen. John Courson, R-Richland; and Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Berkeley.

A fourth former lawmaker, Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Richland, had left office before Pascoes investigation began.

But an examination of Quinns records subpoenaed by the state grand jury showed Harrison had taken nearly $900,000 in secret payments from Quinn over 13 years in exchange for supporting legislation benefiting some Quinn clients.

Harrison contended he was innocent of wrongdoing, but in 2018 a Richland County jury convicted him of perjury and misconduct. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison but paroled after five months.

Before beginning to use a state grand jury in 2016, Pascoe had been appointed special prosecutor by Attorney General Wilson in a 2014 investigation involving misconduct charges against then-House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston.

The investigation was successful. Harrell pleaded guilty in October 2014 and resigned from office.

Quinns influence with state lawmakers and federal officials was legendary.

Leading institutions, including the University of South Carolina, the former SCANA electric utility, AT&T, the S.C. Association for Justice and the former Palmetto Health, now part of the Prisma Health, once paid Quinn and his firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to help represent their interests.

Over the years, Quinn had been a paid consultant to top Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Henry McMaster, Wilson, Courson and U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Springdale.

Special prosecutor Barnette could not be reached by press deadline.
A mural in Belgrade, Serbia, praising Wagner Group and its mercenaries, seen on March 30. Pierre Crom/Getty Images

As Russia's military struggles in Ukraine, Moscow has relied more on private military contractors.

Chief among them are the fighters of Wagner Group, a shadowy network with close ties to the Kremlin.

The intensity of the fighting against Ukraine's military has in turn taken a heavy toll on Wagner.

Russian private military contractor the Wagner Group has been fighting alongside  and often supplanting  the Russian military in Ukraine.

But Moscow's reliance on Wagner Group and its mercenaries is wearing down the infamous private military company, according to recent assessments by British military intelligence.

Wagner Group in Ukraine

A destroyed Russian T-90M tank in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on May 9. REUTERS/Vitalii Hnidyi

Russian President Vladimir Putin, apparently hoping for a quick victory that would topple the government in Kyiv, has seen his vaunted military fail time and again in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has now limited its ambitions and is increasingly reliant on the Wagner Group to make up for the Russian military's lackluster performance and for the horrific losses that those regular forces have suffered.

In a July 18 update on the war, the British Ministry of Defense assessed that Moscow has used the Wagner Group to "reinforce front-line forces" in Ukraine and to alleviate force-generation issues created by heavy Russian casualties.

The total of Russian casualties after six months of war is not known publicly, and assessments vary, from US estimates of 70,000 to 80,000 total to Ukrainian estimates of 50,000 killed and many tens of thousands more wounded or missing.

Extensive Russian casualties and Moscow's inability to regenerate its forces have sapped its military's ability to conduct large-scale offensive operations. Those factors have made Wagner Group and its mercenaries a more appealing option for the Kremlin.

A soldier by a mock grave for Russian President Vladimir Putin near Zaporizhzhya in Ukraine on May 9. Rick Mave/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Besides the legal complications of that approach  captured mercenaries wouldn't be protected by the Geneva Conventions, for example  an expanded role looks likely to have negative consequences for Wagner and for the Russian campaign as a whole.

Story continues

Indeed, Wagner Group also appears to be suffering heavy casualties in Ukraine. In mid-August, Ukrainian forces used US-provided HIMARS rockets to strike a forward headquarters of the mercenary group in the Luhansk region.

The strike reportedly killed and wounded Wagner Group fighters. "There is no more Wagner HQ in Popasna. Thank you, Himars and the Armed Forces of Ukraine!" Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of Ukraine's Parliament, said after the strike.

Like Russia's regular military, Wagner Group has been forced to lower its standards in order to replenish its ranks. The mercenary group is drawing from unconventional sources, including convicts who have been promised freedom in exchange for fighting in Ukraine.

Ukrainian personnel look over a grave for Russian troops near Kharkiv on May 9. Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

"Very limited training is made available to new recruits," The British Ministry of Defense said in its July 18 assessment, adding that the trend "will highly likely impact on the future operational effectiveness of the group and will reduce its value as a prop to the regular Russian forces."

Wagner forces have been aiding regular Russian troops in achieving what are now Moscow's main objectives, including the capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk this summer, which gave Russia control of the Luhansk region.

Amid those operations, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the oligarch believed to oversee Wagner Group, was granted the title Hero of the Russian Federation. That award, and Wagner's growing role in the war, come as senior Russian military commanders are being fired and replaced because of their forces' poor performance.

The Kremlin's increasing reliance on Wagner Group, among other private military companies, "is likely to exacerbate grievances between the military and Wagner" and "to impact negatively on Russian military morale," the Ministry of Defense said in its July 18 assessment.

Wagner Group

Yevgeny Prigozhin with Putin at a factory outside St. Petersburg in September 2010. ALEXEY DRUZHININ/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

Wagner and other mercenary groups, many of which originated from the exodus of military personnel following the Soviet collapse, are closely linked to powerful interests in Moscow.

The Kremlin's internal workings  intelligence services, the military, and oligarchs competing for resources and influence  have created the perfect conditions for Wagner to emerge and grow.

Wagner has earned Putin's favor and international infamy from its operations on every battlefield it has deployed to over the past decade, including conflicts in Libya, Mali, Syria, the Central African Republic, and Ukraine.

Wagner's mercenaries have also engaged US troops, most notably in northeastern Syria in 2018, when Wagner and Syrian pro-regime fighters attacked an outpost manned by US and Kurdish forces.

US forces made quick work of the attackers, killing hundreds, including many Wagner members.

Syrian and Russian soldiers at a checkpoint in Damascus in March 2018. Omar Sanadiki/Reuters

Outside of Ukraine, the US is watching Wagner closely, especially in Africa, where the group is Moscow's "main action arm," US Army Gen. Stephen Townsend said at a Defense Writers Group event in late July.

Wagner has roughly 1,000 fighters in Mali, where the group has deployed "sophisticated" radars and air defenses, but it appears to have "the greatest influence and sway" in the Central African Republic, where "basically they prop up that government," said Townsend, who retired as head of US Africa Command in August.

Townsend said Wagner had pulled mercenaries from Africa, mostly from Libya, to support operations in Ukraine.

When Russia's military "got into trouble in Ukraine," Townsend said, "they called for help and Prigozhin was tasked to send fighters there, and he has."

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. He is currently working toward a master's degree in strategy and cybersecurity at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Sweetser

As many in our community have witnessed firsthand, migration at our southwestern border is on the rise and so are safety concerns on both sides of the border. We are on track to break records for the migration this year. It may also be the deadliest year on record for migrants. High temperatures, the potential for flash floods, and other extreme weather conditions make the already dangerous journey much more perilous. The tragic deaths of 53 migrants trapped in a tractor trailer in sweltering San Antonio, Texas heat in June illustrate the dire need for action.

Recently, I initiated several meetings with White House officials requesting federal assistance at our border region. I am asking them to continue investing in our community to ensure our residents are safe and secure in their homes and properties, and to prevent further tragedies.

Here in southern New Mexico, our communities have long had a cooperative, peaceful and charitable coexistence with our neighbors to the south. Many of us have familial or personal relationships that supersede any official lines or boundaries. What we want more than anything is for all members of our community, on both sides of the border, to be safe. However, to do so, we need greater oversight and investment to ensure safety, especially since many of our Border Patrol agents periodically get reassigned to the El Paso region.

In consideration of the many New Mexicans who live along the southern border, the migrants at risk in extreme weather, and our Border Patrol agents, I am asking the Biden Administration to retain a full complement of Border Patrol agents in the New Mexico border region spanning Hidalgo and Luna counties. I am also asking for several practical improvements to border security, including completing all electrical and lighting work, installing smart technologies like cameras and ground monitoring devices, and building safe access roads and drainage structures. Since many of these measures were previously approved by the federal government, my request is for the work to begin in short order.

Story continues

Full staffing of the border region and smart, practical security measures are paramount in order to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone on both sides of our border. I know our community will continue to welcome and support those migrant families who need our help, but right now, we also need our federal government to lend a hand.

New Mexico Rep. Candie Sweetser, D-Deming, is running for reelection to House District 32.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Sweetser: A safer border region for everyone
Sen. Chuck Schumer

(CNN)  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that he intends to hold a vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage into federal law "in the coming weeks," and hopes there will be enough Republican support to pass it.

Schumer also said he would prefer to bring it to the floor as a separate piece of legislation, and not attached to a must-pass government funding bill.

"Let me be clear a vote will happen -- a vote on marriage equality will happen on the Senate floor in the coming weeks, and I hope there will be 10 Republicans to support it," Schumer said at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

The Senate returned to Washington after the August recess this week and Democrats, who control the chamber, must decide how and when to hold votes on several key items ahead of the upcoming November midterm elections where control of Congress is at stake.

The main must-pass legislative item on the to-do list is a bill to extend government funding past a September 30 deadline and avert a shutdown, but Democrats are also pushing to hold a vote on same-sex marriage. There have been questions over whether the same-sex marriage bill could be attached to the government funding measure, but prominent supporters of the bill have pushed back and argued it should take place as a stand-alone vote.

Schumer on Wednesday said of the same-sex marriage legislation, "we would prefer to do it as a separate bill. We hope there are 10 Republicans to help us with that," when asked if it would be attached to a must-pass government funding bill.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy told reporters on Wednesday that same-sex marriage legislation will not be included in the continuing resolution, otherwise known as a "CR" -- a short-term government funding package to avert a shutdown.

"Not going to happen," the Vermont Democrat said of adding the bill to the funding measure.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also expressed support for a "clean" stop-gap bill to extend government funding at a separate news conference, implying that additional items should not be attached, though he did not specifically reference the same-sex marriage bill.

Story continues

"I think the key to getting the CR done with the least amount of controversy is for it to be as clean as possible," he said.

Momentum -- and support -- has picked up on Capitol Hill for a Senate vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The Democrat-led House of Representatives passed a bill to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into federal law in July, amid fears among Democrats that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court could take aim at same-sex marriage in the future.

Democrats could use the issue to force a tough vote for vulnerable Republicans up for reelection in November, but it's still not clear if the necessary support would ultimately be there to pass the legislation. At least 10 Republicans would have to vote with all Democrats to overcome a filibuster and pass the legislation.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said that they are "darn close" to getting 10 Republicans on board.

Asked if the bill could come to the floor before the midterms, Baldwin said, "Oh, absolutely," and she added that folding it into the continuing resolution to fund the government is "not my preferred route."

"I think we should have a vote sooner rather than later," she said.

Concerns over religious liberty

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who had previously signaled he would vote in favor of a bill codifying same-sex marriage, said Wednesday that he now cannot support it as written, citing concerns over religious liberty.

"Not in its current form," he told CNN when asked if he still supports the bill.

"There have been very serious issues raised about religious liberty, and I'll take those seriously," Johnson said as he boarded an elevator in the Capitol, adding that he was working with other senators to find new language that could be added by amendment to satisfy their concerns.

A bipartisan group of negotiators -- working to get at least 60 votes for the bill -- is considering adding language to the bill to address concerns of critics, but it's unclear if what they may come up with would satisfy Johnson.

Johnson is in a tight reelection race in Wisconsin. Previously, he had said he didn't think the new law was necessary and Democrats were pushing for its passage for political reasons, but nevertheless signaled he would back it. "Even though I feel the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary, should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it," Johnson said in July.

Another Republican, Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, said he is still weighing the legislation and also cited religious liberty concerns.

"I don't think government should play any role whatsoever in sanctioning what for, you know, hundreds of millions of Americans are a religious sacrament," said Young, who is up for reelection. "But that's not the choice I'll be offered if this comes before the Senate. I do understand that. And so I haven't made up my final mind about any legislative text, because I don't think the text has been finalized and because I'm still consulting with my constituents on this matter."

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

The-CNN-Wire

 &  2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Related: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson Tries to Explain Flip on Marriage Equality Vote
Sep. 10State police are searching for suspects after officers say debit and credit cards stolen from lockers at LA Fitness in Hempfield were used to purchase $2,400 worth of items from the Hempfield Walmart.

On Sept. 2, two lockers were broken into at the LA Fitness near the intersection of Route 30 and S. Greengate Road after the locks were cut with bolt cutters, police said.

Several cards were taken from the victims' wallets, and they later reported several charges on the cards from Walmart in Greengate Centre between 7:15 and 7:25 p.m. that day.

Officers reviewed surveillance footage from LA Fitness and Walmart.

Walmart loss prevention also provided police with surveillance photos and transaction lists confirming the use of the cards.

Anyone with information on the incident can call state police at 724-832-3288.

Megan Tomasic is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Megan by email at mtomasic@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed for new, "Stop Woke" restrictions on how race is discussed in schools, universities and workplaces.

George Orwell is best remembered for his novel 1984, envisioning a dreary society of Big Brother mind control, but he was a bit more accurate with a pithy little epigram about presumably great minds thinking alike.

Some ideas are so stupid, Orwell observed, that only intellectuals believe them.

You must be educated within an inch of your life  or just easily intimidated  to give credence to the cultural silliness being rigidly enforced on many college campuses and seeping into the business world, including much of todays news media.

But the antidote to political correctness is what Orwell suggested: Laugh at it, ridicule its excesses or, when necessary, counter goofy ideas with good ones. We shouldnt pass laws against it. We dont need the civil authority of the state to protect us from cultural fads, on campus or in the workplace.

Unfortunately, this being an election year and Gov. Ron DeSantis being up for re-election, Florida law is being used  misused  to knock down handy straw men. (To be non-sexist, perhaps we should make that last term straw person). Anyway, the governors Stop WOKE Act has now drawn at least four lawsuits contending that its strictures violate the First Amendment  not to mention individual rights and freedom.

Stopping 'wokeness': DeSantis Stop WOKE Act faces court test as universities become targets. At issue: free speech

Stopping 'Stop WOKE': Trio of lawsuits target Florida's anti-wokeness law pushed by DeSantis

Evolving wokeness: What does it mean to be 'woke,' and why does Florida Governor Ron DeSantis want to stop it?

Woke is shorthand for what used to be called political correctness, a hypersensitivity to all matters concerning race, sex, disability and an ever-growing list of other stuff. Essentially, to be woke is to assume that we have a right to go through life perpetually un-offended, and that anyone who offends us may be summarily cancelled.

Naturally, this prompted reaction ranging from mild amusement to stark terror among most people. The highly educated, however, didnt get the joke and corporate America  perhaps figuring it was cheaper than fighting lawsuits  went along with it.

Story continues

DeSantis tapped into public resentment as he cranked up his re-election campaign. In perhaps the most strained acronym ever, he got the Legislature to enact the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, which sort of spells out WOKE. Its aimed at things like Critical Race Theory  which isnt being taught in public schools, but denouncing it is always a crowd-pleaser at Republican rallies  and diversity, equity and inclusion training in businesses, another GOP scarecrow.

The law forbids teaching students they have responsibility for or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex. Also, teaching must not imply that kids should feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.

The governor called it freedom from indoctrination. But one persons education is anothers indoctrination.

More from Bill Cotterell:

An organization called FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, last week filed a federal lawsuit along with a University of South Florida student and professor. They argue that the law unconstitutionally curtails free discussion of history, law, current events, and many other ideas.

Each of the concepts prohibited by the Stop WOKE Act addresses matters of public concern, regardless of whether some find those concepts uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable or offensive, says their 91-page complaint.

The same goes for businesses. If a company thinks it needs to require diversity training, its none of the governments business.

And if some instructors take virtue-signaling too far, when they go from teaching to preaching, they should be argued with. We dont need a law to protect us from hurt feelings about history.

Fortunately, a lot of the culture wars  the WOKE act, the Dont Say Gay law, maybe even the 15-week abortion edict  will go away after Nov. 8. Either well get another governor (not likely), judges will throw laws out, or the statutes will have served the governors re-election purpose.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat capitol reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com.

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: Stop WOKE lawsuits fighting DeSantis' straw persons | Bill Cotterell
Ukraine's armed forces have recaptured large swaths of territory and are making "significant gains" against Russia's occupation of the northwest region of Kharkiv, the U.K.'s defense ministry said in an intelligence briefing Sunday.

Russian forces have likely withdrawn units from the area, but fighting continues around the strategically important cities of Kupiansk and Izyum, it said in its daily update on the war in Ukraine, posted to Twitter.

Ukraine's government claims Russia's retreat from Kharkiv is a major turning point in the six-month-old conflict, as thousands of Russian soldiers abandoned their weapons and ammunition stockpiles to flee the Ukrainian advance, they said.

Some Western experts have described the withdrawal as the worst defeat for Russian forces since they were forced back from the capital Kyiv in March.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya and a loyal ally to Russian President Putin, said in a Telegram post on Sunday that "mistakes were made" by the Russian Ministry of Defense in its strategy. "If changes are not made today or tomorrow in the strategy of conducting a special operation, I will have to contact the leadership of the Ministry of Defense," he added.

On his Telegram channel Sunday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy said the Ukrainian flag had returned to Chkalovske, Kharkiv region.

It will be like that everywhere. We will expel the occupiers from every Ukrainian town and village, he added.

Russias Defense Ministry said in a Telegram post Saturday that a decision was made to regroup some of its troops from the Balakliya and Izyum areas  Izyum had been a major base for Moscows troops  and transfer them to Ukraines eastern Donetsk region.

The move was made in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas, the ministry said, referring to the industrial heartland in Ukraines east that became the focal point of the Kremlins war after it was forced to give up on its assault on the capital, Kyiv.

Story continues

NBC News could not independently verify the claims of either side.

Ukrainian flags placed on statues in a square in Balakliya, Kharkiv region of Ukraine on Sept. 10, 2022. (Juan Barreto / AFP - Getty Images)

But a former commander of pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, Igor Girkin, called the Russian pullback a major defeat in comments on his Telegram channel.

During a news conference on Sunday, Ukraine's army chief said his forces had recaptured 3,000 km (about 1,860 miles) of territory from Russia since the counteroffensive was launched in the beginning of September. NBC News could not verify this claim.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised earlier this week to continue Moscows military efforts in Ukraine, saying that his country was gaining rather than losing from the conflict.

Events on the battlefield appeared to paint a bleak picture for the Kremlin, however.

Ukraine initially launched a counteroffensive in the countrys south late last month after weeks of public buildup and preparation as it aimed to push toward Kherson, a key city near the southern coast.

Then this week, after Russia redeployed large numbers of its own forces to the south to combat that effort, reports began to emerge of Kyivs forces launching another counteroffensive farther north  a move that appeared to catch both the broader world and Moscows military off guard.

Image: UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-WAR (Juan Barreto / AFP - Getty Images)

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the last operational reactor at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine has been shut down.

Energoatom, the state-owned company in charge of the plant, said on Sunday that work at the facility had been completely stopped after it disconnected the Number 6 power unit from the grid at 3:41 a.m. (8:41 p.m. ET).

A decision was made to shut down power unit No 6 and transfer it to the safest state  cold shutdown, it said on Telegram.

The Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, was cut off from the grid last week after all its power lines were disconnected as a result of fighting in the area. It ran on island mode for several days, officials said, generating electricity for crucial cooling systems from its only remaining operational reactor.

Energoatom said it restored a communications line to the power system, allowing the plant to be powered by Ukraines energy grid long enough to initiate the shutdown.

The company said the shutdown took place because the risk of further damage to the power lines remains high, which would disconnect the plant completely from the grid again.

Russia and Ukraine accused each other of damaging power lines at the Zaporizhzhia site with rocket and artillery fire, risking a potential nuclear disaster.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
You are here: World

 Flash

A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport.

Speaking at the ceremony, Zheng Zhihong, minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Myanmar, said China has so far provided Myanmar with 53 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, a solid guarantee for the health of the people of Myanmar and a demonstration of the spirit of building a China-Myanmar community with a shared future.

Tun Min, deputy director-general of Yangon Regional Health Department, said Myanmar has received large amounts of assistance from China in the fight against COVID-19, including test kits, vaccines, medical supplies and medical equipment, reflecting the close cooperation between Myanmar and China.

Myanmar has already vaccinated more than 36.8 million people, or roughly over 66 percent of its total population, for COVID-19 as of Sept. 6, the health ministry's data showed.

As of Friday, Myanmar reported 616,401 cases of COVID-19 and 19,442 related deaths, official data showed.
The 1800 block of Arcadia Street in Oxnard. A suspect in a June home invasion case has been linked to a double shooting in Port Hueneme, police say.

Two suspects have been charged in an Oxnard home invasion case in June that turned deadly for an alleged accomplice, according to the Oxnard Police Department.

One of the suspects has also been arrested in connection with a double shooting two days later at a Port Hueneme park.

The Oxnard incident was reported on the night of June 27 in the 1800 block of Arcadia Street in the Cal Gisler neighborhood.

Three suspects, later identified as Antonio Molina, 37, Marco Antonio Juarez, 31, and Frankie Anthony Morales, 37, all from Oxnard, had attempted to commit a home invasion robbery at a residence, according to police.

During the robbery, the homeowner, a 43-year-old Oxnard man, armed himself with a handgun and tried to defend himself from the suspected robbers, authorities said.

One suspect, Molina, reportedly attacked the homeowner. The homeowner fired his gun at Molina, hitting him in the torso. Authorities previously said the homeowner had been stabbed several times during the incident, suffering injuries that were not life-threatening but resulted in treatment at a hospital.

Another suspect, Juarez, was standing outside the residence. When he heard the gunshot, he "recklessly" fired a semiautomatic handgun into the home, police allege. Nobody was hit by the Juarez's gunfire.

Molina took the homeowner's gun and fled in a vehicle with Juarez and Morales, officials said. Molina was dropped off at St. John's Regional Medical Center for treatment of the gunshot wound. He was transferred to Ventura County Medical Center, where he later died.

Port Hueneme shootings

On June 29, two days after the Oxnard home invasion, a double shooting in Port Hueneme took place shortly after 4 p.m. at Bubbling Springs Park, 850 Bard Road.

A man and a woman in their 20s were both hospitalized with critical gunshot wounds. Port Hueneme Police Department officers searched the area but were unable to find a suspect.

Story continues

Later that night, Oxnard police officers with the special enforcement unit pulled over a car near J Street and Bard Road, close to Bubbling Springs Park.

Police in Port Hueneme investigated a double shooting on June 29 near Bubbling Springs Park that critically injured a man and a woman in their 20s. A suspect arrested Wednesday is also linked to an Oxnard home invasion incident, police say.

Juarez, a passenger in the vehicle, had an unregistered semiautomatic handgun, a so-called "ghost gun," according to police. He was arrested on suspicion of a firearms violation as well as an outstanding arrest warrant.

Sgt. Edgar Fernandez of the Oxnard department's major crimes unit said the police investigation linked the gun seized from Juarez to the Oxnard home invasion.

"The gun that we recovered is the gun that he used on Arcadia," Fernandez said.

On Sept. 2, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office filed charges against Juarez of attempted murder, home invasion, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, shooting at an inhabited dwelling and additional firearms violations. He is set to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 30 in room 13 of Ventura County Superior Court.

On Wednesday, Port Hueneme police arrested Juarez on suspicion of attempted murder in connection with the Bubbling Springs Park shootings. As of midday Sunday, prosecutors had not yet filed charges in that case.

Juarez remained in county jail Sunday with bail set at $1.43 million. He is currently ineligible for release due to a parole hold, according to online jail records.

Second arrest

Oxnard police later arrested Morales, the other surviving suspect in the home invasion incident, after an hours-long barricade in July that required deployment of tear gas and a K-9 police dog.

The incident started around 2:50 a.m. on July 22 at an apartment complex in the 1100 block of South Oxnard Boulevard when officers tried to serve a felony arrest warrant. When police surrounded Morales' apartment and ordered him to come out, he refused and barricaded himself inside, authorities said.

A woman and child were escorted from the unit and neighboring apartments were evacuated before police used tear gas. Nearly four hours later, Morales was detained after deployment of a K-9 unit.

Morales was booked on suspicion of home invasion robbery, resisting arrest, falsely reporting a crime and street terrorism. Prosecutors filed charges on Sept. 2. His next court date is set for the same time as Juarez on Sept. 30.

Morales remained in jail Sunday with bail set at $950,000, jail records showed, but is ineligible for release due to a parole hold.

Oxnard Police Department SWAT officers deploy tear gas while responding to a barricaded subject on July 22.

No arrest of homeowner

Fernandez, the police sergeant, said the homeowner has not been arrested in connection with Molina's fatal shooting since the incident may be classified as a justifiable homicide in self-defense.

The case has been submitted to the DA's office for review.

"We have the district attorney's office review it as well to give us an independent perspective," Fernandez said. "We want to see if it concurs with what we found in the investigation."

Investigation into the home invasion remains ongoing, although no additional arrests are expected, Fernandez said.

If you have photos or video of any part of the incident, you can submit the evidence to investigators at: https://oxnardpd.evidence.com/axon/citizen/public/1800arcadia.

Anyone with information about the Oxnard case is asked to call Detective Ken Tougas at 805-200-5669.

Anyone with information about the Port Hueneme shootings is asked to call Senior Detective Baltazar Tapia at 805-986-6619.

Jeremy Childs is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached at 805-437-0208, jeremy.childs@vcstar.com, and on Twitter @Jeremy_Childs.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Suspect in fatal Oxnard incident linked to Port Hueneme shootings
HOUSTON (AP)  The Houston Texans used their opener Sunday against Indianapolis to honor and remember the victims of the Uvalde Elementary school shooting.

The Texans hosted the Uvalde high school football team and wore Uvalde Strong decals on their helmets after 19 children and two teachers were killed in a shooting there in May.

The team joined with grocery store chain H-E-B to pay for the team to travel the 280 miles from Uvalde and watch the game from a suite. Its part of the teams continuing support for the community after donating $400,000 to the Robb Elementary School memorial fund soon after the shooting.

Senior linebacker Justyn Rendon said it was the first time most of his teammates had ever attended an NFL game.

It means a lot to a lot of these guys just to get away from Uvalde in general and just enjoy being here, he said. A lot of these guys may never experience an NFL game like this. So its a real big thing.

Uvalde coach Wade Miller said they want to do whatever they can to continue to honor those who lost their lives in the shooting.

As far as the memory of 21, its important to us, he said. We all either lost somebody or knew somebody (that did) and ... were like the rest of the world, we just want to help in some way. And hopefully this helps.

A video recognizing the team was shown on the video board in the stadium during a timeout in the first quarter Sunday. Uvalde players cheered as they were shown on the screens before a message that read: We stand with Uvalde" flashed on the boards.

A contingent from the Texans including linebackers Christian Kirksey and Kamu Grugier-Hill visited Uvalde earlier this month and surprised the team with new uniforms provided by Nike during a team dinner.

They were both thrilled to have the team at Sunday's opener.

Whenever those kind of things happen, news comes in, people come in and theyre with them for a little bit," Grugier-Hill said. But at the end of the day, the reality is the people leave and theyve got to still deal with the reality of what happened. So to just be with them for a little bit and just try to bring some joy to them and get them out here is great (and) Im glad theyre here today."

Story continues

Kirksey said he's built relationships with some of the players and enjoyed getting to know them before their visit to Houston.

For them to allow me to come visit their city and sit down and go to their school, go to their field, it was good to have them come to Houston and see us play as well," he said. So it was great to have them in the stands."

Miller has been overwhelmed by the support the Texans have give his team.

Its unbelievable, he said. You live out in a small southwest Texas town, and to know people care about us and when these guys find out that those guys want to know what their score is, it means the world.

Rendon was asked if he was a Texans fan before the game. He paused and looked sheepish before answering.

Ill be totally honest, Im 49ers fan, he said. But its just amazing and wonderful what the Texans have done for us and the whole city of Houston, too.

Added Miller: We have a lot of fans on our team of a bunch of different teams  but were all Texans fans now.

Both Miller and Rendon spoke about how sports has helped the city find a distraction and try to heal in the wake of such an unthinkable tragedy. Rendon takes special pride in wearing No. 21 on his jersey to remember the victims every time he takes the field.

It means a lot, especially to the city of Uvalde just being able to run out on Friday nights and represent the 21 lives that were lost on May 24, he said. Im representing them on and off the field."

___

More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://apnews.com/hub/pro-32 and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Thousands of opponents of a pan-European LGBTQ event planned for this week in Belgrade marched through the Serbian capital on Sunday despite an announced ban of Europes largest annual gay gathering.

The procession called by the conservative Serbian Orthodox Church and led by its clergy included anti-Western slogans as well as Russian flags and portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Organizers of the EuroPride  which includes a week of events and a Pride march in Belgrade on Sept. 17  have said they will ignore the police ban and hold the LGBTQ festivities.

Members of the European Pride Organizers Association chose Serbias capital three years ago to host the annual event, hoping it would represent a major breakthrough for a Slavic country that is traditionally conservative and under strong influence from the Orthodox Church.

Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership, but has for years been moving closer to Russias political orbit. The Balkan country has voted for U.N. resolutions condemning Russias invasion of Ukraine, but has refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow.

Serbias populist President Aleksandar Vucic, who has announced the ban, said Serbias police cannot cope with possible riots by right-wing groups against the Pride march amid a crisis over Serbias breakaway province of Kosovo as well as the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

Serbias rights groups have urged supporters to join the Pride march as part of struggle for democracy that they say is under threat in Serbia from Vucics autocratic regime.

Several EU officials have said they will join the LGBTQ events, while those calling on the Serbian government to reverse the announced ban include U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken.
Canadian filmmaker Sophie Jarvis takes inspiration from her childhood in Okanagan, B.C. as she explores the concept of invasion in the drama Until Branches Bend, starring Grace Glowicki and premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Until Branches Bend is largely centred around Robin (Glowicki), a grader at a canning factory, which employs almost everyone in the town. During a shift, Robin discovers a bug inside a peach. She tries to alert her boss to no avail, but she keeps trying to sound the alarm bell until, eventually, the entire factory is shut down, causing economic concerns and distress for the whole town, and putting a target on Robins back.

We shot in a place called Summerland, which is in the Okanagan in B.C. where my mom grew up, so my grandparents actually have been living there for the last 50, 60 years, Jarvis told Yahoo Canada. Its a really beautiful place, it's very idyllic. I would grow up going to visit them several times a year and I was always really taken with just the quaintness of the community in the summertime, especially when there was just this total abundance of fruit, and the lake and the green grass.

I was really inspired by the landscape of this place that felt very near to me, and I guess I was just [thinking], 'What can be going on under the surface of such a perfect place?' So, my mum actually used to work in a fruit packing house and she would tell me stories about that, and I was just thinking about that as a setting, as well. The idea of a bug, to me, is quite interesting, it's very small but it causes a lot of chaos, so there's something that I really liked about that visual.

Until Branches Bend, written and directed by Sophie Jarvis, starring Grace Glowicki and Alexandra Roberts.

Her pregnancy isn't 'as big of a deal as her personal struggle'

While dealing with the stress of finding this bug, with many in the town trying to disprove her discovery, Robin is also seemingly growing apart from her sister, Laney (Alexandra Roberts), whom she lives with. She is also managing a pregnancy, which occurred from an affair with her married boss, Dennis (Lochlyn Munro), and battling personal and bureaucratic barriers to abortion.

Story continues

While an employee, specifically a woman, having an affair with her male boss may seem like a story we've all seen many times before, the way Sophie Jarvis includes it in this story is interesting because the focus is truly on Robin's internal struggle, not really the relationship itself.

When it came to establishing that relationship, its never explicitly stated that Robins boss is the father of her unborn child, which Jarvis found created an interesting gender divide for viewers of her film.

I never wanted the relationship to seem non-consensual, Jarvis explained. Ultimately, what I wanted to do was show that this is not really a film about an affair or about a man. It's a film about a woman who happens to be seeking an abortion and the circumstances of her pregnancy aren't as big of a deal as her personal struggle to end the pregnancy.

I found that while we were going through the cuts, a lot of men didn't know who the father was and they were really fixated on knowing who the father was. But women all knew who it was ... There's this very surprising gender divide that came out of it. I don't know if it still exists. I'm curious to see now that the film's complete and playing, if people are still going to be questioning that, but it was really interesting to me to see who cared a lot about the paternity of the child.

Grace Glowicki and Lochlyn Munro in Sophie Jarvis's "Until Branches Bend," premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Jarvis added that the imbalance of power between Robin and Dennis, in particular, was something she wanted to display, in addition to the power of desire.

I think that there's a lot of power in desire and I think it's a very human thing to want to be desired or to have a desire," Jarvis said.

Whatever happened between them, we don't have to explore, we don't have to see it, but I do think it's believable that two people might have a situation like that happen, based on the fact that maybe they feel attracted to someone simply because they are desired by that person ... I just feel like that element isn't talked about enough  women wanting to be desired, or acting on that.

Sophie Jarvis is pictured here on set.

'I was just sort of trying to tell a story'

While Sophie Jarvis wrote the first draft of the script about six years ago, environmental concerns, invasions, quarantines and abortion rights are more topical than ever.

I think what was really interesting and kind of scary for me was seeing how a lot of those themes are really coming to light, especially with climate change, ... and of course, this idea of a quarantine and everything getting shut down because of this one thing, Jarvis said. I wasn't trying to make a movie about a hot topic, I was just sort of trying to tell a story.

There are different invasions happening in the film. One is the bug, the other is her unwanted pregnancy and her inability to have any agency over her own body because of bureaucratic issues. Then another, also, is just this idea of monoculture, ... so this idea of just what does it mean to have generations and generations of a farming community where everything is based on this one industry, but it's also on land that wasn't really supposed to host that type of fruit at that scale. The Indigenous landscape is largely unaffected by the bug, whereas the settler landscape is.

Watching Until Branches Bend is a very sensory experience. The use of different perspectives in Jarviss filmmaking visually, the sounds used to really emphasize a buildup of tension and uncomfortableness, is one aspect of this movie that makes it unique.

I write a lot of those sounds and visuals into the script, Jarvis said. I'll have people tell me that when they read the script, they can really feel it, ... things like the dog's toenails on the floor. I write that stuff and people always bring up that detail with me where they're like, Oh, I knew exactly what this dog was,... everyone knows the sound of an old dog's toenails on a floor.

My background as a production designer, working with the production designer and the art team to sort of talk about, what are the common themes that we can all share with each other so that we're all on the same page as early as possible. So things like, something being below the surface, finding textures, being able to shoot through dirty windows, finding a way to translate that to set design or how to translate that with how we are doing our composition.

For people who watch Until Branches Bend, Jarvis explained that shed like people to think about the theme of invasion differently.

I'm just trying to show what real struggles there are in a speculative situation, so I'm hoping that when people watch it, that they can find something to relate to within it, Jarvis said. I would like people to consider the theme of invasion as something that isn't necessarily outwardly violent or visible, and to think about the different ways that invasions happen in our day to day lives.
Watch: Scottish farmers form tractor guard of honour as Queen's coffin passes through Aberdeenshire

This is the moment Scottish farmers pay a touching tribute to the Queen - by forming a guard of honour made up of tractors.

The tractors were positioned as the monarchs procession travelled through Aberdeenshire on Sunday.

About 40 tractors were parked on either side of the road as the cortege drove through, with clips of the moment viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media.

Robbie Moore, the MP for Keighley and Ilkley, praised it as an "incredible illustration of pure respect".

The tractor guard of honour for the Queen.

It came as thousands of well-wishers lined the streets of villages, towns and cities as the Queens coffin began its journey to its final resting place.

The cortege left Balmoral Castle, where Her Majesty died aged 96 on Thursday, for the last time at 10am on Sunday.

As part of the six-hour, 180-mile journey to Edinburgh, it first headed to the nearby town of Ballater in Aberdeenshire, where many locals considered her a neighbour.

Members of the public pay their respects as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland, is driven through Ballater. (AFP via Getty Images)

Read more: Emotional armed forces veteran recounts time he made supper for the Queen

It also passed through cities including Aberdeen and Dundee, and was set to arrive in the Scottish capital at about 4pm.

The coffin will be taken into the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where it will remain for the night before being taken to St Giles Cathedral for a service on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday, it will be flown to London with a procession to Buckingham Palace, where the Queens lying in state will begin, lasting for four days and ending on the morning of the state funeral on Monday, 19 September.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks to reporters on his way to a vote as lawmakers react to a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 25, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Tim Kaine says Trump stored classified documents as a "get out of jail free card."

During an interview with CNN, he said Trump needs to be held accountable.

His comments come after the FBI seized sensitive government records from Trump's home.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine on Saturday said that the reason former President Donald Trump had highly classified documents stored at his Florida estate was to later use them as leverage in any potential prosecution.

"My gut tells me the reason that Donald Trump took all this classified informationI'm on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee. I spend a lot of time in secure Senate facilities I know what this information is like," the Virginia lawmaker told CNN. "The reason Trump took this with him to Florida was probably to try to either sell it or have it as a get out of jail free card."

"Under Biden, these secrets are safe," Kaine added. "But the DOJ effort, the FBI effort, to bring back these secrets so that Donald Trump doesn't have them and have some consequences for him for taking them with him in an unauthorized way."

"It's really important that we impose accountability for this."

His comments come after the FBI seized sensitive documents last month, some reportedly labeled "top secret," from Mar-a-Lago that Trump took with him from the White House. Court records revealed that Trump had the documents mixed with his personal items, including clothing and books.

The Department of Justice is investigating whether Trump was wrong to store government records in his home. The agency claimed that there may be more missing documents that they have yet to recover.

Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, also told CNN last month Trump would use the documents as a "bargaining chip."

"The second they would put him in handcuffs, he would turn around and say: I have the documentation showing, for example, where our nuclear launch pads are," Cohen said on the program.

"He would use it to say,' If you proceed with this, I'm telling you right now there's 20 of my loyal supporters, you don't know who they are, but we will release that information to Russia, to Iran, to whoever it might be."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb. AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

The chances of Donald Trump getting indicted are "very high," a former White House lawyer said.

"I think the president is in serious legal water," former White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CBS News.

Earlier this year, an ex-prosecutor also said he believes that testimony from Capitol rioters will eventually culminate in a devastating blow to Trump.

President Donald Trump's former White House lawyer said there's a "very high" chance that the ex-president will face an indictment in relation to the January 6 Capitol riot.

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb made the assertion during an interview with CBS News' Major Garrett, released Friday.

"I think the president is in serious legal water," Cobb said. "Not so much because of the [Mar-a-Lago] search, but because of the obstructive activity he took in connection with the January 6 proceeding and the attempts to interfere in the election count in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and perhaps Michigan."

Last month, the FBI recovered several boxes containing classified records that Trump took with him from the White House once he left office, according to the court records made public. The search unearthed more than two dozen boxes containing some "11,000 documents and 1,800 other items from the office and storage room," according to court filings. Some of the boxes were distinctly marked as "top secret," Insider's Sonam Sheth reported.

Some of those materials include private and potentially sensitive documents like medical, tax, and accounting records, the court said. Under the Presidential Records Act, presidential records must be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration upon leaving office.

The Justice Department is now investigating whether Trump violated any laws pertaining to the handling of government documents.

But Cobb in the interview said he believes the FBI's search is linked to a broader investigation into Trump's role in the Capitol riot, which lawmakers have scrutinized for months.

Story continues

"It is about the bigger picture, the January 6 issues, the fake electors, the whole scam with regard to the 'big lie' and the attempts to  cling to the presidency in a desperate fashion," Cobb said.

The Capitol riot left five people, including one police officer, dead. Members of the Proud Boys, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, were also present.

The House committee investigating the riot held public hearings earlier this year, which included testimony from various former Trump administration aides  creating a clearer timeline of the president's actions before and after the riot.

Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as a close aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, disclosed a number of shocking revelations, including that Trump knew some of his loyalists gathered in Washington were armed, the president supposedly lunged at his driver in order to take control of a Secret Service vehicle, and when hearing rioters chanting that Vice President Mike Pence should be hanged, the president said he "deserves" it.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who emerged as a star witness during the hearings, testified in a recorded deposition that dealing with Trump's claims of election fraud were like "playing Whac-a-Mole" and that the allegations were "bogus."

"Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended," Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel's vice-chair, said at the hearing.

Read the original article on Business Insider
(Reuters) - Britain dismissed as untrue on Sunday Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertion that only a fraction of grain exported from Ukraine under an international deal was going to poor countries.

Putin said on Wednesday, without citing a source, that only two of 87 ships, carrying 60,000 tonnes of products, had gone to poor countries. The deal to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, took effect last month.

Quoting U.N. figures, the British Defence Ministry said that around 30% of grains exported under the deal has been supplied to low and middle-income countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Russia is pursuing a deliberate misinformation strategy as it seeks to deflect blame for food insecurity issues, discredit Ukraine and minimize opposition to its invasion, the ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on Twitter.

(Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; Editing by Frances Kerry)
By Tom Balmforth

ZOLOCHIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukrainian forces swept deeper into territory seized from fleeing Russian troops on Monday and joyful residents returned to former frontline villages, while Moscow's shells rained down on Kharkiv, setting off fires across the region's main city.

Ukraine's general staff said its soldiers had recaptured more than 20 towns and villages in just the past day. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine's troops had retaken 6,000 square kilometers (2,400 square miles) of Russian-held land since the start of the month, twice the figure given just a day earlier.

In the south, Ukrainian troops repelled attempted Russian advances in two important areas of the Donetsk region - the city of Bakhmut and Maiorsk, near the coal-producing town of Horlivka, the general staff said in an evening update.

"People are crying, people are joyful, of course. How could they not be joyful!" said retired English teacher Zoya, 76, in the now-quiet village of Zolochiv, north of Kharkiv and 18 km (10 miles) from the Russian frontier, weeping as she described the months she had spent sheltering in the cellar.

Nastya, 28, had fled the village in April but returned last week after news of Ukrainian advances. "I think everyone's in a great (mood). It's all over now. At least we hope it's all over," she said, queuing for groceries with two small children.

Vitaly Ganchev, the Russian-installed head of Moscow's occupation administration in what remained of Russian-held territory in the Kharkiv region, acknowledged that Ukrainian forces had broken through to the frontier.

The territory Zelenskiy said has been recaptured is a sliver of Ukraine's overall land mass of around 600,000 square km. It is approximately equivalent to the combined area of the West Bank and Gaza.

Russia has taken control of around a fifth of Ukraine since its troops invaded on Feb. 24.

'EMERGENCY DEFENSIVE ACTIONS'

Story continues

President Vladimir Putin and his senior officials have been silent in the face of Russian forces' worst defeat since the war's early weeks, when they were repelled from the outskirts of Kyiv.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov side-stepped a reporter's question of whether Putin still had confidence in the military leadership.

"The special military operation continues. And it will continue until the goals that were originally set are achieved," Peskov said.

Putin was later shown on state TV chairing a meeting on the economy at which he said Russia was holding up well in the face of Western sanctions.

"The economic blitzkrieg tactics, the onslaught they were counting on, did not work," he said.

After days of avoiding the subject, Russia's defence ministry acknowledged on Saturday it had abandoned its main stronghold in the northeast, Izium and neighbouring Balakliia, calling it a pre-planned "regrouping".

As thousands of Russian troops pulled back, leaving behind ammunition and equipment, Russia fired missiles at power stations on Sunday causing blackouts in the Kharkiv and adjacent Poltava and Sumy regions.

Ukraine denounced the strikes as retaliation against civilian targets for Russia's military setbacks.

On Monday, Russian strikes again disrupted power and water supply in Kharkiv itself, killing at least one person, its mayor said.

Throughout the day, shelling of residential areas and infrastructure sparked fires in the city, regional emergency services said on Facebook.

"As a result of shelling five fires have broken out. Administrative buildings and construction sites caught fire as did a number of vehicles," they said, adding that the largest fire was in an apartment building, with about 100 firefighters on site.

Moscow, which denies targeting civilians, did not comment, while the White House condemned the strikes and pledged its continued support for Kyiv.

A senior U.S. military official said many retreating Russian troops had exited Ukraine. Britain's ministry of defence said Russia had probably ordered a withdrawal from all of the Kharkiv region west of the Oskil River. That means abandoning the sole railway line that had sustained Russian operations in the northeast.

Kyiv, whose troops reached the river when they seized the railway hub city of Kupiansk on Saturday, suggested the Russians were falling even further back.

The Ukrainian general staff said Russian troops had abandoned Svatove in Luhansk province, a town some 20 km (12 miles) east of the Oskil. Reuters could not confirm the situation there.

Britain said Moscow also was struggling to bring reserves to the south, where Ukraine is attempting to isolate thousands of Russian soldiers on the west bank of the Dnipro River, forcing most Russian forces to focus on "emergency defensive actions."

A spokesperson for Ukraine's southern command said its forces had recaptured 500 square km of territory in the south. The situation there could not be independently confirmed.

Further Russian retreats could soon put Ukrainian forces in position to attack territory Russia and its local proxies have held since 2014. Denis Pushilin, leader of the pro-Russian separatist administration in Donetsk province, acknowledged pressure from multiple directions.

"At the very least, we have stopped the enemy at Lyman," he said in a post on Telegram overnight, referring to a frontline city east of Izium. He also described fighting at Bakhmut and Vuhledar further south.

Russian broadcasters have alluded to the setbacks but struggled to explain them, with commentators demanding a redoubled war effort.

"We must win the war in Ukraine! We must liquidate the Nazi regime!" one commentator said on a panel show on NTV television.

"And how many years is that supposed to take?" replied another. "So my 10-year-old children will get a chance to fight?"

(Reporting by Reuters reporters; Writing by Peter Graff, Tomasz Janowski and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Hugh Lawson and Bill Berkrot)
Ukraine intends to satisfy EUs eight criteria for membership by the end of 2022

Read also: Ukraine to get another EUR 3 billion from EU in October, says PM

Well be moving very quickly, said Shmyhal.

We examined how other countries made their journey to the EU. It took five, seven, eights years. We aspire to do the same in two years and achieve our goal of becoming a full member of the EU.

Read also: EU to provide Ukraine with EUR 5 billion in financial aid, von der Leyen says

The PM added that Ukraine has made its choice to continue mowing towards the Western civilization.

Meanwhile, Russia has already lost the war in the strategic sense, Shmyhal said. Moscow has chosen to remain prisoner of its decrepit Soviet, imperial model  the model thats currently being crushed in Ukraine.

Read also: Blinken discusses support for Ukraine, energy security with European Commission chief

The EU gave member candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova on June 23.

Ukrainian Deputy PM Olha Stefanishyna previously said Ukraine expects to accede to the EU within five years.

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
 Flash

Britain's King Charles III on Friday pledged "lifelong service" in his first address to the nation and the Commonwealth after assuming the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday.

"Throughout her life, Her Majesty the Queen (...) was an inspiration," he said in his televised speech. "Queen Elizabeth was a life well lived; a promise with destiny kept and she is mourned most deeply in her passing. That promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today."

He said he felt "profound sorrow" over the death of his mother and that he shared the public's "sense of loss beyond measure."

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch in history, died at Balmoral, Scotland, on Thursday, aged 96.

Charles, 73, will be officially proclaimed King at the Accession Council on Saturday in a ceremony held at St. James's Palace in London.

Charles bestowed the titles of Prince and Princess of Wales on his eldest son William and daughter-in-law Kate -- titles that he and his late wife Diana previously held.

He also expressed love for his son Harry and daughter-in-law Meghan Markle as they "continue to build their lives overseas."
Activists hold a demonstration against China's policies towards Uyghur Muslims in Jakarta, Indonesia on January 4, 2021. Siswono Toyudho/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The UN is facing the decision of how to respond to Chinese human rights violations of Uyghur Muslims.

A recent UN report outlined human rights abuses, which include arbitrary imprisonment.

China rejects the allegations and said action taken against the state will not work.

Multiple members of the UN Human Rights Council are considering bringing action against China over its treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Reuters reported.

Members of the UN committee are debating how to respond to UN report that said Uyghur people in China's Xinjiang region face persecution or imprisonment for acts including "rejecting or refusing radio and television" being "young and middle-aged men with a big beard," or "suddenly quit[ing] drinking and smoking."

The debate is intensifying now as a new term for the UN Human Rights Council starts on Monday, Reuters noted.

Some Western diplomats told Reuters that some democratic countries are considering their options for how they can respond to China, including a formal ruling or recommendation on China, which may involve an investigation into the State.

This would be the first time a resolution is brought on China for the first time in the 16-year history of the human rights council, Reuters noted.

The agenda for the council session  which runs from September 12 to October 4  does not currently include any discussions about Uighurs, Reuters noted, which means that one of the 47 countries on the council will have to propose it.

And members are weighing the chance to hold China accountable against the potential effects of taking action during what is already a time of global crisis, the report said.

Tunahan Turhan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Some diplomats have criticized the possibility of not acting.

Speaking on a condition of anonymity to Reuters, one Western diplomat said: "If the majority decide it is not worth acting after the violations denounced in the [China] report, it would mean that the universalist vision of human rights is at stake and the legal order would be weakened."

Story continues

Another said: "There's a cost of inaction, a cost of action and a cost of a failed attempt to act."

Zumrat Dawut told Insider her story of escaping from an internment camp for Uyghur Muslims. She said that in residential areas in Xinjiang, police monitor your at-home conversations and question any reference to Islam. People were seized if they had anything regarding their Muslim faith in their homes, she said.

She said she was taken to an internment camp where she was beaten, sterilized, and forced to deny the existence of Allah.

China has repeatedly denied any allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims.

It also rejected the UN report, saying it was "orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is completely illegal and void," according to the Associated Press.

"It is a patchwork of false information that serves as a political tool for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China," Chinese ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in reaction to the report.

China has also attempted to quash the possibility of action being taken against the state.

China's Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Chen Xu said, according to Reuters: "The developing world will reject all anti-China initiatives initiated by Western countries."

"Any kind of anti-China effort is doomed to failure," he said.

The council agenda includes discussions on the wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia, and human rights abuses in Myanmar.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Iga Swiatek looks inside her US Open trophy during her post-match press conference. Robert Prange/Getty Images

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek beat Ons Jabeur 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) to win the 2022 US Open women's singles title.

The three-time Grand Slam champion has been known to look inside her trophies for sweet treats.

During her press conference, Swiatek checked her new hardware and found some surprise tiramisu.

NEW YORK  Iga Swiatek hoisted the US Open trophy at New York City's Arthur Ashe Stadium Saturday evening.

And a few hours later, she found a special prize inside.

The 21-year-old tennis superstar won her third-career Grand Slam after taking down world No. 5 Ons Jabeur 6-2, 7-6 (7-5) in Flushing Meadows. And just as she has after earning major trophies in the past, Swiatek removed the lid of her shiny new US Open hardware and looked inside for a sweet treat  specifically tiramisu.

The world No. 1 has been known to celebrate her accomplishments and spend her off days treating herself to the Italian dessert, which consists of sponge cake layered with chocolate, coffee, and mascarpone cheese. But never has a Grand Slam caught on to her signature snack  until now.

When Swiatek arrived at her post-match press conference a few hours after her big victory, her silver trophy was positioned prominently in front of her on the dais. And after she finished answering all of the questions, the USTA moderator encouraged the newly-crowned champion to take a look inside the massive cup.

She pulled off the top and gasped in delight, pulling out a square of tiramisu as members of the press applauded.

Swiatek pulls some tiramisu  her favorite dessert  out of her US Open trophy. Robert Prange/Getty Images

"Oh my God!" Swiatek said. "Are you kidding me?! Wow, who did that?"

"I'm going to get dirty," she continued with a smile, adding that she appreciates the gesture "especially because I didn't have time to eat, so."

Check out the full exchange below:

Out of Context Iga Swiatek (@SwiatekOOC) September 11, 2022

Read the original article on Insider
A 19-year-old faces a criminal homicide warrant in the Saturday night shooting death of a 22-year-old who police say shot and wounded the suspect before dying.

Authorities on Sunday issued a criminal homicide warrant for 19-year-old Treyvon Palmer, who is currently receiving medical treatment at Nashville General for a gunshot wound.

Police allege Palmer shot and killed Jawauntez Powell, 22, as the two stood in line at a north Nashville convenience store Saturday night.

Powell died at the scene in the 2600 block of Clarksville Pike.

In other news: Lawmakers create committee to review prison sentences, as Lee calls for state to be 'smart on crime'

Read this: Homicide detectives investigate body found in backseat of burning vehicle

Police allege Palmer made "physical contact" with Powell before pulling a gun on him.

Powell pulled his own gun and fired at Palmer, which "appeared to be in self-defense," the Metro Nashville Police Department said in a Sunday statement. Palmer fired "several" shots back.

Palmer left the store before arriving at Nashville General with a gunshot wound. Police say he will be booked into custody upon his release from the hospital.

Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com.

Want to read more stories like this? A subscription to one of our Tennessee publications gets you unlimited access to all the latest politics news, podcasts like Grand Divisions, plus newsletters, a personalized mobile experience and the ability to tap into stories, photos and videos from throughout the USA TODAY Network's daily sites.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Clarksville Pike shooting: 19-year-old faces criminal homicide warrant
West African Resources Limited (ASX:WAF) shareholders have seen the share price descend 12% over the month. But that scarcely detracts from the really solid long term returns generated by the company over five years. It's fair to say most would be happy with 249% the gain in that time. To some, the recent pullback wouldn't be surprising after such a fast rise. Only time will tell if there is still too much optimism currently reflected in the share price.

After a strong gain in the past week, it's worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.

View our latest analysis for West African Resources

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

During the last half decade, West African Resources became profitable. Sometimes, the start of profitability is a major inflection point that can signal fast earnings growth to come, which in turn justifies very strong share price gains.

You can see how EPS has changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We know that West African Resources has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? Check if analysts think West African Resources will grow revenue in the future.

A Different Perspective

It's nice to see that West African Resources shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 23% over the last year. However, the TSR over five years, coming in at 28% per year, is even more impressive. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand West African Resources better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for West African Resources that you should be aware of.

But note: West African Resources may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast).

Story continues

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on AU exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Join A Paid User Research Session

Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
The White House traded in its infographics and press release tweets last month, opting to go after Republican critics of President Joe Bidens student loan forgiveness plan.

In a series of tweets, the White Houses Twitter account quote-tweeted several Republican members of Congress with the amount forgiven for their own Paycheck Protection Program loans, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Twitter imploded with mixed reactions to tweets, with many on the social media platform praising the Biden White House for its unprecedented response, and curious about its sudden shift in tone.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven.https://t.co/4FoCymt8TB  The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 25, 2022

Student loan forgiveness: Federal student loan forgiveness could be taxed as income in some states

A dose of Jersey

Just a month before, Megan Coyne, the former social media director for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, joined the White House as deputy director of platforms. During her time in her home state, Coyne co-developed and ran the official New Jersey state Twitter account, best known for its sarcasm and witty defense of the Garden State.

Many attributed the White House's now-viral tweet threads to Coyne, including Murphy's speechwriter Derek Roseman, who shared that he was "still mad" that Coyne left the Murphy administration, but was "so happy" that she did.

Coyne acknowledged on her own account the success of the White House tweets, sharing a screenshot of the White House as the No. 1 trending Twitter topic with a simple smiley face.

Coyne joining the White House and the subsequent shift in tone suggests the administration was encouraged to better leverage social media platforms, said Raji Srinivasan, a marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Story continues

A lot of individuals are on Twitter and engaging with Twitter aggressively, and before this happened, I would see the White House hardly (getting) any follows and now theres interest, Srinivasan said. Youre playing the game how it ought to be played and not with a 1970s public relations and media strategy.

President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ORG XMIT: DCEV452

The White House and Coyne did not return requests for comment.

While the White Houses tweets became a consequential moment on Twitter, launching it to the top of the U.S. Twitter trends, the administration is following a well-trodden path.

Help for elites at expense of plumbers?: GOP seeks midterm gains by slamming Biden student debt plan

Sir, this is a Wendy's

The Murphy administration and fast-food chain Wendys were among the early organizations and brand accounts to develop a personality, of sorts, with a mixture of snark and combativeness that played well on social media. In the decade since, other brands and organizations have taken similar approaches, said Ike Silver, a marketing professor at Northwestern University.

That is sort of a break from the norms that you might have expected to see from these sorts of entities in the past, Silver added. Typically, you think of governments and corporations as being fairly buttoned up and professional, but in a variety of ways, this is sort of a break from that.

The New Jersey state Twitter account is a collection of informative, policy driven tweets, memes and your mom jokes, including in 2019, when a user questioned the existence of the @NJGOV account.

More recently, @NJGov used the trending images of actor Chris Pine looking exasperated during the Venice Film Festival to respond to a user denying the existence of climate change.

A growing number of organizations and companies, including government accounts, have worked on developing their own social media presence as a way to optimize marketing that targets younger consumers, signal authenticity and attempt to go viral to reach a wider audience, Silver said.

We like organizations to be authentic and there is something about being willing to break norms, be a little raw, be a little bit unpolished that is very much associated with being authentic," Silver told USA TODAY.

Now, we see it across the board.

The Oklahoma Dept. of Wildlife Conservation included a pop culture reference about actor Leonardo DiCaprios dating habits in the agency's tweet about the lifespan of native fish species in the state, causing the agency's account to receive thousands more likes and retweets than their past tweets.

Many of the native fish species found in Oklahoma's waters have long lifespans. In fact, in late May 2019, an Oklahoma angler caught a 66lb female smallmouth buffalo fish that was estimated to be 62 years old. That's a whole 37 years past being eligible to date Leonardo DiCaprio.  Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (@OKWildlifeDept) September 1, 2022

And Netflix used images of actress Sandra Bullock from "Miss Congeniality" as a meme to describe Labor Day weekend.

The start of this long weekend vs. the end of this long weekend pic.twitter.com/YTtT3zRCjA  Netflix (@netflix) September 5, 2022

Asset or liability?: Biden's momentum hasn't led to new invitations on midterm campaign trail

'Dark Brandon' in the White House

While the thread of tweets were unexpected from the Biden White House, it was just another example of the administration's shifting tone evident in recent speeches and press conferences, especially in reference to former President Donald Trump, his acolytes and far-right Republican members of Congress.

The Biden administration's co-option of "Dark Brandon," a meme depicting the sitting president as an all-powerful presence that emerged from the Republican base's intended insult of "Let's go Brandon," is among the examples of the Biden administration cultivating a different approach to appeal to younger, more social-media engaged voters, Srinivasan said.

no caption

Dark Brandon vs. The Pronoun Patrol: The Illustrated Origin Story of a Joe Biden Meme

Biden's alter ego reemerges every couple of weeks, usually after the president has managed to push forward significant pieces of his legislative agenda or has made striking comments, as he did over a series of recent speeches, including during a rally in the Washington suburbs accusing Republicans of "semi-fascism."

"The administration is, I think, in a moment where one of their communication goals is to really point out what they see as the hypocrisy on the right and the danger of what they see as anti-democratic elected leaders," said Shannon McGregor, a professor in journalism and media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I think that means they are more on the offensive than they have been previously."

Biden continued with that same tone during his primetime speech in Philadelphia on Aug. 29, where he slammed the "extreme MAGA Republicans" led by Trump, drawing a distinct image of the type of country America could become if Trump's acolytes are elected.

"MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards  backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love," Biden said as he continues to embrace his more aggressive tone as the county inches closer to the midterm elections.

McGregor notes the possibility that several recent factors could be reasons for the administration's aggressive approach and tweets, including Biden's string of legislative successes, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and growing momentum around the coming midterm elections.

"You could see why the administration would want to be both on the offensive but also feel that the moment is with them to act like that and to communicate like that," McGregor added.

More coverage for USA TODAY subscribers

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who runs White House Twitter account? Biden brings on Jersey veteran
Former Attorney General William Barr has emerged as one of the most prominent conservatives to suggest former President Trump may be in serious legal jeopardy over his handling of sensitive materials, underscoring the growing divide between the former president and his onetime staunch ally.

Barr has become a regular presence on Fox News over the past few weeks, weighing in on the FBI search of Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and subsequent court battles over what the Department of Justice (DOJ) can do with what it found.

Its not the first time Barr, a frequent target of criticism from Democrats as attorney general, has broken with Trump. Nor is he the first former Trump Cabinet member to become critical of the former president.

But he has stood out recently for his willingness to undercut not just Trumps own defense but the preferred narrative of Trumps allies and wide swaths of the Republican Party.

Bill Barr has been a real law and order kind of guy and has been strongly protective of national security interests and Department of Justice interests, said Alan Morrison, a law professor at George Washington University.

And I think hes always seen himself as being on that side: Tough on people who violate criminal laws, and I think his remarks here are in keeping with that. Hes trying to protect the Justice Department, which he headed not once but twice, Morrison said.

Barr has in fact just done that, offering defenses of the Justice Department and the legitimacy of its investigation into Trump in a series of Fox News appearances over the past two weeks.

The former attorney general earlier in the month pushed back on various defenses Trump and his team have offered in response to the FBI raid, telling Fox News he was skeptical that Trump had declassified everything he took to Mar-a-Lago as the former president had claimed.

Let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this [raid] was unprecedented  well, its also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay, Barr said.

Story continues

Barr has also been critical of Trumps push for a special master to review the documents taken by the FBI. The former attorney general called the legal strategy a red herring since federal authorities likely had already sifted through most of the seized materials.

Barr urged the Justice Department this week to appeal Judge Aileen Cannons ruling in favor of appointing a special master, calling the decision deeply flawed in a number of ways.

In an appearance on Fox on Thursday, Barr said he believes the Justice Department is getting very close to the point where they could indict someone in the case, including potentially Trump.

The comments were notable coming from a man who Democrats and some legal experts criticized throughout his latest tenure as attorney general, accusing him of viewing himself as the presidents lawyer rather than the countrys.

I think its partially a repudiation of Trump but its much more in wearing his law and order hat than a repudiation of Trump, Morrison said.

Barrs Fox News appearances undercutting Trump are the latest example of what has been a steadily growing divide between the two men.

One former Trump administration official said there is no love lost between Trump and Barr, and the relationship had been steadily deteriorating since the 2020 election, when Trump was irked that his attorney general publicly said he hadnt found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Barr was a key witness for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with recordings of his closed-door depositions featuring prominently in the panels public hearings.

Barr told the panel he believed Trumps claims about election fraud were bullshit, nonsense and idiotic. One hearing featured video of Barr saying he worried Trump had become detached from reality as he raised the false premise that voting machines were designed to rig the election.

Trump, who has frequently derided his former attorney general as a RINO, or Republican in Name Only, used the same insult in response to Barrs commentary on Fox in which he said authorities likely had good evidence to pursue its search of Trumps home.

Bill Barr had no guts, and got no glory, Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. He was a weak and pathetic RINO [Republican in name only], who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats.

While the vast majority of conservatives have lined up behind Trump to offer shifting defenses of the former president and criticize the Justice Department as politicized, a few conservatives and former Trump officials have joined Barr in publicly recognizing the seriousness of the matter.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is viewed as laying the groundwork for a 2024 bid, said in New Hampshire late last month that he was deeply troubled by the search but added the public needs to let the facts play out and condemned attacks on law enforcement.

Ty Cobb, who served as a lawyer in Trumps White House during the Russia investigation, told CBS News on Friday he believes Trump is in serious legal water, not just because of the ongoing investigation into his handling of classified documents, but because of efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Like Barr, Cobb told the news outlet he believes the possibility of Trump being indicted is very high.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
LAS VEGAS  Ahead of tipoff of the 2022 WNBA Finals on Sunday, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called Brittney Griners wrongful detainment in Russia unacceptable and shared Griner recently wrote her a letter as the league continues to work with the U.S. State Department to bring Griner home.

Griner has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than 200 days after Russian officials found less than a gram of hashish oil in her luggage at the airport in February. Griner was found guilty of drug possession and drug smuggling in August and was sentenced to a nine-year prison term by a Russian judge.

I recently received a handwritten letter from BG, and I am so inspired by her courage in the face of enormous adversity, Engelbert said. We are fully focused on getting her home safely, and she remains such an important part of the WNBA family.

Engelbert shared that Griner ended her letter with, Im staying strong.

Brittney Griner during her trial in Russia as she awaited the verdict in August. (Photo by EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Engelbert opened her pre-Finals address with Griner, calling on the Russian government to do more to work with the U.S. in freeing Griner.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said the U.S. government would continue to work tirelessly to free Griner.

It's a full-court press with the State Department. We have been working with them. I can't ask more from this administration on working on this very complex situation to get her home, Engelbert said.   We need the Russians to step up here and get the deal that the president put on the table and get that deal done and get her home safely.

She said she has been sending letters to Griner through her attorneys, and the handwritten note from Griner was heartfelt and showed appreciation for what the commissioner and league are doing on her behalf.

I was thrilled. It was heartfelt. She was very grateful. She knows the efforts that I personally and the league are doing to try to help get her home safely and as soon as possible, Engelbert said. She ended with it, Im staying strong. I have chills right now just saying that, she ended it with, You should know Im saying strong, and thank you. It was short and handwritten and really inspiring to me given how adverse her situation is.
Try to identify a different piece of Lynchburg-area history every week. If you have any mystery pictures of your own (or any old photos of Lyn
Longtime artist and art teacher Rhonda Earith is thrilled to have her work featured in Papillion once again.

After having been showcased in the galleries at Papillion City Hall and Sump Memorial Library, Eariths pieces are on display at Papillion Landing Community Recreation Center through Halloween.

I feel truly blessed to have so much support from my family, friends and community, Earith said in a message.

As a painter, Earith loves using animals in her work.

Most of her pieces are commissioned, such as murals for businesses and paintings of pets and landscapes for individuals.

When I finish a project for someone, I really enjoy seeing them so excited about it, Earith said in a text message. It warms my heart that they want something I created in their home.

Earith is also available for art parties. She can do themed paintings, airbrushing, T-shirt screen printing, sculpture and many other art styles upon request.

Earith said she found a love for creating while growing up on a farm near Nehawka, Nebraska. Her serious passion began in high school, having been inspired by her art teacher. Earith continued learning the craft in college, obtaining a bachelors degree in art education.

Upon graduation, Earith became an art teacher. Her first position was teaching kindergarten through 12th grade at Louisville Public Schools. Then Earith taught sixth through 12th grade at Conestoga Junior-Senior High School.

Most recently, Earith taught elementary and middle school in the Papillion La Vista Community Schools for 15 years. Now shes fulfilling a long term substitute position while supervising student teachers for the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Earith said she enjoys teaching others new art techniques. Once theyve made something of their own, seeing the students excitement makes it all worth it.

As an educator, I really hope that I can inspire students to try new things and feel that satisfaction when they create something with their own two hands, Earith said in a text.
 Flash

Li Zhanshu, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, paid an official goodwill visit to Russia from Wednesday to Saturday, at the invitation of Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.

During his visit, Li met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the country's far eastern city of Vladivostok, held talks with Volodin and Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko respectively in Moscow, and also met with leaders of the five State Duma factions.

When meeting with the Russian president, Li conveyed cordial greetings and best wishes from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Putin. He said that under the strategic guidance and personal efforts of President Xi and President Putin, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era has maintained a strong momentum of development.

Political mutual trust, strategic coordination and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries have reached an unprecedented level, setting a good example of good-neighborly friendship and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighboring countries, Li said.

Both China and Russia are at a critical historical stage of development and revitalization, enjoying great potential and broad prospects for cooperation, Li said.

China is willing to continue to work with Russia to firmly support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns, implement the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative put forward by President Xi, and turn high-level political mutual trust into more pragmatic cooperation results, Li said.

The top Chinese legislator said he firmly believes that under the leadership of President Xi and President Putin, the two sides will raise the bilateral ties to a new level and will follow the development path in line with their national conditions and achieve the great goals of their respective development and national rejuvenation.

Li also congratulated Russia on successfully hosting the 7th Eastern Economic Forum and briefed on the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Putin asked Li to convey his best wishes to President Xi. He said that the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era is special and important, and that the Russian side is satisfied with bilateral relations and cooperation with China in various fields.

Russia-China trade, especially against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, has shown a sound momentum of growth, Putin said, expressing his belief that the two sides will achieve greater goals of cooperation in this area.

More exchanges between the Russian and Chinese legislatures will play a positive role in promoting the development of bilateral relations, Putin said. He also wished the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China a success.

During his talks with Volodin and Matviyenko, Li said that the important task of cooperation between the legislative bodies of China and Russia is to promote the implementation of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and provide legal protection for the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations.

The NPC will continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with the Russian State Duma and Federation Council, tap the potential of the mechanism for regular exchanges, maintain a good momentum of high-level exchanges, and promote exchanges among friendship groups and special committees, Li said.

Li said that the NPC is ready to work with the two institutions to create a favorable environment for practical cooperation through legislation as well as examination and approval of treaties and agreements.

He added that the two sides should strengthen exchanges of experience on national governance and legislation regarding fighting against external interference, sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, among others.

Li thanked the Russian side for firmly supporting China on the Taiwan question.

Both Volodin and Matviyenko once again condemned Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region, saying that Russia firmly adheres to the one-China policy and is willing to deepen cooperation with China on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.

Volodin said that the legislative bodies of Russia and China should further upgrade their cooperation, expand cooperation models, enrich cooperation content, so as to jointly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and contribute to the development of bilateral relations.

Matviyenko extended congratulations on the great achievements made by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. She said that the in-depth development of Russia-China relations has given the legislative bodies a new task of cooperation, and that both sides should actively promote cooperation in such fields as politics, economy, trade, finance and youth, as well as enhance sub-national, people-to-people exchanges and cultural cooperation.

When meeting with leaders of the five State Duma factions, Li said that all the groups have demonstrated their support to enhancing friendly cooperation with China, showing that it is the broad consensus of all parties and people from all walks of life in Russia to develop the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.

China is ready to maintain close contact and exchanges with all parties in Russia to consolidate the foundation of the friendship and practical cooperation between the two countries, he said.

Leaders of the five State Duma factions expressed their willingness to play an active role in intensifying inter-party exchanges between Russia and China, and make unremitting efforts to deepen the development of Russia-China relations, so as to benefit the two countries and their people.

During his stay in Moscow, Li laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and visited Vladimir Lenin's former residence.
Syed Ben Al-Amin, 34, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, was sentenced on Tuesday to more than eight years in prison (100 months) following his plea to a charge of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

On Aug. 7, 2020, Al-Amin was involved in a hit and run accident on Interstate 80. Iowa State Patrol located Al-Amin driving on Interstate 80 and attempted to stop the vehicle. Al-Amin refused to stop his car and a chase ensued into Council Bluffs. Al-Amin drove into a hospital parking lot where he lost control of his vehicle. Al-Amin then fled on foot before being arrested.

In the center console of Al-Amins vehicle, law enforcement located baggies of pills containing methamphetamine, which Al-Amin planned to distribute.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The Iowa State Patrol, the Division of Narcotics Enforcement, and Southwest Iowa Narcotics Task Force investigated the case.
Jeremy Bonahoom is the winner of the 2022 North Platte Community College raffle car  a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442, the college said in a press release Saturday.

His ticket was drawn during the annual Colonel Codys Cruise Show and Shine in Memorial Park in North Platte. Bonahoom was not present for the announcement but was notified by phone of his win.

The Cutlass is the 17th raffle vehicle produced by the colleges Transportation Division. It was restored by students in the Automotive Technology and Auto Body Technology programs.

A total of 3,721 tickets were sold this year. Proceeds will be used for scholarships for students in the colleges transportation programs and to help offset the cost of producing the next raffle car project.
Global oil markets are still trying to find a floor as oil prices are increasingly volatile. The EUs expected ban on Russian oil imports, which will be put in place on December 5 is likely to shake up fundamentals. While the EU countries are looking to wean themselves off Russian crude, the appetite EU trading firms have for Russian oil remains undiminished. Bloomberg reported that Europe has been importing around 1 million bpd in the week ending September 2. The number is substantially higher than the 800,000 bpd average in August. Some however reiterated that it is below June levels, which was 1.28 million bpd. The ongoing high interest is not yet showing a real European-wide desire to bring the unions Russian oil imports down in preparation for the December 5 deadline.

At the same time, Russias overall seaborne crude shipments, which are officially mainly heading to Asia, also remain strong. Overall, Moscows volumes are up 13% at 3.32 million bpd. At a time that Asian volumes are stable, Russian crude volumes to the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region increased by 13%. Total Russian exports to the global market are estimated to have brought in around $167 million of revenue in the week of September 2.

Looking at the above data, the EUs reliance on Russian energy is still extremely high, and cutting its energy ties with Moscow doesnt seem an easy task at all. So, why is it so difficult to end Russian oil imports? As long as other producers are unable to fill the gap, European refineries continue to process large amounts of Russian Urals crude. As Ben van Beurden, Shells CEO, stated, the main driver for the EU demand for Russian crudes is the fact that OPEC producers at present are not able (or willing) to produce the needed volumes.

At the same time, it becomes more and more clear that not only official Russian crude volumes are heading to European markets. Unspecified volumes or blended Russian crudes in Asia are loaded onto tankers to European destinations. Japanese news site Nikkei reported that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 41 vessels have made ship-to-ship transfers of oil off the coast of Greece, involving Russian crude. In comparison, in 2021 this was only one vessel. Experts expect that after the December 5 ban, these ship-to-ship transfers will increase further. Refinitiv reported that Russia exported 23.86 million barrels of oil via ship-to-ship off Greece so far in 2022. In 2021 the volume was just 4.34 million barrels. Tracking these vessels, showed that 89 tankers arrived at ports, of which 41 at ports in Greece, Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe.

These developments show that there are still immense loopholes in the projected EU sanctions. If the EU really wants to hit Moscows cash cow, more stringent measures are needed. The blending of crudes is an old trick to masquerade the origin of the cargo. At the same time, it has been reported before that Asian and Middle Eastern countries are heavily involved in re-exporting former Russian crude volumes, under new specs or qualifications to Europe.

And its not just Asian countries that are complicit. Turkey, Egypt, and possibly Algeria, are possible gateways for Russian crudes to reach not only global markets, but especially European markets. Libya and Iraq are prime examples of countries that have tons of experience in circumventing international sanctions. Iran is at present still able to bring its crude and products to the market, even when U.S. sanctions are supposed to keep Iranian crude off the market. In the coming months, European leaders will need to decide if a normal Russian oil ban is as effective as they expect. 3rd party sanctions are needed to make sure that Russia isnt simply exporting its crude to other destinations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Pretending that this wont happen is not only foolish but also counter-productive.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
As energy prices continue to soar across Europe, with gas prices surging 26% on Monday after Russia stopped pumping via Nord Stream 1, the highly contentious fracking debate is now re-emerging on the continent, led by a new British prime minister with fossil fuels on her mind. The European Unionwhich no longer includes the UKplans to replace two-thirds of Russian gas imports by the end of the year, though analysts warn that the blocs best shot at replacing Russian gas imports will fall well short of the target.

In 2021, the EU imported ~155 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Russia. Unfortunately, the blocs proposed gas replacements by the end of 2022--which include LNG (liquefied natural gas) diversification, renewables, heating efficiency, pipeline diversification, biomethane, solar rooftops and heat pumps--only amount to around 102 bcm annually, according to data from the EU Commissions REPowerEU.

Proponents of fracking hold that Europes shale gas potential is needed now more than ever, though Germany, France, the Netherlands, Scotland and Bulgaria have all previously banned fracking. Now, the debate is being revived by recent moves in the UK.

Britains new Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced that the UK is lifting a 2019 moratorium on shale gas fracking as the country looks to ramp up domestic energy resources and help households and businesses struggling to pay soaring energy bills.

The lifting of the fracking ban comes just three years after the government ended its support for fracking after the authority supervising the oil and gas industry determined that it is not possible with current technology to accurately predict the probability of tremors associated with fracking.

Britain owns just two shale gas wells in Lancashire operated by Cuadrilla Resources. Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan has welcomed the lifting of the ban, saying: This is an entirely sensible decision and recognises that maximizing the UKs domestic energy supply is vital if we are going to overcome the ongoing energy crisis and reduce the risk of it recurring in the future. Without the strong measures set out today, the UK was set to import over two thirds of its gas by the end of the decade, exposing the British public and businesses to further risk of supply shortage and price hikes down the line.

Despite its desperation, the rest of Europe is unlikely to followeven if the revival of the debate has reignited talk of just how much shale potential Europe has, and why its not being tapped into.

Shale Gas In Europe

Europe has more recoverable shale gas than the U.S., according to estimates. However, the only major fracking activity is in Ukraine, which managed to wean itself off of Russian gas years ago.

Fracking in Europe has long been a contentious issue because of population density, in large part. This isnt North America.

In 2016, Cuadrilla Resources won permission to frack as many as four wells in the UK, putting an end to years long battles with local authorities. Five years prior, the company had been forced to cease drilling after the government placed a one-year moratorium on fracking due to tremors caused by an exploratory Cuadrilla rig in northwestern England. In 2013, the companys drilling activity was disrupted again after hundreds of protesters camped in a tiny village south of London and forced it to abandon its wells.

Meanwhile, in 2012, protesters in Zurawlow, a town in eastern Poland, successfully blockaded a fracking site while Greenpeace activists occupied a shale gas rig in Denmark.

Strong public opposition--along with tax concerns, regulatory delays, and poor output from a handful of test wells--drove away investors. Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) were forced to abandon projects in Poland after exploration proved disappointing. Poor gas flows also halted progress in Denmark, with Total ditching shale gas drilling there.

The big problem with fracking in Europe is that some of the conditions that fueled the U.S. shale boom dont exist in Europe. In most countries, it's the state, and not private landowners, that owns the mineral rights to oil and gas in the ground. Contrast that with the U.S. where landowners cut can be as much as an eighth of production revenue. This in effect means that fracking does not yield big financial rewards for European landowners.

Related: Record High Gas Prices Could Be Bullish For Oil



To garner more public support for the technology, the British government and some companies have previously proposed direct payments to people affected by fracking. However, environmental groups have strongly opposed the move, terming such payments as bribes. The situation is not helped by the fact that the population density in Europe is more than 3x that in the United States, fueling not-in-my-backyard protests. For instance, many rural projects have in the past been rejected because they would bring trucks and equipment used for fracking onto picturesque roads dating back to Roman times. Indeed, Gazprom has previously said that the difficulty in finding unpopulated land in Europe and enough water to exploit shale wells will help Russian gas stay competitive. Even better for Russia: it can produce gas for about a sixth of the break-even cost for U.K. shale.

Even after decades of fracking in the U.S. many Europeans still view the technique as untested.

Its going to be interesting to see whether record high energy prices will finally convince Europeans to change their minds about shale gas fracking. Several European nations have already backed down and returned to burning coal at record levels to keep their power grids alive thus reneging on their climate goals.

But heres why the environmentalists might still carry the day: studies have shown that although natural gas burns cleaner than coal and has reduced greenhouse gas emissions, the fracking process can negate these benefits. Fracking is dirtier than burning coal mainly due to the direct emission of harmful carbon dioxide and methane, both potent greenhouse gasses.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Its complicated. Thats how a couple might explain a relationship thats closer than its history would suggest it should be. It also could describe the relationship between the United States and Britain. Witness the admiration for Queen Elizabeth II expressed by many Americans after her death Thursday.

The leader of a country that didnt want our nation to exist was mourned as if she were an American, too. She stood in solidarity with the United States during our darkest days after 9/11, when she poignantly reminded us that Grief is the price we pay for love, said President Biden, one of 13 American presidents who met with Elizabeth during her 70-year reign. He was quoting Elizabeths words of support to America after the 9/11 attack.

Philadelphia has a cherished memory of Elizabeth of when she visited our city in 1976 and left a 10-ton replica of the Liberty Bell to commemorate this countrys Bicentennial. She said Britons should also celebrate Independence Day because the American Revolution taught her country a valuable lesson.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding, what is impossible to keep, the queen said. She didnt mention the War of 1812, which showed that lesson wasnt learned quickly. But after World War II, Elizabeth successfully guided her countrys transition from a colonial power to a trusted world leader.

More than 40 countries, many of them in the Caribbean or Africa, gained their independence from Britain after Elizabeth became queen in 1952, including the Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Cyprus, Ghana, Jamaica, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Upon Elizabeths death, her eldest son immediately became King Charles III. His challenge  as titular leader of a nation that clings to the pomp and circumstance of royalty even as it questions its monarchys continuation  will be great. Charles must be the public face that reassures Britons when Parliament seems to be failing them, especially with Russias Vladimir Putin seemingly pushing Europe toward another world war with his invasion of Ukraine.

For now, he and his family will be given time to mourn his mother, who will long be remembered not only by them but the world. At age 25, Elizabeth immediately became queen upon the death on Feb. 26, 1952, of her father, King George VI, who died in his sleep at the royal familys Sandringham estate. Elizabeth, 4,000 miles away on safari in Kenya, was said to be perched in a tree watching rhinoceroses when she received word that she was queen.

Who knew then that the length of her reign would surpass that of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who died at age 81 after being Britains monarch for 63 years, from 1837 to 1901? Elizabeth suffered from health issues associated with being 96, which prepared the public for her death. As you can see, I cant move, she told visitors to Windsor Castle for her Platinum Jubilee celebration in February. She shuffled her feet while leaning on a cane.

Despite her age, millions hoped Elizabeth would be with us longer. After 70 years as queen, she  more than any other person or symbol  represented what England has stood for in the world: small but mighty, a presence to be respected, an ally that can be counted on, a spirit that dares to soar when the odds are against it. Without Elizabeth, another page turns. What it will say is a mystery.
Pins on Pinterest. Bookmarks on computers. Phone screenshots. Facebook links. Dog-eared cookbooks. Bursting recipe box. Loose printouts.

Ive got recipes stored in so many places, Im probably forgetting some.

Its no wonder I get into a food rut. Its an effort to find recipes that are hidden in all those places.

Its time to finally get organized. But where to begin?

I started by crowdsourcing for suggestions and what I found are several options for digitally organizing your recipes. I tested seven  five specifically designed for recipes and two that are for organizing just about anything. None of them are bad options. They all have strengths and weaknesses. I found the one that works best for my needs.

Hopefully, this will help you find an option that will work for you.

Copy Me That

Platforms: Apple iOS, Android, browser

Fee: Free with premium upgrade available. Premium is $12.99/year or $24.99/lifetime. Added features include recipe scaling, advanced shopping lists, advanced meal planning and side-by-side recipe viewing among other features.

Sync: Sharable across all platforms

Copy Me That has recipe organization, meal planning and shopping list capabilities. On a computer, an extension for Chrome makes it very easy to import recipes. This was my favorite feature as I do most of my searching for new recipes on my computer.

In the app, its very easy to add your own recipes by typing them in. You can add your own photos as well, to both recipes you type in and to recipes pulled from websites.

You organize recipes with collections. Collections are like tabs in a recipe box  only better. You can easily tag a recipe to more than one collection. For example, I have a shrimp pasta dish that I tagged as pasta and main dish/seafood.

When searching for recipes within the app there are many options. You can search by category or keyword. So you could search all recipes tagged dessert. Or if you have some broccoli you need to use, you could search for it and any recipe with broccoli as an ingredient will come up.

A plus for Copy Me That is that the free version does not limit the number of recipes you can import. You will see thats not the case with some others.

The app also has shopping list and meal planning features in the free version which are serviceable, but not as simple as some of the other apps.

I thought it was extremely user-friendly but if you want additional help they have a series of tutorials on Facebook.

* * *

OrganizEat

Platforms: Apple iOS, Android, browser

Fee: Limited free version; upgrade fee is iOS: $11.99/year or $49.99/lifetime; Android: $9.99/year or $39.99/lifetime

Sync: Sharable across all platforms

OrganizEat allows you to import recipes four ways: from a website, by typing the recipe, scanning a printout or importing a photo of a recipe. When you add a recipe from a website, you have the option to add just the recipe text or to take screenshots. If a blog has great step-by-step photos for a complicated recipe, its an option to take multiple screenshots so you have all of that saved to the recipe.

The app has 14 preset categories to file recipes under. You are able to add your own categories and edit the ones they have, but if you dont know where to start organizing its nice to have this option available.

Recipes added are backed up to the cloud and are synced to all your devices.

The meal planning feature is very simple to use and its easy to add recipes to a shopping list with the touch of a button. It does import all of the ingredients so you may have to edit your shopping list.

The biggest downfalls of this app are that the free version only allows you to add 20 recipes and its the most expensive subscription rate of all the apps we tested.

* * *

AnyList

Platforms: Apple iOS, Android, browser

Fee: Free version only allows phone or tablet access; upgrade at $9.99/year for individuals or $14.99/year for households allows browser access and additional features such as meal planning and recipe scaling

Sync: Sharable across all platforms

I found this app to be the easiest to add recipes from my phone. It gives simple step-by-step instructions. You are also able to add your own recipes by typing them in. For some, that much typing on a phone or tablet is not ideal, and the upgrade would be a nice feature.

It is very easy to edit a recipe; email, print or AirDrop it to someone; and add recipes to your meal plan.

To find a recipe, you are able to search by ingredient, category or source. This is a nice feature if you what to see all the recipes you have pulled from a favorite blog.

If you want to integrate your shopping list with your recipes, this was my favorite. In this app, if you click add to shopping list, the recipe ingredients pop up and you can tap just the ingredients you want to add to your list. In all the others I tried, it added the entire ingredient list to the shopping list. I found this annoying because many kitchen staples I dont need on my grocery list each week. The shopping list is also nicely organized by category: dairy, grains, produce, etc.

* * *

Recipe Keeper

Platforms: Android, Apple iOS, macOS, Microsoft Windows

Fee: Limited free versions, upgrade is a $14.99 one-time payment

Sync: Free version does not sync to all devices, the upgrade does

I have many hand-written recipes or favorites in cookbooks. The biggest plus to this app is the function to scan those recipes and convert them to typed text. It works better on recipes from books and magazines but I was able to edit the recipes where it couldnt decipher my handwriting.

Another nice feature of this app is that it quickly scales recipes up and down.

Recipe Keeper is similar to other apps in that it allows you to sort recipes by collections. But it adds a second way to sort, by courses: breakfast, main dish, snack and dessert.

The meal planning and shopping list features of this app are very easy to use. It allows you to plan breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks; plan meals or components of meals that you dont have recipes stored for; and easily add ingredients to a shopping list with a touch of a button. You can add only the ingredients you need to your shopping list.

The downsides to this app are that the free version only allows you to add 20 recipes and it does not allow sharing across all devices. With the one-time fee, you can have unlimited recipes and it will share your recipes to all your devices.

* * *

RecipeBox

Platforms: Apple iOS, Android, browser

Fee: Free

Sync: Sharable across all platforms

RecipeBox has recipe storage, meal planning and shopping list features but meal planning is only available through the app, not the web browser.

Adding recipes, both through the app or browser is as simple as copying and pasting a URL. The app will strip out just the recipe and allow you to make any edits you wish. You can also manually type in a recipe.

Categories are created when you type a keyword into the recipe description field. You will need to make sure you are consistent or it will create duplicate similar categories. For example, dessert and Dessert showed up as separate categories. Other apps give you a drop-down list of categories.

One glitch I had with the web browser version is that it kept asking me to log in after every recipe I imported. Aside from that, both the app and browser versions were very user-friendly.

If you are looking or more inspiration, RecipeBox has a Discovery area where you can browse recipes that others have shared.

The biggest plusses of this app are that it is completely free, no paid upgrade, and the simplicity.

* * *

Trello

Platforms: Apple iOS, Android, web browser

Fee: Free for the basic version; $5 and $10/month options for additional features

Sync: Sharable across all platforms

Trello is an organizational tool for more than just recipes. It works by creating boards that allow you to plan or organize nearly anything.

The first thing you do in Trello is to create a board. (I labeled mine Recipes.) On your board you then create lists (or categories). Under each list, you create a card. Each of these cards is where you copy or type in a recipe. You can also upload photos you have taken.

In Trello, you can use color-coded labels as a visual aid. For example, you could color code all the cards of recipes you have yet to try one color.

The search feature will search all of the cards on your board for specific ingredients.

The downside to this app is that there is more manual entry than other apps we tested and there isnt an integrated meal planning or shopping list feature (though it would be easy to use the lists for meal planning).

The plus side of Trello, if you are looking for ways to organize other things in your everyday life or work life, you could have it all contained in one simple-to-use app.

* * *

Evernote

Platforms: Android, Apple iOS, macOS, Microsoft Windows and web browser

Fee: Free account allows you to sync on two devices, with a maximum note size of 25MB and monthly uploads of 60MB. The personal plan is $7.99/month. It allows you to sync on unlimited devices, and 10GB of monthly uploads.

Sync: Sharable across all platforms, limited to two devices with the free version

Evernote, like Trello, is more of a life organizing app. The app allows you to collect, store and organize more than just recipes. With the monthly fee, you gain features that will allow you to sync your calendar, add due dates, notifications and alerts and more.

The storage organization in Evernote is through notebooks. I created notebooks the same way I created categories or lists in other apps. In each notebook, you can create unlimited notes. These notes can have photos added to them. The notebooks are searchable for tags or ingredients.

There is an Evernote web clipper extension for Chrome similar to Copy Me That. The clipper copies all of the text on the page that is open, which in some cases can be a lengthy blog. This is a great option if you prefer to go back to recipe blogs for step-by-step photos or notes that the blogger adds to the text. If you want to use this tool but dont want the entire blog text, click on the print recipe button that is usually near the recipe text. This should open a separate tab with just the recipe text. Then clip this page.
Doug Rose has checked COVID-19 case counts and other data off and on during the pandemic, but he says he was never obsessed with it.

He has reviewed case counts for his destination when he planned to travel. Last year, the retired Omaha schoolteacher went to Galveston, Texas, instead of his usual spot in the Rio Grand Valley because of concerns about a potential for increased COVID cases there.

But now that he's vaccinated and boosted, he doesn't worry much about the virus. "You read the data when it's put out and decide what you're going to do," he said.

Just like the public's interest, the data reported by public health agencies has ebbed and flowed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the CDC continues to operate a beefed-up dashboard, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has replaced its COVID dashboard with a respiratory illness dashboard that includes data on COVID, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Some school districts and colleges also have mothballed their dashboards, with some exceptions being the Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But during the early days of the outbreak in 2020, the nation was dealing with an unknown opponent. The first case in Nebraska was announced March 6 of that year. A month later, the count had reached 255. Interest in the numbers intensified as cases mounted and schools and businesses closed.

Initially, data was hard to come by. People who were monitoring the numbers had to tap multiple sources. Individuals, academic institutions and news organizations such as Covid Act Now, Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times stepped in to provide data that the public could easily access and digest.

Public health agencies had to quickly ramp up systems for gathering, verifying and displaying data.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted on its website that only a handful of health care facilities and states were capable of using electronic case reporting in early 2020. Reporting was slow and often relied on paper-based systems and fax machines.

By August 2021, all 50 states and some other jurisdictions had electronic reporting capabilities.

Justin Frederick, division chief of epidemiology and preparedness with the Douglas County Health Department, said counting cases seems like a simple process. But it's a complex endeavor to collect, verify and store it.

"Public health infrastructure, including our disease surveillance systems, were not set up for a pandemic," he said.

As a health care hub, the Omaha metro area attracts a lot of people for testing and treatment. The test results of out-of-towners who were tested in Omaha for COVID had to be reported to their home counties, and rectifying numbers based on patients' residences is challenging, particularly in real time, Frederick said. When test results mounted to thousands a day, health officials had to sort positives and negatives to calculate positivity rates and break down results demographically by age, ethnicity and ZIP code.

Initially, test results coming in from laboratories had to be entered manually every day into the health department's surveillance system. Later, labs began reporting electronically, but new labs kept popping up and had to be added to the system. The health department eventually was able to funnel those results directly into its system.

The health department, like those across the state, was trying to keep up with contact tracing, which was important in identifying the risk the virus posed to the population. That risk, in turn, drives public health mitigation efforts, such as closing bars and requiring masking. At one point, Frederick said, the county was receiving thousands of new cases a day. Frederick was overseeing nearly 50 of the county's own contact tracers, and the department had a contract with a firm in Omaha that could supply between 200 and 400 contact tracers at a time.

In the middle of that, the department put up an online dashboard because health officials wanted a way to communicate with the public. Douglas-Omaha GIS (for Geographic Information Systems) developed the dashboard, but the health department supplied the data and worked closely with the office to determine how to display it.

"I can't stress enough the importance of us reporting daily data," Frederick said. "There was a lot of demand from the public."

Lindsay Huse, the health department's director, said the next challenge was interpreting the data and boiling it down in a way that people could understand it and use it to make decisions.

People stepped in to help with that, too.

On March 8, 2020, Dr. Bob Rauner, president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, began posting short YouTube videos sharing and explaining available COVID data. He also walked through coronavirus research and trends as they emerged and included links to his sources.

More than two years later, on July 13, Rauner posted his 115th Community Coronavirus Update. One of his updates got as many as 28,000 views. He stopped counting when the series surpassed half a million views. Rauner also explored the impact of the pandemic, tallying COVID-related deaths in Nebraska and surrounding states.

"I think the reason they took off is because I just said, 'Here's what the data shows.' And if you wanted to look, you could go to the links and find it all," Rauner said.

Partnership for a Health Lincoln also began posting its own COVID case charts, with county-by-county data, after Ted Fraser, its health data analyst, figured out how to retrieve it from CDC.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services also launched a dashboard early in the pandemic. The dashboard, which changed nearly every month as conditions shifted, was a key piece of the agency's strategy for communicating with the public, said Ashley Newmyer, the agency's chief data strategist.

Dr. Gary Anthone, the state's chief medical officer, said another piece of that strategy were the public briefings he and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts held during the pandemic. They were held often during the early days of the pandemic and later when cases and hospitalizations spiked.

Early on, Anthone said, people mostly wanted to know why they couldn't get tested for COVID. Initially, all tests had to go through the CDC, and criteria for getting tested were stringent.

After the state launched TestNebraska and Nebraskans could get tests whenever they wanted, positivity rates became a less important metric, he said. The state began looking to the number of people hospitalized with COVID as its "north star" in measuring the stress COVID-19 patients were placing on the state's hospitals. The state therefore added a variety of hospital capacity metrics to the dashboard.

Both the Lincoln-Lancaster County and Sarpy/Cass Health Departments continue to operate detailed dashboards. Lincoln's Bryan Health reports on patients hospitalized with COVID by age and vaccination status as well as where they're from and whether they require intensive care or ventilators.

But much of the county-level reporting at the state level ended when the state retired its more detailed COVID-19 dashboard on June 30, 2021, after Ricketts ended the state's COVID-19 state of emergency. At that point, Anthone said, 27 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID, down from a peak of 987 in November 2020.

The pandemic emergency had suspended some restrictions in state law on the release of communicable disease data, state officials said at the time, permitting them to release more information than otherwise would be allowed.

The expiration of an executive order at that time also prevented Nebraska's health districts from publicly reporting COVID-19 statistics, such as case numbers and vaccinations, for counties with fewer than 20,000 people.

At the time, Nebraska health care providers and a group of lawmakers called for Ricketts to reinstate the dashboard. The state, which had continued to post weekly summaries, redeployed the dashboard in August 2021, this time focusing on hospital data.

Newmyer said the public also faced a learning curve in figuring out what data the state collected and what it could make available to the public. In addition to trying to meet the public's demand for information, the agency also sought to provide enough background information so users could understand the limits and nuances of that data.

Dr. James Lawler, a co-executive director with the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Global Center for Health Security, said getting good data into the systems remains his concern. The CDC's pediatric COVID death data, for instance, has changed multiple times, he said.

Lawler said he doesn't think most people understand the difficulty of getting accurate health data, much of which is stored in systems that can't talk to each other. Health agencies, for instance, can't pull data from hospitals' electronic medical records, as they can in some European nations. Most health care in the U.S. is delivered by the private sector, where there's little incentive for competing systems to share information.

"These are all challenges we still need to grapple with, because it's impossible to effectively respond if you don't have good situational awareness," Lawler said.

Some new types of data also emerged during the pandemic. After establishing a wastewater-monitoring network, the state began posting weekly reports with those results. It also added a weekly report with the results of genomic sequencing. (Wastewater testing can provide an early warning about trends in cases, while genomic sequencing provides insights into what variants are circulating.)

Other health data also is getting a more public airing.

Newmyer said the state agency continues to evaluate whether other diseases or data should be added to the respiratory illness dashboard, which the agency plans to continue to update weekly.

The agency also has launched a dashboard to display data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a telephone health survey of adults 18 and older that is conducted in all U.S. states and territories. Covering topics ranging from physical activity to alcohol use, the survey is used to identify new and emerging health issues, establish and track health objectives and evaluate disease- prevention activities in the state.

Newmyer said the agency also is working on a data initiative around drug overdoses and is looking at making annual reports across its departments available in dashboard forms that are more accessible to the public.

Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln already has begun charting maternal child health data for the state, some of it by county, sourced from the CDC.

Rauner said making such data easily accessible allows people to see how their community is doing on various health measures. It's also important in planning for health.

"The data transparency needs to be out there," he said. "You can't provide good governance without good data."

Huse said she plans to keep the Douglas County dashboard up at least through fall and winter, depending on whether new COVID variants emerge and how well the new boosters work. The department likely will keep providing some data until the virus settles into a more predictable pattern, like influenza.

"That transparency is so important," she said.

Huse said she hopes to put additional county health metrics, such as elements of the community health needs assessment that the agency conducts every few years, in a dashboard format.

"I hope people have more of an interest in the data," she said, "because it helps them understand a little bit more where our priorities are ... and what's happening in the community they live in."

World-Herald staff writer Henry J. Cordes contributed to this report.
FREMONT, Neb.  For a gregarious guy, Judge Ken Vampola moseyed quietly out of the Dodge County Courthouse on Sept. 2, his last day.

No retirement party. No cake. No staffers gathered round, wishing him well. No proclamations from governors, past or present. The biggest adieu for the longtime judge? A small gathering at a local steakhouse, after hours.

There was a reason for that: Vampolas departure was much more resignation under duress than retirement into sunset.

It was spurred by the judges numerous ethical violations connected to his relationship with a 32-year-old self-professed meth addict, according to several sources accounts and multiple documents obtained by The World-Herald.

The judge had such a close relationship with the woman  a litigant in his courtroom numerous times  that he bought her cars, had her spend nights at his Platte River cabin, begged a fellow judge to not issue a warrant for her arrest and bailed her out of jail. To boot, the woman had his credit cards on her when police recently stopped her and searched her on suspicion that she was high on meth.

Vampola declined to comment when The World-Herald posed several questions about allegations of current and past misconduct.

Turns out, the judge got out of Dodge just in time. His sudden resignation means hell get to keep his state pension.

Hes not the only judge who has done so. In the past four years, four embattled judges  Supreme Court Judge Max Kelch, Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Crnkovich, Douglas County Judge Lawrence Barrett and now Vampola  have retired before formal ethics charges could be brought against them. Kelch, Barrett and Vampola had been accused of sexually harassing or unethical behavior with women. Crnkovich resigned amid allegations that she held private hearings and illegally kicked attorneys out of her courtroom.

Each judge had a motive to resign abruptly: It allowed them to salvage either all, or a major chunk of, their pensions. Currently, state law calculates each judges pension based on their years of service multiplied by 3.5% of their $179,000 salary. At most, judges can receive 70% of their salary if they serve 20 years.

Because he retired three years short of 20 on the bench, Vampolas annual pension will amount to about $106,500 annually. The pension is funded by a mix of court fees, returns from an investment authority, taxpayer dollars and, to a far lesser extent, judges contributions.

The trend is one reason that former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha is contemplating a return run for the Legislature in 2024. Among his many roles, Chambers took it upon himself to file complaints against judges accused of corruption, calling himself the garbageman of the judiciary.

Judges facing trouble shouldnt get anything, Chambers said. That pension is their filthy lucre  and they will protect it by all means. If the law was (re)written so that their pensions truly were in jeopardy, it would put an end to this unethical behavior.

Under state law, judges facing formal charges arent allowed to retire and collect their pension. But the same statute also builds in an escape hatch for a judge in trouble: Before formal charges can be filed against a judge, the Judicial Qualifications Committee must hold an informal, confidential hearing advising the judge of the informal complaint against them.

That allows judges, if they know theyre in legitimate trouble, to resign and retain their pension. It also allows them to disappear without any public accounting of their unethical behavior.

The JQC, as its known, publicizes allegations against judges and the discipline they receive only if they face formal charges. In turn, the alleged misdeeds of the four judges mentioned above came to light only through digging by The World-Herald.

The accusations against Vampola might be the most involved.

* * *

Vampolas ascension to a robe-filled career almost hit a snag before he was appointed.

In 2005, then-Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican who once called Fremont home, received the names of Vampola and another attorney to consider for a judgeship serving Dodge, Burt, Cedar, Dakota, Dixon, Thurston and Washington Counties. A few years before, state officials, including a Nebraska Supreme Court judge and the Judicial Nominating Commission, had received something else: a letter from a concerned citizen.

I think it would reflect poorly on the judiciary if Mr. Vampola became a judge, the Fremont resident wrote the commission. He attached a lengthy police report from 1989.

According to that police report: The night of Sept. 27, 1989, Vampola was 33 and studying to become a lawyer at the University of Nebraska Law School. He and an attorney had gone to Boomers, then a strip club in Fremont.

Two entertainers, ages 18 and 23, told Fremont police that they had been hounded by two men all night, with the attorney offering hundreds of dollars for sex acts. The dancers said Vampola asked if he could hire them for a stag party.

The most important thing to them was trying to get us to prastute (sic) for them, the then-18-year-old wrote in a police report. I told them I am strictly an entertainer, not a prastute.

After the dancers finished their shift, they were driving home when they spotted the two men following them in an Oldsmobile Toronado. The women drove around, hoping to lose them. They couldnt. The women decided to head to the police station while the men rode their back bumper.

When we wouldnt stop, they passed us and then cut in front of us as if they were trying to run us off the road, the 23-year-old wrote. Instead, Vampola crashed into a curb, a front tire snapping off and the car coming to rest in a yard.

Vampola told Fremont police that he only wanted the entertainers to dance for my Ducks Unlimited committee. He said he was driving the attorneys car, had trouble reaching the pedals and inadvertently gunned it as he was trying to get the womens attention.

Fremont police cited him for careless driving.

The concerned citizen cited the ordeal to a Nebraska Supreme Court judge as Vampola sought a judgeship. After Heineman appointed Vampola to the bench in 2005, the citizen wrote that dozens of Fremont men still talk about a different stag party involving sex acts, fruits and vegetables, a dancer named White Thunder and Vampola on stage.

I was stunned at this appointment, the Fremont man wrote Heineman. Mr. Governor, you must know that all the old stories of his vile behavior again are making their way around the community. Is this man truly fit to be a judge?

Heineman did not return a reporters phone call last week about the appointment.

Vampola had some qualifications. After graduating from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1992 at age 36, Vampola worked as a Winnebago tribal prosecutor in criminal cases and as an attorney in juvenile cases for four years. He served as a tribal judge and did civil and criminal defense work out of Fremont and Arlington before becoming chairman of the Nebraska Parole Board under then-Gov. Mike Johanns. From 2003 to 2005, he and the board made weighty decisions on whether to put prisoners back on the streets.

Then Johanns took a federal appointment to become the U.S. secretary of agriculture. After Heineman took over for Johanns, one of the first open judgeships was in Heinemans old stomping grounds, Dodge County. Vampola presented as a born-again Christian who, by then, had more than a decade of experience as a lawyer and as an arbiter of parolees fate.

Of the seven attorneys who applied, a Judicial Nominating Commission tabbed Vampola, who had served as legal counsel to the Dodge County Republican Party, and former and current Dodge County Attorney Paul Vaughan as finalists.

Heineman appointed Vampola.

* * *

A county court judges role is limited in Nebraska courts. Judges at that level preside over misdemeanors involving relatively minor crimes (most serious: drunken driving) and over the beginning stages of major cases such as murders. They handle civil matters from small claims to litigation over wills and estates. Judges in smaller counties also preside over juvenile court and parental custody cases.

Three Fremont-area attorneys interviewed by The World-Herald  all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were talking about a member of the bench  described Vampola as affable in court. As far as his legal acumen, they said he was adequate  pointing to bar surveys in which about 78% of attorneys recommended he be retained. Such a score is mediocre  most judges top 90% favorable reviews on the anonymous surveys.

The reviews were far less positive regarding his behavior outside court. Two sources told The World-Herald that Vampola, who is married, and a then-county court clerk were overheard one late afternoon last year having sex in a visiting judges office next to a courtroom. An employee also caught them making out, the sources said. That clerk did not return World-Herald calls.

Vampola and a Nebraska Health and Human Services staffer also were caught in the act after hours at the state office near the courthouse several years ago, the sources said.

Then there was Brooklynn Rydel. Rydel, 32, a waitress at a Fremont restaurant, has had ongoing problems with substance abuse, according to court records and Rydels estranged mother, Carla Rydel.

In 2007, Brooklynn Rydel first appeared in front of Vampola as a 16-year-old charged with possession of marijuana and alcohol. Vampola ordered probation, which she successfully completed. Four years later, she was cited on the same charges plus possessing drug paraphernalia  and Vampola again fined her for the misdemeanors.

In February 2015, Rydel, then 24, picked up her first felony, possession of meth. Her case was pleaded down to a misdemeanor  fairly typical for a first felony  and Vampola gave her probation.

In June 2015, she was charged with felony meth possession again. The case was bound over to district court, where a judge ultimately gave her 30 months of probation.

The woman was serving that probation at the same time as she was still on probation under Vampola.

In July 2016, Rydel sent the judge a letter, writing in bubbly letters: Dear Judge Vampola, I currently am on two probations, one in county court and one in district (court) due to my drug addiction to meth. Currently I am 16 months sober, have completed outpatient treatment and have taken all the classes required for the probation.

There was just one problem, Rydel wrote. Her father, Mike Rydel, a former general manager at a Fremont restaurant, had suffered a massive stroke. So, she wrote, she moved back home to help her mom care for her dad, and the family was scraping by. In turn, she couldnt afford the $425 in fines levied against her.

All I do is work and come home to help my mom take care of my dad, she wrote. Ive done everything thats needed to be done and havent missed or failed a single (drug test). Ive changed my entire life around and am very grateful.

Now that I am clear-minded, Ive realized how valuable life is. Please, if there is anything you can do ... I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

A few weeks later, Vampola ended Rydels probation, writing that all costs and fees have been paid.

* * *

It is unclear when Vampola and Rydel struck up a personal relationship. But her contact with the courts didnt stop after he granted her grace.

In 2019, Rydel again was picked up for possessing meth. For reasons that arent apparent, the case was pleaded down to attempted possession, a misdemeanor. In November of that year, Vampola sentenced her to 18 months of probation.

In January 2021, Vampola released her from probation about four months before it was set to expire, a common practice if defendants are complying with terms.

In July 2021, Vampola signed court documents in a misdemeanor case in which Brooklynn alleged that her mother assaulted her. According to Carla, Vampola signed a warrant based only on Brooklynns version. Carla said she wasnt interviewed.

Carla adamantly denied assaulting her daughter  and soon after, the case was dismissed and sealed. Sealing a dismissed case also is typical.

Then came 2022. Then came atypical.

In January, Vampola bought Rydel a car  a 2012 Chevy Impala  and registered it in both his name and hers, listing his home address in Arlington.

Two months later, he helped her buy a 2003 Toyota Highlander to replace the Impala. Again, he registered the vehicle under both his name and hers.

That left a Fremont attorney wondering: How long do you have to know someone before you buy (her) a car?

In between the two car purchases, Rydel was cited after her pit bull got loose in Fremont and bit a couple of people.

As that case was pending, Vampola signed an order granting a delay in the case, despite his relationship with Rydel. In April, Rydel failed to appear for a hearing in the case. (She also took the pit bull to Omaha; it bit someone and Rydel was fined $100.)

Back in Fremont, a clerk found Rydel passed out in her and Vampolas Highlander at a gas pump at a BP station on May 6. The clerk tried to rouse her, she stirred and then passed back out. The clerk called 911. Rydel awoke and took off.

A Dodge County sheriffs deputy found her about four blocks away. In her cigarette pack: a baggie containing 1.1 grams of meth. In the truck registered to her and Vampola, a bag of mushrooms, a hypodermic needle, a baggie with meth residue and a small, empty bottle of liquor.

She was charged with felony possession of meth. According to sources, Vampola either bailed her out of jail or provided the money to bail her out.

Despite his relationship with her, Vampola continued to preside over the dog bite case. In late May, she pleaded to a citation-level offense, similar to a speeding ticket, where she was allowed to pay a fine. Vampola signed an order accepting her guilty plea.

On July 26, she appeared in court at 9 a.m. on the gas station drug case. Judge Francis Barron grew concerned about whether she was under the influence  a violation of her bail. He ordered her to go get tested at the Dodge County probation office not far from the courthouse. If she failed the test, Barron warned, he would revoke her bail.

By 11:26 a.m., Rydel hadnt shown up.

Barron began the process of issuing a bench warrant. Suddenly, he was interrupted by Vampola.

Attorneys say Vampola tracked down Barron and frantically begged him not to issue the warrant, telling Barron shes at the (probation) office now! Barron ignored Vampola and issued the warrant.

That afternoon, a Fremont police officer arrested her at home and took her to jail. Judge Barron upped her bail to 10% of $25,000.

That afternoon, someone posted the $2,500 bail for Rydel. It is not clear how the waitress came up with that money.

Her mom has suspicions. Last year, before mother and daughter stopped talking, Carla Rydel said she asked her daughter whether it was true what she heard, that she was spending weekend nights at the judges Platte River cabin near Schuyler.

How are you driving if youve been drinking? Carla asked.

I go to a bedroom and sleep it off, she said.

Carla pressed: Why would a judge who is married and overseeing your cases have a woman, half his age, stay at his cabin?

Her daughter shrugged, saying it was no big deal, Carla said.

I drink my White Claws  and he smokes his cigars, Brooklynn said, according to Carla. He counsels me.

* * *

The text with the photo arrived on Carlas phone shortly after her daughter posted it to social media earlier this year.

It was a picture of Brooklynn smiling, with Vampola close over her left shoulder.

My adopted father from another father, she captioned it.

Asked the nature of her relationship with Vampola, Rydel told a World-Herald reporter no comment and hung up.

Vampola didnt answer World-Herald questions about any of the allegations. He announced his resignation nine days after confronting Judge Barron on Rydels behalf.

Vampola appears to have violated several judicial canons. Among them: Judges are to recuse themselves from cases involving family, friends or associates  anything that might jeopardize their ability to be impartial. They arent supposed to have any one-on-one communication about cases outside court. Theyre not to attempt to intimidate or influence their fellow judges.

And they are to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Late last month, Carla Rydel said she didnt know where to begin in her complaints about the judges behavior. Hosting a young woman at a cabin. Buying her cars that allowed her daughter to drive around drugged out of her mind. Bailing her out. Allowing her to gain access to his credit cards.

Given her daughters ongoing drug battle, Carla Rydel questioned whether Vampola was counseling the young woman.

I call it enabling, she said. Whether he has good intentions or not, I dont know. Its all very shady. He is enabling a drug addict.
The City of Omaha is moving forward with a plan to turn human waste into green energy, and make millions of dollars in the process.

With a $20 million investment approved last month, one of the citys wastewater treatment plants will increase its ability to turn the waste into renewable natural gas, also known as biogas.

The project will allow the city to profit off its biogas production and contribute to the renewable energy market.

Its a big step for Omaha on climate initiatives and moving toward net zero emissions, said David Sykora, plant manager.

Since 1977, Omahas Papillion Creek Water Resource Recovery Facility has operated in Sarpy County just north of where the Platte River meets the Missouri River.

Simply put, the plants purpose is to take dirty water and make it clean, Sykora said.

All day, every day, wastewater from thousands of homes is treated at the facility. The amount of dirty water that flows to the plant each day could fill up to 100 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Water comes into the facility through a collection system and is separated by solids and liquids. Both are stabilized and refined to state and federal standards before waste is turned into fertilizer for farm fields and water is pumped to the Missouri River.

Jim Theiler, assistant public works director, compares the process to a big human digestive system.

There are liquids and solids the plant disposes of, just like a human, Theiler said.

And there are large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

For years, the facility has used the gas internally to heat the plant. Now, with the $20 million project, the facility aims to capture more gas, refine it and sell it to Black Hills Energy.

In 2021, the plant produced enough electricity to power about 1,000 homes. Through the biogas project, officials estimate that the renewable natural gas produced by the plant each year will be enough to meet the yearly heating needs of 4,000 Nebraska households.

The City of Omaha has approved a nearly $20.2 million contract with All Purpose Construction to build the infrastructure needed for the project, including an expansion and updates to the gas pipeline and a biogas building. Sewer revenue bonds will be issued to help finance the project.

Facility leaders hope to have the project up and running by spring 2024.

Once in operation, the Public Works Department expects to see a profit of $4 million to $5 million annually from the project  making the citys investment back within five years.

The use of biogas as a sellable energy source by water treatment plants has gained popularity in recent years, Theiler said.

The City of Lincoln in early 2021 completed its own biogas project in partnership with Black Hills Energy and has since used the gas to produce vehicle fuel.

Lincolns project is estimated to generate $2.6 million each year, recouping the citys project costs in just over three years, according to Black Hills Energy.

Lincolns successful project is an example of what is possible in Omaha, Sykora said.

To be one of the first places in Nebraska to take this step I think is pretty exciting, Sykora said. Theres a lot of different options that this will provide the city of Omaha. We want to be a utility of the future.
As Omaha firefighters stood at attention outside their stations Sunday morning to honor those lost in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, possible future first responders were paying close attention.

On that morning 21 years ago, 19 terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

The fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field following a passenger revolt. The terrorist attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, including 340 firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers.

Max Gifford, 4, of Omaha, and his sister, Kyla Gifford, 8, came to the memorial at station 1 near 15th and Jackson Streets with their grandmother, Cathy Vigneri. Their uncle, Jason Sterba, is a fire apparatus engineer with 14 years of service with the Omaha Fire Department and drives the big rigs.

After a minute of silence at 9:11 a.m., Max wasted little time getting a boost into the drivers seat of one of the fire engines. Sterba helped Max sound the siren, the boys face beaming as he clutched the steering wheel.

I want them to learn about 9/11 and to show respect for the firefighters, Vigneri said. Max wants to be a (fire engine) driver just like his uncle.

Sterba said firefighters enjoy having families visit. Seeing the public standing by our side is a good feeling, he said.

We want to make sure they are comfortable and that they know being around us is a good thing, Sterba said. We want them to know that were here to help.

Jordan Lafferty and his fiancee, Amber Jones of Council Bluffs, brought their three children to station 1. Its important for Brooklynn, 9, McKenziee, 7, and Jordan, 1, to learn about the history of that infamous day, their father said.

Lafferty and Jones were only in fifth grade in 2001 when the attacks occurred. They both vividly remember as TVs were wheeled into their classrooms, and they were watching as the World Trade Center towers collapsed.

We came over here just to show respect for the fallen from that day and to teach the kids about the history of what happened, Lafferty said. We try to do something every year thats good for the children to learn about it.

Jones said the family takes many opportunities to interact with first responders. The older kids enjoy meeting the firefighters and, given the chance, climbing on and into the vehicles.

(First responders) are always so friendly, she said. I love that about them.
 Flash

King Charles III was formally proclaimed Britain's new monarch at a meeting of the Accession Council at St James's Palace on Saturday.



Charles assumed the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday, aged 96. The accession ceremony introduced the new monarch to the country.

In his declaration at the accession ceremony, King Charles III, 73, told the Accession Council of hundreds of senior political and religious advisers that he would strive to follow his mother's "inspiring example."

"I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me," he said in the ceremony televised for the first time in history.

The Accession Proclamation was then read out from the balcony of St James's Palace, a royal residence, to a trumpet fanfare, followed by gun salutes. The proclamation will also be read publicly in other capital cities of the United Kingdom -- Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast -- and other locations.

In his first address to the nation and the Commonwealth on Friday night as the new monarch, King Charles III bestowed the title of Prince of Wales to his eldest son William, 40, a title he had held for over 50 years and is a title reserved exclusively for the heir apparent to the British throne.
In early July, Pantagraph Media began taking nominations for its annual "20 under 40" program, which recognizes young professionals who excel in their career, are passionate about their community and are making a mark in Central Illinois. Almost 50 nominations were received, reflecting a cross-section of our areas developing talent.

This years class represents a diverse group of impressive men and women who come from varied backgrounds and are employed in a variety of workplaces, but have a singular commitment to making our community a better place to live, said Jonell Kehias, Pantagraph marketing director. We are proud to showcase these young leaders.

Profiles of the honorees will be published in the October issue of Limited magazine and they will be honored at the McLean County Chamber of Commerce Leaders of Distinction Award Ceremony, along with the naming of the ATHENA Leadership award winner.

The Leaders of Distinction Award Ceremony will be held on Thursday, Oct. 6 at Epiphany Farms Estate, 23676 E. 800 North Rd, Downs. Tickets are $50 and include entry to the cocktail reception with heavy hors doeuvres and a hosted bar.

Check out the honorees below.

Also being honored at the Leaders of Distinction event will be the ATHENA finalists, individuals who have achieved professional excellence and who give their time and energy to community service and who actively assist others, especially women, in realizing their full leadership potential. These three nominees will also be profiled in the October issue of Limited magazine. Finalists are Aimee Beam, The Baby Fold; Roxanne Hartrich, RE/MAX Choice; Jessica McKnight, McLean County Health Department.
Each week The Pantagraph profiles a different community member. Know someone we should talk to? Email roger.miller@lee.net.

Name: Emma Oliver

Position: Artist (MFA in sculpture and expanded media from Illinois State University) whose exhibit "Have Your Cake" is showing at Heartland Community College, Normal

1. What is your background and how did you become an artist?

I grew up on the East Coast in Massachusetts and I was lucky to attend schools that had strong art programs. As a child, I took pottery lessons every week and discovered I really enjoyed making things with my hands. I believe that today I still express myself through the use of my hands, and its the best way I can communicate with the world.

I really became an artist when I went to Arts at Tower Summer Camp, which really expanded my idea of what art could be. It was also the first time I was able to use fiber!

2. Why did you choose yarn as your medium and how do you use it to express yourself?

Im not always sure if I choose yarn as my medium; some days it feels like yarn has chosen me. I was originally using yarn to make useful objects for myself and my friends in undergraduate school in western New York. It was the most comfortable choice of medium at the time after having been exposed to so many sculptural mediums in undergrad at Alfred University.

Its exciting to work in a medium that offers me repetition and consistency, which are qualities that I use to express myself. Fiber has this great history rooted in feminism and has been historically regarded as an afterthought.

I like to recontextualize fiber and to offer it a place in contemporary sculpture in the same way Im allowing myself to be seen. Its me claiming space for my medium and my own voice.

3. What is in your collection Have Your Cake, and what inspired it?

There are several soft cakes, balloons, a telephone, and a wall piece with text in Have Your Cake at the Joe McCauley Art Gallery. Its inspired by the phrase you cant have your cake and eat it too, which is used to illustrate a trade-off, and frequently is used to illustrate a difficult trade-off rather than two good options.

My show offers a third option: So you can have your cake, you can eat it, or you can do this other third thing, which is to look at and be surprised by the soft cakes and other works in the space. I think that the phrase becomes more of a conversation when another option is added.

Things arent always black and white, and when we hear the voices of other people, we can comfortably step into a gray area and hopefully all be a little bit happier with the outcome.

4. What do you want the viewer to take away from the exhibit?

Im happy if people are just pleasantly surprised by the medium being used in a different way! Surprise or delight is a good reaction for me.

I feel as though when people think of art they approach it in a serious and sometimes solemn way. I would like the exact opposite from this exhibition!

If the viewer wants to read about the meaning of my pieces thats great, but I dont feel its totally necessary to have a good experience in the gallery.

5. What does the future hold for you?

I am a recent graduate of Illinois States MFA program, so Ive been lucky enough to have some rest after going to school during the pandemic and to have just completed my MFA thesis exhibition.

In the near future, Im going to the Breckenridge Creative Arts Center in Colorado for an artist residency. Ill be teaching and making work during my time there, and Im very excited to work with another community and to spread the joy of working with fiber.

If youre looking for more updates on my career and to see other images of my artwork, they can be found at my website: emmaoliverart.com.

IF YOU GO What: "Have Your Cake," an exhibit by artist Emma Oliver featuring knit and crochet sculptures that look like edible cakes and other objects When: Now through Oct. 7; reception from 4-6 p.m. Sept. 21; gallery open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-noon Friday Where: Joe McCauley Art Gallery, Room 2507 of Heartland Community College Instructional Commons Building, 1500 W. Raab Road, Normal. Cost: Free parking and admission Information: https://www.heartland.edu/artGallery
Research for the Challenges, Choices, and Change: Farming in the Great Corn Belt exhibit at the McLean County Museum of History involved listening sessions to gather input and ideas from longtime area farmers. Many participants overwhelmingly supported the notion that one of the greatest innovations that advanced life on Central Illinois farms was the arrival of electricity and the labor-saving devices it powered.

Thomas Edison is credited with the development of a safe and inexpensive lightbulb as early as 1878 and started his own light company (which eventually merged into General Electric Corp.). By 1889, alternating current (AC) replaced direct current (DC) as the preferred electricity for widespread use.

By 1890, Bloomington-Normal had an electrified trolley system. Like the trolley system powered by overhead electric lines, the Illinois Traction System (commonly called the Interurban) also began locally in 1906 using electricity to transport freight and passengers between Bloomington, Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, Champaign, Danville, and as far away as St. Louis.

By 1909, Bloomington homes and businesses also had access to electricity. By 1915, Pantagraph advertisements were common for home wiring and electric appliances. The Bloomington & Normal Street Railway & Light Company was the local power source for transportation, streetlights and residential and commercial electricity use.

Within a few years, eight additional towns (Chenoa, Gridley, El Paso, Meadows, Hudson, LeRoy, Downs and Gillum) were supplied with electricity. Even a few farms located along the powerlines were fortunate enough to have access to electricity as well.

By 1927, the Illinois Traction System had merged with other forms to form Illinois Power and Light Company (IPL), later known as Illinois Power and now as part of Ameren IP. However, only 12% of Illinois farms had electric power service by 1938.

One of the Great Depression initiatives President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented to get the U.S. economy back on track included an executive order establishing the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1935. This order extended electricity throughout rural areas and was funded by an act of Congress in 1936.

Within months local officials began debating how to organize groups to participate. On Sept. 12, 1938, the McLean County Farm Bureau board planned an all-day meeting to discuss the issue. A vote was taken that day to form a cooperative project including all of McLean County, along with parts of Tazewell and Woodford counties (Dewitt County joined later) to seek approval for an REA project.

The 20-year loan cost was estimated to be $1 million (today that figure would be over $21 million), and this REA project was expected to be Illinoiss largest.

The following day a group of incorporating board members convened to begin filing the incorporation papers. The project was designed to only include members and not the general public.

Walter Risser from Danvers, a past Farm Bureau board president, was elected to lead the cooperative corporation, to be known as Corn Belt Electricity (CBE). A $5 annual membership fee was planned in addition to monthly electricity service charges.

A public meeting was held on Sept. 23 with an estimated 1,000 people in attendance who overwhelmingly supported the project. Those in attendance learned the project would only serve rural areas without electricity, electricity would be purchased from an outside wholesale supplier, and most importantly, joining the cooperative automatically granted easements for the cooperative to place powerlines on private property as needed.

Maude Stanger of Ellsworth was credited as the first member, signing up on the day after the meeting.

A landowner meeting was held in October to encourage their support and discuss the easements needed along fence lines for powerlines along roads. One-hundred-fifty solicitors were hired to secure membership, and by Oct. 28, 2,400 applications were in hand.

The REA loan papers were signed on Nov. 7 and map designs for powerline placement were already underway. The first 310 miles of powerlines constructed were in the northern quarter of McLean County and southeastern section of Woodford County.

Local electricians met in December with officials to discuss approved wiring from the meters into buildings and interior building wiring standards. Home wiring loans were announced from a separate REA loan.

Over 2,700 farms were enrolled by December, exceeding the loan targets.

Three bids for 1,000 miles of power lines and six substations were opened on Dec. 8, and a Minnesota contractor was selected to begin construction work in February 1939.

The Illinois-Iowa Power Co. was selected to provide electricity from the Powerton generation plant in Pekin to REA substations.

The first substation to step down the 33,000-volt supply lines was at Kappa. Additional substations were north of Lexington, Danvers, near LeRoy, Clinton, and north of Mindale in Tazewell County.

Nineteen CBE staff members were in place by April 1939, along with 36 staffers involved in engineering. The construction contractors employed 350 workers and an estimated 200 electricians were hired to wire farm buildings.

The first REA pole was set on April 1, 1939, and the first wires were strung on May 4. By May 7, 700 miles of wire were staked, and the first farm transformer was placed on May 22.

The first farm meter was installed on July 24, and by Aug. 7, 1939, the power at the Kappa substation was switched on.

All of this happened in only 330 days after the Farm Bureaus organizational meeting. However, it took until 1948 to connect all members because of World War II short supply years and how remote some locations were.

These newly electrified farms utilized a variety of labor-saving devices such as milking machines, water pumps, barn lighting and power saws, just to name a few. Additionally, farm homes were finally able to utilize electricity like their urban neighbors for lighting, indoor plumbing, water heaters, refrigerators, radios, vacuums, washing machines and many other uses.

Well-attended annual meetings were a trademark of the cooperative until the recent pandemic. Now, known today as Corn Belt Energy (after several mergers), it remains a membership cooperative serving 36,000 members over 5,000 miles of power lines, with 39,000 meters in 18 counties.
SPRINGFIELD  A gun rights group is challenging the city of Highland Parks ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like the ones used in a mass shooting there on July 4.

The National Association for Gun Rights, based in Loveland, Colorado, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal district court in Chicago at the same time it filed lawsuits challenging a similar ordinance in Naperville as well as state laws in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Hawaii.

The cases were filed in district courts that are part of five different federal appellate circuits. Illinois is part of the 7th Circuit. In a statement Thursday, the group said it is pushing for a national precedent to end all similar bans across the country.

In the lawsuits, the gun rights group rejects the use of the term assault weapon, calling it a charged political term meant to stir the emotions of the public and instead uses the term banned firearm.

The lawsuits allege that the bans violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. They cite recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including a 2008 decision overturning Washington D.C.s ban on handguns, a 2010 decision overturning similar handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, and a decision from June of this year overturning the state of New Yorks law requiring people to show proper cause for obtaining a firearm license.

On July 4, Robert Crimo III, 21, allegedly took an assault-style weapon and three large-capacity magazines onto a rooftop in downtown Highland Park and fired into an Independence Day parade, killing seven people and wounding dozens of others. He is being held without bond on multiple counts of first-degree murder.

Prior to that shooting, Highland Park had an ordinance dating back to 2013 banning the sale or rental of assault weapons or assault ammunition feeding devices, definitions of which are spelled out in the law. The city of Naperville adopted a substantially similar ordinance in August, specifically in response to the mass shooting in Highland Park and an earlier shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Highland Parks ordinance, however, was previously challenged in federal court, and in 2015 a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the ordinance.

In their opinion, the judges specifically cited the 2010 Supreme Court case from Washington, D.C., in which Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said the Second Amendment does not guarantee a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose, and noted that the court cautioned against interpreting the decision too broadly.

* * *

PRITZKER ON CHOATE: On Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked about recent reporting from Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises and Propublica about ongoing abuses at the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna.

At least 26 employees over the past decade have been arrested on felony charges in relation to their work at the facility, and internal investigations have cited dozens of other employees for neglecting, exploiting or humiliating residents, lying to investigators, or failing to report allegations of mistreatment in a timely manner. In some cases, investigations have languished for years as accused employees have continued to receive their full pay while on administrative leave.

The abuse and neglect that took place at Choate is awful, Pritzker said when at an unrelated news conference Tuesday.

And in fact, it's one of the reasons why we made sure that the State Police did their job in investigating, that we were transparent and providing all the information that was needed for them to do the investigation and to hold people accountable who deserve to be held accountable.

Obviously we're very focused on making sure that that facility is doing what it needs to do to care for the people who live there. We're going to continue to upgrade and provide the services that people need and the personnel that are appropriate for that facility.

Pritzker was also asked about the response time of the Illinois Department of Human Services.

I can't speak to how quickly she acted, he said of IDHS director Grace Hou. I will say that speaking up and speaking out when you see something that's wrong is exactly the right thing to do. Making sure that there's a responsive people on the other end and that, again, we have transparency, an investigation that takes place. That's the right thing to do. And that's what we're going to make sure happens.

He said the state wasnt considering closing the facility at this time, but he did not take the option off the table.

But I have to tell you, obviously deeply concerning what people who work there did, he said. And the question is, can we prevent that in the future? And if not, then obviously that's not a facility that should remain open. But the state has an obligation to the people that it serves at that facility right now.

* * *

UNION GROWTH: As voters in Illinois prepare to decide on a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee workers the right to organize, a new study shows union membership in the state grew last year for the first time in four years.

The analysis by the pro-union Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showed that union membership statewide grew a little more than 2%, to 752,063, over the previous year. That was still below the 2017 level of 828,066.

And while it may be too early to tell whether thats a temporary blip or the beginning of a longer-term trend, UIUCs Robert Bruno, a coauthor of the report, said there are other signs of a rebound in the labor movement.

In addition to their own findings, Bruno and IEPIs Frank Manzo pointed to a Gallup survey released Aug. 30 that showed 71% of Americans approve of labor unions. Thats up from 64% before the pandemic and is the highest approval rate Gallup had recorded since 1965.

And that is a 23-percentage point increase since 2009, Manzo said. I mean, the trend line is up, up, up since 2009.

In addition, they pointed to a 60% success rate for union organizing petitions in Illinois last year, the highest in more than a decade, with workers under age 35 and female workers showing the largest growth in unionization rates.

Overall, 13.9% of Illinois workers were represented by a union, down from 14.2% the previous year and 15% in 2017. Nationally, however, only 10.3% of U.S. workers were union members in 2021, down from 10.7% in 2017.

State and local government workers are 49.9% unionized compared to 8.6% of private sector workers.

But the unionization rate among public sector workers in Illinois has been declining, due in large part to the U.S. Supreme Courts 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. In that Illinois case, the court said the state could not require public sector employees to pay what are known as agency fees to their unions.

The 49.9% of public sector workers belonging to a union represented a 2.2-percentage point decrease from pre-Janus levels.

But unionization rates have been growing in the private sector, which was not affected by the Janus ruling, as more and more workers have begun to organize in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

UNION AMENDMENT: Previously in Illinois, former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner sought to weaken labor unions by unsuccessfully working to ban some political contributions by public employee unions and allow local governments to establish right-to-work zones.

In 2019, Gov. Pritzker signed legislation specifically prohibiting local governments from enacting such laws. And last year, state lawmakers went even further by proposing a constitutional amendment to protect workers rights to organize.

The proposed constitutional amendment, which will be on ballots in the Nov. 8 general election, would add a new section to the state constitutions bill of rights. The first sentence would establish a fundamental right of employees to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work.

The second sentence would prohibit the General Assembly or any local government from interfering with that right or from enacting right-to-work laws.

It would provide that, No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and work place safety, including any law or ordinance that prohibits the execution or application of agreements between employers and labor organizations that represent employees requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment.

The proposal has sparked opposition from the Liberty Justice Center and the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, which have tried  unsuccessfully, so far  to have it removed from the ballot. They argue in part that the amendment would be preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, at least regarding private-sector unions, and would therefore be unconstitutional under federal law.

In May, a Sangamon County judge rejected that argument, and in August the 4th District Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The plaintiffs are now trying to get their case before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Manzo, meanwhile, argued that even if federal law does preempt state action, a state constitutional amendment could still serve as a backstop in the event federal protections are ever taken away.

* * *

EV TAX BREAK: The state on Tuesday announced the award of the first electric vehicle manufacturing-targeted tax incentives made possible by a law signed by Gov. Pritzker last year.

The incentives come from the Reimagining Electric Vehicles Act, which passed nearly unanimously and became law in November, and will provide an estimated $2.2 million in value to T/CCI Manufacturing in Decatur.

The REV Act passed two months after the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act which incentivizes EV adoption, driving Pritzkers vision to make Illinois the best place in North America to drive and manufacture an electric vehicle.

T/CCIs Decatur plant currently manufactures compressors for gasoline-powered cars. The company plans to retool the Decatur facility to produce compressors for EVs with an estimated $20 million investment. Currently, T/CCI makes EV compressors, a part which cools batteries and powers car air conditioning systems, in China and India.

Pritzker and local lawmakers said the manufacturing of EV parts domestically is necessary to work around supply chain issues.

T/CCIs transition will create 50 new jobs, while 103 existing jobs are expected to be retained.

The REV Acts incentives are targeted to the manufacturers of EVs and their parts, such as compressors. The companies receiving the breaks can receive a state income tax credit of 75% or 100% of payroll taxes withheld from each new employee and 25% or 50% for current employees. The law also provides a 10% credit for training expenses.

The governors office tied the Tuesday announcement to a previously announced plan to provide $15.3 million in state infrastructure funding to Richland Community College and $6 million to the city of Decatur to create an EV cluster that includes a training, research and innovation facility in partnership with T/CCI.

The infrastructure money would go toward a climatic simulation center on T/CCIs Decatur campus which will allow the testing of new EV-related technologies in extreme environments.

Richland and T/CCI are also working in partnership with the University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering and Northern Illinois University on a training academy that will focus on EV advanced engineering, software technology and accredited apprenticeship programs.

A public-private partnership model, the climatic center will be open to businesses and researchers looking to expedite adoption of new EV technologies, according to the governors office.
CHICAGO - At a South Side diner one recent morning, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot served up a cautionary tale about what might happen if Black voters dont unite behind her reelection bid.

She told the mostly Black crowd at Huddle House on Stony Island Avenue that the citys first African American mayor, Harold Washington, spent years feuding with a racist mob in City Council. When he died in office in 1987, they voted to replace him with Ald. Eugene Sawyer, who they thought they could control, but two years later they dropped him like a bad habit and went all in for (Richard M.) Daley, she said.

The result? Daleys long tenure at City Hall and 30 years of people struggling, Lightfoot said.

Not having the resources and the control of the city government left Black and brown Chicago the worse for it, Lightfoot said. So when you think about whats up on the ballot, in February of next year, our destiny is on the ballot.

Lightfoots comments during a petition kickoff event led to criticism from some who said she had distorted history and disrespected the memory of Sawyer, whose son is running against her. But it also underscored the mayors strategy in the 2023 mayoral campaign as her political base of support has shifted from the lakefront to the South and West sides, creating a unique dynamic for Lightfoot as she seeks a second term.

In the first round of the 2019 mayoral race, Lightfoot emerged from a historic 14-candidate field with roughly 18% of the vote. Much of it came from white lakefront residents on the North Side who backed her over more established politicians. Many of those voters are now disenchanted with Lightfoot, and she has been working vigorously to lock in support from the Black community.

To be sure, Lightfoot is expected to campaign for votes across the city but her attempts to build a new political base with Black voters face real hurdles. Five candidates who have announced their campaigns to unseat her are also Black and enter the contest with their own bases of support on the South and West sides. That large field includes businessman Willie Wilson, who won the citys Black vote in the first round of the 2019 race and has loaned $6 million to his campaign this year. Wilson has more money in the bank than any candidate, including Lightfoot, an unusual development in a city where incumbents have often handily outspent opponents.

If no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote in the February election  as was the case in 2019  the race will proceed to a second round between the top two finishers. Lightfoot won all 50 wards in the runoff the last time, but whether she can solidify Black support, expand her base and reclaim disaffected supporters remains an open question that will help determine whether she finishes first, second, or out of the running.

For their part, Lightfoots rivals say her argument presents an antiquated notion of racial politics in the city. Three of the four leading vote-getters last time were Black, which challengers say proves that an African American can win even in a crowded field.

Its fine for her to rely on the Black community and embrace them as her new base because, shes correct, thats the base that still is with her. ... Black people tend to be relational and white people tend to be transactional, veteran Chicago political strategist Delmarie Cobb said. We will stick with you even when we know youre not the best for us. Proof of that was sticking with Rahm Emanuel because of (his ties to) Barack Obama.

But, Cobb added, Lightfoot may run into problems keeping the Black communitys support.

She can make the argument that Ive done X, Y, Z after almost 40 years of disinvestment and Ive come along channeling Harold Washington, I understand what these neighborhoods need. But someone else can make the argument, Where have you been? Where were you?  Cobb said. This didnt happen overnight. There are people who can make that argument, who are going to be running against her, who can show where they were. They werent on the North Side in a nice cozy community with all the resources and amenities.

Political analyst Ameshia Cross said the mayor has a lot of work to do to regain the ground she lost and her message that the Black community may struggle if they dont vote her may not resonate when youre in a sea of Black candidates.

High crime and politically controversial decisions, such as raising bridges downtown during the height of civil unrest, might cause South and West side residents to be wary of her candidacy, Cross said.

Lori Lightfoot has a problem and its interesting for a Black woman to have a Black problem, Cross said. It is a large part of her own doing.

That was then, but now is now

Lightfoot appeared pleased as she stood next to three political heavyweights within Black Chicago in June. Underneath the DuSable Museums black-and-white mural of African American faces, U.S. Reps. Robin Kelly, Bobby Rush and Danny Davis sang Lightfoots praises as they endorsed her for reelection.

Combined, their speeches aimed to paint the mayor as a stalwart for the citys majority-Black neighborhoods, where she has launched the Invest South/West program to fund business development in disinvested neighborhoods.

Lightfoot returned the love and described the trio as three of the most iconic Black leaders in our country.

The session highlighted an important aspect of Lightfoots strategy: Standing with the Black political establishment. To that end, she also recently announced the backing of outgoing Secretary of State Jesse White, and most of her endorsements from sitting aldermen come from Black and Latino officials.

It wasnt always like this. Much of the Black political establishment supported Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in 2019. During the runoff that year, Davis knocked Lightfoots lack of experience holding elected office, while Rush had said her supporters would have the blood of the next young Black man or Black woman killed by the police on their hands. White also supported Preckwinkle.

More than three years later, that hatchet seemed long buried as Rush shrugged off his past criticism.

That was then, but now is now, Rush said, drawing a round of laughter from Lightfoot and her supporters.

She has also worked to establish friendlier ties with Black politicians she has previously criticized. Early in her term, Lightfoot feuded with Black Caucus chairman Jason Ervin, who she once slammed in a text as full of crap. Lightfoot also battled Ervins wife, city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, after the mayors administration stripped her of her security detail.

But in recent years, Ervin has emerged as one of her closest allies. After Ald. Sophia King announced her bid for mayor, Ervin released a statement warning that with so many Black candidates in the race and more expected to enter, we run the risk of losing it all.

As a community, it behooves us to come together and figure this out or end up walking away with nothing, Ervin said.

In August, Lightfoot took the stage at the Black Womens Expo in Bronzeville where she gave shout-outs to Black elected officials including Conyears-Ervin and our great states attorney, Kim Foxx.

Keep fighting that fight, keep fighting that fight, Lightfoot told Foxx from the stage.

Lightfoots comments raised eyebrows in political circles because the mayor has been critical of Foxx and the criminal justice reforms she has pushed. Lightfoot has publicly attacked Foxxs office at least twice and has long spoken out against bond reform, though she often aims her criticism toward judges rather than naming Foxx.

Race is a recurring theme when Lightfoot is defending her actions. She has said about 99% of the criticism she gets is because shes a Black woman.

Lightfoot created an uproar when she refused to grant interviews to white journalists for her two-year anniversary. She said that was meant to highlight the lack of diversity in the press corps, but it led Brandon Pope, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, to later tell WBEZ, It does feel like we were used for political props.

Lightfoot also stumbled during an interview with the Triibe, a Black news website, where she was asked about Black businesses she frequents and didnt name any except one on the South Side.

She never backed down

The Bud Billiken Parade has long been a highlight of campaign season that can illustrate potential pitfalls for a candidate. Glad-handing along the route last month, Lightfoot received a warm reception from the crowd  but so did other candidates.

One paradegoer, Erica AnnMarie Vassell, said shed found comfort in the mayors words in the scary early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. She recalled an April 2020 news conference in which Lightfoot said she personally drove around neighborhoods scolding people who werent social distancing.

Vassell, 51, has worked as a nurses assistant is now bouncing around shelters on the West Side. She has never voted but is planning to cast a ballot for Lightfoot in 2023, saying she found the mayors confidence as a woman inspiring.

Lori Lightfoot? Shes strong, Vassell said. Im very strong. So I see the strongness that is in me in her. I respect her for being a woman that stands up to so many challenges and changes thats been going on. She never backed down.

Carla Johnson, 66, waved a Pan-African flag on the sidelines of the parade as she watched Wilson march past her, wearing a shirt with his face on it.

Yeah, Wilson! Johnson shouted with both her arms up.

Johnson said she was a Lightfoot voter in 2019 but is planning on backing Wilson this time. One reason? The sentiment that Lightfoot has caved to the whims of politicians instead of everyday residents like Johnson.

Willie Wilson is more in tune with what the community is looking for, Johnson said. He has gotten out more with the people and got in touch and listened to our needs and our concerns more than I feel Mayor Lightfoot has. I feel like shes caught in the system.

Johnson said this years spike in gas prices has worried her, and she found Wilsons multiple rounds of gas giveaways impressive. Though Lightfoot passed her own measure giving away tens of thousands of dollars in free gas and CTA cards in April, Johnson said she had hoped the mayor could have used her influence to freeze the city fuel tax.

Black folks are not a monolith

Lightfoots opponents have been critical of her remarks about Black voters and pledged to compete for their support and others.

State Rep. Kambium Kam Buckner, whose district includes downtown and a large segment of the South Side, said hes offended by the idea pushed by Lightfoot and Ervin that the Black vote will split. He pointed out that four of the six leading vote-getters in the first round of the 2019 race were Black.

Black folks are not a monolith, and those of us who have spent lifetimes in the Black community in this city know that, Buckner said. There are differing opinions that are going to be across the board, but we saw in 2019 that splitting the Black vote trope is not a thing.

Still, Buckner said he has doubts about her appeal to Black voters.

The question thats going to be asked by many people of the Black community is, Where were you?, not just the last four years, but the four years before that and the four years before that, he said. Frankly, I dont think the mayor has an answer to that thatll be in line with what my neighbors want to hear.

Activist JaMal Green, another challenger, said its just incorrect to assume that the majority of people will vote based on ethnicity. ... Chicagoans will vote based on the leadership they want to see going forward and many ethnic groups will coalesce together behind candidates that represent their values.

Wilson, who won most of the Black wards in the first round of 2019 voting, said he expects to be even stronger this time on the South and West sides.

He contended no other candidate showed the minority community, particularly people of color, that they care about them. Ive been supporting the Black community ... for the last 30 to 40 years, Wilson said of his practice of giving away money to needy people. I havent seen anybody else do that.

South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, whos also in the race and whose father was the subject of the mayors breakfast comments, said Lightfoots version of history was reckless and irresponsible, one of Lightfoots go-to lines against critics. Sawyer predicted it wouldnt be effective and that candidates should be playing to as broad a field of support as they can.

I think her pandering to the Black community is going to be seen as just that. In order to run an effective race, you should be appealing to everybody in Chicago, Sawyer said. And Im speaking as someone whos proudly Black, been active in Black causes all my life, not just recently.

Fellow contender Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO, criticized Lightfoots pitch to Black voters as one of rhetoric and one-off projects on the South and West side.

With all the talk of equity, whether its her record on crime, schools or her taxes and fines, its been the citys African American residents that have been hurt the most, Vallas said in a statement. The growing number of Black candidates in the race reflect the great dissatisfaction with her in the Black community.

Another mayoral candidate, Ald. Raymond Lopez, whose ward includes Back of the Yards and West Englewood, dismissed Lightfoots comparison of herself with Washington.

She has not delivered for the Black community and they know it. She has never worked or lived their experience, and they havent forgotten that, Lopez said. And now at the eleventh hour trying to portray herself as the victim of racial politics? I dont think people are going to buy it.

Ald. Sophia King, who has criticized the argument made by Ervin and Lightfoot about dividing up the Black vote, said the mayor is failing to keep Black Chicagoans safe, just like shes failing to keep everyone else safe.

I will keep making the case to voters of every race, that Ill be a mayor who brings public safety and investments to every neighborhood, King said.
In the Pantagraph article of Sept. 8 about Darin LaHood and funding coming to support ISU School of Nursing and College Avenue improvements, it was stated that LaHood has no Democratic opponent on the general election ballot this November. There is a Democratic candidate for Illinois U.S. Congressional District 16. It is Elizabeth Lisa Haderlein of McHenry.

Please check on Ballotpedia by entering your address, or with your specific election authority, McLean County Clerk or Bloomington Election Commission, for your district information and sample ballots available soon. Congressional district lines were redrawn and most of McLean County is now in Congressional District 16.

Early voting begins September 29, and vote by mail ballots may be requested now (sent out beginning Sept. 29). It is now possible in Illinois to request a permanent vote by mail ballot. Please visit your election authority website or complete the form mailed to you to do so.

It was also interestingly reported in the Pantagraph article: LaHood highlighted a number of other federal victories, including the passage of the CHIPS Act,, which he voted against, by the way.

Do your research and vote to support the candidate who will honestly and compassionately stand for democracy and justice for all.

Cathie Haab, Hudson
Tullow Ghana, an oil and gas exploration and production company, has affirmed its commitment to ensure indigenous Ghanaian participation in contracts awarded in accordance with the countrys local content and local participation regulations.



The company said it had no desire to replace indigenous Ghanaian companies with foreign companies.



In an official statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, on Friday, Tullow Ghana said from 2010 to date, it had awarded more than 4,000 contracts to indigenous companies.



Additionally, almost 3,000 contracts had been awarded to joint venture companies, which included indigenous participation.



Out of the total contracts awarded valued at $16.83 billion between 2010 and 2021. Of this, $11.24 billion worth of those contracts were awarded with local Ghanaian participation, it said.



The statement is in response to a writ of summons issued against it by the Ghana Oil and Gas Service Providers Association (GOGSPA).



An Accra High Court (Commercial Division) on September 8, 2022, adjourned the hearing of a motion on notice for an interlocutory injunction to restrain Tullow Ghana from re-awarding any petroleum contract being executed by indigenous Ghanaian companies to foreign joint venture companies.



The GOGSPA said the decision to sue followed many complaints that services reserved for indigenous Ghanaian companies under the laws in the upstream oil and gas sector were being taken away and awarded to foreign venture companies.



The case has been adjourned to October 10, 2022 for the hearing of the application.



While confirming the suit, Tullow Ghana said it had always recognised the need to support and build local expertise and had undertaken several skills development programmes to support the growth of local participation.



It said it had pursued targeted Supplier Development Initiatives aimed at enabling participation in the oil and gas industry in Ghana.



Those interventions, the company said, had impacted and benefitted more than 4,500 local entities.



Over the years, Tullow Ghana has been consistent in steadily increasing contracts awarded to indigenous companies and has no desire to replace indigenous Ghanaian companies with foreign companies.



On the contrary, between 2014 to 2021 when LI 2204 was passed, Tullow Ghana tripled its indigenous contract award spend to up to $1.47Bn compared to $500m in 2014, it said.



The company assured all stakeholders of its commitment to work with and develop the capacity of local Ghanaians to participate in the oil and gas industry in accordance with its contractual obligations and the law.



Tullow Ghana does not intend to prejudice the ongoing legal proceedings and, therefore, no further statements will be issued at this time, it said.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Former Ashanti Regional Director of Ghana Audit Service has reportedly been burnt to death following a fire incident that swept his house.



Stephen Dapaah, 71, had his 5 bedroom house gutted by fire at Aburaso in the Ashanti Region this dawn.



The incident which occurred 1am on Saturday also left five others with serious injuries.



According to information, the victim got trapped in one of the rooms when the fire started.



His charred body was found by personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) after the incident.



The GNFS said it has initiated investigation to ascertain the cause of the fire.



Meanwhile, the injured are receiving treatment at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.



The body has also been deposited at the morgue of the aforementioned health facility.

Source: dailyguidenetwork.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
A private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu has asked the Attorney General to hire more lawyers for prosecution.



He said most of the prosecutors in the Attorney Generals department are not lawyers hence, the difficulties in securing convictions.



Mr Kpebu said these on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday September 10 while commenting on the arrest of Chinese galamsey queen Aisah Huang.



Most of the prosecutors are not lawyers, we need to make the law better, he said.



He added Subsequently, we should know how to refine the law in terms of fine when the galamsey operators are picked up.



For his part, the Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research, Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Professor Kwesi Aning, said the offence of Aisha Huang should be elevated to a treasonable action.



Prof Aning also said the cartel behind her, including the Ghanaians involved in the network should be tackled as well.



This womans danger to us needs to be elevated so that we can use the law as much as possible, he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday September 10.



Her action  should be elevated to treasonable act. Let us not rush to quickly try Aisha Huang.



It is not only Aisha, let us identify Ghanaians who have facilitated her criminal enterprise.

Source: 3news









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Moderator of the Global Evangelical Church, the Rt. Rev. Prosper Samuel Dzomeku, has assured Ghanaians not to give up in the face of the rising cost of living but to remain focused on God for the supply of their needs.



To that end, he called on every Ghanaian, irrespective of their faith, ethnicity or social status to remain faithful to their individual works and God will reward their efforts with success.



The Moderator was speaking at the Triennial National Rally of the National Church Choirs Union of the Global Evangelical Church.



He spoke on the theme: The Chorister as a faithful Steward, the Lord is your Provider.



He said, We are all faced with numerous challenges now. Nobody should look up to any human being, church, or elsewhere for solutions to our problems. But I can assure you that, if we all remain faithful in our duties, God will turn our individual and national statuses around.



The Rt. Rev. Dzomeku commended the Choristers for their immeasurable and valuable contributions towards the growth of the church.



He said God is aware of their individual challenges as well.



Before humans, people will laugh at you because they might think you are wasting time. You do not dress like the way others dress and expose their bodies. But dont worry, he is Jehovah Jireh, God our provider. He will certainly provide all your needs, he said.



The Moderator called on them to desist from immoral acts, hatred and unfaithfulness in tithe payments.



He encouraged them to rather dedicate themselves and to use their ministry to bring others to the saving knowledge of Christ.



The Rev. Dr. Yohanes Ahiabu, the Synod Clerk, who was the main speaker at the Rally appealed to the Church Choir Members to perform their roles in purity and holiness in order to attract the blessings of the Lord.



He also urged them to remain faithful and resolute in all their Christian life in general and singing life in particular in order to bring all to the saving knowledge of God and also receive the crown of glory at the end of time.



Mr. Ferdinand Abodakpi, the National President of the National Church Choirs Union expressed gratitude to the Church leadership and the entire membership of the Union for re-electing them for another tenure of four years.



The other National Executives include Presbyter Samuel Kwadzo, Vice President, Mr. Richard Addo, Secretary, Mr. Gladstone Kwagbela, Assistant Secretary, Mr. William Dumenya, Financial Secretary, Mr. Ephraim Tsifodze, Treasurer, Mrs. Dzifa Adzorlolo, Mother, Mad. Joyce Buamah, Assistant Mother, Mr. Isaac Tiase- Organising Secretary, Mr. Gustav Dzisah, Assistant. Organizing Secretary, Mr. William Tamekloe, Choirmaster, Mr. Shine Nuworti, Assistant Choirmaster, Rev. Nelson Nyavor Bonsi, Coordinator and Presbyter Timothy Nortsu, Advisor.



The programme was attended by some high-profile personalities of the church including Mrs. Dieu Donnee Joyce Ahiabor, the Female Presbyter Executive of the Church, Mrs. Fortune Dzomeku, wife of the Moderator, Mrs. Joyce Ahiabu, wife of the Synod Clerk, Rev. Eric Faakor Avah, Director of Church Life and Nurture, Rev. Mawuli Dzidula Agudogo and some pastors of the Church.





Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken on the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, asking that she and the National Communications Authority (NCA) are called to order.



In a statement issued by the General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, on Saturday, September 10, the NDC said Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has become obstinate in this simple exercise of linking SIM Cards to Ghana Cards of subscribers.



The NDC condemns in no uncertain terms this arbitrariness and recklessness on the part of the Minister of Communications and the NCA, the statement said.



Such mishandling and crass bungling of a simple exercise such as the ongoing SIM card re-registration can only be supervised by incompetent and clueless public servants like we have at the helm of the Ministry of Communications and the NCA.



The leading opposition party is calling on Parliament to stop Mrs Owusu-Ekuful and the NCA in their tracks.



While we commend and encourage legal actions filed by citizens of the country who have been affected by the reckless SIM Card restrictions, we call on the Parliament of Ghana, particularly the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications to call the Minister of Communications and the NCA to order in line with its oversight responsibility over these state entities, Mr Asiedu Nketias statement added.



The lawlessness being displayed by the Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu and the NCA must be halted now.



Since Monday, September 5, the NCA has meted out punitive measures to subscribers who have failed to re-register their SIM cards.



The deadline for the re-registration exercise is Friday, September 30.

Source: 3News









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Civil Society activist in Ghana, Dr Steve Manteaw has criticized comments by the Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgina that Ghanas economic challenges are not due to bad policies.



According to the IMF boss, Ghanas prevailing weak economic conditions are rather due to shocks from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war.



Like everybody on this planet you have been hurt by exogenous shocks. First the pandemic, then Russia-Ukraine. And then we need to realise is not because of bad policies in the country, but because of this combination of shocks, she added.



But in a Facebook post, Dr Manteaw said: "Let's wait till the NPP leaves office, and we will hear the true IMF verdict on the government's management of the economy. Those who have followed the IMF and the World Bank for sometime now, know what I'm talking about".

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Even if the world somehow manages to limit future warming to the strictest international temperature goal, four Earth-changing climate "tipping points" are still likely to be triggered with a lot more looming as the planet heats more after that, a new study said.

An international team of scientists looked at 16 climate tipping pointswhen a warming side effect is irreversible, self-perpetuating and majorand calculated rough temperature thresholds at which they are triggered. None of them are considered likely at current temperatures, though a few are possible. But with only a few more tenths of a degree of warming from now, at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times, four move into the likely range, according to a study in Thursday's journal Science.

The study said slow but irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, more immediate loss of tropical coral reefs around the globe and thawing of high northern permafrost that releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped in now frozen land are four significant tipping points that could be triggered at 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, which is three-tenths of a degree (half a degree Fahrenheit) warmer than now. Current policies and actions put Earth on a trajectory for about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, according to some projections.

"Let's hope we're not right," said study co-author Tim Lenton, an Earth systems scientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. "There's a distinct chance some of these tipping points are going to be unavoidable. And therefore it's really important we do some more thinking about how we're going to adapt to the consequences."

Timing is a key issue for tipping points in two ways: when they become triggered and when they cause harm. And in many cases, such as ice sheet collapses, they could be triggered soon but their impacts even though inevitable take centuries to play out, scientists said. A few, such as the loss of coral reefs, cause more harm in only a decade or two.

"It's a future generation issue," said study lead author David Armstrong McKay, a University of Exeter Earth systems scientist. "That ice sheets collapsing is kind of that thousand-year timescale, but it's still bequeathing an entirely different planet to our descendants."

The concept of tipping points have been around for more than a decade but this study goes further looking at temperature thresholds for when they may be triggered and what impacts they would have on people and Earth and in the past 15 years or so "the risk levels just keep going up," Lenton said.

Lenton likes to think of tipping points like someone leaning back on a folding chair.

"When you start tipping over backwards you have in that case a very simple kind of feedback on the forces of gravity operating on propelling you backwards until SPLAT," Lenton said.

Study co-author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, likened it to someone lighting a fuse on a bomb "and then the fuse will burn up until the big bang and the big bang may be further down the line."

While the ice sheets with several meters or yards of potential sea rise can reshape coastline over centuries, Rockstrom said to him the loss of coral reefs is his biggest concern because of the "immediate impacts on human livelihoods." Hundreds of millions of people, especially poorer tropical area residents, depend on fisheries linked to the coral reefs, McKay said.

With just a few more tenths of a degree new tipping points become more possible and even likely that includes a slow down of northern polar ocean circulation that can ripple into dramatic weather changes especially in Europe, loss of certain areas of Arctic sea ice, glaciers collapsing worldwide and utter failure of the Amazon rain forest.

Some of these tipping points, like the permafrost thaw, add to and accelerate existing warming, but don't think "it's game over" if temperatures hit 1.5 degrees of warming, which is quite likely, McKay said.

"Even if we do hit some of those tipping points, it will still lock in really substantial impacts we want to avoid, but it doesn't trigger some sort of runaway climate change process," McKay said. "That's not the case at 1.5 degrees. And that means that how much further warming occurs beyond 1.5 is still mostly within our power to effect."

That's a crucial point that these are tipping points for individual regional disasters not the planet as a whole, so it's bad, but not world ending, said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth, who wasn't part of the study, but said it was important nuanced research that quantified tipping points better than before.

"Have we really contemplated what happens when you mess with our global and ecological systems to that degree?" said University of Miami climate risk scientist Katharine Mach, who wasn't part of the study. She said it shows ripples and cascades that are troublesome. "This is a profound reason for concern in a changing climate."

Explore further Risk of multiple climate tipping points escalates above 1.5C global warming

More information: David I. Armstrong McKay et al, Exceeding 1.5C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points, Science (2022). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 Journal information: Science David I. Armstrong McKay et al, Exceeding 1.5C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points,(2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abn7950

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Debris lies strewn across the floor in the kitchen of Renagi Ravu's house in the town of Kainantu, following a strong earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday Sept. 11, 2022. The U.S. Geological Survey has detected a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in the Papua New Guinea highlands Sunday morning when a huge magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck.

Ravu tried to stand up from his chair but couldn't maintain his balance and ended up in a kind of group hug with his colleagues, while plates and cups crashed from his shelves to the ground. His children, ages 9 and 2, had their drinks and breakfast spill over.

Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everybody as the shaking continued for more than a minute.

The extent of the damage and whether there have been serious injuries or deaths from the quake was not clear in the immediate aftermath in the remote and underdeveloped region.

Ravu said that about 10,000 people live in and around his town of Kainantu, which is located 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the quake's epicenter and was the nearest big town to the quake. He said there are many scattered settlements in the highlands, and tens of thousands of people might have been affected.

He said people were feeling rattled.

"It's a common thing that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesn't last as long and is not as violent as this one," Ravu said. "It was quite intense."

Debris lies strewn across the floor in the kitchen of Renagi Ravu's house in Kainantu, following a strong earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday Sept. 11, 2022. The U.S. Geological Survey has detected a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

On Sunday morning, Ravu was still sorting through the damage to his home, which he said likely included a broken sewer pipe judging from the smell. He said friends elsewhere in Kainantu had messaged him with descriptions of cracked roads, broken pipes and fallen debris, but hadn't described major building collapses or injuries.

"They are starting to clean up their houses and the streets," he said. Communication seems to have been affected, he added, with some cell towers likely to have fallen.

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in 2018 in the nation's central region killed at least 125 people. That quake hit areas that are remote and undeveloped, and assessments about the scale of the damage and injuries were slow to filter out.

Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, said it was too early to know the impacts of Sunday's earthquake, although its strength meant it "most likely caused considerable damage."

Debris lies strewn across the floor in the kitchen of Renagi Ravu's house in Kainantu, following a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday Sept. 11, 2022. The quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time, with the epicenter 67 kilometers (42 miles) east of Kainantu, a sparsely populated area. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

A television lies on the floor in the lounge room of Renagi Ravu's house in the town of Kainantu, following a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday Sept. 11, 2022. The quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time, with the epicenter 67 kilometers (42 miles) east of Kainantu, a sparsely populated area. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

Debris lies strewn across the floor in the kitchen of Renagi Ravu's house in Kainantu, following a strong earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday Sept. 11, 2022. The U.S. Geological Survey has detected a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

Debris lies strewn across a highway following a landslide near the town of Kainantu, following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time, with the epicenter 67 kilometers (42 miles) east of Kainantu, a sparsely populated area. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

A large crack is seen in a highway near the town of Kainantu, following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time, with the epicenter 67 kilometers (42 miles) east of Kainantu, a sparsely populated area. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

Debris lies strewn across a highway following a landslide near the town of Kainantu, following a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northeastern Papua New Guinea, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time, with the epicenter 67 kilometers (42 miles) east of Kainantu, a sparsely populated area. Credit: Renagi Ravu via AP

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 90 kilometers (56 miles).

NOAA has since advised there is no tsunami threat for the area.

Papua New Guinea is located on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, to the east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia.

It sits on the Pacific's "Ring of Fire," the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the world's earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.

Explore further Papua New Guinea quake causes small tsunami, no damage

 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, and Chris Jacobs, R-Orchard Park (Erie County), on Aug. 30 introduced legislation to essentially prohibit New York from implementing a recommendation from the state Farm Laborers Wage Board to reduce the threshold for overtime pay for farm workers from 60 hours to 40 hours in increments over a 10-year period.

As this decision jeopardizes New Yorks agriculture industry, puts thousands of farm laborers out of work, and makes New York less competitive by forcing our workers to neighboring states in the midst of a labor shortage, this bill will set a federal standard to ensure the overtime threshold for agricultural workers cannot be lowered beyond 60 hours a week, Stefanik said in a news release.

The legislation  H.R. 8756  would add language to federal law to preempt any state regulation with a farm worker overtime threshold of less than 60 hours per week.

Democratic congressional candidate Matt Castelli, who is challenging Stefanik in the 21st Congressional District in November, said the proposed legislation violates state rights.

I strongly oppose the Farm Laborers Wage Boards overtime recommendations and urge Governor Hochul to reject them, said Castelli, a former CIA counterterrorism official who lives in Glens Falls. Representative Stefaniks proposed legislation strips away states rights, a betrayal of conservatives and voters who dont want more power handed to the federal government, and is clearly a publicity stunt with no chance of passing through this Congress.

In other regional political news:

AFL-CIO endorsements

The state AFL-CIO announced endorsements of James Tedisco, R-Glenville, in the 44th Senate District, and Democrat Andrea Smyth in the 43rd Senate District.

Tedisco is running against Democratic challenger Michelle Ostrelich, a Schenectady County legislator.

Smyth, a health care and family issues policy advocate from Troy, is running against state Assemblyman Jake Ashby, R-Castleton, for an open seat.

The coalition of labor unions did not endorse in the 45th Senate District, where Democrat Jean Lapper, a certified public accountant and financial adviser from Queensbury, is challenging incumbent Republican Dan Stec of Queensbury.

In the 113th Assembly District, the state AFL-CIO endorsed incumbent Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, who is running against Republican David Catalfamo, an economic development official and writer from Wilton.

Catalfamo on redistricting

Republican state Assembly candidate David Catalfamo continues to criticize the Assembly redistricting plan that moved Glens Falls into the 113th Assembly District, reducing the Republican enrollment advantage in the district.

Catalfamo, an economic development official and writer from Wilton, is challenging Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, in the 113th District.

Catalfamo on Sept. 6 announced that he filed a complaint with the state Ethics Board against Woerner, regarding the redistricting process.

Woerner was not a member of the legislative task force that drew the Assembly district maps.

She did vote to enact the overall redistricting plan, but has said she was not involved in preparing the plan.

Catalfamo, in a telephone interview, said state law requires districts to be drawn based on commonality, and that segmenting off one municipality from the rest of Warren County goes against that standard.

Warren County Democratic Chairwoman Lynne Boecher has said that Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs share commonality as small cities, and therefore should be in the same Assembly district.

Stefanik endorsements

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, on Tuesday announced that the New York Law Enforcement Officers Union, Council 82, has enforced her re-election candidacy.

The union of police officers, deputy sheriffs and other public safety employees has about 1,000 members in the 21st Congressional District.

Not only has Elise been a strong voice for the 21st Districts law enforcement, correction officers, veterans, and military families, Elise has never backed down from taking on the dangerous policies that have affected our entire state, union President Ronald Walsh, in a news release.

On Thursday, Stefanik announced that the National Border Patrol Council, a union of border patrol agents, endorsed her candidacy.

Elise opposes policies that have been dangerous for our communities, such as sanctuary cities, licenses for illegal immigrants, and mass amnesty, said Brandon Judd, the unions president.

Stefanik is running against Democratic challenger Matt Castelli, a former CIA counterterrorism official who lives in Glens Falls.
ARGYLE  David deVries slid a DVD into a player and struggled to make the old machine work.

I so rarely use a DVD anymore, he laughed, as he tried to get a documentary to play on the small television screen in his home office in Argyle.

In 2009, deVries wrote and directed a 3-hour series for PBS called Turmoil & Triumph about George Shultz, the secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan.

The film delves into the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union.

For the documentary, deVries traveled to Russia in 2009 to interview the former Soviet president about the meeting in Iceland. They met again just a few months later in New York City, where Gorbachev was reunited with Shultz.

DeVries described Gorbachev as polite, not overly friendly, but perfectly nice.

Since Gorbachevs death on Aug. 30, deVries has been reminiscing about his interviews with the former Russian leader, who adopted the principles of glasnost and perestroika, reforming the economic and political system in Russia.

I think history treated him badly. I think he deserved better, deVries said. He did not deserve to die being called a traitor by people in Russia. He loved his country. He was very much a Russian. He was trained in all the old ways. He was a good communist, a good apparatchik.

Gorbachev led the USSR from 1985 and presided over its dissolution and the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Reagan had announced in 1983 the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as Reagans Star Wars program, which was a proposed missile defense system in space. SDI was a cause of concern for the Soviet Union.

When they had this summit, we werent remotely close to it, but he kind of let Gorbachev think that they were kind of close, deVries explained. Gorbachev bit, for a very good reason though. The Soviet Union was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. They couldnt afford an arms race. So when they got here to Reykjavik, Gorbachevs whole focus was trying to get Reagan to agree to getting rid of this Star Wars thing, so he wouldnt have to go into an arms race.

DeVries also narrated the documentary, which described and reenacted the events of the Reykjavik summit.

The Americans got to Reykjavik and as soon as they heard the first speeches Gorbachev made, they said, Whoa, wait a minute, this is a whole other thing, deVries said. So theyre frantically trying to get to speed.

Gorbachev talked at length with deVries about the summit with Reagan and Shultz. DeVries claims that Gorbachev wanted to extend the talks another day, but Reagan declined.

This is a fact, Reagan said, Well, I promised Nancy Id be back for supper tonight, deVries recalled. Are you crazy? Youre talking about the end of nuclear weapons, and hes worried because he promised Nancy he would sit at TV trays in the White House.

The meetings ended without a deal on strategic defense.

Reagan had nothing of this weapon. Nothing, deVries said. Hes totally faking them out. But Gorbachev didnt know that. At the same time Reagan was offered a chance. All he had to say was, I wont test in space. Ill just test in laboratory. But Reagan wouldnt do it. So its a fascinating situation.

DeVries, who describes himself as a liberal, said he was very impressed with Gorbachev and described the leader as having enormous courage.

The Russians are hospitable and polite, he added. Gorbachev and deVries exchanged gifts during the visit to Moscow.

If a Russian invites you to his house for dinner, it is expected that A, you will arrive with flowers, but then youll also have a gift that you will bring, he said. Americans do that, too, but its a real tradition in Russia.

When Gorbachev handed him a bottle of vodka, deVries was prepared to reciprocate.

I took him a quart of Washington County maple syrup, along with pictures of how it was done with lines strung between the trees, he said.

He also gave him recordings of Russian music sung by the Battenkill Chorale, of which deVries was a member for 15 years.

He had a very close relationship with his wife, Raisa, deVries said. He said, I used to sing for Raisa, he said, but now that shes gone I only sing in the shower.

DeVries called Gorbachev a great leader of his country.

He had the vision to see there was a better way, and that of course, is the definition of great leaders, deVries said. They can see beyond the restrictions of the current system and say, I see a better way.
As students around the region returned to school last week, the Atlantic County Board of Commissioners is exploring whether to help pay for shooting-response dogs for schools in an effort to help increase security.

But some educators and community members say the plan lacks evidence it will be effective.

The discussion comes as school districts around the state and the country grapple with how to pay for increased security measures in the wake of the May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed two teachers and 19 children.

Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick broached the subject during Tuesdays commissioners meeting. She said while she was impressed by an August presentation on the plan, there were other, negative points of view that the commissioners should take into account.

In the two weeks since the presentation, Fitzpatrick said she had received numerous messages critical of having dogs in school. She said opponents of the program believe having dogs militarizes the atmosphere in hallways and classrooms.

I just want to say, there are other thoughts out there besides what was presented (at the Aug. 25 meeting), Fitzpatrick said. Not everybody is in agreement. It is not unanimous.

Trenton Water Works flack told staffers to deny reporter info on council candidate's home TRENTON  In his role as flack for Trenton Water Works, Michael Walker is supposed to help r

The Atlantic County Criminal Justice Advisory Board hosted the Aug. 25 presentation on the use of dogs in schools. Joe Nick, director of the Atlantic County K-9 Academy, designed the program and said he was prepared to train all the dogs used by Atlantic County schools. Cumberland County Technical Education Center Superintendent Dina Rossi discussed her districts use of a dog, Meadow, and how the canine has been lovingly received by faculty, staff and students alike.

Representatives from a multitude of local and regional school districts, primarily in Atlantic County, attended the presentation at the Atlantic County Criminal Court Complex in Mays Landing. Nearly all seemed receptive to the program, and the majority of comments made during the meeting were positive.

Commissioner Amy Gatto said she was moved by the story about Meadow, named after a victim of the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. She said she was in full support of the use of the dogs and was very shocked by the opposition this week and urged people to learn more about the program.

Commissioner Frank Balles, another attendee on Aug. 25, was similarly bullish on the program. He said he trusted Nick in implementing the program, saying he has experience using dogs in creative ways to enhance security. The decision of whether to have dogs in schools ultimately belonged to individual school boards, he said.

On Tuesday at the commissioners meeting, Melanie Brozosky, of Northfield, criticized the proposal as a Band-Aid, arguing that school officials needed to exercise more skepticism about the idea. She said there seems to be a paucity of evidence that the dogs are actually effective in responding to school shootings.

There was no real research to back any of that up, Brozosky said.

Somers Point Good Old Days Festival to feature range of musical guests SOMERS POINT  An array of musical guests will set the tone for the annual Good Old Days Fes

Im just not in favor of this, and I really feel like you need to hear from people who dont want their children to go to schools where it feels like a prison, where there are police dogs and cops and everything is feeling very scary and militarized, Brozosky said. I dont feel like its fair to put our children in that position.

Commissioner John Risley Jr., who attended the Aug. 25 meeting, supported the idea, saying dogs would provide a rapid response to an active shooting and could help deter possible assailants from attacking a school.

To me its a no brainer, Risley said. I think this is a great program and I think government should be spending money for safety in schools and if we dont, where does that leave us?

Christine Ruth, a teacher at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School in Atlantic City, spoke against the dogs at the Aug. 25 meeting and again at Tuesdays commissioners meeting. She similarly said there was a lack of evidence favoring the use of the dogs, and questioned how accurately the dogs can discern gunfire from other loud noises that might be made in a school. Resources, Ruth argued, ought to be concentrated on bringing more counselors into Atlantic County schools.

Any emergency that does arise, Ruth said, ought to be dealt with by existing law enforcement.

I am just urging you to understand that this is premature, that you should make decisions based on research, not on the fear, Ruth said.

Pleasantville church to host bookbag giveaway PLEASANTVILLE  Mount Zion Baptist Church will host a bookbag giveaway at noon Wednesday.

Commissioner Andrew Parker III said he had received feedback against the idea as well. He anticipated that different education unions would want to discuss the plan and suggested that Commissioner Ernest Coursey, as education chair, hold discussions with different school stakeholders. Coursey expressed support for that idea and indicated he was eager to hear the pros and the cons.

I didnt expect there to be that kind of negative pushback to the dog being put inside the school, but there was and there is, so we should hear it, Parker said.
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP  Madalyn Broom has always been curious about airplanes, talking to flight attendants and pilots in the cockpit when shes vacationed with her mother, Jessica Kraus.

Ever since Madalyn watched Top Gun, Kraus said her daughter has been interested in becoming a pilot, a rarity for girls as young as the 10-year-old.

So when Kraus, of Little Egg Harbor Township, stumbled upon Girls in Aviation Day on social media, she took Madalyn to Atlantic City International Airport on Saturday morning to facilitate her interest in the aviation industry.

I like being able to get to see the planes up close and what people look like from below, said Madalyn as she hopped out of the pilots seat of a red biplane that was on display.

Girls in Aviation Day is a Women in Aviation International event put on by Girls in Aviation Day Greater Delaware Valley.

Aviation Influence, a nonprofit that strives to get young people to discover science, technology, engineering and math through aviation, facilitated the event in collaboration wit NEXTGEN Aviators, a program by Dynamic Aviation designed to solve workforce shortages in the technical, manufacturing and aerospace industries.

Atlantic City Airshow roars over the resort ATLANTIC CITY  Vintage airplanes made nimble passes, while F-16 Fighting Falcons barreled d

Girls in Aviation Day also was hosted and sponsored by Signature Flight Support, a global aviation company, which held the event at its private hangar at the airport.

The Atlantic City International Airport area is becoming more of a hub for aviation and aerospace careers, said Lyndse Costabile, one of the founders of Aviation Influence, noting facilities like the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center, the National Aerospace Research and Technology Park and other STEM-centered organizations that are located around the airport. It only makes sense for us to be in this market.

STEM-related jobs account for almost 7% of all U.S. occupations, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Were in dire need of more pilots, maintainers and crew, Costabile said. In addition to that, women only make up about 25% of STEM fields now, so were trying to get more women in STEM.

Costabile said Girls in Aviation Day is a way to introduce girls ages 5 to 18 to different careers in STEM while also showing them the different roles they could play in the aviation industry.

Aircraft on display included a historic vintage C-47 Douglas aircraft, Miss Virginia, that the events keynote speaker, Miss United States 2021 Samantha Anderson, flew to the event in. Anderson was born into an aviation family and started flying at a young age. She used Women in Aviation as her platform in pageantry.

Local kids get up-close view of Atlantic City Airshow performers EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP  Young people from Egg Harbor Township got a close-up look Tuesday at t

Additionally, the New Jersey Wing of the Civil Air Patrol brought a virtual reality in-flight simulator, the airports security department showed girls how to use a metal detector to check travelers for contraband, the airports Fire Department exhibited its firetruck and Influential Drones demonstrated how airports use drones.

Girls also got to check out displays from Boeing, the U.S. Coast Guard and USDA Wildlife Services, which demonstrated the different wildlife hazards that come with flying.

Mary Joy Dempsey, 12, came to last years Girls in Aviation Day at the airport and two months ago joined the New Jersey Civil Air Patrol.

I like the concept of seeing the different planes, said Mary Joy, of Egg Harbor Township. It shows us whats really going on with this type of career. And it also gives me another career option.

Her mother, Kim Dempsey, said she was thankful for the event since her daughter wouldnt have been exposed to the idea of a job in aviation otherwise.

She doesnt know what she wants to be when she grows up, so this exposed her to the various sides to this field, said Kim Dempsey, suggesting schools dont tout careers in STEM or aviation to students.

FAA clears Boeing to resume deliveries of 787 Dreamliner WASHINGTON  Federal regulators said Monday they are satisfied with changes Boeing has made 

Part of this event is to battle that, said Costabile. It exposes young girls to the sector before high school. By hosting these events, it shows our resolve to remediate the issue and break those limitations.

Ella Thompson, 8, may have thought her dad, Tracey Thompson, was taking her to Girls in Aviation Day to have fun, but he also did it to expose her to things to which she is not typically exposed.

How often can you bring your daughter to get up close and personal with planes? Tracey Thompson said. We didnt have that when I was a kid, so hopefully itll inspire her to look into other careers when shes older.

Tracey Thompson said the resources available at Girls in Aviation Day, like the flight simulator (which his daughter loved), were great for showing young women they can work in aviation and STEM.

Seeing and engaging with other successful women in aviation, like Anderson, was also inspiring to his daughter, said Tracey Thompson.

We hope that these young girls start to think differently about aviation, aerospace and STEM, he said. Nothing can stop them from doing something they love.
Micky Dolenz is suing the FBI. And rightly so.

The bureau has a file on the Monkees, the 1960s teen idol TV pop band. A seven-page document from the file was declassified and released about ten years ago, but it is heavily redacted, giving only a few hints of why the FBI thought the band posed a threat to the national security of the United States. The bit of text that is not blacked out reveals that the Monkees were connected with the film industry in the Hollywood area, something about additional activities denouncing the U.S. policy in the war in Vietnam, and a notation that the quite successful TV series features four young men who dress as beatnik types.

Dolenz and his attorney filed a Freedom of Information Act request in June to see the unredacted, complete file and any files on the bands individual members. The law requires the FBI to comply within 20 working days, but that didnt happen. It will take a lawsuit and a court order to see the FBI file on the Monkees.

That should give you an idea of how FBI leadership gets away with outrageous conduct. They have something on everybody.

In addition to files on performers who criticized the Vietnam War while dressed as beatnik types, the FBI maintains a vast library of background-check files. Theres probably one on everybody who works in or around government, from elected officials to Cabinet secretaries to judges to military contractors. Background checks collect a lot of information that is unverified, such as rumor or gossip from neighbors who answered an investigators questions ahead of a confirmation hearing or for a security clearance.

During the Clinton administration, there was a scandal over hundreds of FBI background investigation files finding their way to the White House. We know the files were in the hands of political operatives, non-professionals, volunteers, teenagers in proximity to a photocopier, and individuals without security clearances, a congressional committee reported following an investigation. We know there was virtually no supervision over this sensitive process.

Perhaps that gave the Clintons something on everybody.

By closely cooperating with a press corps that will protect a confidential source until death, the FBI can change the course of history. When Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were writing their Watergate stories, the source they called Deep Throat was Mark Felt, the associate director of the FBI. Felt was passed up for the job of director when J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, and after that, he secretly fed information to Woodward.

Now lets talk about what the FBI did ahead of the 2020 election.

In mid-October 2020, the New York Post published a completely true report about emails found on a laptop computer that belonged to Hunter Biden. The emails contained details of alleged business deals between Hunter and various foreign companies, including one with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Presidential candidate Joe Biden was potentially implicated in an influence-peddling scheme when one of Hunters business partners, Tony Bobulinski, stated that an email describing 10 held by H for the big guy was a reference to a 10% equity stake in the deal for Joe Biden.

Immediately, Twitter blocked the Posts story from being shared and locked the newspaper out of its account. Facebook also took action to suppress the visibility of the story.

Now were learning that the FBI led an effort to ensure that the Posts reporting about the Biden family was effectively censored and wrongfully discredited.

In an interview last week with podcast superstar Joe Rogan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that before the 2020 election, the FBI communicated with Facebook employees and told them to be on the lookout for some kind of dump of something similar to Russian propaganda.

Who ran this operation at the FBI? In July, Sen. Chuck Grassley sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray informing him of whistleblower reports that two bureau employees, assistant special agent in charge Timothy Thibault and intelligence analyst Brian Auten, allegedly schemed to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.

Thibault had been on leave for a month following those allegations, and last week he resigned. His resignation removes any possibility that the Justice Departments inspector general can investigate him. An IG can only investigate current government employees, not former ones.

Separately, Sen. Ron Johnson said last week that his office has received whistleblower reports alleging that the FBI intentionally slow-walked an investigation into the contents of Hunter Bidens laptop. Although the bureau had obtained the laptop in December 2019, the examination of its contents did not begin until after the 2020 presidential election.

Meanwhile at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI showed up on Aug. 8 with a search warrant so broad that it allowed the agents to seize all records and papers from the Trump presidency. This would include the binder of Crossfire Hurricane documents that Trump declassified before leaving office. Crossfire Hurricane was the code name of the FBIs years-long counterintelligence investigation into Trump-Russia collusion, allegations that special counsel John Durham has now exposed as a total fabrication cooked up by the Hillary Clinton campaign and fed to the FBI and the press by her lawyers.

In March, Donald Trump sued Hillary Clinton over those false allegations and the damage they caused. The FBI may have seized attorney-client communications related to that lawsuit. The former president has convinced a judge to have all the seized documents reviewed by a special master in order to keep privileged confidential documents out of the hands of the FBI.

Its a little late. By now, FBI leadership has probably seen everything related to the case, including the background investigation file on the judge.

Something on everybody. Its quite the business model.
CHICAGO  A Central Illinois man pleaded guilty Friday to felony charges for assaulting a law enforcement officer and a member of the news media during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors said.

Shane Jason Woods, 44, of Auburn, south of Springfield, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers and a related federal assault charge, prosecutors said.

Court documents say Woods was among people on the Capitol grounds illegally, joining a mob in the Lower West Terrace area. Someone in the crowd sprayed a Capitol Police officer with a chemical irritant and fled, and when the officer pursued that person, Woods lowered his shoulder and rammed into her, knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing into a downed bicycle barricade, prosecutors said.

Later that day, Woods gathered with other rioters in the media staging area at the Capitol and joined others in damaging media equipment, according to prosecutors. When a member of the media tried to walk away to protect himself and his camera, Woods ran at him and tackled him, knocking him to the ground and causing him to drop the camera, prosecutors said.

Woods was arrested June 24, 2021, in Springfield.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 13, 2023. The charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding a law enforcement officer carries a statutory maximum of eight years in prison. The federal assault charge carries a statutory maximum of one year. Both charges also carry potential financial penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Woods is among more than 30 Illinois residents charged in the Capitol riot.
September is Library Card Sign-Up Month. This year, the Davenport Public Library reached out to several local businesses, encouraging them to offer incentives for library cardholders.

Some participating businesses include Abernathys, which will offer a 15% discount on purchases, and Nothing Bundt Cakes, which will offer a buy one bundtlet, get one free deal.

We focused on local businesses because they are the heart and soul of Davenport, Jill Jurgena, senior clerk of the Davenport Public Library, said.

Library Card Sign-Up Month is a national event that we are trying to spotlight here in Davenport, Jurgena said. A vibrant public library equals a vibrant community.

But why is it important for community members to have library cards?

Library card holders are granted access to a vast array of resources, including print and digital materials, public computers and genealogy sources. When library card holders come to the library, Jurgena said, it builds community  and in turn reinforces the role of the library in the community.

The partnership has served as a reminder to our customers to get their library cards, for books, movies and experiences and more, Becca Nicke, co-owner of vintage clothing store Abernathys, said.

Nicke said Abernathys participation in this initiative was a critical part of being active in the downtown community  but its personal for her, too. Also, growing up, my mother was a librarian, so I spent lots of time at our local library and felt like it was an important community space, she said.

For Nothing Bundt Cakes' Heather Sowards, collaborating with the library is important to her as a local resident and business owner.

I think so many kids are involved with digital nowadays that it's kind of becoming a lost art to actually read and to flip through pages of a book, she said. And so I thought this was something that was a great initiative, and I definitely wanted to do anything I could do to help to make sure that our library is still in business and serving the community.

Sowards said several customers had come in and presented library cards to buy one bundtlet and get one free.

Word of mouth is great, whether it's for my business or the library, she said. When you have some sort of event and people get to talking about, Oh, you need to go down to the library, they're giving this that helps the library and that also helps whatever businesses partner with them because word of mouth is the best referral.

In addition to partnering with local businesses, Davenport Public Library is sending out 500 postcards to Davenport addresses that are located in what Jurgena deemed library card deserts. The postcards will serve as advertisements for the librarys many events and resources, and if patrons bring their postcards to the library, they will be entered into a raffle and can win a prize.

Davenport Public Library is also holding a Design Your Own Library Card contest and using social media to ask community members how they use their library cards.

Jurgena emphasized that the library is always open to collaboration with community members, whether someone is looking for a quiet place to study or a place to hold meetings.

Support local libraries and learn more about getting a library card here.
Its a good thing Craig and Marcia Canfield thrive on doing projects because its been one after another since they bought their home in Davenports historic Gold Coast neighborhood 30 years ago.

Consider the 200-plus hours Craig spent salvaging, piece-by-tiny-piece, the vestibule tiles from a home on Main Street and re-laying them in their own entrance.

Or the removal of aluminum siding from their homes exterior, scraping the old paint down to the bare wood, and then re-painting in historical colors.

Or the cedar shingles Craig installed himself because the couple couldnt find a contractor willing to bid on the high, steep roof.

And theyre not finished.

I need projects in my life, said Craig, whose day job is in information technology. Marcia works in accounts payable.

The public can see the couples work for themselves on Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 17-18, when their home will be one of five open for tours during the 2022 Gold Coast-Hamburg Historic District Home Tour, along with the German American Heritage Center and the former Christian Jipp home and grocery, now the Architectural Rescue Shop.

Hours are noon to 4 p.m. both days. Tickets are $15; children under 12 will be admitted free when accompanied by an adult. Tickets will be sold on the days of the tour at all the tour homes, the German center and the Jipp.

The Canfields were a young couple moving back to the Quad-Cities from the Chicago area in 1992 when they found the Queen Anne style house built between 1880 and 1890.

They werent particularly looking for a historic property, but the house designed by noted Davenport architect Frederick George Fritz Clausen appealed to them. It had been occupied in its early days by two families of German descent, the Karlowas and the Rohwedders; Otto Rohwedder is known for his invention of a bread-slicing machine.

The Canfields didnt know any of this at the time, though.

What they saw was a house that had been turned into apartments and boarding rooms, allowed to deteriorate to the point of threatened demolition, then pulled back to single-family life by owners who flipped it and were looking to sell.

People on the tour will want to pause at the outside of the home to take in all the details: a sun ray carved into the peak of the roof, an eyebrow window, two rows of fish scale siding, the curved roof over the front door and the front door itself  the oak part was crafted by Carver Custom Millworks, Milan, but Craig inlaid the walnut.

The steps are limestone and the metal railing was fashioned by Boylers Ornamental Iron, Bettendorf.

Stepping in the vestibule, youll see the mosaic tile Craig painstakingly salvaged and re-laid. Beyond that is the foyer with an open oak staircase ascending to the second floor and to your left, an original curved stained glass window.

Youll also immediately see the Canfields havent spent their whole lives doing projects.

On the walls and set all around the home are objects  pictures, tapestries, three-dimensional art  picked up in extensive travels. Ask Craig, and he will tell you that the two tapestries on the staircase wall were purchased in Morocco and Turkey and that the pictures hail from Cambodia; Prague, in the Czech Republic; Mongolia; Uruguay; Italy; Ecuador, and Thailand. Other items are from family or auctions.

Through a set of pocket doors into the parlor youll see framed menus from various restaurants, including Charlie Trotters in Chicago and various colorful glass pieces from the Blenko Glass Co. of West Virginia, acquired during pledge drives for Iowa Public Television. Theres also a corner fireplace for which Craig crafted an over mantel.

Through a second set of pocket doors is the dining room with early wallpaper carefully preserved and  imagine this  a warming oven built into one of the radiators.

The kitchen is a contemporary departure from the rest of the house; the Canfields designed and built it to serve their love of cooking and baking. The Canfields like to mix up looks, so there are lots of different materials in the kitchen including a copper range hood and sink, a stainless steel stove, three different patterns of granite countertops, a walnut floor and cabinets  all built by Craig  using birds eye maple, oak, walnut and cherry. I like overkill, he said.

The wonders continue outside, too.

The first feature youre likely to notice is a new 18-feet-by-20-feet deck set on the hillside that the Canfields made themselves from steel and black locust wood. Craig said he expects the wood to last as long as he and Marcia own the property, as it is of the type that farmers used to made fence posts  very durable.

To the left is a brick oven that Craig designed and built in 2008 from bricks salvaged from their homes chimney replacement. The Canfields are known throughout the Gold Coast for their bagels which taste nothing like those available in mainstream grocery stores. They also make bread and pizzas for an annual neighborhood party.

To the right is a 24-feet-by-22-feet, two-story carriage house designed by an architect in a style that blends with the neighborhood. The lower level is for their cars; the upper level is Craigs workshop.

We were the first in the neighborhood to build a carriage house, Craig said. We started a trend. The couple had to secure variances from the city to build it, and it still irks them that they were not allowed to install plumbing. The city was concerned the Canfields were trying to sneak in a building that could be rented as an apartment. Subsequent carriage houses were allowed to install plumbing.

They built the structure mostly themselves, laying the blocks; installing the roof, siding and electrical service and building screens for the windows. Only the concrete and framing were contracted out.

The carriage house and other projects described in this story dont cover everything they did in 30 years, but you get the idea.
Editor's note: This story is part of an ongoing Gazette series examining the rise of fentanyl in our community. This article contains a few strong words that could offend some readers.

Bradleys room was quiet.

The Angel family, two parents, two children, and a cycle of cats and dogs, had lived in the same West End house since moving to Billings nearly 30 years ago.

At home on a March morning last year were Bradley and his younger sister, Katie. Outside, the morning was clear but cold, the temperature nearly freezing.

After graduating high school, Katie had briefly moved to California and then returned home to live with her mother and Bradley, her parents having separated in 2020.

Katie was getting ready for work that morning. Her mother, Kristi, a postal carrier, was out delivering mail. Her father, Jon, a professional counselor, had moved to a home nearby that doubled as his office. Bradley, who was 24, was in his bedroom, the same one he'd slept in as a boy, a room full of trinkets he'd collected over his lifetime including the stuffed mouse he'd played with as a 5-year-old.

Katie opened Bradley's door and felt a rush of air chilled by a window left open during the night. Bradley wasn't moving. His skin was gray. He looked dead.

The night before, Bradley had taken an oxycodone tablet he'd gotten from a friend. Bradley had long struggled with his mental health and had self-medicated with oxy before. This time, the little pill was tainted with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more potent than morphine.

A dozen first responders poured into the house and tried to revive Bradley by squeezing doses of Narcan into his nostrils. Paramedics found a pulse and rushed him to Billings Clinic hospital where he remained on life support for six days. His body still breathed, but Bradley was dying.

His overdose rocked the family like a hand grenade, Katie said recently, catching her in the blast along with their parent's and Bradley's then-4-year-old son who was living with his mother.

'He was gone'

At the hospital, Bradley lay motionless. The number of family members holding vigil at his bedside was limited by COVID restrictions.

"His heart was beating, but he was gone, his father recalled.

On March 22nd, Bradleys body stopped breathing, his mother and grandmother nearby.

During 2021, the Angels were far from the only family grieving the loss of a loved one to fentanyl. Across the country last year, more than 71,000 people died from fentanyl overdose, the majority of those by accident.

This year in Montana alone, at least 47 people have died from fentanyl. Eighteen of those deaths were in Yellowstone County. At least 159 other people in the county survived an overdose, according to the Billings Police Department.

It's so bad on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation that after four fentanyl deaths and 17 overdoses in a single week this year, the nation declared a state of emergency.

In the Billings region, fentanyl overdoses have become so frequent that police and first-responders have reported deploying Narcan, a medication that can immediately reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, two or three times in a single shift. RiverStone, the county's public health agency, gives Narcan away to just about anyone who asks for it.

Among people Bradley's age in the United States, synthetic opioids like fentanyl are more deadly than guns or any other illicit drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Local law enforcement officers have seized shipments amounting to more than 10,000 fentanyl pills so far this year.

State officials, health care workers and coroners have only begun to appreciate the impact of whats now acknowledged to be a public health crisis. Fentanyl, produced in huge batches by cartel super labs, has been seized by law enforcement as loose powder and by the thousands in the form of pills. Many of those pills are labeled with M30, mimicking the prescription drug oxycodone. Those pills have been bought on the streets of Billings, Miles City, Great Falls and nearly every other city in the state. The pills also arrive in the mail. The pill Bradley Angel died from was purchased by someone else on the dark web, a lawless, black-market slice of the internet.

Bradley was a tender boy

In 1994, the Angels, then just Jon and Kristi, came to Billings. Both got jobs at the Billings Gazette. Two years later, Bradley was born. By the time he could walk, he could also climb. He had to be pulled off a bookshelf by a sitter who struggled to keep up with him. When they exhausted trying to find someone to watch over Bradley, his parents brought him to the Gazette where he ran among the desks and looked in drawers. Bradley came of age in the newsroom, where Jon worked the day shift in IT, and Kristi worked nights as part of the editorial staff.

Being a parent, you dont know anything. You bring home this kid and youre like, What do we do now? We understood that we were trying to figure out what we were doing as we moved along, Kristi Angel said recently.

Katie was born in 1999. A few days after the new baby left the hospital, Bradley, whod gotten too accustomed to being an only child, asked his mom if she could take Katie back. But, hostilities toward his new sibling soon faded. His parents recounted in Bradleys obituary that at four years old, Katie became tired while walking with her family through a state park in Arizona, and her parents pretended to leave her behind.

"We can't leave Katie," Bradley told his parents. "She won't live."

Books yes, school no

Bradley took to books, backpacking and collecting trinkets, but he didnt take to school. Teachers all acknowledged his potential, but couldnt help him find interest in classwork. His parents received a few calls from Billings police, but the most serious crime was when a teenage Bradley and a friend wrecked an occupied Port-a-Potty. Jon and Kristi covered the cost.

During his eighth-grade year at Will James Middle School, Kristi took the day off work to attend an entire day of school with Bradley. By the time they got to his science class, hed sunk nearly beneath his desk.

I said, Dont worry about going to class, doing your homework, or being on time. School was not his thing. He didnt like it at all, Kristi said. Bradley told his mom sarcasm kills.

It was also in eighth grade that Bradleys parents first suspected he was using marijuana. It wasnt until he turned 16 that Bradleys parents confronted him about it. Bradley was blunt with his father. He was going to smoke pot, and he didnt care how his parents felt about it.

He said, I dont want to lie to you, but thats what Im going to do, and theres nothing you can do to stop me. I thought for a second and in an odd way, I kind of respected that, Jon Angel said. I appreciated that he was being completely honest with me.

Because of my line of work now, Ive come to understand marijuana is benign in the lives of adults, but its distinctly destructive to an adolescent mind. I think I would have responded a little more forcefully to Brads marijuana use, if I'd known it at the time, said Jon, who today works as a mental health counselor.

While Bradley was living at home, he lost two bags of pot he hadn't yet paid for, his dad tossing them in a dumpster three blocks away. Kristi disrupted Bradley's drug connections in high school by going through his text messages and responding to certain contacts, Do not text my son for drugs.

And I went to the people at West High and told them, this is going down on your campus, Kristi said.

The Angels walked the razor's edge navigating between their authority as parents and their sons agency as he grew into adulthood. His parents didnt know if hed graduate until days before he got his diploma.

Its true that kids have their own agency. They get to make a lot of choices that parents dont like. Theres no way to stop them from making scary choices. You try to keep the lines of communication open. You try to educate them about the risks their taking, Jon said.

'I love you dad'

Bradley was always thinking, and he engaged often and deeply with his father as they both tried to make sense of his thoughts. His father would find books Bradley had plucked randomly from the family's bookshelves when he swept Bradleys room for drugs.

Kristi and Jon were candid with their two children. Both kids started counseling in their teens. Jon said Bradleys substance use, which worsened through high school, was self-medication. Just a year after graduating high school, two of Bradley's friends had died: one was struck and killed by a drunk driver, another killed himself.

In Jon's ambition to save his son, he packed him into an SUV for an 11-day road trip. Backpacking trips during the summer were common for the Angels, but Jon and Bradley drove north, rolling up more than 5,000 miles into Canada in 2013, in time to see the solstice on a lonely Arctic beach.

Jon brought a book on addiction to read to Bradley, a way of getting through to him the risks he was taking. The lectures didn't achieve what Jon had hoped, but he took hundreds of photos of Bradley enjoying himself on the trip, additions to the nearly 40,000 photos Jon has saved on a hard drive.

Bradley didn't seal himself away from his father. He unfurled thoughts on his life and dreams in conversations that would extend late into the night. They exchanged text messages, pages and pages of Bradley picking his fathers brain about morality as he hungered for guidance.

He texted his dad:

The last time you were in Bozeman when we talked on the phone for like 3 hours, it was a deeply emotional and spiritual conversation for me but it just made me realize that theres a million things I dont know," Bradley wrote." Like, I knew that before but that talk really drove it home. Its been giving me a lot of anxiety when I think about it but it's also super enriching when I think about it. I want to experience what youve experienced but it seems like I have to go through some really fucked-up shit to get to that apex that you've seen. It just makes me think that I have to experience something so dark to build a sense of self-worth. And I feel like I have already experienced the darkest darks that I can, losing two of my best friends in two years, two real brothers. Two guys that I really connected with and I still haven't even come close to any sort of enlightenment. Like obviously that's not the case but I feel like I'm really standing right on the edge of the pit and I can either jump in and get completely fucked or I can walk away with my experience and try to grow from it. I love you, dad.

His father said he loved him, too.

Finding a friend

In looking for that sense of self-worth, Bradley worked a number of jobs, including helping to paint houses with Jons brother in Bozeman. It was while working at a Billings Burger King that he met a 16-year-old named David Reichenberg. At that time, Bradley was 21 and already had a son.

They fell into an easy friendship, leaving the kitchen to huddle in the managers office to watch music videos together. Soon, they were meeting at each others home. Bradley and Davids time together usually followed girlfriend breakups. It was after Bradley ended a relationship in early 2021 that they were together nearly every day. Those mellow nights together incubated a tight bond.

In an exchange of messages about a month before his overdose, Bradley told David that what they were was beautiful.

People always talk about soulmates in like [a] romantic way but youve made me realize that theres another type of soulmate and youre it for me, Bradley wrote.

Bradley's little sister

Katie grew up outside of her brothers immediate orbit, bonded by little beyond music. Katie cant remember too many displays of affection, but knew the two were artistically inclined. Bradley gave Katie her first set of acrylic paints in fifth grade, starting a hobby that's since persisted.

The past two years have been "a salad tosser of trauma," she said of her move to California, her parents' separation, and her brother's death.

"Nothing shakes me," she said.

She and Bradley had just started to reconcile over the year before his death, during brief car rides together and sharing which artists they were listening to, she said. She resents that fentanyl has stolen whatever chance she had of continuing to build that relationship.

Katie was working as a caregiver at an assisted living facility in Billings. She had confided in a coworker her anxiety over the potential of finding the body of an elderly resident.

You will, her coworker said. And you dont know when its going to happen.

When she opened Bradley's door that morning, nothing moved or made a sound. And then, she was calling 911. The dispatcher asked her to stay on the line until an ambulance arrived, but she couldnt do that. She hung up, and called her parents.

Nothing compares to being the one that tells someone their kid is dead, twice in a row. Mom didnt believe it. Dad was doubtful, she said.

If you have two children and one of them has died, Katie said, your first thought is going to be whats happened to the other one. She wanted to be the voice that let her parents know she was still alive, and wanted to exercise what little control she had that morning. In making those calls, she said, her parents got the clearest, closest option to the truth.

People in uniforms flooded into her home and paramedics administered Naloxone to revive Bradley. Police peppered her with questions about how Bradley got the drugs. By the time her parents arrived, medical crews had a pulse, and Bradley was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Katie, in shock, said it felt like she was plugged into a wall.

It just felt like there was electricity going through me the entire time. I did not feel like I was in the drivers seat, she said.

Over the next week, Bradleys heart kept beating, and members of his family paraded in and out of his room. At his side, his sister spoke to him. She told him about his son, Sabastian. She also joked that hed found a great way of getting out of house-sitting for his dad. Leading up to the day doctors took him off life support, she watched her brothers body change, but never looked away.

This is the only chance that I would have to look, be present and show up. Not knowing is so much worse, and I would rather be the one to have found him than anyone else, she said.

Even off life support, Bradley didnt go quietly. As an organ donor, surgeons waited so he could make good on his donations. But he kept breathing for four more hours unassisted; too long for him to be able to donate anything but his eyes and few tissues.

His mother recalled the day he died. He left her life the way he'd always lived, she said between exhausted sighs: sad, funny and misunderstood.

I really tried to understand him, she said.

An empty bed

Memories of Bradley, and his sense of humor, are preserved. His bedroom hasnt been changed since he died. His shirts and sweaters still hang in his closet, some of which didnt arrive until the month after he died. His mother pulled one of them to showcase, a black shirt reading Kanye 2020 across the front. The stuffed mouse his father bought for him still looks out from his chest of drawers onto an empty bed. One of the thousands of pictures of Bradley occasionally make their way into Jons texts to his family.

I know that theyve also sufferedThats a strange and difficult part of this is that I also feel responsible for helping my family with their own grief. In the midst of my own destruction, I have to take care of other people to, so sending photos, I hope its a way of keeping him alive and present in their memories. One of the worst things you can do as a therapist is to shut down and move on and not continue to talk and share stories and relish good memories, Jon said.

Its a new kind of pain. You could sit there and ask me questions and talk about it, but still I can assure you that you really have no idea just how profound the loss is, he said.

Sabastian, and Bradley, live on

As a 19-year-old, Bradley was in the hospital for a very different reason. His son Sabastian was being born. Bradley was laying prone on the hospital floor. He hadn't eaten and was worried about his girlfriend whose complicated labor forced a caesarian section. Nurses attended to Bradley as he waited for his son to arrive.

A few hours later, he was holding the newborn Sabastian in his arms. Bradley would go to his grave with Sabastian's birthdate tattooed on his arm.

Sabastian now spends weekends with his grandparents, who share stories of his father and see Bradley in Sabastians knack for wisecracks and collecting trinkets. The Angels dont hide from Sabastian the fact that his father is gone.

Sabastian's obsession is cars, and like his dad, he has a quick wit.

Wishing wells are a scam, he told his grandfather recently, Youre just throwing money into a hole made of bricks and boards!

On Sept. 10, Sabastian will turn six. His birthday comes just a few weeks after his father's birthday. And now, there is a new birthday to celebrate. David Riechenberg, Bradley's soulmate friend, has named his new son Bradley.

From the moment Bradley died, I knew I wanted to do that for him. If he was a boy, I wanted to name him Bradley, or Angel if she was a girlHe was the greatest person Ill ever meet, David said.
Nine horses died and another escaped with minor burns in a barn fire in Hanover County on Friday afternoon.

Hanover fire officials did not give a cause for the fire, which is under investigation.

Fire and emergency crews responded to a reported fire at 2:49 p.m. at 15549 Stone Horse Creek Rd., Cedar Knoll Farm, in Glen Allen.

The farm is home to a family-owned riding school, but Hanover Fire Battalion Chief David Johnston said Sunday he did not know whether the fire was related to the equestrian center there.

The barn was fully in flames when firefighters arrived, forcing them to act in defensive mode, using the departments high-capacity water tankers to fight the fire without a public water system, the department said in a news release.

No civilians or firefighters were injured in the blaze.
One person is dead and another in critical condition after a pair of shootings in Petersburg early Saturday, and a second person died in a separate shooting in the city later in the morning.

Petersburg police responded to a reported shooting at Virginia Avenue and Bolling Street at 2:43 a.m. They found a man who had been shot and suffered life-threatening wounds. He was transported to a hospital, where he died.

As police investigated the shooting, a second person arrived at the hospital who also suffered from life-threatening wounds after being shot. The second victim was in critical but stable condition Saturday morning.

Petersburg police said both victims were shot at the same location. The man who died was taken to the hospital by ambulance while the second victim was transported in a privately owned vehicle.

The department said it is not looking for suspects in the shootings, and the public is not in danger.

The second fatal shooting occurred in the 500 block of Cottonwood Road . Police arrived there around 5:43 a.m. in response to a report of a person down.

They said they found a man who had been shot and had died at the scene.

This is an active investigation, Petersburg police said in a post on its Twitter page.

The department is requesting information from anyone in the area of the shootings who heard or saw anything potentially related to them. Anyone with information should call Petersburg/Dinwiddie Crime Solvers at (804) 861-1212 or go online to p3tips.com.
Whats known as a forever chemical, first found last year at concerning levels in the Spring Hollow reservoir west of Salem, has more recently been detected in the nearby Roanoke River.

The test results are an important development for the Western Virginia Water Authority, which is trying to figure out how a hazardous compound called GenX wound up in one of its key supplies of public water.

Im not glad we have it, but I am glad to see that we may be close to confirming where we are getting it, Roger Blankenship, the authoritys deputy chief operating officer for water quality, wrote in an Aug. 25 email to colleagues.

The discovery of GenX in the river also raises concerns for Salem, which draws its drinking water about 10 miles downstream from where the chemical was detected. To date, no contamination has been found at the citys intake, a spokesman said.

Last year, as part of a statewide study by the Virginia Department of Health, tests of Spring Hollow water found GenX, the trade name for hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid, at levels of 51 and 57 parts per trillion.

Later sampling by the water authority found almost three times that amount  139 parts per trillion  in the river at a location just upstream from where Roanoke River water is pumped into the Spring Hollow reservoir.

The Environmental Protection Agency warns that exposure to more than 10 parts per trillion of GenX in drinking water, over an extended time period, could cause health problems.

A health advisory was issued by the EPA in June, well after GenX was first detected in Spring Hollow. The advisory is not enforceable, and there are currently no federal regulations that govern forever chemicals.

More than 6,000 man-made compounds  officially called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, but better known as forever chemicals because they can last for generations  are believed to be present worldwide in air, water, soil and living organisms.

It is only in recent years that concerns about them have grown. Tests at Spring Hollow marked the first time they have been found in the authoritys water bodies, which serve about 69,000 customers in the Roanoke Valley.

Details of the authoritys investigation are contained in emails that the agency provided to The Roanoke Times last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Weve finally found a significant source of the GenX, read a 6:39 a.m. email dated Aug. 25, shortly after authority officials first received the lab results of samples taken from the river the previous month.

The water authority quickly notified Salem. This would be particularly bad news for them, Scott Shirley, COO for water quality, wrote in a email later that morning.

We are very concerned when something like this is detected in any water source, especially one that is just upstream, city spokesman Mike Stevens said last week in response to questions from the newspaper.

Thankfully, we have not identified any sort of problem at our intake in Salem, he wrote in an email, saying the city had just received word from the Department of Health that no forever chemicals were found in water samples taken in July.

Additional monitoring is planned. At Spring Hollow, the authority has limited the amount of water distributed to its customers as a precautionary measure until more details are known. Other water bodies that tested negative for GenX, such as Carvins Cove, are being used.

GenX was first detected at Spring Hollow in 2020, at levels below EPAs health advisory guidelines at the time.

The chemical seemed to be appearing intermittently and in declining levels until the Heath Department tests in 2021 found it in concentrations in the 50 part per trillion range.

The GenX in Spring Hollow was the highest concentration of a forever chemical found in 45 public water sources that were part of the statewide tests, according to a 2021 Department of Health report to the General Assembly, which required the study in 2020.

Authorities believe the substance was diluted after being pumped into the 3.2-billion gallon reservoir, which would explain the higher numbers in samples taken from the Roanoke River.

Previous tests of river water had not revealed GenX. But now that the authority knows it is there, the search for a source has been narrowed.

The results seems to indicate that intermittent discharges of this compound are being introduced to the Roanoke River; therefore, additional water sampling investigations can be focused on possible sources along the North and South Forks of the Roanoke River and their tributary creeks, Sarah Baumgardner, a spokeswoman for the authority, wrote in an email.

The authority is confident that the source of GenX will eventually be found, she said, because it has limited uses in manufacturing. The compound is an intermediate product used most frequently in the manufacture of non-stick plastic.

According to the EPA, exposure to the chemical can cause complications to the liver, kidney and immune system, and may be linked to cancer.

However, the administrations health advisory is based on lifetime exposure to a chemical that is measured in tiny amounts. If expressed as a unit in time, one part per trillion would be approximately one second in 32,000 years, stated a letter the authority sent to its customers last month.

The water authority is working with the Health Department and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in its search for the origin of GenX.

There just are not that many facilities using this process in the upper reaches of the Roanoke River watershed that provide water to our pumping station, Baumgardner said.

A more remote possibility  but one that has not been ruled out  is that the chemical became airborne and was carried by the wind to the Spring Hollow area.

Tests are currently underway to further explore that theory.

Able to repel both oils and water, forever chemicals are widely used in industry and common consumer products that need to resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water  including nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, fast food containers, upholstery and carpets.
Hey, remember that Palm Springs trip your friends always talk about taking but never put on the calendar? It's actually happening. And while t
Virginia Western Community College has renamed its business school after a major supporter of the Roanoke school. A ceremony was held last month to officially change the Business Science Building on the Colonial Avenue campus to the Hall Family Center for Business Science.

Edwin C. Ed Hall of Roanoke and his family were the events honorees. Hall is a former president of Virginia Westerns Educational Foundation Board. He currently serves as chair of the schools Scholarship and Grants Committee.

Hall, founder of the Roanoke-based real estate firm Hall Associates Inc., pledged a multigenerational planned gift in 2021 to the Educational Foundation. Initial giving is valued at $1 million to support the Virginia Western Forward Permanent Endowment Fund plus $250,000 for the Virginia Western Rapids Response Student Emergency Fund, according to VWCC. Generational giving will culminate in a further multimillion-dollar gift to the Virginia Western Forward unrestricted endowment fund, the school added.

Eds belief in the college runs deep, said Virginia Western President Robert Sandel.

He has mentored our students. He has guided, pushed, advocated, defended and rallied our vision and our growth.

Earlier this year, Hall received the 16th Annual Chancellors Award for Leadership in Philanthropy, recognizing him as a philanthropy leader in the Virginia Community College System.

VWCC said Halls new financial pledges are in addition to previous gifts of $1.1 million to establish and support Virginia Westerns Hall Associates Career Center; $100,000 for the Edwin C. Hall Endowed Chair for Management: Entrepreneurship; and the establishment of the Glenna H. Hall Memorial Endowed Scholarship for Women in Business established by Edwin C. Hall.

The Business Science Building opened in 1988 and today its top floor showcases Virginia Westerns new Networking Lab and Cyber Security Lab. It also houses Whitman Theater and the Student Commons.
Construction of a $100 million, six-story building in downtown Blacksburg is on schedule for Virginia Tech to occupy by late fall, with shopping and dining features expected to open next year, according to university officials.

The 250,000-square-foot, multi-use building on Gilbert Street will include educational and other student uses, plus retail and restaurant options for the larger community, topped off by a sixth-floor rooftop terrace restaurant, Virginia Tech previously announced.

It is the tallest building in downtown.

For now, a 124-space underground parking garage beneath the structure is open to vehicle traffic.

As for which retail and restaurant storefronts will be moving in to the first and sixth floors of Gilbert Place, negotiations are active and in progress among the Virginia Tech Foundation and potential tenants, according to an email from university spokesman Mark Owczarski.

It would be premature to make any announcements, Owczarski said in the email.

Two floors of the new building will be dedicated office space for the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science, the email said. Other departments will also make use of Gilbert Place.

Owczarski said the computer science portions of Gilbert Place are key to the universitys tech talent pipeline. The pipeline aims to feed the upcoming Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Northern Virginia with graduate students in high-demand technology fields like computer science and computer engineering.

The Gilbert Place project will provide the home for [computer science] to place into that pipeline students with undergraduate degrees, Owczarski said. Put another way, the growth here connects to the Innovation Campus to the north, and represents the pipeline coming together towards a key state goal that influenced Amazons decision to come here.

Construction is likewise underway on an 11-story Innovation Campus building set to open in 2024, according to a Virginia Tech webpage. Both efforts are guided by the Virginia Tech Foundation, a nonprofit corporation set up to financially support the public university.

Further, Owczarski said Gilbert Place will house a counseling center for students, as part of the universitys efforts to improve mental health support.

The timing of that could not be better, he said.

Catherine Potter of the university foundation is scheduled to give updates on the Gilbert Place project at a meeting of Main Street Connect on Tuesday. The meeting is set for 8 a.m. at Next Door Bake Shop on Turner Street.
Twenty-one years later, Stanley Meador still remembers 9/11 and the aftermath. Now the special agent in charge of the FBI Richmond office, Meador at the time was a Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority agent in Alexandria.

"I can remember it," Meador told The Times-Dispatch last week. "Probably the most vivid memory I have is the heat. I've said this a number of times to folks, but the heat coming off the crash site was almost indescribable."

Nearly 3,000 were killed when airplanes hijacked by terrorists crashed in Arlington, New York City and Somerset County, Pa. The anniversary is Sunday.

To recognize the lives lost, Meador helped found the Richmond 3,000. For the second year in a row, federal agents officers have pledged to walk, jog or run 3,000 laps around the local FBI building as their way of recognizing and honoring 9/11 victims.

Last year, runners took their mark and blasted through their goal of 3,000 laps. They eventually completed 6,471.

Meador said the agency this year took an extra step to ensure they'd exceed their goal and invited neighboring law enforcement agencies to participate. All last week, members came to the FBI field office on East Parham Road to get laps in and tally the results.

"I would say there was probably a friendly squad competition for bragging rights," Meador said.

The bigger achievement is achieving a common goal, he said.

"I think that today is  for us and to them  an invitation to partner up, a reassurance that we can work together," Meador said. "Because just like on 9/11, we work through our partnerships. ... I think it reinforces to the community that we stand side by side."

Meador, who was named to the Richmond post in March 2021, has also held positions with the FBI in Washington state, the Middle East, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Galax native received a Declaration of Valor for his response at the Pentagon on 9/11.

He said the Richmond 3,000 is to also recognize survivors and first responders still dealing with health effects in the aftermath of the attack, including himself.

"When I left the Pentagon, I had a moment where I thought that because of what we had done there that we were all going to get sick from this," Meador said. "And then in 2013, I was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer."

Meador said he didn't waiver through the ups and downs of his illness.

"My cancer metastasized in 2016, but I just had my five years remission," Meador said. "But my perspective is, you know, I live in the moment to try to focus on living for today."

He said he hopes the biggest takeaway from the event is how tightly knit his team has become because of it.

"I think for me, Im just immensely proud of the commitment that the team shows each year," Meador said. "When you see the younger people that may not have been around in 2001, you get to see them support this event. ... For us senior folks, that sends a good message."

One of those young agents  Eric Davis, 22  was out running Friday. Davis, an operational support technician with the bureau, was 2 years old in September 2001.

"I just remember being in day care and my parents having to come pick me up," Davis said. "They were serving in the military at the time."

For Davis, pledging to run a lap isn't just a chance for him to remember that day, but to reaffirm his commitment to the bureau and fellow agents like David Lewis, the assistant special agent in charge of the Richmond office.

Lewis was living in New York in 2001 and remembers seeing from his office building in New Jersey that day the billowing smoke rising in Manhattan.

The Richmond 3,000 is a way to celebrate what we are doing now and the talent and the people we have now, but also remember those who paid that ultimate sacrifice, said Lewis.

On Friday, after a moment of silence followed by the sounding of taps, participants had completed over 5,058 laps.

"We're like a family here," said Davis, who racked up 30 laps Friday. "This event is about remembering the fallen and about working together and completing our mission to uphold peace. What better mission is there?"
TAZEWELL  Five years after a Tazewell County man seemingly vanished at the Clinch Mountain Wildlife Area just inside of Smyth County, investigators and family members are still hoping for the lead that will help uncover his fate.

The search for then 45-year-old Gary Shannon Earp came to a standstill just weeks after police found his abandoned Toyota pickup in a gravel pull-off on Tumbling Creek Road in 2017.

Smyth County Lt. Tony McCormick said the truck had been idling with the drivers door open when it was discovered just after midnight on Saturday, June 3.

That was an interesting detail, McCormick said of the open door.

Inside the truck, investigators found Garys wallet with cash and cards still inside, his glasses and a bag of uneaten Hardees breakfast.

Garys father, the elder Gary Earp, last saw his son late the previous Tuesday evening and last spoke to him Wednesday morning, Earp has said. The family had just returned on Monday from a Memorial Day weekend camping trip in the Tumbling Creek area and was settling back into their weekly routines.

He got up Wednesday morning and asked me if I wanted breakfast and I said, no, no, go ahead. And, thats the last time I heard his voice, Earp said.

The then 70-year-olds world would come crashing down around him in the coming days. That evening, Earp learned from another son that his grandson was in critical condition at a hospital in North Carolina. Earp spent the next few days by his familys side before returning to his Bluefield home late Friday night.

That Saturday morning, Earp said, he was sitting on his porch with his coffee, trying to gather his bearings when police arrived to break the news that theyd found Garys truck near Tumbling Creek and had not been able to locate Gary.

It just all went to crap then, Earp said. If it wasnt a crappy week already, it definitely went to crap then.

Days later, Earps grandson died and he returned to North Carolina.

That was a terrible two weeks for me, it really was, Earp said. I just didnt know what to do.

Following the discovery of the truck, police with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, the Virginia State Police and the Smyth and Tazewell county sheriffs offices scoured the area. Two days later a search and rescue team with the Virginia Department of Emergency management began a three-week search of a vast swath of the public land.

Meanwhile, McCormick and his colleagues, assisted by Tazewell County investigators, began interviewing people who knew Earp and those who had been in the area that day, trying to find a lead on where he might be. Through their investigation, they learned hed been spotted by a few loggers at the end of Tumbling Creek Road around 3 p.m. on that Thursday. Another man reported that hed run into Earp in Saltville, the town nearest the wildlife area, early Friday morning, and the Hardees purchase put him in Chilhowie Friday night.

McCormick noted that the truck had been fully functional mechanically, had no flat tires and enough gas to make it back out of the area. The Toyota was later sent for a full forensic workup, but nothing significant to the investigation could be found.

McCormick said attempts to locate Gary using his cell phone location were unsuccessful due to lack of service and a search of cell phone records turned up nothing useful. Searches of Garys social media accounts also proved unhelpful with no activity having been recorded for a lengthy period of time before his disappearance.

Earps father said camping and fishing at Tumbling Creek had been a family tradition for several decades. The family had enjoyed the Memorial Day trip the weekend before, he said.

He said his son hadnt mentioned to anyone that hed planned to return to the area.

While Earp said he hadnt noticed any strange behavior from his son leading up to his disappearance, he acknowledged there were some inconsistencies in his habits that he didnt learn of until well after his son went missing.

According to court records, the younger Earp had been scheduled that Thursday for a review hearing in Tazewell County Circuit Court on a not guilty by reason of insanity plea. Hed entered the plea in 2014 on a probation violation charge that stemmed from an earlier child abuse conviction. When Earp did not appear at the Thursday hearing, the court issued a capias for his arrest the following day.

His missing the hearing appears to stand in contrast to the character portrayed in a letter written days earlier to the court by Earps probation officer. In the letter, the officer, Phillip Ward, whod overseen Earps probation since December 2016, described him as a model probationer, saying, he has produced negative drug screens; reported to the probation office as instructed; has followed his mental health conditional release requirements and has successfully abided by all conditions of probation.

In a second letter requesting the capias written that Friday, the day before the truck was found on Tumbling Creek Road, Ward said Earp hadnt appeared for his hearing the previous day, hadnt shown up to perform his court-ordered community service that Tuesday and that Tazewell County deputies had been dispatched to his residence the previous day.

Ward declined to be interviewed for this story.

Neither McCormick nor his counterparts in Tazewell County could verify the law enforcement response to Earps home.

Earps father, however, described his son as a punctual man who never missed appointments or hearings, and who went beyond expectations at the food pantry in Richlands where he performed his community service.

The younger Earp had been living with his father since his separation from his wife and had previously struggled with his mental health. Earp said his son, whod experienced episodes of paranoia, had been discharged after a lengthy stay at the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Marion about six months prior to his disappearance. He said his son had made great progress and had set goals for himself, with an ultimate goal of getting some degree of custody of his daughters.

The elder Earp said his son, whod previously worked as an engineer for Tazewell County, had planned to ask the court to allow him to seek regular employment at the missed review hearing.

He wanted to get off disability and get out and be a productive person and he was doing everything he could to achieve that goal, Earp said.

He knew that he had to be there to plead his case. Why on earth was he going to miss something like that, the father said.

McCormick said the sightings put the younger Earp in or nearby the Tumbling Creek area on Thursday and Friday of 2017. He noted that the conversation between Earp and the Saltville resident had been casual and that no abnormal behavior had been reported.

After 21 days, the search of the Tumbling Creek area came to an end. During that time, McCormick said 18 to 26 search and rescue volunteers per day came to the area from all over Southwest Virginia, working in shifts to search the ground, Laurel Bed Lake and the entire stretch of Tumbling Creek through whats known locally as the gorge. The Virginia State Police also brought in a helicopter to search from the air and tracking K9s were brought in from several agencies for ground searches.

Not a shred of a lead was discovered.

No footprints, no articles of clothing, no trash left behind, no signs of a campsite, no signs of an animal attack or struggle, McCormick said.

Earp was quick to dismiss the possibility that his son could have gotten lost in the forest or been carried off by a wild animal. He said Gary had been camping and fishing in the area since he was 4 years old and knew the land and its inhabitants from one end to the other.

He knew that place, Earp said. Hed been all over that place over there. It wasnt like it was the first time hed been there. Hed been going over there since he was like 4 years old.

As for the wildlife, Earp said, He knew the animals over there  the bear, the deer, the snakes and everything  he knew all that. So I just dont believe that thats the case. 

Earp said he believes something more sinister led to his sons disappearance.

I believe something else happened, somebody met him up there or something, he said. Pointing to the food left behind in his sons truck, Earp wonders if his son expected to meet someone.

But no signs of violence or foul play have been discovered, nor have any leads surfaced to suggest any other cause for Earps disappearance. McCormick said all avenues are still being considered.

After the search ended, the case pretty much went cold and no other leads nothings come in, he said.

As for his own theories, McCormick said, You toss around everything when these things happen, adding that I try not to develop theories about what happened until weve got some evidence to point us in a certain direction and we just dont have anything on this case.

Investigators collected DNA samples from Earps father and one of his daughters and have entered them into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Known as NamUs, the database seeks to connect the remains of unidentified decedents to those who have been reported missing. Earp has also been listed into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which allows law enforcement to quickly access an index of missing persons and criminal information should they encounter that person.

Additionally, McCormick also runs regular checks on Earps social security number to see if its been used in employment or other records.

So far nothing has come up.

Earp said his sons disappearance has been incredibly hard on the family.

His family misses him terribly bad; his girls miss him terribly bad. Wed just like to have some closure on it, he said.

Now, at 74 years old, Earp still visits the Tumbling Creek area, his most recent trip was this Fourth of July.

Ive been over there every year since then and Ive looked and Ive looked and Ive looked and nothing. At all.

Despite the devastating experience tied to the area, though, Earp said Tumbling Creek still holds so many happy memories for his family, memories of Gary  memories he plans to continue to make.

I want to pass it on to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren because its a good place, he said. Lots of good memories. Just one bad memory. And I dont want to stop them from experiencing a good place.

But if I knew what happened to him, Im sure it would be a lot better, he added. I would just like to know what happened to him. Thats all. Just to get some closure. Thats all I want.

Anyone with information that could help in the investigation into Garys disappearance is asked to call the Smyth County Sheriffs Office at 276-783-7204. Tips can remain anonymous.
Shirley Contreras lives in Orcutt and writes for the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society. She can be contacted at 623-8193 or at shirleycontreras2@yahoo.com. Her book, The Good Years, a selection of stories shes written for the Santa Maria Times since 1991, is on sale at the Santa Maria Valley Historical Society, 616 S. Broadway.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Francis Marion University Director of Multimedia Services Larry Falck has fond and sad memories of Sept. 11, 2001.

Falcks happy memories center on his first day of work as a production assistant at his alma mater.

When Falck was in middle school, he watched a PBS documentary about advertising and marketing. His middle school had a television studio.

Falck said he took a television production class in middle school and loved it. It set his lifes path. Falcks high school had a television studio, but he said students werent allowed to use it. So, he became interested in theater and acting. He majored in acting at Francis Marion University. However, he found a job as a production tech/director at WPDE in Florence while he was a student at FMU. He eventually changed his minor to mass communications. His first job as an FMU graduate was director/production tech at WBTW in Florence.

His next stop was returning to Francis Marion University. Falck has stayed at FMU for 21 years and moved up the ladder to director of multimedia services.

Many Americans share Falcks sad memories. Sept. 11, 2001, is the day that forever changed America. It is the day 19 militants tied to the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four jetliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States.

Two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers on the flight fought the four hijackers.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism.

In a video interview with Managing Editor Chris Day, Falck recalled his first day on the job at FMU and the Sept. 11 attacks. Here is an abridged version of the interview. His complete recollection of Sept. 11, 2001 is available at www.scnow.com. To view the video, point your smartphone camera at the QR code that accompanies this story and tap on the link.

Q: When did you start working here?

A: So, my first day here at Francis Marion was Sept. 11, 2001. Its a pretty unforgettable day.

Q: Run me through that day and how did you find out about the terrorist attacks?

A: I was trying to think back. I remember that day, but I dont remember the exact details of what happened.  I remember getting up normal. Coming out here. I want to say they ask me to get here at 9 oclock. I went straight over to human resources. Howard Sterns radio show was still on the air down here. I was listening to that coming in. I went and started filling out the paperwork. One of the other people in human resources came in  and said one of the World Trade Center Towers had been hit by an airplane. After the first one, not many people knew what was going on, yet.  I continued filling out the paperwork.  By the time, I got back to my car, I remember  the Howard Stern Show was still on and they were talking about it. Thats when the second plane hit. I came back in here  not in this office, but another office in this building. We started turning on the video feeds we had on television or projectors  so we could see what was going on. We were just all in shock. About midday, Dr. (Fred) Carter (university president) sent out an email or made a phone call saying we could leave so people could be with their families.

Q: After you got the OK from Dr. Carter to go home, what did you do then?

A: I went home and turned on the TV, and just started watching coverage of it.

Q: Is there one thing that stands out or is most memorable?

A: Besides the overall shock of the whole situation itself, trying to find a point of levity in such tragedy. I was just thinking to myself here I was just working at a news station just a couple of days before, and then I came here. I was just wondering if they wished I was there right now to help out with the coverage.  I just remember all the TV coverage  how they were all trying to cover what was happening and figure out what was happening. 
Mali: trois Casques bleus blesses dans l

Trois Casques bleus ont ete blesses dimanche dans le nord du Mali quand leur vehicule a heurte une mine entre Ber et Tombouctou, a indique la mission de l'ONU (Minusma) dans le pays sur Twitter.





La Minusma n'a pas precise la nationalite des blesses, ni la gravite de leurs blessures.





La Minusma, comme l'armee malienne, est regulierement visee par des attaques des jihadistes qui combattent toute presence etrangere ainsi que les representations de l'Etat.





Les mines et les engins explosifs improvises (EEI) sont une des armes de predilection des jihadistes. Ils explosent au contact d'une roue ou sont actionnes a distance.





Un rapport de la Minusma arrete au 31 aout denombrait 245 attaques aux EEI et aux mines en 2021 et 134 en 2022. Les mines et les EEI ont fait 103 morts en 2021 et 72 en 2022, dit le rapport. Un quart des victimes sont des civils.




 Making the case for jury nullification in response to criminalization of abortion | Main | Noting opaque SCOTUS rulings, split Ninth Circuit panel rejects habeas Eighth Amendment claim against 292-year prison term 

September 11, 2022

Should pardon enable pharmacist convicted of federal fraud to claw back restitution already paid?

A helpful reader made sure I did not miss this interesting news story from Georgia regarding the uncertain aftermath of a presidential pardon. The piece is headlined, "Trump pardoned him; now Ga. man sues state, insurer for half-million," and here are in the details:

In his final days in the White House, then-President Donald Trump pardoned dozens of people, including former Augusta pharmacist John Duncan Fordham who was convicted of defrauding the state of Georgia and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution. Fordham spent four years in prison after his 2005 health care fraud conviction, and his assets were seized and liquidated to help make whole the state and a private insurance company he had defrauded. At the time of his January 2021 pardon, Fordham had made good on $531,000 in restitution payments. And while the pardon erased the nearly half million he and company still owed, that wasnt good enough for Fordham. On Thursday, he took the unusual step of suing the state and the insurance company to pay him the hundreds of thousands he had already paid in restitution, claiming that Trumps pardon had entitled him to recover the funds  plus interest. Im not sure that Ive heard of a case of reimbursement, said Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt, an expert on presidential pardons. Fordham was convicted of taking part in a fraud scheme in which former state Rep. Robin Williams, R-Augusta, steered a lucrative contract with the East Georgia Community Mental Health Center to Fordham, in exchange for generous kick backs to the former lawmaker. Williams was also convicted and sentenced to federal prison.... In addition to the nearly $500,000 that were seized following his conviction, Fordham had continued to make monthly payments totaling $46,000 until Trumps pardon, the complaint says. He paid roughly $259,000 to the Georgia Department of Administrative Services, an agency that provides financial services to state and local government entities and a defendant in Fordhams suit. Fordham paid Great American Insurance Company, the other defendant in his suit, $272,000 in restitution, records show. Kalt said that the presidential pardon cleared Fordham of responsibility to continue to pay restitution, but it seems unlikely that a federal court will agree that the pardon entitles him to claw back payments he had already made. Its unclear, but it seems doubtful to me that hell be able to get the money back, Kalt said.

I understand Professor Kalt's first instinct that this pardoned individual should not be able to get back restitution already paid; after all, this individual cannot "get back" the four years he already served in prison. But, of course, money can be returned whereas time cannot. And, if one concludes that the pardon here serves to wipe out the remaining restitution owed that had not yet been paid, I am not sure why logic does not suggest that the pardon also serves to wipe out the already paid restitution.

Notably, Prez Trump's grant of clemency provided for a "full and unconditional pardon" for Fordham's conviction and it mentioned the entire full restitution amount that was part of the sentence imposed. I find myself somewhat drawn to the notion that the law should aspire to give as much effect to a clemency grant as possible, including enabling Fordham to claw back even restitution already paid. But perhaps we ought to view clemency as a classic example of equity over law, and so perhaps we best achieve equity by wiping out only future restitution still owed without returning restitution already paid.

September 11, 2022 at 04:49 PM | Permalink

Comments

"But perhaps we ought to view clemency as a classic example of equity over law..."

This strikes me as correct except in the case where the pardon is based on a finding of actual innocence.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Sep 11, 2022 7:34:51 PM

My understanding is that a Presidential Pardon wipes away the criminal conviction as though it had never happened, a waving of a kind of Magic Wand almost. This pharmacist's claim for the return of $541,000 of restitution already paid seems particularly strong because the Pardon itself mentions the entire restitution amount included in the conviction. Another place I have seen a perverse argument being made like this one concerns a D.C. attorney, William A. Borders, Jr., who had been disbarred based upon a felony conviction. He also received a Presidential Pardon, which led him to write the D.C. Bar Association and demand that they reinstate his law license, since the conviction had disappeared as though it never existed. But the D.C. Court of Appeals refused. See also, In re: Elliot Abrams, 662 A.2d 867 (D.C. 1995), rehearing En Banc granted, 674 A.2d 499 (D.C. 1996) (En Banc), No. 91-BG-1518 (D.C. Feb. 5, 1997)(imposing a Public Reprimand but refusing Disbarment). Abrams had been pardoned by President Georgia H. W. Bush.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | Sep 11, 2022 11:06:29 PM

Re: disbarment, my understanding is that lawyers are supposed to demonstrate fit character. I could easily see a state bar (or D.C. as the case may be), deciding that the facts underlying a criminal conviction are egregious enough to warrant disbarment even if no criminal taint remains. Or even if the trial produced a not guilty verdict in the first place (although in that case it would perhaps be easier to argue different standards of proof).

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Sep 12, 2022 12:28:16 AM

Absolutely not, hes not entitled to get all those days back he spent incarcerated, not the expenses he paid for his representation. He shouldnt get any money back he paid towards the resting ion order. He should be thanking God he got the pardon and move on, not wasting his time trying to un-ring the bell.

Posted by: Paul Tallini | Sep 12, 2022 8:05:40 AM

Allowing recovery of monies already in the hands of third parties would be rather problematic from a due process perspective. How long after restitution was paid would the President have the power to functionally create an IOU to be paid by the victims?

Doctrinally, a Federal pardon after sentence does not disturb the validity of the underlying conviction and sentence -- it merely releases the recipient from criminal consequences insofar as that is possible for the sovereign to grant. So you don't have a claim for unjust imprisonment because the conviction and judgment are still valid (but no longer enforceable). Likewise, because the victims got the money under a judgment that has not become invalid, there's no basis for requiring them to return the money already received.

Posted by: Jason | Sep 12, 2022 9:12:37 PM

Post a comment
  ONE INNOVALE 21.43 12830 3.2515 Wetland 3200 15     PatagoniaiPhone 41%    91651  SEC 0.89% 2.65%  15  5%100   iPhone 143360   510  HKTVmall   0.42% 1.24%  iPhone14  512GB Pro Max2400    7%5%  707
Meetings and events

The Carmelite Board will hold its monthly meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 12, at the Carmelite Monastery, 2901 S. Cecelia Street with Mass at 7 a.m. Refreshments will be served at 8:30 a.m., rosary at 9 a.m. and prayers with the Sisters at 9:15 a.m. The business meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. Honorary members are welcome to attend.

Bruguier's Cabin Tours, the second Sunday of the month from June to October, from 2 to 4 p.m. Special group tours can be arranged by calling 712-490-6506.

Dakota County Historical Society meets at 7:30 p.m. on third Thursday of the month, Dakota City Library. Contact Dennis Reinert at 712-253-1609 for more information.

Top O' Morning Toastmasters Club, Mondays, noon to 1 p.m. Contact LeAnn Blankenburg, 712-870-1120, for meeting information.

The Siouxland Ostomy Support Group, find us on Facebook. For more information and meeting times contact Dick Lindblom at 712-251-2453.

Southside "South Bottoms" former residents, 6 p.m. potluck, second Wednesday of the month at Goodwill Industries cafeteria, 3100 Fourth St. Gert, 258-2227.

Siouxland Metal Detecting and Archeology Club, 6:30 p.m., first Tuesday of the month in the Gleeson Room at 4510 Buckwalter Drive. Visitors welcome. Ray Turner, 712-899-2114.

American Legion Post 64, 7 p.m. last Thursday of the month at 4021 Floyd Blvd. 712-258-3986.

Marine Corps League, 6 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at Elks Club on TriView Ave. All marines welcome. For more information, call Cathy Moreno, 712-899-8441.

Sioux City Chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 7 p.m. fourth Tuesday of the month at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. 712-203-2052.

Sioux City Duplicate Bridge Club, 12:30 p.m. Mondays (open); at the Senior Center. Mary 605-670-9613.

Siouxland Fly-Fishing Club, 10 a.m. last Saturday of the month at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center on Hwy 12. All interested in fly fishing; beginners welcome. Monthly programs provided. For more information, call Bob Gillespie, 712-251-9463, or Diana, 402-987-3945.

Siouxland Coin Club, 7 p.m. first Tuesday of each month at First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 1915 Nebraska St. Bob, 255-4829.

The Siouxland Pride Alliance, peer support group, 5:30 p.m. Fridays; Youth Pride group, 1:30 p.m. second Sunday of the month; potluck, 5:30 p.m. third Sunday of the month. First Unitarian Church, 2508 Jackson. Call 712-223-0931

Siouxland Samplers Quilt Guild, 7 p.m. second Monday of the month at the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3204 S. Lakeport St, door #2. Visitors and new members welcome.

Siouxland Sewing Guild, 6:30-8 p.m. first Thursday of the month at South Sioux Public Library, 2121 Dakota Ave., South Sioux City. For anyone interested in sewing. Denise, 402-922-1822.

Sooland RC Modelers, 7 p.m. second Thursday of the month at Morningside Lutheran Church. Non-profit club that flies remote control aircraft. Anyone interested in RC is welcome.

Retired Educators, 10:30 a.m. third Tuesday of the month, at the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3204 S. Lakeport St., door #6.

Mid-Step Services for Handicapped, meal at 5 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, at the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3204 S. Lakeport St., door #6.

Confirmation Instruction and Midweek Lessons, 5 p.m. on Wednesdays, at the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3204 S. Lakeport St., door #6. Open to all kids 5 years old through 8th grade.

Primetime (Potluck), 12 p.m., second Thursday of each month, at Whitfield United Methodist Church, 1319 W 5th. For more information call 252-3261 Tuesday-Thursdays, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Abundant Life Fellowship, 809 S. Alice St., in Sioux City will distribute food boxes after their 11 a.m. Sunday services. For additional information contact Pastor Bob at 605-205-0718 or Donna at 605-205-0719.
Russia hits power stations after Ukraine counteroffensive

KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Russia attacked power stations and other infrastructure, causing widespread outages across Ukraine as Kyivs forces pressed a swift counteroffensive that has driven Moscows troops out of swaths of territory it had occupied in the northeast. The bombardment ignited a massive fire at a power station on Kharkivs western outskirts and killed at least one person, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the deliberate and cynical missile strikes against civilian targets as acts of terrorism. Ukraines second-largest city of Kharkiv appeared to be without power Sunday night. Separately, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the Russia-occupied south completely shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as fighting raged nearby.

Queen Elizabeth II's coffin takes long road through Scotland

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP)  Queen Elizabeth IIs flag-draped coffin has slowly processed through the Scottish countryside on a journey from her beloved Balmoral Castle to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Mourners in Scotland packed city streets and lined rural roads, and some tossing flowers to honor the monarch who died Thursday at Balmoral after 70 years on the throne. In Aberdeenshire, farmers lined the route with tractors to honor the queen. In Edinburgh, a huge crowd grew silent as the coffin passed by, then burst into applause. King Charles III was formally proclaimed king on Sunday in the other parts of the United Kingdom  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  after a similar ceremony in Britain a day earlier.

'I cannot mourn': Former colonies conflicted over the queen

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)  Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world Upon taking the throne in 1952. Many of them were unwilling. Today, in the British Empires former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger. Beyond official condolences praising the queens longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

9/11 terror attacks reverberate as US marks 21st anniversary

NEW YORK (AP)  Americans are remembering 9/11 with tear-choked tributes and pleas to never forget, 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. Victims relatives and dignitaries gathered Sunday at all three places where hijacked jets crashed on Sept. 11, 2001  the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. President Joe Biden told the Pentagon gathering that the U.S. would continue working to root out terrorists. First lady Jill Biden spoke in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris attended the ceremony in New York, where politicians are not allowed to speak. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.

EXPLAINER: The intel review of documents at Trump's estate

WASHINGTON (AP)  The discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trumps Florida home has thrust U.S. intelligence agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role. Trump often treated intelligence as a foil and demanded officers support his agenda. Now, the office that leads the intelligence community is conducting a review of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The review is on pause pending a court order but is expected to examine the possible exposure of sources and methods in the highly classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Carlos Alcaraz wins US Open for 1st Slam title, top ranking

NEW YORK (AP)  Carlos Alcaraz has defeated Casper Ruud 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-3 in the U.S. Open final to earn his first Grand Slam title at age 19 and become the youngest man to move up to No. 1 in the rankings. Alcaraz is a Spaniard who was appearing in his eighth major tournament and second at Flushing Meadows. He only briefly showed any signs of fatigue Sunday after having to get through three consecutive five-setters to reach the title match. Ruud is a 23-year-old from Norway who is now 0-2 in Slam finals. He was the runner-up to Rafael Nadal at the French Open in June.

AP Top 25: UGA reclaims No. 1; Kentucky, Arkansas in Top 10

Georgia has reclaimed the top spot in The Associated Press college football poll and Oklahoma State, Kentucky and Arkansas moved into the top 10 after an upset-filled weekend. The defending national champion Bulldogs started the season at No. 3 in the AP Top 25. It took them two weeks to get back to where they spent most of last year. Georgia received 53 of 63 first-place votes. No. 2 Alabama, which needed a late field goal to hold off Texas, received nine first-place votes and No. 3 Ohio State got one. No. 4 Michigan and No. 5 Clemson held their places. Oklahoma moved up a spot to No. 6. And Southern California jumped three places to No. 7. Notre Dame tumbled out all the way from No. 8 to snap a streak of 80 straight poll appearances.

Rules issued for those wanting to pay respects to the queen

LONDON (AP)  People wanting to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state at the Houses of Parliament in London need to be prepared for a long wait. The government has published guidelines for people wishing to file past the late queens closed coffin as it lies in state at the Palace of Westminster from 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) Wednesday until 6:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) on Sept. 19. Thousands are expected to want to pay tribute to the only monarch that many in the United Kingdom have ever known. The wait in line is expected to be hours long.

Swedish conservatives close to election win amid crime fears

STOCKHOLM (AP)  Near final results in Swedens election show that a bloc of right-wing parties prevailed against a left-wing grouping headed by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. The conservative bloc includes a populist anti-immigration party that made its best ever showing. However, the result was so close that the election authority said that the preliminary election result would not be known until Wednesday, when uncounted votes, including those cast abroad, have been tallied. The biggest winner of the evening was the populist anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, which had a strong showing of nearly 21%. It gained on promises to crack down on shootings and other gang violence.

As small businesses raise prices, some customers push back

NEW YORK (AP)  Inflation isnt only costing small businesses money. Its costing them customers as well. For much of the pandemic, small business customers were largely tolerant of price increases and kept on spending. Now, owners are seeing some pushback. But with inflation close to a 40-year-high, theres not much small businesses can do. Sixty-five percent have raised prices to offset higher costs, according to a Goldman Sachs survey. And 38% say theyve seen a decline in customer demand due to price increases. With consumers forced to spend more for food and gasoline, businesses that sell non-essential goods or services are especially feeling the pinch.
When Jill Biden realized that terrorists had attacked America on Sept. 11, her husband, Joe, wasnt the only loved one she worried about. The first lady recalls in an Associated Press interview how scared to death she was that her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant, was on one of the hijacked planes that crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. After learning she was safe, Biden went straight to her sister's home in Pennsylvania. Jacobs tells the AP the first lady was her rock that day. Jacobs accompanied the presidents wife to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sunday to help honor those who died 21 years ago.
With wild birds beginning the fall migration southward, Iowas chicken and turkey farmers once again are on high alert for avian influenza.

This years version of the bird flu resulted in the destruction of more than 13 million birds in Iowa this spring.

While significant, that was not nearly as devastating as the 2015 version of the avian flu, which resulted in the destruction of more than 31.5 million chickens and turkeys in Iowa, and resulted in a $1.2 billion hit to the states economy, according to one report.

Nonetheless, Iowa bird farmers will be watching their flocks closely in the coming weeks. Wild birds are believed to be the primary carriers of this years version of the avian flu, and are in the early stages of their annual fall migration.

New cases have been identified throughout the Midwest in recent weeks: at poultry farms in Minnesota and Ohio, and backyard flocks in Wisconsin and Indiana.

Iowa agriculture secretary Mike Naig said Iowa officials and bird farmers and backyard flock owners are hopeful the virus will not make a return during the fall migration, but also are being cautious and realistic, given the cases recently identified in other Midwest states.

Unfortunately, it tells us that the virus is once again in that wild bird population. There are no suspected cases in the state of Iowa, as of now, but unfortunately we are returning to a sense of very much heightened awareness and taking a defensive posture, Naig said. Unfortunately, I would not be surprised if we are dealing with it again in Iowa.

Naig said the lessened impact of the virus this spring can be attributed in part to lessons learned from the devastation of 2015. That year, 77 sites were hit by the avian flu; this spring, only 19 sites were affected.

If you dealt with it, its devastating. For every one of those entities that did, its financially devastating, its emotionally draining, and all of those things are true, Naig said. But when you look at what happened in Iowa earlier this year vs. 2015, significantly fewer sites affected and significantly fewer birds affected. 

Poultry producers learned a lot in 2015 about the needed to enhance biosecurity.

Naig also said he believes the government response, particularly the state and federal ag departments, also learned lessons from and improved upon their 2015 response efforts.

Kevin Stiles, CEO and executive director of the North Central Poultry Association, said Iowa poultry farmers will be leaning on that enhanced biosecurity as they remain on high alert for the coming weeks and months.

Our producers have remained on high alert throughout the summer months and will continue to do so into the fall and this winter, Stiles said in an emailed statement. Heightened on-farm biosecurity is the poultry farmers best ally, as they work to safeguard their flocks. We remain in close contact with USDA and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and we are grateful for their support.

Naig said he spent part of his Friday morning meeting with groups that represent Iowa chicken and turkey farmers to discuss their attempts to keep this latest version of the avian flu at bay.

What went well, what didnt go as well as wed hoped it would, and then what are the action steps? You hope that that can be done in a complete look-back setting, Naig said. Unfortunately, the tone (Friday) morning was, We may be needing to apply these lessons sooner than we thought.

Avian flu information for Iowa bird farmers and backyard flock owners can be found at iowaagriculture.gov.
A Nebraska woman who lost Medicaid coverage in the midst of cancer treatment is challenging the federal rule that required the state to cut her off.

Mary Shaw of Norfolk joined four plaintiffs from Connecticut and Delaware in a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They are seeking a temporary injunction to block the rule, which was issued in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration and remains in place.

The suit alleges that, because of the rule, Medicaid benefits have been terminated to hundreds of thousands of people nationwide in violation of the Coronavirus Response Act of 2020.

The act provided additional federal Medicaid funding to states on the condition that they continue coverage for Medicaid patients throughout the COVID-19 public health emergency. The emergency was declared Jan. 27, 2020, and has been extended multiple times. It is expected to continue into next year.

The requirement to keep people on Medicaid during the ongoing crisis was adopted precisely because Congress recognized the severe threat, not just to individuals but to public health, from ending health insurance to vulnerable, low-income people, said Sheldon Toubman, litigation attorney at Disability Rights Connecticut, one of the groups behind the suit.

According to the lawsuit, Shaw originally qualified for Medicaid after Nebraska extended coverage to low-income single adults. The coverage, which began in October 2020, allowed her to see a dentist and get physical therapy so she could walk again following a previous hip surgery.

Medicaid also covered the beginning of treatment on her right shoulder for a recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, in December 2021.

But, based on the "interim final" federal rule, Nebraska Medicaid officials terminated Shaw's full Medicaid coverage in January, the month she turned 65 and got on Medicare.

The rule, issued on Nov. 6, 2020, required states to reduce or eliminate Medicaid coverage for people who were deemed to have "minimum essential coverage" through special, limited Medicaid programs that help with some Medicare costs.

Shaw now qualifies for such a program. It pays her Medicare Part B premiums but does not cover co-pays and deductibles or health needs not included under Medicare.

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people age 65 or older and some people with disabilities. Patients typically use supplemental insurance or Medicaid to help with out-of-pocket costs and to cover additional services. Medicaid is a state-federal program for low-income people.

As a result, the suit said, Shaw, who lives on about $1,252 per month in Social Security, has had to forgo medical care for her emphysema and for post-surgical care of her shoulder. She also has not sought treatment for an apparent new cancer on her leg because she cannot afford treatment.

"Between all of the services that are covered under Medicaid but not covered at all under Medicare and the doctor visits which are covered by Medicare but now require coinsurance that she cannot afford, the loss of Medicaid has been devastating to her," the lawsuit said.

Three Connecticut women filed the original case Aug. 3 in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. Shaw and a Delaware woman were added through an amended complaint, filed Aug. 26, along with the motion to pursue the case as a nationwide class action. A hearing on the request for temporary injunction is set for Sept. 27.

Nebraska Appleseed has been working with the groups representing the plaintiffs, which include Disability Rights Connecticut, Justice in Aging, The National Health Law Program and the law firm Stinson LLP.
A republic, if you can keep it. Ben Franklin is said to have uttered that phrase upon being asked what type of government the Constitutional Convention of 1787 would create.

A republic is generally considered a system of government where supreme power is held by the people, typically through elected representatives. The word derives from the Latin Res Publica, which means public affair. The activities of government are to be for the public good, not for the individuals in power.

For most Americans, the concept of keeping a republic has been taken for granted. The truth is that it is the work of every generation to maintain it. Freedom, as Ronald Reagan once noted, is never more than one generation from extinction.

A key component of an effective republic is having the rule of law. The term rule of law generally means that the laws apply to all members of the community, including lawmakers and leaders. It is something that has broad public support. An Associated Press survey indicated that 88 percent of Americans said a fair judicial system and the rule of law are very or somewhat important.

Having laws that are known and applied to everyone regardless of status is essential to a functioning republic. Laws not applied equally undermine respect for the laws and the institutions of government. Laws not applied equally prevent people from investing, either financially or through their efforts.

The World Justice Project establishes international rankings for adhering to the rule of law. Their index ranked the US 19th worldwide in 2015, but 27th last year.

Threats to the rule of law rangethe from the petty and personal to institutional. On the smaller side is when a governor exerts influence on a department head to give favorable treatment to a child with a licensing application before that agency. Or using a state-owned airplane for partisan political events.

A more significant concern is insider trading. As policy makers, members of Congress can get inside information and have the ability to influence policies. They and their families are able to trade individual stocks in the companies that they regulate.

An increasing challenge is threats of violence to government officials. The Los Angeles Times reports that threats against Congress rose from just under 1,000 in 2016 to nearly 10,000 in 2021. An armed individual was detained outside the home of a supreme court justice. Public safety officials arrested individuals for plotting the kidnapping of a governor.

Violent rhetoric by public officials and acts of violence against government officials is not rule of law. Political leaders and media personalities need to recognize that the words they choose can incite these threats and undermine democracy.

Forty percent of respondents to an IPSOS KnowledgePanel poll said that having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.

There are more threats to the rule of law, but I want to conclude with elections. It is against the rule of law to direct an election official to find sufficient votes to overturn the results of an election. It also violates the rule of law to threaten election officials.

However, federal officials have received reports of over 1,000 such threats this year. A Brennan Center survey of election officials across the country reported that nearly two thirds are worried about political leaders interfering in how they do their jobs. One out of three said they knew of someone who left the job due to threats or intimidation.

The Constitution was ordained by We the People. Our government operates based on the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections. Threats against those who operate elections undermine the will of the people and weaken our nation. A republic? Only if we can keep it.

A Sioux City resident, Steve Warnstadt is government affairs coordinator for Western Iowa Tech Community College. He is a former Democratic state senator and retired Army National Guard brigadier general. He and his wife, Mary, are the parents of one son and one daughter.
A few weeks after I began teaching in 1979, my wife and I took a sad walk. With hope in her eyes, clutching my first paycheck, she asked, Do you get paid biweekly? No, this is our monthly income, I answered. You made more working in the summer, she said.
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/1100159752.html

Remembering 9/11: The Day Terrorists Attacked New York's Twin Towers

Remembering 9/11: The Day Terrorists Attacked New York's Twin Towers

Twenty-one years ago, the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda* on the World Trade Center killed nearly 3,000 people, injured 6,300, and left many more with substantial... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T08:00+0000

2022-09-11T08:00+0000

2022-09-11T10:01+0000

americas

multimedia

9/11

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/08/1e/1100159911_0:74:1992:1195_1920x0_80_0_0_f3efdca06090dad0bca36fd301c009a3.jpg

The US and its allies responded by invading Afghanistan, and the engagement turned into the longest war for the North American country, lasting for two decades and ending only on August 30, 2021, with a chaotic withdrawal. Memorial events are planned to take place on Staten Island and in Manhattan. Family members of 9/11 victims will once again gather on Sunday to read aloud the names of those killed in the terrorist attack and also to remember the six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing when another 1,042 were injured. Look at one of historys greatest tragedies from a bird's-eye view in photos.*al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and bany other countries

americas

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Sputnik International

, multimedia, 9/11
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/a-coin-toss-swedens-2022-general-election-explained-1100654511.html

A Coin Toss: Sweden's 2022 General Election Explained

A Coin Toss: Sweden's 2022 General Election Explained

Polls have predicted that the Sweden Democrats party may gain about 20% of the votes in the Sunday general election, making it the second-largest party in the... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T13:11+0000

2022-09-11T13:11+0000

2022-09-11T16:19+0000

sweden

magdalena andersson

general election

sputnik explains

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/0b/1100653718_0:159:3079:1890_1920x0_80_0_0_72c4c6818c9237927e05f779e67288db.jpg

Swedes are casting ballots in a general election on Sunday to pick lawmakers for the countrys 349-seat parliament, known as the Riksdag, as well as local offices across the nation of 10 million. Heres a brief insight into the event.Who is Taking PartThe election comes amid attempts by Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson to keep her center-left Social Democrats at the helm of a left-wing coalition as she is facing a strong challenge from the right-wing parties.The Left Party, the Greens and Centre Party are seen as the other likely participants in a left-bloc coalition.The center-right parties make up the rest, including the Liberals, the Moderate party, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats.Who is Thought to Win With a block of four parties on the left and another four on the right, the latest opinion polls argue that it is impossible to predict the result of the elections.Swedish law stipulates that the party that wins the most seats forms the next government, and some surveys indicate that this is likely to be Anderssons party.Andersson and the Social Democrats The 55-year-old - the first female Swedish PM - has enjoyed high approval ratings since she entered office in November 2021. She was praised for showing pragmatism as she supported Swedens bid for NATO membership following the start of Russias ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.In a separate statement, she pledged that her party would prioritize law and order, making it profitable to work and build new climate-smart nuclear power; simply put, we want to sort Sweden out.In their election manifesto, the Social Democrats promised to tackle issues regarding crime, welfare, the climate, green industry, and rising prices.Who is in the Opposite Camp The last Swedish general election, held in 2018, saw the center-right Moderates led by Ulf Kristersson win the second-highest number of seats.The conservative Moderate Party is known for promoting a market economy, lower taxes and a smaller role for government. The partys slogan is Lets get Sweden in order.In June 2021, Prime Minister Stefan Lofvens ouster was followed by Kristersson being tasked with forming a new government.Parliamentary Speaker Andreas Norlen told the 58-year-old at the time that he had until July 3 to report his potential government to Norlen, as Kristersson planned to be at the helm of a coalition of his own party along with the Christian Democrats, the Sweden Democrats, and the Liberals. On July 1, however, Kristersson said that he had failed to obtain enough support to form a government and returned his mandate to Norlen.Another Force to Be Reckoned With A right-wing party that takes a hard line on immigration and crime, including gun violence, the Sweden Democrats first entered parliament in 2010 and have been growing steadily ever since.The party, led by 43-year-old former web designer Jimmie Akesson, won 13% of the vote in 2018, becoming the third-largest force in parliament, a result that will most likely be improved upon in the Sunday election, according to the polls.Despite the fact that the Sweden Democrats originally had their roots in Swedish fascism and white nationalism, the party started distancing itself from its past during the late 1990s and early 2000s.Under Akesson, who has been the partys leader since 2005, the organization went through a spate of reforms, expelling hardliners and moderating its platform. The Sweden Democrats currently underline that they reject fascism and Nazism. The party has formed governing coalitions in municipal councils with the Moderate Party and Christian Democrats since 2018. In the wake of the 2022 election, the Sweden Democrats plan to form a national coalition with the aforementioned parties.

sweden

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

sweden, magdalena andersson, general election
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/arctic-ghost-island-found-in-2021-has-turned-out-to-be-dirty-iceberg-1100659849.html

Arctic 'Ghost Island' Found in 2021 Has Turned Out to Be Dirty Iceberg

Arctic 'Ghost Island' Found in 2021 Has Turned Out to Be Dirty Iceberg

The 30 by 60 meters purported island was found in 2021 off the northern shore of Greenland by a research expedition that included scientists from Swiss... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T21:21+0000

2022-09-11T21:21+0000

2022-09-11T21:21+0000

science & tech

iceberg

greenland

arctic

arctic ocean

island

geology

iceland

ice

ice cream

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/0b/1100660215_0:206:3275:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_06242bcfa583c8b0e9440a2144aae91f.jpg

Formerly believed to be the world's northernmost piece of land, a "ghost island" in the Arctic has been discovered to simply be a "dirty iceberg," research by the Technical University of Denmark has revealed. The scientists who found it last year and believed it to be land, gave it the name "Qeqertaq Avannarleq," which means "the northernmost island" in Greenlandic.According to Hamilton, some experts hypothesized that the dirty iceberg was a rock bank that sea ice had forced upward.The northernmost point of Greenland, the largest island in the world, is Cape Morris Jesup, which is around 712 km from the North Pole. The "Oodaaq" island, which was located in the polar ice cap off the cape in 1978, was the first of these tiny, rapidly disappearing islands to be found. Since then, several more of these "ghost islands" have been discovered by other expeditions. However, a new expedition in the summer of 2022 has examined the newly found island thoroughly this time.The researchers concluded that Qeqertaq Avannarleq is not an island at all, but a grounded iceberg covered by a layer of soil, pebbles and mud, which is probably deposited on the ice from glaciers in the area.According to Rene Forsberg, a professor at DTU Space who was also part of the 2022 expedition, numerous of such "northernmost islands" have been discovered throughout the years, but were found to have disappeared over the years.The team traveled to many of the nearby tiny islands, including Qeqertaq Avannarleq, gathering GPS data and measuring ice thickness and sea depths using laser scanning techniques.The source of the new "islands" is likely floating glacier tongues in the so-called Cape Washington area, which lies 40-50 km west of Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland, per the scientists.Following the latest discoveries, the Coffee Club Island continues to have the title since Robert E. Peary made the initial discovery while traveling to the North Pole along Greenland's north shore.This island is located at the position 83  39'55 N, 30  37'45, W.

https://sputniknews.com/20220123/scientists-fear-ecosystem-damage-after-mega-iceberg-dumps-152-bln-tonnes-of-freshwater-into-ocean-1092465616.html

greenland

arctic ocean

iceland

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Kirill Kurevlev

Kirill Kurevlev

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Kirill Kurevlev

iceberg, greenland, arctic, arctic ocean, island, geology, iceland, ice, ice cream
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/five-hours-of-shouting-tell-all-book-claims-us-bluntly-tried-to-sway-uk-to-ditch-huaweis-5g-1100652600.html

'Five Hours of Shouting': Tell-All Book Claims US Bluntly Tried to Sway UK to Ditch Huawei's 5G

'Five Hours of Shouting': Tell-All Book Claims US Bluntly Tried to Sway UK to Ditch Huawei's 5G

Despite initially committing to using the Chinese tech giant's technology to build its national 5G network, the UK government later reverted its decision under... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T12:32+0000

2022-09-11T12:32+0000

2022-09-11T12:44+0000

world

uk

huawei

us

5g

5g network

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/06/18/1096621542_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_cdbf1bdcec66fa00d4b3d251e086a603.jpg

The US representatives, which had arrived in the UK in 2019 to convince its government not to use Chinese tech giant Huawei's equipment in its national 5G network, aggressively pushed their view that doing so was dangerous from the national security standpoint, a new tell-all book dubbed The Secret History of the Five Eyes claims. Its author, Richard Kerbaj, called it a "policy disruption mission" by the White House, which at the time was waging a trade war against China and sent war ships to waters deemed national by Beijing.Part of that mission was a five-hour meeting between US officials and the GCHQ, a British intelligence and security body, the book claims citing an anonymous UK official, who was present at the meeting. During the encounter, the UK intelligence reportedly tried to insist that it can deal with whatever China might have planted in Huawei's devices, as the US claimed. Their American colleagues, however, refused to budge, as per the source:The official further noted that the discussion was not entirely civilized and described it as "five hours of shouting with a prepared, angry and weirdly non-threatening script." The British side reportedly was trying to launch a "policy discussion" initiative with the US, but the head of the American delegation, then-National Security Council Asia director Matthew Pottinger, "didnt care", as the UK official described it to the book's author.Pottinger himself denied in his comment for The Sunday Times, that he had shouted during the five-hour long negotiations and dismissed the book's reporting as "one-sided and inaccurate."Furthermore, Ciaran Martin, NCSCs former chief executive, told the book's author that the UK was ready to work with the US to counter China's ambitions in the sphere of high technology. However, Martin said the UK did not deem the use of Huawei in the country's 5G sector as being "the most important thing in a much wider strategic challenge."Another official, then-British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch also told in an interview for the book that Washington has been ramping up the pressure on the UK over Huawei for years. But at the same time, the US did not have any hard evidence to back up its claims about the threat Huawei was allegedly posing.Eventually, London broke with its initial promise of sticking to Huawei's tech. The breaking point for the UK to change the mind on Huawei equipment was the threat of the secondary US sanctions against the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the book's source says.The US convinced several countries in Europe and Asia to deny Huawei entrance into their 5G network building process, even as the tech giant repeatedly denied the unsubstantiated claims by the White House that its products contained backdoors installed by Beijing. Washington further tried to pressure the company by banning the sale of the US-made technologies to it, including chips and software, forcing Huawei to switch to the domestically produced substitutes. The company accused the US of using state power to hamper American tech firms' powerful foreign competitors, as Huawei was gradually gaining market share globally.Beijing also condemned the US global campaign to smear Huawei's reputation and slammed Washington for engaging in illicit competition to promote its own companies. The tech giant and the Chinese government also vowed to combat the US ban on technology exports in courts, disputing them as the illegal competition practice.

https://sputniknews.com/20220821/cia-carried-out-black-ops-to-get-uk-to-drop-huawei-equipment-in-5g-infrastructure-book-claims-1099832251.html

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

uk, huawei, us, 5g, 5g network
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/indian-police-association-seeks-judicial-probe-as-official-puts-5-junior-officers-inside-lockup-1100648203.html

Indian Police Association Seeks Judicial Probe as Official Puts 5 Junior Officers Inside Lockup

Indian Police Association Seeks Judicial Probe as Official Puts 5 Junior Officers Inside Lockup

Generally, a police official who doesnt perform his duty diligently is either suspended or faces disciplinary action. If any serious allegations leveled... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T08:11+0000

2022-09-11T08:11+0000

2022-09-11T08:11+0000

india

bihar

police

police

police

police

police

police

police

police

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0a/14/1090071901_0:24:3147:1794_1920x0_80_0_0_31ee6200e416d55d0b927d361ff17558.jpg

The Bihar Police Association, a staff union that has district units, demanded a judicial probe on Saturday against the official who allegedly imprisoned five junior police officers in the Indian state of Bihar. The incident has sparked anger within ranks in the state.According to media reports, Superintendent of Police (SP) Gaurav Mangla had imprisoned five junior policemen after he found their work dissatisfactory on 8 September. While he denied the claims, videos of the incident surfaced on social media.In the video, five cops identified as sub-Inspectors Shatrughan Paswan and Ramrekha Singh, as well as three assistants, sub-Inspectors Santosh Paswan, Sanjay Singh and Rameshwar Uraon are seen inside the lockup.When media reached out to Mangla, he denied any such incident and decried it as fake news. Meanwhile, Bihar Police Association president Mrityunjay Kumar Singh said that Mangla hadn't responded to repeated calls.In a statement, the association president said: "We got the information soon after the incident from our Nawada branch and it is being discussed on WhatsApp groups of police personnel as well. Incidents like these are reminiscent of the colonial period. The incident is the first of its kind and could tarnish the image of the Bihar Police. We demand a judicial probe and a thorough investigation of CCTV footage."Demanding a judicial probe against the Superintendent of Police, the association said that it is being alleged that he is pressurizing the aggrieved police personnel to hush up the matter and the attempts are being made to tamper the CCTV footage.A First Information Report (FIR) should be lodged under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and a probe should be initiated at the earliest, the association stated.

bihar

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Rahul Trivedi https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926121_0:-1:627:627_100x100_80_0_0_d882e1a63f627c25b7a534fb8b8234d7.jpg

Rahul Trivedi https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926121_0:-1:627:627_100x100_80_0_0_d882e1a63f627c25b7a534fb8b8234d7.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Rahul Trivedi https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/12/1082926121_0:-1:627:627_100x100_80_0_0_d882e1a63f627c25b7a534fb8b8234d7.jpg

bihar, police, police, police, police, police, police, police, police, crime, crime, crime, crime, crime
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/iraqs-ancient-hatra-ruins-reopen-for-first-tourists-since-daesh-rule-amid-instability--1100658546.html

Iraqs Ancient Hatra Ruins Reopen for First Tourists Since Daesh Rule Amid Instability

Iraqs Ancient Hatra Ruins Reopen for First Tourists Since Daesh Rule Amid Instability

While numerous countries still discourage their citizens from travelling to Iraq, citing risks of insurgency, riots, kidnapping and terrorism, tourists are... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T17:45+0000

2022-09-11T17:45+0000

2022-09-11T17:45+0000

world

tourism

iraq

middle east

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102255/90/1022559017_0:118:2049:1270_1920x0_80_0_0_23734dd7d2fc8a988b7ce075fab70368.jpg

The first group of tourists has visited the ancient ruin of Hatra near Iraq's Mosul since the occupation by the Daesh* terrorist group. The excursion was organized by the private museum Mosul Heritage House, which seeks to "showcase the heritage and identity" of the area and boost tourism.The tour allowed 40 tourists from around the world to walk the ruins of the ancient Parthian city built around the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC and declared an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO. These tourists were the first to witness efforts to restore the site, which was damaged by Daesh* insurgents.The terrorist group, which seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian lands between 2011 and 2015, actively destroyed numerous historic sites under the pretext of fighting idols incompatible with "true" Islamic beliefs. Hatra was no exception.However, efforts to restore some of the lost artefacts, architecture, oriental decorative elements and sculptures began soon after the terrorists were expelled following the retaking of Mosul by Iraqi forces and the international anti-Daesh coalition in 2017. Many more objects of cultural and historic value, however, are yet to be repaired.The first tour to Hatra marks locals attempts to revive the country's fame as a major tourist destination. Currently, many nations discourage their citizens from travelling to Iraq, which has been experiencing instabilities since the US-led invasion in 2003 under a made-up pre-text of destroying biological weapons allegedly stored in the country. The country is still ravaged by terrorist attacks, riots, and popular protests, as well as assaults by various insurgent groups and kidnappings of foreigners.*Daesh (also known as the Islamic State, IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia

https://sputniknews.com/20160505/unesco-palmyra-sites-1039135957.html

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

tourism, iraq, middle east
Gibraltar Names Charles III New Sovereign at Solemn Ceremony

Gibraltar officially proclaimed Charles III its king at a pompous ceremony on Sunday that saw flags, flying at half-staff since the queens passing, raised temporarily to welcome the new sovereign.



David Steel, the governor of the British enclave on the southern tip of Spain, read out the proclamation at noon from the balcony of his official residence. It was followed by a chant of "God Save the King" and a salute.



"I, David George Steel  publish and proclaim that the Prince Charles Philip Arthur George is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of Happy Memory, become our only lawful and rightful Liege Lord Charles the Third  to whom we do acknowledge all faith and obedience with humble affection," he said.



Gibraltar, dubbed The Rock, canceled the traditional national day and entered a period of national mourning on Thursday following the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who had ruled the United Kingdom and its realms for more than 70 years.
Russian Security Forces Thwart Terror Attacks Plotted by Ukraine's Special Services in Kherson Region

Russian security forces thwarted a series of terror attacks in the Kherson region that were to be carried out by members of the Ukrainian Special Services, as well as nationalist organizations such as Right Sector (banned in Russia) and "National Corps" (civil corps of the Azov Battalion, an organization banned in Russia over terrorist activities), a source in Russia's security forces told Sputnik.

The source also said that a large stash filled with a copious amount of explosives, weapons and ammunition had been discovered.

The perpetrators, who were planning to attack railway tracks and power lines in the Kherson region, have been detained, according to the source.
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/nra-slams-visa--mastercard-over-decision-to-categorize-firearm-sales-separately-1100656342.html

NRA Slams Visa & Mastercard Over Decision to Categorize Firearm Sales Separately

NRA Slams Visa & Mastercard Over Decision to Categorize Firearm Sales Separately

In late June, a Politico-Morning Consult poll revealed that some two-thirds of US citizens support tougher gun control laws. More than 200 mass shootings... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T14:53+0000

2022-09-11T14:53+0000

2022-09-11T14:53+0000

americas

us

visa

mastercard

american express

national rifle association (nra)

gun control

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/104106/64/1041066426_0:12:1590:906_1920x0_80_0_0_88b31adf786c8b0e2886ddb90c0c6db9.jpg

The US National Rifle Association (NRA) lashed out at Visa Inc. after the worlds largest payment processor signaled readiness to categorize sales at gun shops separately. Visas move was followed by Mastercard Inc. and American Express Co.He spoke after Visa pledged on Saturday to use the International Organization for Standardizations (IOS) new merchant code for firearm sales, which was announced earlier this week. The gun store sales were previously dubbed as general merchandise.Mastercard, which followed suit, announced that we now turn our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.As for American Express, it earlier pledged that when the IOS develops a new code, the company would work with third-party processors and partners on its implementation.While gun control supporters argue that the IOSs move will help track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting, firearm rights advocates insist that tracking sales at gun stores would unfairly target legal gun purchases. They claim that merchant codes just track the type of merchant where the credit or debit card is used, not the actual items purchased.Gun control advocates, however, point to the fact that a week before the 2016 Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, the gunman purchased more than $26,000 worth of guns and ammunition using credit cards. The shooting claimed the lives of at least 49 people.This year alone, the US has seen more than 200 mass shootings, including 27 at schools, according to the Gun Violence Archive. On May 24 in Uvalde, Texas, an 18-year-old wielding an AR-15 automatic weapon slaughtered 19 schoolchildren less than two weeks after a white supremacist in Buffalo killed ten African-Americans with a Bushmaster XM-15. The weapons used in both incidents were purchased legally, authorities said.In the wake of mass shootings, a Politico-Morning Consult poll conducted in late June indicated that at least 48% of respondents actively support stricter regulations related to gun control, and 18% partially support them.

https://sputniknews.com/20220611/new-yorkers-hold-march-for-our-lives-in-support-of-gun-control-laws--1096213139.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220626/biden-signs-first-gun-control-legislation-in-decades-1096663637.html

americas

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Oleg Burunov https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg

us, visa, mastercard, american express, national rifle association (nra), gun control
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/rwanda-may-help-benin-in-fight-against-terrorism-1100653258.html

Rwanda May Help Benin in Fight Against Terrorism

Rwanda May Help Benin in Fight Against Terrorism

Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast have been experiencing sporadic terrorist attacks over the past years claimed by various Islamist organizations, some of which... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T13:57+0000

2022-09-11T13:57+0000

2022-09-11T13:57+0000

africa

africa

benin

terrorism

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/0b/1100653100_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_817bee1e511ab9e37db37a37bec0ca94.jpg

Rwanda may provide logistical support to help Benin handle the growing terrorism threat in the West African region, Benin presidential spokesperson Wilfried Houngbedji said on Saturday.According to Reuters, negotiations between Rwanda and Benin about possible logistic support are currently ongoing.Northern Benin suffers from terrorism the most, amid the ever-present possibility that terrorist groups from neighboring Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria may enter the country.Groups linked to al Qaeda and Daesh that spread to northern Benin from West Africa's Sahel region have escalated attacks in recent months.On July 26, in northern Benin, two policemen lost their lives and one more was injured as the result of an armed attack. Two terrorists were also killed and several others wounded. The attack took place in Dassari, an outpost in Benins Atacora region bordering Burkina Faso.Earlier, on April 26, an attack was carried out along Benins border with Niger at the Monsey outpost. One police officer died in the clash with terrorists.Five more soldiers were killed in the attack on Pendjari National Park, on the Burkina Faso border, in Benin on April 11.Another armed attack was carried out on the border shared by Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso, on the Benin side of the national park, on February 8. Eight people, including one French, were killed.As Islamic terrorism continues to remain one of the most acute security challenges for the West African countries, the latter are collaborating to combat the threat, either joining forces directly or under the umbrella of regional organizations.Last year Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo carried out a joint military operation. Over 5,700 troops were deployed in the borderlands between Burkina Faso and the other three countries. The operation was under a security cooperation deal the countries agreed upon in 2017 in order to prevent jihadist violence from spreading from the Sahel region.*Al-Qaeda, Daesh (IS/ISIS/ISIL) - terrorists groups banned in Russia and many other countries

https://sputniknews.com/20220820/nigerian-police-probe-launched-following-discovery-of-20-mummified-corpses-in-benin-city-1099793072.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220218/european-troops-to-be-relocated-from-mali-to-nigers-border-region-president-says-1093135280.html

africa

benin

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Olga Borodkina

Olga Borodkina

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Olga Borodkina

africa, benin, terrorism
Calendar for Traditional Festivals: Mid-Autumn Festival

13:17, September 10, 2022 By Xian Jiangnan, Zhang Wenjie, Yuan Meng ( People's Daily Online

As the natural satellite of the earth, the moon is a central element to different folklore and traditions throughout human history. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the moon was personified as a deity or other supernatural phenomenon, while for Chinese people, an important festival exists for the moon, the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also known as the mooncake festival.

For centuries, the Mid-Autumn Festival has been deemed by the Chinese as the second most important festival after the Spring Festival, during which time family members will reunite and enjoy the grand view of the full moon together, as well as celebrating the harvest with delicate food.

Though the festival originated from China, it is now celebrated in many other Asian countries, including Vietnam and Korea, and has developed many variants. According to the Chinese lunar calendar, Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which is September 10 this year. Please follow us and explore the stories behind the moon!

Legend

An important part of the festival celebration is moon worship. Most Chinese people grow up with the story of Chang' e, China's moon goddess. Though the festival is a happy time for family, the story of the goddess isn't so joyful.

Living in a very distant past, Chang' e and her husband, a skilled archer named Yi, had a wonderful life together. However, one day, ten suns rose into the sky and scorched the earth, taking millions of lives. Yi shot down nine of them, leaving only one sun to serve the people, and thus he was rewarded by the gods with the elixir of immortality.

Reluctant to enjoy immortality without his wife, Yi decided to hide the elixir. However, one day, while Yi was out hunting, his apprentice broke into his house and forced Chang' e to give him the elixir. To prevent the thief from obtaining it, Chang' e drank the elixir instead, and flew up to the moon to begin her immortal life. Though devastated, each year, Yi displayed his wife's favorite fruits and cakes during the full moon, and that's how China's Moon Cake Festival came to be.

Though sad, Chang' e's story has inspired generations of Chinese, showing them the qualities that their ancestors worshiped the most: loyalty, generosity and sacrifice for the greater good.

Chang' e might be the sole human resident on the moon, but she does have a little companion, the famous Jade Rabbit. According to Chinese folklore, the rabbit used to live in a forest with other animals. One day, the Jade Emperor disguised himself as an old, starving man and begged the rabbit for food. Being weak and small, the rabbit couldn't help the old man, so instead jumped into the fire so that the man could eat its flesh.

Moved by the generous gesture, the Jade Emperor (the first god in Chinese mythology) sent the rabbit to the moon, and there he became the immortal Jade Rabbit. The Jade Rabbit was given the job of making the elixir of immortality, and the story goes that the rabbit can still be seen creating the elixir with a pestle and mortar on the moon.

History

Associated with beautiful folklore, Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations date back more than 2,000 years. The word "Mid-Autumn" first appeared in the ancient book Zhou Li (The Zhou Rituals, which detailed rituals in the Zhou Dynasty). In the old days, Chinese emperors chose the night of the 15th day of the eighth lunar month to hold a ceremony to praise the moon. The festival took its name from the fact that it's celebrated in the middle of autumn, and because at this time of year the moon is at its roundest and brightest.

It was not until the early Tang Dynasty (618-907) that the day was officially celebrated as a traditional festival. It became an established festival during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and became increasingly famous for the next few centuries, while more rituals and local food have been created to celebrate this festival.

More recently, the Chinese government listed the festival as an intangible cultural heritage in 2006, and it was made a public holiday in 2008.

Cuisine

Considered as a harvest festival and a time for gathering the family together, the Mid-Autumn Festival is famous for its round cakes, known as mooncakes. The full moon is a symbol of family reunion, while eating mooncakes and watching the full moon is a crucial part of the festival.

According to Chinese historical records, mooncakes were initially served as a sacrifice to the moon. The word "mooncake" first appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), and is now the most popular festive food on the dinner table during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Though most mooncakes appear to look the same, the flavors differ from region to region. For instance, in the northern part of China, people prefer sweet and dense custard fillings with salted egg yolk, red bean paste or nuts, while in the southern regions, people prefer fillings of ham or roast pork. Even the pastry can be quite different. For example, in the northern part of China, the casing is dense and hard, while in Hong Kong, the unbaked mooncake, known as a snow skin mooncake, is the most popular.

In modern times, inventions and new ideas have been added to traditional mooncakes. Some foreign food brands, such as Haggen-Dazs, have even cooperated with Chinese mooncake producers to create new flavors such as vanilla ice cream, or chocolate with blackberries. The traditional cakes are enjoying a new lease of life.

Apart from mooncakes, there is a variety of festival food across China. In Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, people prefer to eat hairy crabs dipped in vinegar and ginger, while in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, salted duck is the most popular festival food.

Related:

Calendar for Traditional Festivals: Qixi Festival

Calendar for Traditional Festivals: Dragon Boat Festival

Calendar for Traditional Festivals: Lantern Festival

(Web editor: Xian Jiangnan, Bianji)
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that developed economies are responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere throughout history.

The secretary-general made the remarks in a press briefing in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi during his visit to the flood-affected areas of the country.

"Those impacts are skyrocketing," he said, adding that "people living in high climatic vulnerability conditions including in South Asia are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts."

Nearly half of humanity is now in this category and the overwhelming majority is in the developing world, Guterres said.

In the wake of the flood-disaster Pakistan has been suffering, the secretary-general called upon the international community to devise a new mechanism of debt relief for the affected countries.

He further advocated a debt swap mechanism that a country, instead of paying debt to the creditors, should be able to use that money to invest in climate resilience, sustainable infrastructure and in the green transition of their economies.

Earlier in a press conference on Friday, responding to Xinhua on carbon emission by the developed countries for centuries, Guterres called for effective support from the developed world to the most impacted developing countries to build resilience and adapt to the circumstances.

"This is not a matter of generosity. This is a matter of justice," he said.

The secretary-general on Saturday, along with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and other officials, visited the flood-affected parts of Pakistan's southern Sindh and southwest Balochistan provinces.

Apart from visiting the UNESCO's World Heritage site of Mohenjo Daro in Sindh, which got damaged from the floods, he also met the displaced people in Sindh and Balochistan.

The secretary-general also took a comprehensive aerial look at the flood situation and damages. 
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/us-satellite-orbiting-earth-for-20-plus-years-has-partially-disintegrated-russian-scientists-warn-1100646088.html

US Satellite Orbiting Earth for 20-Plus Years Has Partially Disintegrated, Russian Scientists Warn

US Satellite Orbiting Earth for 20-Plus Years Has Partially Disintegrated, Russian Scientists Warn

An American geostationary communications satellite called Galaxy 11 was launched in late 1999 and is run by Intelsat. It is positioned as a backup for the... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T03:55+0000

2022-09-11T03:55+0000

2022-09-11T03:52+0000

viral

space

space exploration

satellite

satellites

us

russia

scientists

space debris

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/16637/45/166374586_0:0:2621:1475_1920x0_80_0_0_51c2d5e40b5d86534733f8fdacdf3e74.jpg

Russian scientists from the Moscow-based Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics at Russias Academy of Sciences said on Saturday that an American satellite is partially dissolving in orbit, endangering other spacecraft orbiting Earth. Several small-sized particles that broke off from Galaxy 11 have been tracked by telescopes and could now pose a hazard to other spacecraft in orbit, according to researchers. The Keldysh Institute stated that while the precise causes of the spacecraft's disintegration are still unknown, they may be related to the deterioration of its thermal insulation, solar panels, or other hardware.Based on the HS-702 satellite bus, Galaxy 11 was created by Hughes Space and Communications for PanAmSat. It weighed 4,477 kilograms (9,870 pounds) upon launch and has 40 J band (IEEE C and Ku bands, respectively) and 24 G/H band (IEEE C and H bands) transponders on board. Its projected operational lifetime was 15 years, according to public data on it.The latest comes as the United States is seeks to introduce a resolution to the UN General Assembly calling on other nations to pledge not to conduct anti-satellite missile tests, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday.This April, I announced that our nation would not conduct destructive, direct-descent, anti-satellite missile testing, and later this month, the United States will introduce a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly to call on other nations to make the same commitment, Harris said during remarks at the Johnson Space Center.

https://sputniknews.com/20220805/exercise-skylight-india-conducts-war-games-to-test-satellite-based-systems-1098276484.html

space

russia

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Kirill Kurevlev

Kirill Kurevlev

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Kirill Kurevlev

space, space exploration, satellite, satellites, us, russia, scientists, space debris
https://sputniknews.com/20220911/worlds-deadliest-terror-attack-21-years-since-911-1100637296.html

World's Deadliest Terror Attack: 21 Years Since 9/11

World's Deadliest Terror Attack: 21 Years Since 9/11

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with hijacked planes not only forced global airports to drastically ramp up security checks, but also... 11.09.2022, Sputnik International

2022-09-11T09:00+0000

2022-09-11T09:00+0000

2022-09-11T09:00+0000

9/11 attacks

us

9/11

/html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content

https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080428470_0:704:2048:1856_1920x0_80_0_0_f151bfcfaa3df2bde5d302a8f3aec29b.jpg

Today marks the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy  a massive terrorist attack which claimed the lives of almost 3,000 and shocked not only the US, but other countries as well.The hunt for the purported perpetrators  the Al-Qaeda* terrorist group  resulted in the death of their notorious leader Osama bin Laden, as well as in the US military getting stuck-in in Afghanistan for 20 years fighting the Taliban*, only to effectively hand the country back to the group in 2021.Collapse of Symbol of US CapitalismEarly in the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda* terrorists split into three groups of five and a group of four hijacked four flights departing from Boston (flights 11 and 175), Newark (flight 93) and Washington Dulles International Airport (flight 77) soon after takeoff. According to what little was reconstructed from the events on board, the hijackers used some kind of spray, possibly pepper spray, and knives to overwhelm, subdue or kill the planes' crewmembers, as well as some passengers.Just 47 minutes after takeoff, flight 11's Boeing 767 controlled by the terrorists rammed the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 am, causing severe damage and erupting in a blast that started fires on several floors.17 minutes later, flight 175 rammed the South Tower, also starting fires. Following the reports of the first hit, the New York City emergency services deployed up to half of their forces plus off-duty firefighters and medical personnel to rescue people from the towers and nearby buildings.The damage to the two mega-buildings' structures and the fires weakened the steel beams that were holding them up, resulting in the towers, symbols of US capitalist might, to collapse one after another within half an hour between 9:59 am and 10:28 am. Over 2,600 people died, including tower employees and visitors, as well as emergency services personnel.Attacks on the Pentagon and US CapitolAs the World Trade Center's towers burnt and the US government and citizens still attempted to comprehend the unfolding events, the third plane, flight 77, tried to ram through the Pentagon, the center that coordinates US military ventures. However, after hitting earth near the ground floor, the Boeing 757 only penetrated the first three outer rings of one of the building's sides, killing 125 people.The fourth plane did not reach its still-unknown target. Its direction suggested that the terrorists on board were planning to target either the White House or Capitol, with the latter presumed to be the likely goal. However, by the time it approached Washington DC, its passengers, who had tried to reach authorities and relatives by phones, learnt of the other three attacks and attempted to take back control of the plane, according to cockpit automated audio recordings.Losing control of the situation, flight 93's terrorists intentionally sent the plane into a deep dive, crashing it into Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, along with the 33 passengers and surviving members of the 7-person crew.9/11 Docs Still ClassifiedFollowing the attack, Al-Qaeda* took responsibility for the brazen attacks, calling it a revenge for US support of Israel and meddling in the affairs of the Muslim countries. The group was based in Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban* at that time, and led by Osama bin Laden  a member of the wealthy Saudi family.Despite identifying, locating, capturing or assassinating the key people deemed responsible for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, as was the case with the murder of Bin Laden on May 2, 2011, the US government never released the documents of the investigations in full. This has prompted harsh criticism from some of the families who lost relatives in the attacks on the twin towers, and who strongly believe that Saudi Arabia funded Al-Qaeda*, making Riyadh partially responsible for the attack. Riyadh, in turn, vehemently denies being involved.Several US presidents, including incumbent Joe Biden, have pledged to reveal all remaining classified documents, but some material remains hidden from the public eye. This has led to speculation, namely among the plaintiffs in the legal case against the Saudi Arabian government over its alleged funding of the terrorist group, that Washington refuses to unseal the docs out of fear of a diplomatic kickback. Such a turn of events could severely undermine the US' relations with the kingdom, which is known to be one of Washington's strongest allies in the Middle East.*Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization banned in Russia*Taliban is a terrorist organization under UN sanctions

https://sputniknews.com/20210911/911-anniversary-nasa-shares-images-of-that-day-taken-by-us-astronaut-on-iss--1088992177.html

https://sputniknews.com/20210912/fbi-releases-first-doc-on-911-investigation-following-bidens-order-1088998445.html

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

2022

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60

Tim Korso https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/03/0d/1093831826_0:0:216:216_100x100_80_0_0_e3f43a960af0c6c99f7eb8ccbf5f812c.jpg

9/11 attacks, us, 9/11
Itsuptoyou was upset-minded as she rode the pocket to victory in P.E.I. Colt Stakes action on the first half of a doubleheader on Saturday (Sept. 10) at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park.

The oldest Standardbred Stakes race in Canada, ihe P.E.I. Colt Stakes, was celebrating its 88th anniversary as driver Gilles Barrieau tripped out Itsuptoyou to win her $11,750 Gold division for two-year-old pacing fillies in 1:57.1 at 4-1 odds. Race favourite Singing Ramona and driver Adam Merner set the tempo but was collared at the wire to settle for second with third going to Our Girl Annie (Brodie MacPhee).

Kevin MacLean trains the winning daughter of Rollwithitharry for owner Reg MacPherson of Stratford.

Speakingofshadow removed the hopples and paced to a 1:57.1 in the other $11,750 Gold division for the fastest win ever by a free-legged two-year-old filly in Island racing history. The victory eclipsed Woodmere Finesses 1:57.4 free-legged rookie mark taken in the 2016 P.E.I. Colt Stakes.

Mike McGuigan trains and drives the Artspeak filly for owners Josh and Mark MacDonald.

The rookie pacing fillies saw $5,875 Grassroots action won by Entitled Express (Marc Campbell) in 1:58.4, Saulsbrook Mabel (Mark Bradley) in 1:58.1 and Run For The Money (Redmond Doucet Jr.) in 2:01.

Fishermans Son won from the outside post six and extended his win streak to four in a $12,300 P.E.I. Colt Stakes Gold division for two-year-old pacing colts in 1:56.2.

Danny Gillis drove the Arthur Blue Chip colt for co-owner and trainer Walter Walker and co-owner the late Angus MacInnis.

Fellow pacing colt Malignity reignited his former win streak in $12,300 Gold action in the sixth race for trainer-driver Paul Langille and owners Debbie Francis and Rosanne Langille of Nova Scotia.

Time of the mile was 1:56 as he unloaded a back half in :55.4 over Starship Glyde (David Dowling) and Baconabiscuit (Campbell).

The $6,150 two-year-old colt Grassroots splits were won by Redland Sampson (1:59.4) for driver Ken Murphy and trainer Jeff Holmes while Impeccable Shadow also went all the way by eight lengths in 1:58.2 with Adam Merner at the controls for trainer Melissa Rennie.

Jessiejessorjessica won a leg of the Island Oceans Aged Trot Mares Series, presented by JD Marine and Diving, in Race 7 for a $4,300 purse. David Dowling steered the Jennifer Doyle trainee to a 1:59 score.

To view the results from the Saturday afternoon card of harness racing at Charlottetown Driving Park, click the following link: Saturday Results (Afternoon) - Charlottetown Driving Park.

(Red Shores)
Harness racing great Lucien Fontaine passed away peacefully on Sunday morning (Sept. 11) at the age of 83.

Fontaine, known as Loosh throughout his grand career, is probably best known for being the trainer/driver of Forrest Skipper, the U.S. Horse of the Year in 1986 going undefeated during a year where he travelled, literally, coast-to-coast.

In July of this year, Loosh was elected to harness racings Hall of Fame in Goshen, New York, with ceremonies planned for next winter and summer honouring that declaration.

The Quebec native began his career as a groom for Keith Waples before heading to the United States and working for Clint Hodgins during the glory days featuring that stable's Bye Bye Byrd.

In an era where the "trainer/driver" was prominent, Fontaine became one of the first catch-drivers and immediately plied his trade to reach the winner's circle on 3,458 occasions, amassing more than $21 million in purse earnings benefitting owners, this despite the fact that his career was cut short in 1989 as a result of open heart surgery.

Behind the scenes, Fontaine was an innovator, helping to improve the future of all horsepeople and racing while serving as a Vice President of the National Association of Harness Drivers and on the Board of Directors of the Standardbred Owners Association of New York. He also served on a committee of the New York State Racing Commission ensuring equitable rules for horsepeople.

As one longtime owner associated with Fontaine, Charlie Dombeck stated, He was a great horseman and friend, and even a greater man.

Survivors include his son, Marc (Denise) and many nieces, nephews and cousins throughout Canada. His wife, Marsha, preceded him in death.

Further information on services will be provided when available.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Lucien Fontaine.
A simple, musical remembrance of the 21st anniversary of 9/11 will be held around Culpeper on Sunday.

At 8:46 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Taps will be played in front of the Culpeper County Volunteer Fire Station on West Davis Street.

This is is memory of the firefighters and EMS who died that day.

At 9:03 a.m., when United Flight 175 flew into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, Taps will be played in front of the Sheriffs Office at 132 W. Davis St. This is in memory of the law enforcement officers who died that day.

At 9:37 a.m., when American Flight 77 struck the Pentagon, Taps will be played in Wine Street Memorial Park, Old Brandy Road at 527 Wine St. in the town of Culpeper. This is in memory of the military personnel who died that day.

At 10:03 a.m., when United Flight 93 crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, Taps will be played at the intersection of Main and Davis streets. This is in memory of the heroic citizens who gave their lives that day to save many more.

America the Beautiful will follow to remember all the innocent lives lost when terrorists attacked America and for those who still sacrifice so we can live free.

All are welcome to visit immediately afterward at Yowell Meadow Parks Ken and Jennifer Lewis Memorial Bench.

The Lewises were husband-wife flight attendants from Culpeper who died aboard American Flight 77. Culpeper remembers them annually during Sept. 11 ceremonies.

Family and friends often visit the shady grove in the Kennifer park along Mountain Run at the back of Yowell Meadow, where the couple used to love to walk and enjoy the nature.

Event organizers Kim Atkins and Sharon Croushorn invite all first responders, military, veterans, family and friends in the community to join the day of remembrance in Culpeper.

We will never forget the souls who were lost on one of the darkest days in America, they said.

The use of Taps is unique to the United States military, as the call is sounded at funerals, wreath-laying ceremonies and memorial services, according to an article by Jari Villanueva, Taps historian with the U.S. Deptartment of Veterans Affairs.

Taps began as a signal to extinguish lights during the Civil War. Until then, the infantry call for Extinguish Lights was one set down in infantry manuals borrowed from the French. The music for Taps was changed by Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Adams Butterfield for his brigade in July 1862, according to Villanueva.

With the help of the brigade bugler, Oliver Willcox Norton, he created Taps to honor his men while in camp at Harrisons Landing, Virginia, following the Seven Days battles during the Peninsular Campaign, the historian said.

Butterfield did not compose the 24-note tune but revised an earlier bugle call, a version of the call Tattoo, which had gone out of use by the Civil War. Butterfield knew this early call from his days before the war as a colonel in the 12th New York Militia.

On Saturday, U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, reflected on 9/11s meaning.

It has been 21 years since the United States of America was attacked, and as we approach September 11, I am thinking of the people our country lost that day, the lives forever changed, the heroic bravery of first responders and ordinary citizens, and the decades of service and sacrifice that followed as our nation worked to prevent future acts of terror, the Central Virginia lawmaker said.

That dayand the days followingwere a time no American can forget and forever a defining time in our nations history, Spanberger said. This weekend, I will be reflecting on both the tragedy and loss of that day and the beauty and resolve of the American people.
OMAHA  Doug Rose has checked COVID-19 case counts and other data off and on during the pandemic, but he says he was never obsessed with it.

He has reviewed case counts for his destination when he planned to travel. Last year, the retired Omaha schoolteacher went to Galveston, Texas, instead of his usual spot in the Rio Grand Valley because of concerns about a potential for increased COVID cases there.

But now that hes vaccinated and boosted, he doesnt worry much about the virus. You read the data when its put out and decide what youre going to do, he said.

Just like the publics interest, the data reported by public health agencies has ebbed and flowed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to operate a beefed-up dashboard, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has replaced its COVID dashboard with a respiratory illness dashboard that includes data on COVID, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. Some school districts and colleges also have mothballed their dashboards, with some exceptions being the Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But during the early days of the outbreak in 2020, the nation was dealing with an unknown opponent. The first case in Nebraska was announced March 6 of that year. A month later, the count had reached 255. Interest in the numbers intensified as cases mounted and schools and businesses closed.

Initially, data was hard to come by. People who were monitoring the numbers had to tap multiple sources. Individuals, academic institutions and news organizations such as Covid Act Now, Johns Hopkins University and the New York Times stepped in to provide data that the public could easily access and digest.

Public health agencies had to quickly ramp up systems for gathering, verifying and displaying data.

The CDC noted on its website that only a handful of health care facilities and states were capable of using electronic case reporting in early 2020. Reporting was slow and often relied on paper-based systems and fax machines.

By August 2021, all 50 states and some other jurisdictions had electronic reporting capabilities.

Justin Frederick, division chief of epidemiology and preparedness with the Douglas County Health Department, said counting cases seems like a simple process. But its a complex endeavor to collect, verify and store it.

Public health infrastructure, including our disease surveillance systems, were not set up for a pandemic, he said.

As a health care hub, the Omaha metro area attracts a lot of people for testing and treatment. The test results of out-of-towners who were tested in Omaha for COVID had to be reported to their home counties, and rectifying numbers based on patients residences is challenging, particularly in real time, Frederick said. When test results mounted to thousands a day, health officials had to sort positives and negatives to calculate positivity rates and break down results demographically by age, ethnicity and ZIP code.

Initially, test results coming in from laboratories had to be entered manually every day into the health departments surveillance system. Later, labs began reporting electronically, but new labs kept popping up and had to be added to the system. The health department eventually was able to funnel those results directly into its system.

The Douglas County Health Department, like those across the state, was trying to keep up with contact tracing, which was important in identifying the risk the virus posed to the population. That risk, in turn, drives public health mitigation efforts, such as closing bars and requiring masking. At one point, Frederick said, the county was receiving thousands of new cases a day. Frederick was overseeing nearly 50 of the countys own contact tracers, and the department had a contract with a firm in Omaha that could supply between 200 and 400 contact tracers at a time.

In the middle of that, the department put up an online dashboard because health officials wanted a way to communicate with the public. Douglas-Omaha GIS (for Geographic Information Systems) developed the dashboard, but the health department supplied the data and worked closely with the office to determine how to display it.

I cant stress enough the importance of us reporting daily data, Frederick said. There was a lot of demand from the public.

Lindsay Huse, the Douglas County Health Departments director, said the next challenge was interpreting the data and boiling it down in a way that people could understand it and use it to make decisions.

People stepped in to help with that, too.

On March 8, 2020, Dr. Bob Rauner, president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, began posting short YouTube videos sharing and explaining available COVID data. He also walked through coronavirus research and trends as they emerged and included links to his sources.

More than two years later, on July 13, Rauner posted his 115th Community Coronavirus Update. One of his updates got as many as 28,000 views. He stopped counting when the series surpassed half a million views. Rauner, who serves on the Lincoln Board of Education, explored the impact of the pandemic in his videos, tallying COVID-related deaths in Nebraska and surrounding states.

I think the reason they took off is because I just said, Heres what the data shows. And if you wanted to look, you could go to the links and find it all, Rauner said.

Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln also began posting its own COVID case charts, with county-by-county data, after Ted Fraser, its health data analyst, figured out how to retrieve it from the CDC.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services also launched a dashboard early in the pandemic. The dashboard, which changed nearly every month as conditions shifted, was a key piece of the agencys strategy for communicating with the public, said Ashley Newmyer, the agencys chief data strategist.

Dr. Gary Anthone, the states chief medical officer, said another piece of that strategy were the public briefings he and Gov. Pete Ricketts held during the pandemic. They were held often during the early days of the pandemic and later when cases and hospitalizations spiked.

Early on, Anthone said, people mostly wanted to know why they couldnt get tested for COVID. Initially, all tests had to go through the CDC, and criteria for getting tested were stringent.

After the state launched TestNebraska and Nebraskans could get tests whenever they wanted, positivity rates became a less important metric, he said. The state began looking to the number of people hospitalized with COVID as its north star in measuring the stress COVID-19 patients were placing on the states hospitals. The state therefore added a variety of hospital capacity metrics to the dashboard.

Both the Lincoln-Lancaster County and Sarpy/Cass health departments continue to operate detailed dashboards. Lincolns Bryan Health reports on patients hospitalized with COVID by age and vaccination status as well as where theyre from and whether they require intensive care or ventilators.

But much of the county-level reporting at the state level ended when the state retired its more detailed COVID-19 dashboard on June 30, 2021, after Ricketts ended the states COVID-19 state of emergency. At that point, Anthone said, 27 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID, down from a peak of 987 in November 2020.

The pandemic emergency had suspended some restrictions in state law on the release of communicable disease data, state officials said at the time, permitting them to release more information than otherwise would be allowed.

The expiration of an executive order at that time also prevented Nebraskas health districts from publicly reporting COVID-19 statistics, such as case numbers and vaccinations, for counties with fewer than 20,000 people.

At the time, Nebraska health care providers and a group of lawmakers called for Ricketts to reinstate the dashboard. The state, which had continued to post weekly summaries, redeployed the dashboard in August 2021, this time focusing on hospital data.

Newmyer said the public also faced a learning curve in figuring out what data the state collected and what it could make available to the public. In addition to trying to meet the publics demand for information, the state Department of Health and Human Services also sought to provide enough background information so users could understand the limits and nuances of that data.

Dr. James Lawler, a co-executive director with the University of Nebraska Medical Centers Global Center for Health Security, said getting good data into the systems remains his concern. The CDCs pediatric COVID death data, for instance, has changed multiple times, he said.

Lawler said he doesnt think most people understand the difficulty of getting accurate health data, much of which is stored in systems that cant talk to each other. Health agencies, for instance, cant pull data from hospitals electronic medical records, as they can in some European nations. Most health care in the U.S. is delivered by the private sector, where theres little incentive for competing systems to share information.

These are all challenges we still need to grapple with, because its impossible to effectively respond if you dont have good situational awareness, Lawler said.

Some new types of data also emerged during the pandemic. After establishing a wastewater-monitoring network, the state began posting weekly reports with those results. It also added a weekly report with the results of genomic sequencing. (Wastewater testing can provide an early warning about trends in cases, while genomic sequencing provides insights into what variants are circulating.)

Other health data also is getting a more public airing.

Newmyer said the state agency continues to evaluate whether other diseases or data should be added to the respiratory illness dashboard, which the agency plans to continue to update weekly.

The agency also has launched a dashboard to display data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a telephone health survey of adults 18 and older that is conducted in all U.S. states and territories. Covering topics ranging from physical activity to alcohol use, the survey is used to identify new and emerging health issues, establish and track health objectives and evaluate disease-prevention activities in the state.

Newmyer said the agency also is working on a data initiative around drug overdoses and is looking at making annual reports across its departments available in dashboard forms that are more accessible to the public.

Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln already has begun charting maternal child health data for the state, some of it by county, sourced from the CDC.

Rauner said making such data easily accessible allows people to see how their community is doing on various health measures. Its also important in planning for health.

The data transparency needs to be out there, he said. You cant provide good governance without good data.

Huse said she plans to keep the Douglas County dashboard up at least through winter, depending on whether new COVID variants emerge and how well the new boosters work. The department likely will keep providing some data until the virus settles into a more predictable pattern, like influenza.

That transparency is so important, she said.

Huse said she hopes to put additional county health metrics, such as elements of the community health needs assessment that the agency conducts every few years, in a dashboard format.

I hope people have more of an interest in the data, she said, because it helps them understand a little bit more where our priorities are ... and whats happening in the community they live in.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Carol Blood handily won her partys nomination during the primary election with more than 90% of the vote. On the campaign trail before Novembers general election, she told supporters shes sticking to proven strategy to attract voters as she stumped in Gering.

I noticed that a lot of campaigns do change their strategy after the primary, but we came out of the gate from the beginning, Blood said before a town hall Friday, Sept. 9 at the Gering Civic Center. We pointed out that there were a lot of opportunities for effective change and that we had a plan to change those things, and we have campaigned on that since September.

Blood told the audience her solution would be to use strategic planning, traveling across the state to see what issues impact different areas the most.

Were going to say. OK, what are your priorities in this part of the state? she told the Star-Herald.

She mentioned workforce housing, law enforcement and infrastructure as examples people could bring up. Blood said shed take the top three issues at each stop, then meet with elected officials, nonprofits and public-private partnerships for additional details to determine what can or cannot be done, set priorities and mirror the states budget to reflect those priorities.

Blood began her speech by describing how shed wanted to be a state senator since she first took a trip to the Nebraska capitol, and how she won city and state elections early in her political career despite being outspent. She told the Star-Herald her campaign strategy revolves around meeting with voters and called it a ninja campaign.

People will tell you all the issues, what to vote against but never what to vote for, Blood said.  We have all this stuff where taxpayers are being bamboozled, and I want them to be angry about that because they are constantly lied to in every election.

In particular, Blood told the audience that politicians dont want to lower property taxes so they have a reoccurring issue to run for re-election on. She said if Nebraska were to pass a consumption tax, a proposal set forth by some Republicans in recent legislative sessions, the state would be $4 billion in the hole with no way out of it.

She went over the various pillars of her campaign, which focus on education, public wellbeing, infrastructure and growing the state. Blood also discussed some of the bills shed passed or proposed during her time in the State Legislature such as the property tax circuit breaker bill from 2019.

Blood said a focus of her campaign would be recruiting recent early retirees to rejoin the workforce instead of trying to grow the economy from out of state.

We keep looking at these new, magical ways to bring people into the state. Weve wasted millions of dollars on those and its not been successful, when we have our own goldmine in the state and we just have to figure out how to mine that.

She said focusing on schooling, including community college and through partnerships with private companies to train students, may help keep younger workers in Nebraska.

Weve invested tens of millions in our community colleges, and we have the infrastructure, and were going to give every high school senior the opportunity to go to community college for up to two years  and the state will pay for it, she said.

The candidate also opined that the state is not proactive enough on solving issues. She argued prison overcrowding could be lessened by having nonviolent offenders under supervision, working jobs and receiving counseling, rather than not having them do anything while incarcerated.

She also said the state is slow to implement new technology such as broadband services or artificial intelligence (AI) for agricultural use.

We miss opportunities when it comes to tech, Blood said. We always depend on the university, which is a good thing, but we always do study after study and never pull the trigger on things, and when we do, we were like the 48th state to do it.

After Bloods speech, she answered a few questions from those in attendance. This was her second campaign stop of the day, and she said she would continue the tour over the weekend.
Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading.

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy
The life you have built is worth protecting. Prepare for disasters to create a lasting legacy for you and your family. National Preparedness Month is observed each September to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies that could happen at any time.

This week Iredell County Health Department would like to encourage you and your family to make a disaster/emergency supply kit. Building an emergency/disaster supply kit can be a fun activity for the family to work on together. The kit should have everything you need to survive for several days.

A basic kit should include:

Nonperishable food (canned food, crackers, peanut butter, etc.) and manual can opener

Plan for special food needs for babies, pets, and anyone with allergies

1 gallon of water per person per day for drinking and cleaning

A battery powered weather radio

A flashlight

A first aid kit

Extra batteries

A whistle to signal for help

A dust mask to help filter contaminated air

Plastic sheeting and duct tape, if you need to shelter in place

Moist towelettes, garbage bags, and plastic ties

Wrench or pliers

Local maps

Cellphone with chargers and a backup battery

Prescription medications

Copies of important personal documents, such as insurance policies, identification, etc.

There are many other things to include in the emergency kit that will be specific to your family. Be sure to make the kit that meets your familys needs. What might your pet, older adults, or your baby need if you had to evacuate your home quickly? Keeping the kit stocked and ready to go can make a difference in the face of a disaster. Building a disaster supply kit together is also a good activity to get the family talking about disaster planning and is a great time for kids to ask questions that may ease their concerns. To learn more about how to stock an emergency kit visit www.ready.gov/kit and https://www.ready.gov/kids.

Next week we will provide effective ways your family can plan and prepare for disasters and emergencies.

Check out weekly tips on the Iredell County Health Department Facebook page and on the Iredell County Health Department website: https://www.iredellcountync.gov/252/Emergency-Preparedness.
TEHRAN, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The latest statement by Britain, France and Germany saying they had "serious doubts" about Iran's intentions to revive a 2015 nuclear deal is "unconstructive" and "in breach of goodwill," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Saturday in a release posted on its official website.

"It is surprising and regrettable that under the current circumstances when diplomatic interactions and exchange of messages continue between the negotiating sides and the coordinator of the Vienna talks to finalize the negotiations, the EU troika issues such a statement in a move that deviates from the path of the fruitful approach during the talks," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying.

Referring to the "goodwill and serious resolve" of Iran to finalize talks on the revival of the Iranian 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he warned the European sides "against being influenced by propaganda waged by third parties that were against the negotiations from the very beginning and are now making their utmost to cause the talks to fail."

The spokesman also cautioned the European countries against resorting to threats.

"All those who ignorantly think they, through threats and sanctions, can dissuade the Iranian people from fully pursuing their rights and achieving their interests must draw a lesson from the U.S.'s maximum defeat in its maximum pressure campaign," Kanaani stressed.

He underscored Iran is still ready to finalize a deal. Kanaani said he believes that an agreement can swiftly be reached if the other sides avoid being influenced by outside pressures.

On Saturday, France, Germany and Britain said in a joint statement that Iran "has chosen not to seize this critical diplomatic opportunity" given by a recent EU-submitted "final set of texts" to rescue the nuclear pact, voicing their "serious doubts as to Iran's intentions and commitment to a successful outcome on the JCPOA."

Iran signed the JCPOA with world major countries in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in return for removing sanctions on the country. However, former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.

The talks on the JCPOA's revival began in April 2021 in Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington.

The latest round of the nuclear talks was held in Austria in early August after a five-month hiatus. On Aug. 8, the EU put forward its "final text" of the draft decision on reviving the JCPOA.

Iran and the United States have recently indirectly exchanged views on the EU proposal. 
The news crawl across the bottom of the television gave us the news. Queen Elizabeth died the afternoon of Sept. 8, 2022. At 96, her death could not be described as sudden or unexpected. We have all watched frailty and heartbreak creep up on her. Even her resolve could not hold her. Still, we saw her strength in blessing one last Prime Minister. What a pure gift.

I was 8 years old when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. I watched the coronation on a black and white TV and remember wondering how she could hold her head up with so heavy a crown on her head. Mother bought me a Queen Elizabeth coloring book that I kept for years. I may have liked her from the beginning because my name is also Elizabeth. And who doesnt want to be a princess?

A 70-year reign is most impressive. Even though the monarchy has been criticized and, in some voices reviled, the pomp, majesty, dignity and pageantry surrounding the royals has been and still is mesmerizing to a lot of us. The queen has reminded us of manners, civility, duty, service and steadfastness even as the world has grown more boisterous, crude, and unkind.

The news reports go on and on about how she visited countries and met with world leaders. I wonder what was said behind closed doors when American presidents could hardly hold a candle to the protocol and tradition of royalty. We, none of us, are kings and queens, even though we may have healthy enough egos to claim such and gild our homes with gold.

We watched a few seasons of The Crown on the telly. If any of it is based on truth, Prince Philip was not exactly who I thought he was. But we saw a queen so committed to her country and her job, she likely put up with a lot, like a trial under fire. We watched her be a mother to four children. Charles, Anne, Andrew, Edward. Their lives do not read like fairy tales. Wonder how many sleepless nights she had worrying about them and the headlines they made?

I think William and Harry were her crown jewels. I think she likely died hoping for reconciliation and forgiveness in her family. Maybe her death will precipitate a little of that. Death is always a very real reminder that none of us live forever and that time is short when healing work needs to be done.

It will be hard to recognize a king after so many years of the queen. She will be a hard act to follow. Charles has been in the wings a long time. Hopefully he will find ways to offer himself to the U.K. and the world with some of the humor, compassion, and smarts his mother had. England is not exempt from some of todays world problems. Economic struggles, residual pandemic woes, climate issues, and the increasing threat of violence from forces inside and outside the country are real. And though the monarchy has little real power, the call for strong leadership on the world stage may be greater now as leadership passes to a new generation.

Times change. Leaders change. Traditions may come and go, but the outpouring of kind words and remembrances of a grateful nation for a beloved queen are just beginning to come in. There will be much pomp and pageantry as services are planned for a funeral. Queen Elizabeth II will be royally celebrated, as she should be. You, dear QE2, in your own personhood raised all of us up, and we thank you.

She lived nearly a century. A century of expansion of knowledge and technology. A century of war and peace, and more war now on the continent. She rose every day, put her big girl pants on, and addressed the world with wisdom and grace. Her like will not pass this way again. That is what makes this a sad day. When we lose those who fill the world with dignity, purpose and strength to do what may be hard but is always right its a sad day. Rest in peace, dear queen. You may have belonged to England, but a lot of us loved you too.
On Monday, at 9 a.m., a local charter school, Pine Lake Preparatory, will hold its annual 9/11 observance.

The schoolwide remembrance will take place outside in an assembly-style ceremony to honor the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives during the 9/11 tragedy. Through this event, Pine Lake continues to recognize the importance of remembering the victims and heroes of that day.

In efforts to pay their respects, many of the students at Pine Lake will take part in multiple activities before and during the ceremony. In preparation, the middle school cross country team placed flags in the ground around the campus loop on Friday.

The following Monday morning, the lower schoolers will greet the local fire department as they make their way around campus. Upon arrival, the fire department will raise the flag for a moment of silence to begin the ceremony for middle and upper school students. Students and faculty will then take part in listening to speeches as well as live music from the schools chorus and orchestra.

An important thing to note is that the main speech will be given by Parishi Patel, a senior at Pine Lake. Parishi Patel is an A-plus student who is among the top of her class.

When asked about what her speech would include she said that it would mainly discuss the importance of remembering the attacks during todays time. To add onto this she goes on to explain that I also discuss how important it is for us to never forget how we, as a nation, came together to fight hatred and terrorism and to defend democratic and American values. She finishes her thoughts by stating I emphasize how we must continue to embody the strength and the unity we had on that day in face of todays controversies and differences.
Flipkart Big Billion Days sale is coming and you have a great chance to buy these latest smartphones with a big discount. Check Google Pixel 6a and Nothing Phone (1) price cut and other offers.

The recently launched Google Pixel 6a and Nothing Phone (1) are all set to witness their first big price cut during the upcoming Flipkart Big Billion Days sale. Without revealing the date, the e-commerce website Flipkart announced that it will kick off its yearly festival sale soon, offering massive discounts on mobiles, tablets, laptops, audio accessories, TVs, and other electronic items. Ahead of the sale, Flipkart has revealed some interesting deals that you can consider while saving a huge amount of money on the latest launches. Know everything about these upcoming deals.

Google Pixel 6a price cut

Flipkart's Big Billion Days sale is all set to bring down the prices of the Google Pixel 6a. According to the listing, it will be available at an effective price of Rs. 27,699 for the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage variant. This will be an interesting deal considering that it was launched at a price of Rs. 43,999. This means you will be able to avail a discount of Rs. 16,300. However, there is not much information right available now, but it is believed that the offer will likely include discounts and bank offers too.

Flipkart has partnered with several banks including Axis Bank and ICICI Bank to bring special offers on several items. They will be offering an instant 10 percent discount during the upcoming sale. Moreover, while making payment through your Paytm account you will get cashback too. Flipkart Axis Bank Credit Card for cashback and Flipkart Pay Later for instant credit on EMI offers are also there to help you get the deals at much cheaper prices.

Nothing Phone (1) price cut

Just like the Google Pixel 6a, Nothing Phone (1) will also be available at an effective price of Rs. 28,999 during the Flipkart sale. Right now, it is available at Rs. 33,999, so you will be able to grab a discount of Rs. 5000. However, it is clear that the discount will be available on a bank card.
Alphabet Inc.s Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and other telecom giants to illegally maintain its spot as the No. 1 search engine, the US Justice Department told a federal judge Thursday.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and other telecom giants to illegally maintain its spot as the No. 1 search engine, the US Justice Department told a federal judge Thursday.

DOJ attorney Kenneth Dintzer didn't disclose how much Google spends to be the default search engine on most browsers and all US mobile phones, but described the payments as enormous numbers.

Google invests billions in defaults, knowing people won't change them, Dintzer told Judge Amit Mehta during a hearing in Washington that marked the first major face-off in the case and drew top DOJ antitrust officials and Nebraska's attorney general among the spectators. They are buying default exclusivity because defaults matter a lot.

Google's contracts form the basis of the DOJ's landmark antitrust lawsuit, which alleges the company has sought to maintain its online search monopoly in violation of antitrust laws. State attorneys general are pursuing a parallel antitrust suit against the search giant, also pending before Mehta.

A trial isn't expected to start formally until next year, but Thursday's hearing was the first substantive one in the case -- a daylong tutorial where each side laid out its views on Google's business.

The Google antitrust suit, filed in the waning days of the Trump administration, was the federal government's first major effort to rein in the power of the tech giants, which continues under President Joe Biden. The White House Thursday hosted a roundtable with experts to explore the harm major tech platforms can wreak on the economy and children's health.

Google's attorney John Schmidtlein said the DOJ and states misunderstand the market and focus too narrowly on smaller search engine rivals like Microsoft Corp. 's Bing and DuckDuckGo. Instead, Google faces competition from dozens of other companies, he said, including ByteDance Ltd.'s TikTok, Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon. com Inc., Grubhub Inc. and additional sites sites where consumers go to search for information.

You don't have to go to Google to shop on Amazon. You don't have to go to Google to buy plane tickets on Expedia, he said. The fact that Google doesn't face the same competition on every query doesn't mean the company doesn't face tough competition.

Having fresh data on user search queries is key to a search engine's success, lawyers for DOJ, the states and Google all agreed. Google controls the most popular browser, Chrome, and the second-most popular mobile operating system, Android.

In his presentation, DOJ's Dintzer focused on the mechanics of Google's search engine and how its default contracts have hemmed in potential rivals. On mobile, Google contracts with Apple, smartphone makers like Samsung and Motorola Solutions Inc., most browsers and the three US telecom carriers -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. -- to ensure its search engine is set as the default and comes preinstalled on new phones, Dintzer said. Microsoft's search engine, Bing, is the default on the company's Edge browser and Amazon's Fire tablets, he said.

Google's contracts make it the gateway by which most people find websites on the internet, which has allowed it to prevent rivals from gaining the scale that would be needed to challenge its search engine, Dintzer said.

Default exclusivity allows Google to systemically deny rivals' data, he said.

Google's Schmidtlein said the company has contracted with Apple and browsers like Mozilla since the early 2000s. DOJ and the states haven't explained why those deals are now problems, he said. The revenue-sharing deals that Google offers to browsers are essential to companies like Mozilla Corp., he said, because they offer their products to users for free.

The reason they partner with Google isn't because they had to; it's because they want to, Schmidtlein said. The company had extraordinary success and was doing something incredibly valuable. Competition on the merits is not unlawful.

The case is US v. Google, 20-cv-3010, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
After postponing the Artemis I mission last Saturday, NASA once again has two new dates in mind, September 23 or September 27, for the next attempt to launch its massive moon rocket on an uncrewed mission.

After postponing the Artemis I mission last Saturday, NASA once again has two new dates in mind, September 23 or September 27, for the next attempt to launch its massive moon rocket on an uncrewed mission.

But there are still several things that could stand in the way of getting the Artemis I mission off the ground, any of which could push the launch date back further, CNN reported.

Earlier, NASA postponed the launch of the mission during the last launch attempt at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 3, after an issue was found related to a leak in the hardware transferring fuel into the rocket. The rocket sprung a big leak as it was being fueled up with super-chilled liquid hydrogen.

NASA is trying to work through the leaky fuel problem with the rocket, called the Space Launch System or SLS.

And while the rocket is still on the pad, NASA is looking to troubleshoot that issue by repairing and replacing some seals before running tests to make sure all the leaks are plugged, NASA officials said at a Thursday press conference.

It's not yet clear how long that will take.

Then, there's the issue with certification. The US Space Force, an arm of the military, still oversees all rocket launches from the United States East Coast, including NASA's Florida launch site, and that area is known as the "Eastern Range." CNN reported.

The officials at the range are tasked with making sure there's no risk to people or property with any launch attempt.

And that means the Eastern Range also must give NASA the thumbs up that the rocket's Flight Termination System -- a system that will essentially destroy the rocket mid-air if it veers off course and starts heading in a populated direction -- is ready to fly.

That system relies on batteries, however, that, under current rules, must be recharged at a nearby indoor facility before the newly proposed launch dates arrive.

NASA is hoping to get a waiver on that rule. But it's not yet clear when or if that request will be granted. If NASA does not get that waiver approval, the SLS rocket will have to be rolled off the pad and back into the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building, triggering more delays.

At the Press conference, Associate Administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, Jim Free said, "If they decide that is not the right thing to do, we obviously will support that and stand down and look for our next launch attempt."

"But we still will press with the tanking test," he said, referring to the tests NASA plans to run to fix the hydrogen leaks while the rocket is still on the pad.

The Artemis I flight test is an uncrewed mission around the Moon that will pave the way for a crewed flight test and future human lunar exploration as part of Artemis.

"Managers waved off the first launch attempt on August 29 when launch controllers were unable to chill down the four RS-25 engines, with one engine showing higher temperatures than the other engines," NASA said in an earlier statement.

NASA had called off a planned test flight of the Artemis rocket around the moon after a series of setbacks including an engine issue, a hydrogen leak, and stormy weather off the coast of Florida.

"The launch of Artemis I is no longer happening today as teams work through an issue with an engine bleed. Teams will continue to gather data, and we will keep you posted on the timing of the next launch attempt," NASA said in an earlier tweet.

It's the first mission in NASA's Artemis lunar program, which is expected to land the agency's astronauts on the moon by its third mission in 2025.

NASA plans to fly Orion as close as 60 miles above the moon's surface, before moving into a wide orbit around the lunar body. To return, Orion will use the moon's gravity to assist it in setting a trajectory back into Earth's orbit.

Orion is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California where a team of NASA and Department of Defence personnel will recover the capsule. (ANI)
The world's newest and biggest space telescope is showing Jupiter as never before, auroras and all. Scientists released the shots Monday of the solar system's biggest planet.

The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter's northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.

One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies.

We've never seen Jupiter like this. It's all quite incredible, said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.

We hadn't really expected it to be this good, to be honest," she added in a statement.

The infrared images were artificially colored in blue, white, green, yellow and orange, according to the U.S.-French research team, to make the features stand out.

NASA and the European Space Agency's $10 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope rocketed away at the end of last year and has been observing the cosmos in the infrared since summer. Scientists hope to behold the dawn of the universe with Webb, peering all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago.

The observatory is positioned 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth.
Rainfall across Texas and cooler temperatures provided agricultural producers some relief from drought and extreme heat over recent weeks, but most areas remain in a moisture deficit, according to the Texas state climatologist and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomists.

John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist in the Texas A&M College of Geosciences Department of Atmospheric Sciences, said most areas of the state received above-average rainfall during August but were still behind average rainfall amounts for the year.

Weve seen drought contraction across the state, and last weeks rainfall should show improvement in the upcoming drought monitor later this week, Nielsen-Gammon said. But the rain is over for now. It looks like were now entering a dry stretch and have seen all the improvement we are going to see for a while.

AgriLife Extension agronomists Reagan Noland, Jourdan Bell and Ronnie Schnell said the rains helped, but noted their respective regions were still gripped by drought.

The most recent Texas drought monitor map produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska shows reduced drought conditions around the state. The Drought Severity and Coverage Index, DSCI, which ranges from 0-500 and calculates the cumulative drought data for an area, showed the drought peaked at 380 on Aug. 8. The DSCI was 251 on Sept. 1.

Sporadic rainfall across Texas

Nielsen-Gammon said rainfall amounts were highly variable across much of the state. The wettest parts included a swath between Del Rio and the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the area between Fort Worth and the Arkansas/Louisiana border. The Texas Panhandle picked up the least amount of precipitation over the past 30 days.

The East Texas town of Zavalla between Lufkin and Jasper received the most rain during the month  17.65 inches, Nielsen-Gammon said. Ferris, just south of Dallas, reported 16.65 inches while Corpus Christi and Houston both picked up more than 14 inches.

Encinal, north of Laredo, received 13.39 inches of rain, while Laredo reported almost 11 inches. Kent, a historically arid location in West Texas, north of Alpine, received more rainfall  13.67 inches  than its average annual amount of 13.06 inches between Aug. 15 and Sept. 4, Nielsen-Gammon said.

Noland said an important aspect of the recent weather was that the storm systems delivered cooler temperatures and cloudy days along with the rainfall. That contrasted to the limited rainfall received earlier in May and June, which was quickly lost to hot and windy conditions.

Areas around San Angelo received 1.5-9 inches of rain, and temperatures dropped into the upper 80s for daytime highs and 60s at night with cloudy days.

I had 2 inches of rain on a field in late May that never infiltrated more than 3 or 4 inches down and had dried out completely within a couple days, he said. This time the rain was able to soak in, although the subsoil is still depleted. In many areas, we have decent moisture down to 6 or 8 inches, but below that is still dry. Were still in an extreme moisture deficit, and it will take repeat rain events to change that.

Weather pattern forecast drier than normal

Nielsen-Gammon said a La Nina weather pattern is expected to hold through fall and winter, which means below average precipitation and above-average temperatures for Texas historically. The above-normal expectations for hurricanes and tropical storms could deliver moisture, but those storms typically bring destruction as well.

We havent reached peak hurricane season, and we are up to E with a few storms brewing, but it seems weve avoided a very active season, he said. Its even more important that no hurricane landfalls have occurred. Were better off with a widespread rain to break the drought, but weather patterns dont appear to be cooperating following the second hottest summer on record.

The arid conditions took their toll on most dryland crop acres, and irrigated fields struggled to keep up with plant water demands over the course of the growing season, according to numerous AgriLife Extension reports.

Bell said the recent rainfall was in time to help finish out irrigated crops like corn and grain sorghum, which are in the kernel fill stage, and should benefit boll development in cotton.

But the rainfall amounts around the Texas Plains were scattered and variable, she said. In areas that received heavier rains, the higher amounts in a short time did not allow for incorporation into the soil profile.

Where higher rates were received, rainfall rates were often in excess of the soil infiltration rate so the rainfall was not as efficient as it would have been if received over several days, she said.

Sunny days and higher temperatures also followed storm systems in the Texas Plains, she said.

Rainfall improved soil moisture

While the rainfall will likely help established crops mature to harvest, Bell said there was not enough to build up the soil moisture to establish and support a wheat crop. Wheat fields were being planted, but where fields were being plowed, she said there was not enough moisture to germinate the crop.

Schnell said most areas in his region received 2-4 inches of rainfall, while some areas picked up several inches more. The moisture will help recharge the soil moisture profile and producer optimism but was far from enough to break the drought.

All warm-season crops were harvested or beyond any stage where moisture would benefit them, he said. But the rains should help cool-season small grains such as oats and wheat. Pastures and rangelands were already showing signs of improvement and should help grazing and late-season hay production as well.

Right now, producers are glad for the rain and cooler temperatures, but when you hear the long-term outlook is on the drier side, its something we have to keep in mind as we plan for next seasons crop, Schnell said. Good grain and commodity prices add to the optimism, but input costs are high as well, so its about having really good yields along with really good prices, and we need the weather to cooperate for that to happen.
NEW YORK  Hours before dawn on March 1, 2003, the U.S. scored its most thrilling victory yet against the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks  the capture of a disheveled Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, hauled away by intelligence agents from a hideout in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The global manhunt for al-Qaidas No. 3 leader had taken 18 months. But Americas attempt to bring him to justice, in a legal sense, has taken much, much longer. Critics say it has become one of the war on terrors greatest failures.

As Sundays 21st anniversary of the terror attacks approaches, Mohammed and four other men accused of 9/11-related crimes still sit in a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, their planned trials before a military tribunal endlessly postponed.

The latest setback came last month when pretrial hearings scheduled for early fall were canceled. The delay was one more in a string of disappointments for relatives of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack. Theyve long hoped that a trial would bring closure and perhaps resolve unanswered questions.

Now, Im not sure whats going to happen, said Gordon Haberman, whose 25-year-old daughter Andrea died after a hijacked plane crashed into the the World Trade Center, a floor above her office.

Hes traveled to Guantanamo four times from his home in West Bend, Wisconsin, to watch the legal proceedings in person, only to leave frustrated.

Its important to me that America finally gets to the truth about what happened, how it was done, Haberman said. I personally want to see this go to trial.

If convicted at trial, Mohammed could face the death penalty.

When asked about the case, James Connell, an attorney for one of Mohammeds co-defendants  one accused of transferring money to 9/11 attackers  confirmed reports both sides are still attempting to reach a pretrial agreement that could still avoid a trial and result in lesser but still lengthy sentences.

David Kelley, a former U.S. attorney in New York who co-chaired the Justice Departments nationwide investigation into the attacks, called the delays and failure to prosecute an awful tragedy for the families of the victims.

He called the effort to put Mohammed on trial before a military tribunal, rather than in the regular U.S. court system, a tremendous failure that was as offensive to our Constitution as to our rule of law.

Its a tremendous blemish on the countrys history, he said.

The difficulty in holding a trial for Mohammed and other Guantanamo prisoners is partly rooted in what the U.S. did with him after his 2003 capture.

Mohammed and his co-defendants were initially held in secret prisons abroad. Hungry for information that might lead to the capture of other al-Qaida figures, CIA operatives subjected them to enhanced interrogation techniques that were tantamount to torture, human rights groups say. Mohammed was waterboarded  made to feel that he was drowning  183 times.

A Senate investigation later concluded the interrogations didnt lead to any valuable intelligence. But it has sparked endless pretrial litigation over whether FBI reports on their statements can be used against them  a process not subject to speedy trial rules used in civilian courts.

The torture allegations led to concerns that the U.S. might have ruined its chance to put Mohammed on trial in a civilian court.

But in 2009, President Barack Obamas administration decided to try, announcing that Mohammed would be transferred to New York City and put on trial at a federal court in Manhattan.

Failure is not an option, Obama said.

But New York City balked at the cost of security and the move never came. Eventually, it was announced Mohammed would face a military tribunal. And then over a dozen years passed.

Kelley said talk of military tribunals two decades ago surprised many in the legal community who had been successfully prosecuting terrorism cases in the decade before. The concept of a tribunal, he said, came out of the blue. Nobody knew it was coming.

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was not in favor of tribunals and had been supportive of the Manhattan federal terrorism prosecutions, he said.

Now, Kelley said, with the passage of time it will be much more difficult to prosecute Mohammed in a tribunal, much less a courtroom. Evidence goes stale, witness memories fail.

The passage of time hasnt dulled the memories of the victims families or dampened their interest in witnessing justice.

Eddie Brackens sister, Lucy Fishman, was killed at the trade center. The New Yorker opposed Obamas proposal to move the trial to federal court  Mohammed is charged with a military act, and should be tried by the military, he reasoned. And while he is somewhat frustrated by the delays, he understands them.

The whole world is looking at us and saying, What are they doing after all this time? he said. But he realizes the case is a process that the world is seeing, that needs to be done under a microscope.  Its up to the United States to do their due diligence, make sure its done right.

The wheels of justice turn. They turn slowly, but they turn. And when the time comes, and its said and done, the world will know what happened, he adds.

While Mohammed has lingered at Guantanamo, the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid and deputy-turned-successor Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike just this August.

Investigators with the military commission at Guantanamo Bay said he plotted the 9/11 attacks for three years. They cited a computer hard drive seized at his arrest which they said contained photographs of the 19 hijackers, three letters from bin Laden and information about some hijackers.

Mohammed, at his tribunal hearing, conceded in a written statement that he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, that he was on al-Qaidas council and that he served as operational director for bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the Sept. 11 plot from A to Z.

According to the statement, he also took credit for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; an attempt to down U.S. jetliners using bombs hidden in shoes; the bombing of a nightclub in Indonesia; and plans for a second wave of attacks after the 2001 attacks targeting landmarks such as the Sears Tower in Chicago and Manhattans Empire State Building.

He also claimed credit for other planned attacks, including assassination attempts against then-President Bill Clinton in 1994 or 1995 and an assassination plot against Pope John Paul II at about the same time, the statement said.

Mohammeds nearly two decades in legal limbo differs from the fate of his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people, injured 1,000 others and left a crater in the parking garage beneath the twin towers.

Yousef is serving life in prison after being convicted at two separate civilian trials. He was also captured in Pakistan, in 1995, and brought to the United States for trial.

At the time, Yousef said his right to kill people was comparable to the U.S. decision to drop a nuclear bomb in World War II. Mohammed has offered a similar justification, saying through an interpreter at a Guantanamo proceeding that killing people was the language of any war.

Bracken traveled to Guantanamo in 2012 to watch one hearing for Mohammed and his co-defendants, and would probably go again if a trial ever happened.

I dont know if I want to go there again to bring back all the hurt and pain. But if Im allowed to go, then I guess I would go. Yeah. My sister would do that for me.

Shes that type of a woman, he added. Then he corrected himself: She was that type of a woman.
RAMALLAH, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian died days after being shot during an Israeli raid a few days ago in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Palestinian medics said on Sunday.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a press statement that Hammad Abu Jelda, 24, succumbed to the critical wounds he sustained on Tuesday during clashes with the Israeli soldiers at the Jenin refugee camp in the city.

Abu Jelda was buried by dozens of Palestinian demonstrators at the city's cemetery, who chanted slogans calling for "revenging his death."

He is a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Movement and a former prisoner that spent two years in Israeli jails.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "the policy of the Israeli government aims at keeping the situation very tense to block any opportunity for the resumption of the peace process that had been stalled since 2014."

It called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop its violence against the Palestinian people and force it to stop its "violations of international law."

During the past few months, daily tension has flared up in the West Bank, including confrontations between the Palestinians and the Israeli army. 
EL PASO  U.S. Border Patrol agents are releasing a rising number of migrants onto the streets here to ease overcrowding at a processing center.

Since Sept. 1, the daily average of encounters with migrants has swelled from 900 to more than 1,100 per day, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Carlos Rivera said.

These numbers are in line with pre-pandemic volumes, but many more immigrants are released into the U.S. rather than being expelled to Mexico, presenting new, urgent challenges, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, which works with some 14 shelters in the El Paso and New Mexico area.

Local private shelters, said Garcia and Rivera, are filled to capacity and the change in demographics of who is trying to enter the U.S. means certain immigrants, mainly Venezuelans, cant be easily expelled under a pandemic-related health order known as Title 42.

Right now, provisional releases are a decompression effort that weve had to resort to, due to the fact that all other avenues at the moment are exhausted, Rivera said.

Title 42 is a Trump-era, pandemic-related health order intended to expel migrants quickly. It carries no legal consequences for multiple attempts to cross the border, which inflates the overall number of apprehensions.

Apprehensions of migrants by the U.S. Border Patrol are on pace to exceed 2 million during the fiscal year ending in September. The agencys previous records for apprehensions in a year were nearly 1.7 million last year and 1.6 million in 2000.

The Border Patrols El Paso sector covers El Paso and Hudspeth counties in West Texas and all of New Mexico. Migrant encounters through July surpassed 228,000, easily surpassing the 195,000 for all of 2021, Rivera said.

The Border Patrol processing center in El Paso is holding three times its capacity, Rivera added. Thats more than 3,500 migrants.

With its detention facility at capacity, the Border Patrol released nearly 500 migrants Wednesday and Thursday. Another 300 were expected to be released Friday, with an undetermined number over the weekend. Once migrants are released, they generally await a court hearing to petition for asylum or to launch another defense to stay in the U.S., which could take months and sometimes years.

These people still have an immigration obligation  So yes, its not that they are released into the community  without being responsible for reporting and showing up to court, Rivera said.

Another complication is that local and regional shelters also are at capacity forcing large groups of migrants to fend for themselves as they mill around bus stations and the local airport, finding a way to get to their destination where they may have sponsors, Rivera said.

Luis Alfonso Cobos, 48, an engineer from Venezuela, has no family or friends that can give him a hand as he tries to start a new life.

He was released Thursday near a downtown bus station and hopes to make it to Houston, where he has heard there are plenty of jobs. I can work in construction, (as a) painter, roofing or energy, which is what I most know about.

Cobos left Venezuela about a month ago, via Colombia, the Darian jungle in Panama, Central America and Mexico, fleeing the dire economic situation of his country under President Nicolas Maduro.

There is no food on the store shelves. No medicine. Nothing. My beloved Venezuela has turned into a catastrophe, he said.

He said he had spent the last 36 hours on the streets of El Paso.

I ask forgiveness to the kind people of El Paso, he said. We dont want to scare off anyone. Well be out of the way as soon as we can.

If you limited me to one word, the word is Venezuela, said Garcia from Annunciation House, one of the shelters that help migrants. The situation its severe because El Paso has not experienced this, pointing to Venezuelans who in most cases lack sponsors.

The challenge with the Venezuela migrants  is (that) a very high percentage of them dont have a sponsor and they have no place to go, and so that backs everything up, Garcia said.

Garcia said another challenge is the lingering problem of COVID, as many churches are not taking in as many migrants for fear of the pandemic.

Churches must step up to the challenge, he urged. We cant allow politicians to get involved and use migrants as pawns.

Asked whether El Paso would seek assistance from the state, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said, No.

City officials had no immediate comment.

In a statement, Deputy City Manager Mario DAgostino said the city of El Paso and Office of Emergency Management since 2018 have implemented a plan that provides food, health care services, housing at local shelters or the citys welcoming center, and helps migrants arrange transportation.

We are (focused) on the migrants themselves ... ensuring they are welcomed at one of the local shelters, our NGOs or our welcoming center, DAgostino said. If they do not have a sponsor or means to pay for their travel, we have been providing charter buses to where they wish to go. NYC is the location chosen by the vast majority of Venezuelans, which is the group that is largely unsponsored.

DAgostino said the city continues to work with the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and has asked for funding support from the federal government.

For weeks, El Paso has been teetering with a rising number of migrants, as smugglers shift from Eagle Pass and Del Rio to West Texas. In previous weeks, the city and county have been busing migrants to New York City, coordinating with faith-based organizations.

The role of helping recently released migrants includes local residents like Maria Isabel Pineda, who read on social media about migrants wandering the streets of El Paso.

She and her husband showed up at the parking lot of the bus station with at least five boxes of pizza and urged people to eat them while theyre warm.

It comes from the heart. They are human and have every right to be treated with dignity, she said.

She said she planned to return in the afternoon and over the weekend and beyond if we have to. We cant just look the other way, she said, adding she plans to recruit more volunteers from her circle of friends.
PHOENIX (AP)  Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun's searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer's triple digit temperatures arrive.

The stifling tent city has ballooned amid pandemic-era evictions and surging rents that have dumped hundreds more people onto the sizzling streets that grow eerily quiet when temperatures peak in the midafternoon. A heat wave earlier this month brought temperatures of up to 114 degrees (45.5 Celsius) - and it's only June. Highs reached 118 degrees (47.7 Celsius) last year.

"During the summer, it's pretty hard to find a place at night that's cool enough to sleep without the police running you off," said Chris Medlock, a homeless Phoenix man known on the streets as "T-Bone" who carries everything he owns in a small backpack and often beds down in a park or a nearby desert preserve to avoid the crowds.

"If a kind soul could just offer a place on their couch indoors maybe more people would live," Medlock said at a dining room where homeless people can get some shade and a free meal.

Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined.

Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless.

Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves. The past few summers have been some of the hottest on record.

Just in the county that includes Phoenix, at least 130 homeless people were among the 339 individuals who died from heat-associated causes in 2021.

"If 130 homeless people were dying in any other way it would be considered a mass casualty event," said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington.

It's a problem that stretches across the United States, and now, with rising global temperatures, heat is no longer a danger just in places like Phoenix.

This summer will likely bring above-normal temperatures over most land areas worldwide, according to a seasonal map that volunteer climatologists created for the International Research Institute at Columbia University.

Last summer, a heat wave blasted the normally temperate U.S. Northwest and had Seattle residents sleeping in their yards and on roofs, or fleeing to hotels with air conditioning. Across the state, several people presumed to be homeless died outdoors, including a man slumped behind a gas station.

In Oregon, officials opened 24-hour cooling centers for the first time. Volunteer teams fanned out with water and popsicles to homeless encampments on Portland's outskirts.

A quick scientific analysis concluded last year's Pacific Northwest heat wave was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change adding several degrees and toppling previous records.

Even Boston is exploring ways to protect diverse neighborhoods like its Chinatown, where population density and few shade trees help drive temperatures up to 106 degrees (41 Celsius) some summer days. The city plans strategies like increasing tree canopy and other kinds of shade, using cooler materials for roofs, and expanding its network of cooling centers during heat waves.

It's not just a U.S. problem. An Associated Press analysis last year of a dataset published by the Columbia University's climate school found exposure to extreme heat has tripled and now affects about a quarter of the world's population.

This spring, an extreme heat wave gripped much of Pakistan and India, where homelessness is widespread due to discrimination and insufficient housing. The high in Jacobabad, Pakistan near the border with India hit 122 degrees (50 Celsius) in May.

Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, who heads the Indian Institute of Public Health in the western Indian city Gandhinagar, said because of poor reporting it's unknown how many die in the country from heat exposure.

Summertime cooling centers for homeless, elderly and other vulnerable populations have opened in several European countries each summer since a heat wave killed 70,000 people across Europe in 2003.

Emergency service workers on bicycles patrol Madrid's streets, distributing ice packs and water in the hot months. Still, some 1,300 people, most of them elderly, continue to die in Spain each summer because of health complications exacerbated by excess heat.

Spain and southern France last week sweltered through unusually hot weather for mid-June, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in some areas.

Climate scientist David Hondula, who heads Phoenix's new office for heat mitigation, says that with such extreme weather now seen around the world, more solutions are needed to protect the vulnerable, especially homeless people who are about 200 times more likely than sheltered individuals to die from heat-associated causes.

"As temperatures continue to rise across the U.S. and the world, cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, New York or Kansas City that don't have the experience or infrastructure for dealing with heat have to adjust as well."

In Phoenix, officials and advocates hope a vacant building recently converted into a 200-bed shelter for homeless people will help save lives this summer.

Mac Mais, 34, was among the first to move in.

"It can be rough. I stay in the shelters or anywhere I can find," said Mais who has been homeless on and off since he was a teen. "Here, I can stay out actually rest, work on job applications, stay out of the heat."

In Las Vegas, teams deliver bottled water to homeless people living in encampments around the county and inside a network of underground storm drains under the Las Vegas strip.

Ahmedabad, India, population 8.4 million, was the first South Asian city to design a heat action plan in 2013.

Through its warning system, nongovernmental groups reach out to vulnerable people and send text messages to mobile phones. Water tankers are dispatched to slums, while bus stops, temples and libraries become shelters for people to escape the blistering rays.

Still, the deaths pile up.

Kimberly Rae Haws, a 62-year-old homeless woman, was severely burned in October 2020 while sprawled for an unknown amount of time on a sizzling Phoenix blacktop. The cause of her subsequent death was never investigated.

A young man nicknamed Twitch died from heat exposure as he sat on a curb near a Phoenix soup kitchen in the hours before it opened one weekend in 2018.

"He was supposed to move into permanent housing the next Monday," said Jim Baker, who oversees that dining room for the St. Vincent de Paul charity. "His mother was devastated."

Many such deaths are never confirmed as heat related and aren't always noticed because of the stigma of homelessness and lack of connection to family.

When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.

Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.

"We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it," Tricia Wright said of her sister. "But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat."

***
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  Five years after Brian Spaulding's parents found him fatally shot in the home he shared with roommates, his slaying remains a mystery that seems increasingly unlikely to be solved as Portland, Oregon, police confront a spike in killings and more than 100 officer vacancies.

The detective assigned to investigate the death of Spaulding  a chiropractic assistant who didn't do drugs, wasn't in a gang and lived close to the house where he was born  left in 2020 in a wave of retirements and the detective assigned to it now is swamped with fresh cases after Portland's homicide rate surged 207% since 2019.

"To us, it's not a cold case," said George Spaulding, who has his son's signature tattooed on his arm. "We're not dissatisfied with the Police Bureau because I think they're doing the best they can," he said. "They are just overwhelmed. It's insane."

From Philadelphia to Portland to Los Angeles, killings and gun violence are rising at the same time officers worn out by the pandemic and disillusioned over the calls to divest from policing that followed George Floyd's murder are quitting or retiring faster than they can be replaced.

Departments are scrambling to recruit in a tight labor market and also rethinking what services they can provide and what role police should play in their communities. Many have shifted veteran officers to patrol, breaking up specialized teams built over decades in order to keep up with 911 calls.

"We're getting more calls for service and there are fewer people to answer them," said Philadelphia Police spokesperson Eric Gripp, whose department has been rotating employees from specialty units for short assignments to increase patrols. "This isn't just an issue in Philadelphia. Departments all over are down and recruitment has been difficult."

Los Angeles, which is down more than 650 officers from its pre-pandemic staffing level, shuttered its animal cruelty unit and downsized its human trafficking, narcotics and gun details and reduced its homeless outreach teams by 80%. Seattle recently announced $2 million in hiring bonuses and benefits to lure recruits amid a critical officer shortage that has hampered the investigation of serious crimes.

The pinch has led some cities to experiment to reduce strain on patrol officers.

Portland recently added unarmed "public support specialists" to take reports on things like vehicle break-ins and bike thefts, and in San Diego, licensed psychiatric clinicians go to mental health calls with officers.

"For me, I wonder, what the profession is going to be 20 years from now if we're having these challenges on a nationwide scale. Are we going to be able to recruit enough people to serve our cities?" asked Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell, whose force has lost 237 sworn officers through retirements or resignations since 2020.

Portland logged a record 89 homicides last year  roughly three times its historical average  and is on pace to top that this year after already tallying more than 50. A report completed for the city last month by the California Partnership for Safe Communities found it had the largest homicide rate increase among similarly sized cities and 75% of homicides in 2020 were by gun. The city has seen nearly 800 shootings this year.

That follows a national trend. While non-violent crime decreased during the pandemic, the murder rate increased nearly 30% in 2020 and the rate of assaults went up 10%, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

It's unclear what's driving the surge, but COVID-19 created huge social disruption and upended government and community support systems. Gun sales also spiked during the pandemic.

Experts say widely cited theories that violent crime is worse in places that changed policing tactics in the wake of protests over Floyd's murder don't bear out. Violent crime has increased in red and blue communities alike, regardless of their approach.

"The problem is you see cities where they didn't do any of those things where crime also went up and you'll see rural areas where crime also went up as well," said Ben Struhl, executive director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania.

"There's a lot of evidence that something bigger is going on than the social justice protests that happened, and it's probably more than one thing," said Struhl, whose center has worked with Baltimore, Philadelphia and Oakland to reduce gun violence.

In Portland, gun violence once largely limited to historically marginalized neighborhoods has spread to the downtown core and more affluent areas. Last month, an Uber driver was seriously wounded and his passenger killed in an unsolved shooting.

Jeremiah King, who is transitioning out of homelessness, was shot while trying to protect a friend who was being attacked just a short walk from the city's business district.

"He turned around and pulled a pistol out and I didn't see it. I didn't feel anything at first but 10 seconds later I could hardly breathe," King said as he sat on street after three nights in the hospital. "I thought I was going to pass away."

After King's shooting, three more people were injured and two killed by gunfire in the same area over a four-day span.

To address the violence, Portland's police chief broke up specialized units to bolster patrol numbers and moved detectives from assault, cold case and gun violence units to create a third eight-person homicide squad. That effectively stopped investigations into about 300 unsolved slayings going back decades, although Lovell says those investigations will resume when staffing levels return.

Still, Brian Spaulding's parents now must consider the possibility that one day no one will be assigned to his case. Their son, who would be 41 now, was a free spirit whose interests ranged from jiu jitsu to home-brewed beer to heavy metal  although he also was a sustaining member of the local classical radio station.

Brian's mother sees a twisted silver lining in the violence on Portland's streets.

"I keep thinking that with all of the gun violence that's going on, they might be able to get a gun that matches the gun that killed Brian," said Carolyn Spaulding, as she clutched a teddy bear made of scraps from his high school graduation quilt.

That gun violence has also spread outside Portland, to the suburban city of Gresham, Oregon.

Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg has seen 16 officers leave in his 10 months on the job and all of his detectives are handling homicide investigations as gun violence soars.

Conversations around police reform are "important work and it's an opportunity for us to better serve our community  but that said, as you transition to any of those new programs  which takes a while sometimes  you still have to be providing the basic services," Gullberg said.

For now, eight officers patrol a city of 115,000 people on a typical evening shift and must constantly make decisions about how to deploy limited resources.

On a recent night, police Sgt. Travis Garrison spotted a car with no plates driving erratically. The driver appeared high, probably on methamphetamine, and the passenger was almost comatose, with bloody track marks on his arm.

The driver had a suspended license, but the vehicle wasn't stolen and no one had an outstanding warrant. Garrison warned the driver to leave the car and find a ride home, and then headed to his next call. It would have taken hours to complete the testing necessary to prove the driver's meth use, Garrison said, and with officers depleted, the traffic stop wasn't a priority.

"Right now, because of the the spike in violent crime, we're only able to investigate murders," child abuse and sex crimes, he said. "We're triaging."

But what law enforcement says is a staffing crisis could actually be a case of misdirected resources, said Christy Lopez, co-director of Georgetown Law School's Center for Innovations in Community Safety.

And in some departments, police have sworn in new recruits this year, although the numbers aren't keeping up with attrition, they say.

"You really can't take it at face value when a department says you need more police officers. You need to look at a staffing audit: 'What are your police officers doing? What are they unable to do?' It might mean that you actually need another Boys and Girls Club, not more officers," she said.

Understaffed departments sometimes shift detectives to patrol because of political pressure, but research shows solving violent crime depresses crime rates more effectively than putting rank-and-file officers on the street, Lopez said.

"There may be some places where we need more police, but I'm fairly convinced from the evidence that I've seen over the decades that that can't be the answer everywhere."

Some have celebrated the downsizing, including homeless advocates in Los Angeles, where four out of five homeless outreach teams were disbanded.

"Police should be nowhere around outreach. You can't be the provider of services as well as the jailer," said Pete White, the founder and executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network. "My hope ... is that those resources that go to the police department are actually pointed towards real solutions."

Still many others are fed up with perceived lack of action by police.

In Philadelphia, where the department is down 550 officers from pre-pandemic staffing and another 860 are on medical leave or restricted duty, City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez said there are more than 30,000 complaints about abandoned cars awaiting police action. One of the worst areas is in her district where the cars block sidewalks and make the narrower streets impassable.

Officers normally assigned to a unit dealing with neighborhood issues have been shifted to the city center and violent hot spots around Philadelphia, where the homicide rate reached a record high last year.

The abandoned cars bring "trash in the areas, then you know other crimes, quality of life issues, drug dealing, shootings, killings," said Kimberly Washington, executive director of the Frankford Community Development Corporation. "This starts to look like the place where this can all go down because no one cares."

Royal Harris knows what that's like.

Growing up in Portland's gang territory in the 1990s, his brother, two first cousins, two second cousins and numerous friends were shot to death  and many of those cases remain unsolved.

Harris supports the temporary shut-down of the city's cold case unit if it means police can close fresh cases, even though it takes resources from solving his own loved ones' slayings.

"Under the current climate, somebody's going to feel cheated and we have to be honest with that. The question is, who do we cheat?" he said. "These hard decisions (have) to be made to stop this."

***
To feel safe to be yourself is a freedom everyone should know.

At G.I. Prides annual community event, held Saturday at Grand Islands Grace Abbott Park, that freedom was especially enjoyed by youths and adults of all types, many of whom came to the event adorned in a rainbow flag.

The strong turnout for the event was inspiring, said G.I. Pride Co-Chair Chrissy Brooks.

Im super excited. Even with a sprinkle and a little bit of chilly wind, we really had people come out, said Brooks. There are a lot of people in our community who are supportive of the LGBTQ community, and supportive of the queer people we have in our community.

The day of activities began with a march to Five Points Intersection, where participants were met with honks and waves of support.

It was super empowering, said Brooks. People are excited to be here, to feel pride, and to feel that their pride is power.

After the march everyone gathered for a group photo, a commemoration of their unity.

Brooks enjoyed being able to see so many people feeling safe and free to be themselves.

This is the culmination of a years worth of work, she said. Its so amazing to see the youth here, the LGBTQ community here, being supportive, knowing theyre loved and accepted, and knowing they belong here.

Aryn Huck, OutNebraska community organizer, applauded the community gathering.

I love the turnout today, they said. Its so important to show the power we have in the community, to show our love for each other, and just to have fun, especially at a time when LGBT rights are really under fire.

They added, Its a great time to come together to heal, to take some action together, and just to celebrate.

Amy Bennett, Grand Island YWCA executive director, celebrated the days diversity.

This fits our mission. Our mission is to eliminate racism and empower women and promote justice and dignity for all, she said. This is a great event to be able to come out and make sure we are promoting justice and dignity for all people.

Such open and supportive community events are needed, said Bennett.

The experience is important for people to understand that there are people who support the LGBT community and that we want equity for all people, she said. Its just amazing to see so many people gathering around for that.

Dawn Darling, with Chameleons, a Kearney-based organization that supports transgender people across Nebraska, said such gatherings create a greater sense of community.

Its so important to have these kind of events to help people know that theres other people like them around, and that its a safe place and they can make new friendships, she/he said. I think todays event has been great.

As a speaker for the day, Darling emphasized the need for supporting youths as they come to understand their own identities.

Kids explore their gender identity when theyre young, said Darling. They know who they are on the very inside. If you support them, they can explore that and try it out and see if its really who they are or if its something theyre toying with.

She/he added, If we support children, it helps their mental health, helps them have less depression, less anxiety, less suicidal ideation, and less trauma.
OMAHA  Do you or someone you know have what it takes to become Americas Small Business Person of the Year for 2023? If so, the U.S. Small Business Administration wants to hear from you.

The SBAs Nebraska District Office is ready to accept nominations for the 2023 National and District Small Business Week Awards, including the annual Small Business Person of the Year Award.

The winner will be honored at a local event during National Small Business Week in May, 2023.

Visit the SBAs dedicated website at www.sba.gov/nsbw to download forms, criteria, and guidelines for submitting a nomination.

The SBA Awards given in celebration of National and District Small Business Week include the following awards:

Nebraska District Small Business Week Categories:

 Small Business Person of the Year (National and District)

 Small Business Exporter (National and District)

The SBA Nebraska Small Business Person of the Year Award is an opportunity to highlight a successful small business from anywhere in our great state that has grown in revenue, overcome adversity, and gives back to the community, says Tim Mittan, SBA Nebraska District Director. We hope we will receive many nominations because we know there are many small businesses throughout Nebraska that deserve this award.

The Nebraska District Office must receive all nominations by electronic submission ONLY to the Districts BOX account no later 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 8.

To obtain additional information about the National Nomination Guidelines, please contact Elizabeth Yearwood at Elizabeth.yearwood@sba.gov.
President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war?

You voted:
As a masters student at Clemson with dreams of becoming a naturalist, Austin Jenkins received this advice from an entomology professor: If you study insects, youll have an understanding for almost everything in the natural world.

Now, having taught for 15 years with Clemson Cooperative Extensions S.C. Master Naturalist Program, Jenkins says his professor was exactly right.

Insects are integral for an understanding of nature. Indeed, nature is mostly insects, Jenkins said. Insects occupy 80% of everything in the animal kingdom, and there are far more species of insects than there are plants, as well. So, they have been one of the more successful forces upon the Earth for quite some time, at least above water, and if you really want to understand the natural world, I think you have to have an understanding of insects.

With that in mind, the S.C. Master Naturalist Program is now offering the online program Entomology for the Naturalist in an on-demand format. From the day of registration, participants have 120 days to view the lectures as many times as they wish before their access to the course ends.

Fully online and open to all, the course is a series of 30 video lectures, each approximately 30 minutes in length, and no textbook is needed as supplemental material is provided in an online format.

Entomology for the Naturalist will explore the evolution, natural history and characteristics of insects and their kin, including the numerous reasons for their incredible success. The course will survey the vast insect diversity, focusing on the groups of insects you will most likely encounter in nature.

Common South Carolina species from each group will be discussed, and the course will show how these different species interact with one another and the broader ecosystem by investigating insect ecology, covering symbiosis, pollination and social behavior.

With about 1 million described species, and more than three times that total estimated to exist, insects have their hands  or antennae, as it were  in virtually everything that takes place in the natural world.

When you combine birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians together, there are only 43,000 species of those total, said James Blake, S.C. Master Natural Program state director. This course is all about educating the public, and weve been educating Master Naturalists on a statewide basis since 2007. They are required to take advanced training each year, and this course fits into that, but it is something that can go well beyond the Master Naturalist Program out to the general public, because it is a fascinating topic.

And so, while their reputation isnt generally a positive one among most humans, its easy to see the hugely significant role they play in nature.

They do transmit some diseases to us and are pests in the home and things like that, but once you get away from that, theres a dazzling array of really fantastic interactions that the insects are occupying, Jenkins said.

Just look at the more than 24,000 species of beetles in North America and you will see a remarkable array of colors, shapes, and sizes, Blake said.

There will be no interaction with the instructor as part of the course, but there is a discussion board where students can interact. The registration fee for the course is $200. Participants must complete 26 of the 30 lectures to earn a certificate.

The reason its called Entomology for the Naturalist isnt because its only for those people from our S.C. Master Naturalist Program; its not about how to kill bugs  theres plenty of information on that out there  but its more about how to celebrate insects. Its a window into the natural world thats more ubiquitous than any other group. So it enables people to start to celebrate nature.

Registration is available at: https://onlineplus.clemson.edu/browse/extension-online/courses/entomology-for-the-naturalist-on-demand.
The South Carolina State Library African American Genealogy Webinar Series will host local author Dr. Walter Curry Jr., who will present on "Writing Family History: The Narrative History Approach" on Wednesday, Oct. 12.

The webinar will focus on how to employ the Narrative History Approach in writing biographies about relatives or family-related specific events in a broader context. Examples from the acclaimed book, "The Awakening: The Seawright-Ellison Family Saga, Vol.1, A Narrative History" will be used during the presentation. The webinar will also include strategies to incorporate the Narrative History approach in writing family history.

Walter B. Curry Jr., Ed. D is a native of Orangeburg. He received a bachelors degree in political science from South Carolina State University, and has earned graduate degrees in education, which includes a doctorate degree in Curriculum & Instruction from Argosy University, Sarasota.

In 2018, Curry launched Renaissance Publications, LLC., a self-publishing company, which publishes books that focuses on African American history through ancestry. In addition, Dr. Curry is currently building an art collection of paintings of his ancestral stories focus on the concept of experience.

The South Carolina State Library welcomes people of all abilities to participate in our programs. The African American Genealogy Series webinars are great for anyone interested in learning more about South Carolina genealogy and how they might conduct their own family history research. To register for the webinar, visit https://statelibrary.sc.libcal.com/event/9040131.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to take part (please contact two weeks in advance), or have questions please contact Virginia Pierce at vpierce@statelibrary.sc.gov or 803-734-8646. Closed captioning is available.

The South Carolina State Library is the primary administrator of federal and state support for the state's libraries. Headquartered in Columbia, the library is funded by the State of South Carolina, by the federal government through the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and other sources.
Special elections will be held Tuesday, Sept. 13, in the towns of Elloree and Norway.

Elloree

A special election will be held Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of former Elloree Town Council member Laurence Livingston.

Livingston resigned from Seat 2. The seat carries a four-year term, which expires in November 2023.

Filing for the seat ended July 27. Lakeisha P. Ellison was the sole candidate who filed.

Only voters living in that particular district can vote for candidates seeking the town council seat in the district.

They can vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Elloree Elementary School, 200 Warrior Drive in Elloree

Norway

A special election will be held Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of former Norway town councilwoman Shirley Spires.

Spires resigned from Seat 4 on Norway Town Council. Her seat carries a four-year term, which expires in November 2025.

Filing for the seat ended July 27. No one filed for the seat.

Orangeburg County Voter Registration and Elections Director Aurora Smalls has said the election will be held with only write-in spaces. The person with the most write-in votes will be declared the winner.

Only voters living in a particular district can vote for candidates seeking the town council seat in that district.

They can vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Norway Senior Center, 105 St. John Ave. in Norway.

A referendum will also be held Sept. 13 asking all voters in the Town of Norway if they want to move from single-member council districts to electing members at-large, with all voters being able to vote for all council seats.

All voters living within the town limits will be able to vote on the referendum question.

Norway Town Council on July 11 gave first-reading approval to the ordinance to move from single-member districts to all members of council being elected from the town in at-large voting.

A final second reading was given at an Aug. 1 council meeting during which Norway Mayor Tracie Clemons said she was overriding the votes of two council members who voted to amend the ordinance to take the referendum question off of the ballot.

The Municipal Association of South Carolina later deemed that while the town had a strong-mayor, weak-council form of municipal government, Clemons has no authority to override votes.

As of this past Thursday, however, Smalls said the referendum question remained on the ballot.

"It's still on the ballot because we have to get ballot information a certain time in order to get the ballots ready for the election. You're talking about an election that's going to be next week. So, yes, we already got the information, and we have not received any information on any changes. So if there's no changes, then we're good to go," Smalls said.

Clemons has said that if the ordinance is approved, it will go into effect during the November 2023 election.
Members of Burg Chinese Chorus perform during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

ESSEN, Germany, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In the offline part of the concert, students from the local Burg Chinese Chorus sang via video link with their peers from several high school choirs in Chengdu, China.

They presented famous songs from both countries in Chinese and German and garnered warm applause from the audience.

Music is a language that crosses borders, Wu Ken, Chinese Ambassador to Germany, said at the event.

Wu said he hoped the students would continue to use their songs as a link to be explorers of Chinese and German cultures, promoters of friendship between the two countries and practitioners of cross-cultural understanding.

Speaking at the event, Olaf Millmann, organizing director of the Burg Chinese Chorus, said that the chorus has continued to build bridges through music which helps deepen the exchanges between young people from Germany and China.

He said he hoped that the chorus would continue to contribute to deepening the friendship between the two countries in the future.

Chorus member Ben Hanenberg said that participating in chorus activities and learning to sing Chinese songs had always been an essential part of his Chinese learning. He said he plans to study in China and looks forward to discovering the country. 

Members of Burg Chinese Chorus perform during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

A member of Burg Chinese Chorus performs during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

Members of Burg Chinese Chorus perform during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

Members of Burg Chinese Chorus perform during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)

Members of Burg Chinese Chorus perform during the cloud concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Germany in Essen, Germany, on Sept. 10, 2022. A cloud concert sung by youth from China and Germany was held here on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. (Xinhua/Ren Pengfei)
(TBTCO) - Ket luan Hoi nghi voi cac doanh nghiep nuoc ngoai, Thu tuong Pham Minh Chinh khang inh Viet Nam cam ket tao lap moi truong kinh doanh tot nhat huong en cac chuan muc cua OECD, tren tinh than cung thang, "loi ich hai hoa, rui ro chia se" voi cac nha au tu boi "neu lam viec voi nhau ma ben thua, ben thang thi khong phai la hop tac".
Belgium's Climate Minister Philippe Henry recently proposed to reduce speed limits on all roads by 20 km/h.

In an effort to curb CO2 emissions, Wallonia continues preparing its air, climate, and energy plan. More than 200 pages of propositions have already been compiled for that purpose, with the goal being a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030. To achieve this ambitious goal, some drastic measures will be necessary.

Walloon Climate Minister Philippe Henry has thus proposed reducing speed limits on all roads by 20 km/h. This would mean that 100 km/h is the new limit on motorways, 70 km/h on country roads, and 30 km/h for all remaining areas.

"There are already a lot of places where it is not possible to drive with more than 100 km/h, so it makes sense", explained the minister. "Nevertheless, it is a societal choice and I already see that there are many people who drive slower due to energy prices."

According to estimates from Vias institute (formerly known as the Belgian Road Safety Institute), a 100 km drive would require an additional ten minutes in time, but also see an emissions reduction of 15%.

Although nothing has been decided and the issue still has to be debated, Minister Henry sees no other realistic way of meeting climate goals other than reducing the speed limits.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stressed his country will never abandon the nuclear weapons it needs to counter the United States, which he accused of pushing to weaken the Norths defenses and eventually collapse his government, state media said Friday.

Kim made the comments during a speech Thursday at North Koreas rubber-stamp parliament, where members passed legislation governing the use of nuclear weapons, which Kim described as a step to cement the countrys nuclear status and make clear such weapons will not be bargained.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's office said he was deeply concerned about the new law, and noted that the North's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program continues to disregard the resolutions of the Security Council to cease such activities.

The Secretary-General reiterates his call to the DPRK to resume dialogue with the key parties concerned with a view to achieving sustainable peace and the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Guterress office said in a statement, using an acronym for the North's formal name.

The new law spells out conditions where North would be inclined to use its nuclear weapons, including when it determines that its leadership is facing an imminent nuclear or non-nuclear attack by hostile forces. The law requires North Koreas military to automatically execute nuclear strikes against enemy forces, including their starting point of provocation and the command, if Pyongyangs leadership comes under attack.

The law also says North Korea could use nukes to prevent an unspecified catastrophic crisis to its government and people, a loose definition that experts say reflect an escalatory nuclear doctrine that could create greater concerns for neighbors.

Kim also criticized South Korea over its plans to expand its conventional strike capabilities and revive large-scale military exercises with the United States to counter the Norths growing threats, describing them as a dangerous military action that raises tensions.

Kim has made increasingly provocative threats of nuclear conflict toward the United States and its allies in Asia, also warning that the North would proactively use its nuclear weapons when threatened. His latest comments underscored the growing animosity in the region as he accelerates the expansion of his nuclear weapons and missiles program.

The purpose of the United States is not only to remove our nuclear might itself, but eventually forcing us to surrender or weaken our rights to self-defense through giving up our nukes, so that they could collapse our government at any time, Kim said in the speech published by the Norths official Korean Central News Agency.

Let them sanction us for 100 days, 1,000 days, 10 years or 100 years, Kim said. We will never give up our rights to self-defense that preserves our countrys existence and the safety of our people just to temporarily ease the difficulties we are experiencing now.

Kim also addressed domestic issues, saying North Korea would begin its long-delayed rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in November. He didnt specify how many doses it would have, where they would come from, or how they would be administered across his population of 26 million people.

GAVI, the nonprofit that runs the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program, said in June it understood North Korea had accepted an offer of vaccines from China. GAVI said at the time the specifics of the offer were unclear.

North Korea rejected previous offers by COVAX, likely because of international monitoring requirements, and has also ignored U.S. and South Korean offers of vaccines and other COVID-19 aid.

Kim last month declared victory over COVID-19 and ordered preventive measures eased just three months after his government for the first time acknowledged an outbreak. Experts believe the North's disclosures on its outbreak are manipulated to help Kim maintain absolute control.

The North Korean report about Kims speech came a day after South Korea extended its latest olive branch, proposing a meeting with North Korea to resume temporary reunions of aging relatives separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, which were last held in 2018.

Experts say its highly unlikely North Korea would accept the Souths offer considering the stark deterioration in inter-Korean ties amid the stalemate in larger nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The U.S.-North Korean diplomacy derailed in 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling sanctions against the North and the Norths denuclearization steps.

Kim was combative toward South Korea in Thursdays speech and urged his country to expand the operational roles of its tactical nuclear weapons and accelerate their deployment to strengthen the countrys war deterrent. Those comments appeared to align with a ruling party decision in June to approve unspecified new operational duties for front-line troops, which analysts say likely include plans to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons targeting rival South Korea along their tense border.

Cheong Seong Chang, a senior analyst at South Koreas Sejong Institute, said Kims comments and the new North Korean law amount to a warning that it would launch immediate nuclear strikes on the United States and South Korea if they ever attempt to decapacitate Pyongyangs leadership.

The North is also communicating a threat that it could use its nuclear weapons during conflicts with South Koreas conventional forces, which would raise the risk of accidental clashes escalating into a nuclear crisis, Cheong said.

North Korea has been speeding its development of nuclear-capable, short-range missiles that can target South Korea since 2019. Experts say its rhetoric around those missiles communicates a threat to proactively use them in warfare to blunt the stronger conventional forces of South Korea and the United States. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the South to deter aggression from the North.

The U.S.-led diplomatic push to defuse the nuclear standoff has been further complicated by an intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and Russias war on Ukraine, which deepened the divide in the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow have blocked U.S. efforts to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang over its revived long-range missile tests this year.

Kim has dialed up weapons tests to a record pace in 2020, launching more than 30 ballistic weapons, including the first demonstrations of his intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017.

U.S. and South Korean officials say Kim may up the ante soon by ordering the Norths first nuclear test in five years as he pushes a brinkmanship aimed at forcing Washington to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating concessions from a position of strength.

Experts say Kim is also trying to strengthen his leverage by strengthening his cooperation with China and Russia in an emerging partnership aimed at undercutting U.S. influence.

North Korea has repeatedly blamed the United States for the crisis in Ukraine, saying the Wests hegemonic policy justified Russian military actions in Ukraine to protect itself. U.S. officials said this week the Russians are in the process of purchasing North Korean ammunition, including artillery shells and rockets, to ease their supply shortages in the war against Ukraine.

North Korea also has joined Russia and Syria as the only nations to recognize the independence of two pro-Russia breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine and has discussed send its construction workers to those regions to work on rebuilding.
Killing a pedestrian in a crosswalk or school zone with a car could become a felony in Wyoming, thanks to a bill that could be introduced during next years legislative session.

The bill would amend penalties for vehicular homicide in the state, now a misdemeanor. The current draft carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for the proposed crime, and a fine of as much as $10,000.

The proposal comes after a 13-year-old, Makaili Evans, was killed when a driver hit him while he was crossing the street to McCormick Junior High School in Cheyenne last year. The driver was reportedly distracted looking at her child in the car when she went through the crosswalk without braking.

Three days later, two other teenage students were hit and injured by an SUV driver at an intersection near Cheyenne East High School.

Janelle Jones, Mak Evans mother, told the committee in May that shed like to see vehicular homicide made a felony. Since her sons death, shes started a nonprofit called For Mak aimed at promoting crosswalk safety.

Pedestrian deaths can be 100% preventable, Jones said. Driving is a conscious decision, it is a responsibility, and there needs to be a consequence for careless and negligent driving that results in the death of an innocent pedestrian.

Wyoming ranks last in the nation in pedestrian and cyclist safety, according to a recent study by the League of American Bicyclists.

Vehicular homicide is already a felony in Colorado and Utah, though on a lower level than most violent crimes there. Those laws may be used to help shape any potential bill here.

In theory, making the offense a felony would deter people from driving distracted, especially near crosswalks and school zones.

But some lawmakers said thats easier said than done.

Im not sure that increasing the penalty will have much of an effect without law enforcement presence  most people dont know what the penalty is anyway, and so I dont think it has anywhere near as much deterrent value as we might wish it would, said Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, at the May meeting.

Rep. Ember Oakley, R-Riverton, said that most significant crimes involve intent or malice.

I think that the argument for deterrence is low, she said. We can do high penalties, does it help anything? Does it deter? ... Its a different type and kind when were discussing negligent acts and accidents.

The draft will be discussed at an upcoming Joint Judiciary Committee meeting this week in Casper, where it may be changed or could be voted down altogether.
In January 2013, then-Gov. Matt Mead signed into law sweeping changes that effectively made Wyomings schools superintendent a ceremonial position. It had taken lawmakers only 12 days to pass Senate File 104, which removed the elected superintendent from day-to-day management of the states Department of Education in favor of a director appointed by the governor.

Lawmakers had a strained relationship with the superintendent at the time, Cindy Hill, with many legislators critical of how she was running the education department. Hill and her supporters countered that by stripping away the superintendents powers, the Legislature had effectively nullified the will of the voters who had elected her two years earlier.

Hill attended the governors signing ceremony. Afterward, she accompanied her attorney in serving Mead with a lawsuit challenging the new laws constitutionality.

A year later, the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down the law. But its impact continued to reverberate in the form of disagreements between the Republican who backed the law and those who viewed it as a usurping of the voters will.

Eight years later, a similar movement is now being discussed among state lawmakers. This time, its target is the secretary of state  Wyomings No. 2 elected official and the person responsible for overseeing the states elections.

Last month, a legislative committee moved to take elections administration out of the purview of the secretary of state. Instead, elections would be run by a separate agency with an appointed director.

The move, by the Joint Corporations Committee, came in response to Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper, securing the GOP nomination in the August primary. Gray, who is running unopposed in the general election, called President Joe Bidens election illegitimate and fraudulent, and made voter fraud and banning ballot drop boxes a key focus of his campaign  although cases of voter fraud in Wyoming are exceedingly rare.

The committees vote has parallels to the so-called Hill Bill, with its backers saying the change is needed to address a critical part of state government  this time around, the administration of elections.

Im concerned based on some of the rhetoric and some of the mailers I saw in regards to our most likely upcoming secretary of state that we may be in a precarious position when it comes to election administration for the next four years, said Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, who proposed the change and who voted for Senate File 104 when it was adopted in 2013.

But other veteran lawmakers have cautioned against pursuing a similar path, one that raises constitutional questions about the Legislatures role in deciding executive branch duties.

Weve been down this road before in the education area, Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, said during the committees meeting. Scott, who supported Senate File 104 at the time, called the consequences most unfortunate.

Legality

While there are clear parallels between Hill Bill and the recent bill draft, some observers say the current effort is different  and this time, possibly constitutional.

When the Wyoming Supreme Court deemed Senate File 104 unconstitutional, the justices mainly focused on the part of the states constitution that says the general supervision of the public schools shall be entrusted to the state superintendent of public instruction, whose powers and duties shall be prescribed by law.

We recognize that (the bill) does not eliminate the office of Superintendent. It has, however, effectively marginalized the office and has left it an empty shell, Justice James Burke wrote in the courts 2014 opinion.

But while the Wyoming Constitution lays out the superintendents duties, it leaves the duties of the secretary of state up to the Legislature to decide. As Zwonitzer sees it, that provides room for lawmakers to take elections oversight away from the secretary.

You dont have a similar provision regarding the secretary of state, what you have is the provision ... that creates the office and says the powers and duties should be prescribed by law, said University of Utah law professor Bob Keiter, an expert on the Wyoming Constitution.

The bill draft would likely amend part of the states election code (22-2-103), which deems the secretary of state the chief election officer and says that the officeholder shall maintain uniformity in the applications and operations of the election laws of Wyoming.

What the Legislature can grant, the Legislature can take away, said David Adler, a constitutional scholar and lecturer.

Casper attorney and outgoing Sen. Drew Perkins put forward a similar line of reasoning, saying that if the Legislature has the power to assign something, it also has the power to reassign it.

What if, Perkins theorized, Wyoming grew to 5 million people, and the Secretary of States Office could no longer handle the breadth of the states elections?

Does an office get as big as it gets and [the Legislature] can never adjust the office? Perkins asked.

Perkins, who lost his reelection bid last month, also questioned why lawmakers couldnt act if they have concerns.

He may go in and be the greatest secretary of state in the history of the state of Wyoming or he may go in and torch the office, Perkins said. Do you stand back and watch while someone devastates an office?

Hill, who finished out her term in 2014 before mounting an unsuccessful run for governor against Mead, argues that the Legislature is misinterpreting its role in scenarios like these.

Legislators who support these efforts do not understand the constitutional principle of separation of powers, she said in a statement to the Star-Tribune. The Legislature must confine itself to its constitutionally prescribed role and must not seek to take unto itself powers belonging to other branches.

If Zwonitzers proposal is successful, Gray would still be in charge of the states entire business division, among other important duties. But though it isnt named in the state constitution, election supervision may be one of the secretarys inherent powers  basically, generally accepted duties traditionally associated with the office, Keiter said.

When most people think of the secretary of state, they think of election responsibilities more than providing a seal on business filings, he said.

It would be up to the courts to decide whether this bill infringes on those inherent powers. But until Gray is sworn in and a bill is successfully passed and enacted, it cant face a legal challenge.

Chuck Gray might have standing once the general [election] is over, Perkins said. Theres nothing to sue about yet. Legislators talk about ideas.

If a case is brought, the argument will likely center around just how far the Legislature can go in setting the powers of the office, Adler said.

When is the Legislature using its statutory authority to govern the office in a way that does not eclipse the constitutional authority? That would always be the question. That would be the subject of constitutional law cases, he said.

Gray, for his part, said the attempt would violate the constitution. He indicated he would push back on efforts to change the office.

Its nothing more than another unconstitutional power grab by leftist politicians who dont care about the peoples right to direct their government, he said in a statement. Ill do all I can to give voters the power to govern and not let these sold-out insiders get away with this.

The will of the people

Gray beat Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, by nearly 13,000 votes to secure the Republican nomination. He earned around half of the total votes cast in the primary.

Opponents of the proposal point out that Gray was legitimately elected by the voters of Wyoming, something that should be respected by lawmakers.

Elections are the means by which a democracy can function, Hill said in her statement. Transferring duties away from elected offices nullifies the vote, making our system into something other than a democracy.

Hill said that if lawmakers do strip the secretarys election powers, they would essentially be claiming to know better than the voters as to who should occupy the office.

In Hills case, she and two people who voted for her brought the the lawsuit that ended up overturning the law that removed most of her powers. Keiter, the Wyoming Constitution expert, said he would expect voters to be involved in any similar lawsuit that could be filed on Grays behalf.

This would essentially nullify their choice, Keiter said.

There may also be a very strong argument to be made that taking away election powers could be a violation of the separation of powers between the Legislature and the secretarys office, which falls under the executive branch, Keiter said.

Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, voted against Senate File 104 in 2013, but is in favor of moving forward with the secretary of state bill.

There is a bit of right and wrong in the world, said Case, who serves on the corporations committee. Im sorry, the elections werent stolen.

Case partly voted against the Hill Bill because it was drawn up during the session in a hasty process that left less time for the public to weigh in. That wont be the case this time. The draft bill will likely return to the corporations committee for a future vote. If it succeeds in that venue, it would be months before the full Legislature considers the matter, giving the public time to speak out either for or against.

The bill limiting Hills power cruised through the lawmaking process, but legislation targeting the secretarys office likely wont have as smooth a path. Since 2014, the Wyoming Legislature has moved farther to the right, and the part of the Republican Party angered by Senate File 104 now make up a larger faction within the statehouse.

I think putting it on the table to talk about it is not just disrespecting the voters. Putting it through in a week in a regular session, without public input, that would be disrespecting the voters, Case said. We can talk about ideas in Wyoming. Its still OK to talk about ideas.

Star-Tribune staff writer Ellen Gerst contributed to this report.
Editors note: This story is part of an ongoing Gazette series examining the rise of fentanyl in our community. This article contains a few strong words that could offend some readers.

<&rule>

Bradleys room was quiet.

The Angel family, two parents, two children, and a cycle of cats and dogs, had lived in the same West End house since moving to Billings nearly 30 years ago.

At home on a March morning last year were Bradley and his younger sister, Katie. Outside, the morning was clear but cold, the temperature nearly freezing.

After graduating high school, Katie had briefly moved to California and then returned home to live with her mother and Bradley, her parents having separated in 2020.

Katie was getting ready for work that morning. Her mother, Kristi, a postal carrier, was out delivering mail. Her father, Jon, a professional counselor, had moved to a home nearby that doubled as his office. Bradley, who was 24, was in his bedroom, the same one hed slept in as a boy, a room full of trinkets hed collected over his lifetime including the stuffed mouse hed played with as a 5-year-old.

Katie opened Bradleys door and felt a rush of air chilled by a window left open during the night. Bradley wasnt moving. His skin was gray. He looked dead.

The night before, Bradley had taken an oxycodone tablet hed gotten from a friend. Bradley had long struggled with his mental health and had self-medicated with oxy before. This time, the little pill was tainted with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more potent than morphine.

A dozen first responders poured into the house and tried to revive Bradley by squeezing doses of Narcan into his nostrils. Paramedics found a pulse and rushed him to Billings Clinic hospital where he remained on life support for six days. His body still breathed, but Bradley was dying.

His overdose rocked the family like a hand grenade, Katie said recently, catching her in the blast along with their parents and Bradleys then-4-year-old son who was living with his mother.

He was gone

At the hospital, Bradley lay motionless. The number of family members holding vigil at his bedside was limited by COVID restrictions.

His heart was beating, but he was gone, his father recalled.

On March 22nd<&rdpStrong>, </&rdpStrong>Bradleys body stopped breathing, his mother and grandmother nearby.

During 2021, the Angels were far from the only family grieving the loss of a loved one to fentanyl. Across the country last year, more than 71,000 people died from fentanyl overdose, the majority of those by accident.

This year in Montana alone, at least 47 people have died from fentanyl. Eighteen of those deaths were in Yellowstone County. At least 159 other people in the county survived an overdose, according to the Billings Police Department.

Its so bad on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation that after four fentanyl deaths and 17 overdoses in a single week this year, the nation declared a state of emergency.

In the Billings region, fentanyl overdoses have become so frequent that police and first-responders have reported deploying Narcan, a medication that can immediately reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, two or three times in a single shift. RiverStone, the countys public health agency, gives Narcan away to just about anyone who asks for it.

Among people Bradleys age in the United States, synthetic opioids like fentanyl are more deadly than guns or any other illicit drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Local law enforcement officers have seized shipments amounting to more than 10,000 fentanyl pills so far this year.

State officials, health care workers and coroners have only begun to appreciate the impact of whats now acknowledged to be a public health crisis. Fentanyl, produced in huge batches by cartel super labs, has been seized by law enforcement as loose powder and by the thousands in the form of pills. Many of those pills are labeled with M30, mimicking the prescription drug oxycodone. Those pills have been bought on the streets of Billings, Miles City, Great Falls and nearly every other city in the state. The pills also arrive in the mail. The pill Bradley Angel died from was purchased by someone else on the dark web, a lawless, black-market slice of the internet.

Bradley was a tender boy

In 1994, the Angels, then just Jon and Kristi, came to Billings. Both got jobs at the Billings Gazette. Two years later, Bradley was born. By the time he could walk, he could also climb. He had to be pulled off a bookshelf by a sitter who struggled to keep up with him. When they exhausted trying to find someone to watch over Bradley, his parents brought him to the Gazette where he ran among the desks and looked in drawers. Bradley came of age in the newsroom, where Jon worked the day shift in IT, and Kristi worked nights as part of the editorial staff.

Being a parent, you dont know anything. You bring home this kid and youre like, What do we do now? We understood that we were trying to figure out what we were doing as we moved along, Kristi Angel said recently.

Katie was born in 1999. A few days after the new baby left the hospital, Bradley, whod gotten too accustomed to being an only child, asked his mom if she could take Katie back. But, hostilities toward his new sibling soon faded. His parents recounted in Bradleys obituary that at four years old, Katie became tired while walking with her family through a state park in Arizona, and her parents pretended to leave her behind.

We cant leave Katie, Bradley told his parents. She wont live.

Books yes, school no

Bradley took to books, backpacking and collecting trinkets, but he didnt take to school. Teachers all acknowledged his potential, but couldnt help him find interest in classwork. His parents received a few calls from Billings police, but the most serious crime was when a teenage Bradley and a friend wrecked an occupied Port-a-Potty. Jon and Kristi covered the cost.

During his eighth-grade year at Will James Middle School, Kristi took the day off work to attend an entire day of school with Bradley. By the time they got to his science class, hed sunk nearly beneath his desk.

I said, Dont worry about going to class, doing your homework, or being on time. School was not his thing. He didnt like it at all, Kristi said. Bradley told his mom sarcasm kills.

It was also in eighth grade that Bradleys parents first suspected he was using marijuana. It wasnt until he turned 16 that Bradleys parents confronted him about it. Bradley was blunt with his father. He was going to smoke pot, and he didnt care how his parents felt about it.

He said, I dont want to lie to you, but thats what Im going to do, and theres nothing you can do to stop me. I thought for a second and in an odd way, I kind of respected that, Jon Angel said. I appreciated that he was being completely honest with me.

Because of my line of work now, Ive come to understand marijuana is benign in the lives of adults, but its distinctly destructive to an adolescent mind. I think I would have responded a little more forcefully to Brads marijuana use, if Id known it at the time, said Jon, who today works as a mental health counselor.

While Bradley was living at home, he lost two bags of pot he hadnt yet paid for, his dad tossing them in a dumpster three blocks away. Kristi disrupted Bradleys drug connections in high school by going through his text messages and responding to certain contacts, Do not text my son for drugs.

And I went to the people at West High and told them, this is going down on your campus, Kristi said.

The Angels walked the razors edge and they navigated between their authority as parents and their sons agency as he grew into adulthood. His parents didnt know if hed graduate until days before he got his diploma.

Its true that kids have their own agency. They get to make a lot of choices that parents dont like. Theres no way to stop them from making scary choices. You try to keep the lines of communication open. You try to educate them about the risks their taking, Jon said.

I love you dad

Bradley was always thinking, and he engaged often and deeply with his father as they both tried to make sense of his thoughts. His father would find books Bradley had plucked randomly from the familys bookshelves when he swept Bradleys room for drugs.

Kristi and Jon were candid with their two children. Both kids started counseling in their teens. Jon said Bradleys substance use, which worsened through high school, was self-medication. Just a year after graduating high school, two of Bradleys friends had died: one was struck and killed by a drunk driver, another killed himself.

In Jons ambition to save his son, he packed him into an SUV for an 11-day road trip. Backpacking trips during the summer were common for the Angels, but Jon and Bradley drove north, rolling up more than 5,000 miles into Canada in 2013, in time to see the solstice on a lonely Arctic beach.

Jon brought a book on addiction to read to Bradley, a way of getting through to him the risks he was taking. The lectures didnt achieve what Jon had hoped, but he took hundreds of photos of Bradley enjoying himself on the trip, additions to the nearly 40,000 photos Jon has saved on a hard drive.

Bradley didnt seal himself away from his father. He unfurled thoughts on his life and dreams in conversations that would extend late into the night. They exchanged text messages, pages and pages of Bradley picking his fathers brain about morality as he hungered for guidance.

He texted his dad:

<&rdpEm>The last time you were in Bozeman when we talked on the phone for like 3 hours, it was a deeply emotional and spiritual conversation for me but it just made me realize that theres a million things I dont know, Bradley wrote. Like, I knew that before but that talk really drove it home. Its been giving me a lot of anxiety when I think about it but its also super enriching when I think about it. I want to experience what youve experienced but it seems like I have to go through some really fucked-up shit to get to that apex that youve seen. It just makes me think that I have to experience something so dark to build a sense of self-worth. And I feel like I have already experienced the darkest darks that I can, losing two of my best friends in two years, two real brothers. Two guys that I really connected with and I still havent even come close to any sort of enlightenment. Like obviously thats not the case but I feel like Im really standing right on the edge of the pit and I can either jump in and get completely fucked or I can walk away with my experience and try to grow from it. I love you, dad.</&rdpEm>

His father said he loved him, too.

Finding a friend

In looking for that sense of self-worth, Bradley worked a number of jobs, including helping to paint houses with Jons brother in Bozeman. It was while working at a Billings Burger King that he met a 16-year-old named David Reichenberg. At that time, Bradley was 21 and already had a son.

They fell into an easy friendship, leaving the kitchen to huddle in the managers office to watch music videos together. Soon, they were meeting at each others home. Bradley and Davids time together usually followed girlfriend breakups. It was after Bradley ended a relationship in early 2021 that they were together nearly every day. Those mellow nights together incubated a tight bond.

In an exchange of messages about a month before his overdose, Bradley told David that what they were was beautiful.

People always talk about soulmates in like [a] romantic way but youve made me realize that theres another type of soulmate and youre it for me, Bradley wrote.

Bradleys little sister

Katie grew up outside of her brothers immediate orbit, bonded by little beyond music. Katie cant remember too many displays of affection, but knew the two were artistically inclined. Bradley gave Katie her first set of acrylic paints in fifth grade, starting a hobby thats since persisted.

The past two years have been a salad tosser of trauma, she said of her move to California, her parents separation, and her brothers death.

Nothing shakes me, she said.

She and Bradley had just started to reconcile over the year before his death, during brief car rides together and sharing which artists they were listening to, she said. She resents that fentanyl has stolen whatever chance she had of continuing to build that relationship.

Katie was working as a caregiver at an assisted living facility in Billings. She had confided in a coworker her anxiety over the potential of finding the body of an elderly resident.

You will, her coworker said. And you dont know when its going to happen.

When she opened Bradleys door that morning, nothing moved or made a sound. And then, she was calling 911. The dispatcher asked her to stay on the line until an ambulance arrived, but she couldnt do that. She hung up, and called her parents.

Nothing compares to being the one that tells someone their kid is dead, twice in a row. Mom didnt believe it. Dad was doubtful, she said.

If you have two children and one of them has died, Katie said, your first thought is going to be whats happened to the other one. She wanted to be the voice that let her parents know she was still alive, and wanted to exercise what little control she had that morning. In making those calls, she said, her parents got the clearest, closest option to the truth.

People in uniforms flooded into her home and paramedics administered Naloxone to revive Bradley. Police peppered her with questions about how Bradley got the drugs. By the time her parents arrived, medical crews had a pulse, and Bradley was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Katie, in shock, said it felt like she was plugged into a wall.

It just felt like there was electricity going through me the entire time. I did not feel like I was in the drivers seat, she said.

Over the next week, Bradleys heart kept beating, and members of his family paraded in and out of his room. At his side, his sister spoke to him. She told him about his son, Sabastian. She also joked that hed found a great way of getting out of house-sitting for his dad. Leading up to the day doctors took him off life support, she watched her brothers body change, but never looked away.

This is the only chance that I would have to look, be present and show up. Not knowing is so much worse, and I would rather be the one to have found him than anyone else, she said.

Even off life support, Bradley didnt go quietly. As an organ donor, surgeons waited so he could make good on his donations. But he kept breathing for four more hours unassisted; too long for him to be able to donate anything but his eyes and few tissues.

His mother recalled the day he died. He left her life the way hed always lived, she said between exhausted sighs: sad, funny and misunderstood.

I really tried to understand him, she said.

An empty bed

Memories of Bradley, and his sense of humor, are preserved. His bedroom hasnt been changed since he died. His shirts and sweaters still hang in his closet, some of which didnt arrive until the month after he died. His mother pulled one of them to showcase, a black shirt reading Kanye 2020 across the front. The stuffed mouse his father bought for him still looks out from his chest of drawers onto an empty bed. One of the thousands of pictures of Bradley occasionally make their way into Jons texts to his family.

I know that theyve also sufferedThats a strange and difficult part of this is that I also feel responsible for helping my family with their own grief. In the midst of my own destruction, I have to take care of other people to, so sending photos, I hope its a way of keeping him alive and present in their memories. One of the worst things you can do as a therapist is to shut down and move on and not continue to talk and share stories and relish good memories, Jon said.

Its a new kind of pain. You could sit there and ask me questions and talk about it, but still I can assure you that you really have no idea just how profound the loss is, he said.

Sabastian, and Bradley, live on

As a 19-year-old, Bradley was in the hospital for a very different reason. His son Sabastian was being born. Bradley was laying prone on the hospital floor. He hadnt eaten and was worried about his girlfriend whose complicated labor forced a caesarian section. Nurses attended to Bradley as he waited for his son to arrive.

A few hours later, he was holding the newborn Sabastian in his arms. Bradley would go to his grave with Sabastians birthdate tattooed on his arm.

Sabastian now spends weekends with his grandparents, who share stories of his father and see Bradley in Sabastians knack for wisecracks and collecting trinkets. The Angels dont hide from Sabastian the fact that his father is gone.

Sabastians obsession is cars, and like his dad, he has a quick wit.

Wishing wells are a scam, he told his grandfather recently, Youre just throwing money into a hole made of bricks and boards!

On Sept. 10, Sabastian will turn six. His birthday comes just a few weeks after his fathers birthday. And now, there is a new birthday to celebrate. David Riechenberg, Bradleys soulmate friend, has named his new son Bradley.

From the moment Bradley died, I knew I wanted to do that for him. If he was a boy, I wanted to name him Bradley, or Angel if she was a girlHe was the greatest person Ill ever meet, David said.
FRANKFURT, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- One man was killed and another one was seriously injured in a shooting incident in Offenbach am Main in western Germany on Sunday evening, according to the regional police headquarters.

The victims were gunned down at around 8:18 p.m. local time (1816 GMT) in the downtown of the city, said a police spokesman of the police headquarters of Southeast Hesse, which is located in Offenbach am Main.

The suspected perpetrator is on the run. A large-scale manhunt with a police helicopter is underway, said the police. 
Wyoming doesnt need another warning that we can no longer rely on the fossil fuel industry to propel our economy and pay the lions share of our government services. Weve seen for years growth in renewables like wind and solar. Coal plants are retiring in favor of cleaner sources of energy. The market is responding to climate change with innovation that will reduce our countrys dependence on carbon-based fuels to power our cars, our homes and our industries.

Earlier this month, we saw yet another sign of the change that is coming, regardless of whether our state is ready to acknowledge it. A federal judge in Wyoming ruled the Biden administration could postpone new oil and gas leasing until it completes an evaluation of the sales impact on the environment, including on the climate. That decision follows two separate court rulings that restricted new federal coal leasing pending further environmental review.

There will be an impulse now among some in Wyoming to respond with new pledges to fight the federal government, environmental groups and others. Cynical voices will suggest that simply defeating President Joe Biden at the ballot box in two years and restoring Republican control in Congress will solve our problems. But while a political change might provide a short-term boost to the fossil fuel industry, the reality is the market has already spoken. And its words arent likely to change anytime soon.

Thats not to say we should dismiss oil and gas or even coal. The latter will continue to supply power for years, the former, for decades. But the long-term trends are real. Viewing this as a fight we can win through recalcitrance will rob Wyoming of an opportunity to transition to a more stable future. Resistance is not a substantive response. Fear is not a strategy.

And climate change is real. The same politicians that told you that it didnt exist 15 years back told you 10 years ago that it wasnt human-caused. Now they are telling you that it does exist and is human caused, but we shouldnt move too fast in addressing it. But the reality is Wyoming, as the nations least populated state, doesnt have the power to dictate the speed at which our nation and the world respond to a warming planet. We can simply adapt and innovate or be left behind.

So what does that look like in practice? It means focusing on real innovation rather than a rear-guard struggle. That means being open to Wyoming as a place for wind and solar to flourish, as well as nuclear projects like the one being proposed in Kemmerer. Yes, Wyoming is working on innovation in energy, but usually in the context of fossil fuels like coal. We can continue in those efforts, but must be willing to listen to ideas that occur outside that paradigm. That includes innovation outside the energy sector. Forward thinking should be a byproduct of every division of the University of Wyoming and the states system of community colleges.

What we cant keep doing is looking back. Former Gov. Matt Mead was noted for saying that it didnt matter what he thought of climate change. What mattered was what the market thought. The market and the courts are speaking loudly and clearly. The question now is: Will anyone here listen?
It feels like Aaron Duncan has been around forever.

Duncan literally grew up in front the eyes of local music fans, evolving from a tiny kaiso tot to a less tiny teenaged soca star.

The Port of Spain-born boy-who-could first endeared himself to the feting masses with his Carnival 2015 breakthrough hit Can You Feel It. His 2018 jam Back to Basics was on the lips of every pre-teen and teeny bopper on the islands. And two years later he pulled them all into his girlfriend drama with the 2020 pre-Covid hit Stay.
FOUR swimmers are hoping to achieve what has so far been impossible, as they attempt the gr
Thursdays speech by Watson Duke is undoubtedly the start of his campaign for the next Tobag
If there is anything surprising about the political fiasco engulfing Tobagos ruling Progres
A total of 191 school superintendents throughout Arizona, including those of nine major school districts in Pima County, are calling on state legislators to hold a special session to lift schools aggregate expenditure limit.

As it stands, the limit, known as AEL, could cost public schools an estimated $1.3 billion during the current fiscal year, according to the two letters written to Gov. Doug Ducey and to House and Senate members.

We respectfully ask that a special session be called prior to the general election with the purpose of fixing the AEL. Specifically we would ask that the AEL be lifted for one more year, one of the letters states.

The school administrators said failure to address the AEL would threaten districts abilities to cover teacher pay raises, minimum wage increases, funding for capital projects and continued work to improve school safety.

The following nine school superintendents, as well as Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams, signed the two letters dated Sept. 6:

Todd Jaeger, Amphitheater Unified School District

Mary Kamerzell, Catalina Foothills School District

Kevin Stoltzfus, Flowing Wells Unified School District

Dan Streeter, Marana Unified School District

Manuel Valenzuela, Sahuarita Unified School District

Jose Gastelum, Sunnyside Unified School District

Scott Hagerman, Tanque Verde Unified School District

Gabriel Trujillo, Tucson Unified School District

John Carruth, Vail Unified School District

The AEL, according to the Arizona School Administrators group, was enacted in 1980 to set a cap on statewide school spending.

Last year, state legislators narrowly met the deadline to waive the spending cap that would have otherwise instructed school districts to cut their budgets by an average of 16% across the board. This year, school districts are facing a 17% budget cut if the AEL is not lifted, the school administrators group said.

Sunnyside board opening

The Pima County Schools Superintendents Office is now reviewing candidates for one open seat on the Sunnyside Unified School District governing board after a board member resigned.

Lisette Nunez, who was elected as a board member in 2020, submitted her resignation earlier this month. Her term was set to expire in 2024.

Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams will now review and consider any qualified candidate who is interested in filling the vacancy, the county office said in a news release.

It added that, under state law, the current governing board members may submit up to three names for consideration to fill the vacancy. However, the county schools superintendent is not required to appoint from that list.

Candidates who would like to be considered for the vacancy must submit an affidavit of qualification and candidate appointment questionnaire to the Schools Superintendents Office by Sept. 30 at 5 p.m.

For more information or to find an application packet, visit www.schools.pima.gov/elections.

The chosen candidate will serve from the day of appointment through Dec. 31, 2024.

The election this year to fill two vacancies on the Sunnyside Unified School District governing board was previously canceled due to the races being uncontested. That means incumbent Consuelo Hernandez will be reappointed to her seat and former board member Roberto Jaramillo will also serve on the board once again.

They will join current board members Matthew Taylor and Beki Quintero, whose terms end in 2024.

Student scientist

Local middle school student Taran Hogan of Saint Cyril of Alexandria School was chosen as one of the Top 300 Broadcom MASTERS after participating in a science competition for middle school students.

The Broadcom MASTERS (math, applied science, technology and engineering for rising stars) judges reviewed applications from more than 1,800 middle school students in 47 states before choosing the top 300 young scientists.

Each of the top 300 contestants will receive a $125 award from the Department of Defense.

Later this month, the judges will select 30 contestants as finalists who will then compete for different awards totaling a combined $100,000.

For more information, visit www.societyforscience.org.
PHOENIX  The Arizona Supreme Court has rejected the latest effort by a group of election deniers  the fourth from members of We The People  to void and rerun the 2020 vote.

And the justices spurned their requests to let an out-of-state lawyer not licensed to practice here represent them despite their claim no Arizona lawyer is willing to take the job.

In a new order, Justice Ann Scott Timmer, writing for the court, said the challengers want not only to recall the states 11 electors who voted for Biden but also to order Maricopa County to have another presidential election.

But thats not all.

They want this new election on paper ballots only, counted by hand, without no excuse mail-in ballots. That is based, at least in part, that the equipment used to count the ballots had not been lawfully certified and tested, making any election conducted with them void from the start.

And they want no Zuckerbucks, a references to grants to several counties from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded largely by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, to help them with additional costs of the 2020 election.

Whats lacking in the latest legal filing, Timmer said, is any legal basis for seeking to rescind a prior election or remove elected officials, which electors are, from office.

It starts, she said, with the fact that the challenge comes far too late.

The laws of Arizona set forth processes for contesting an election  a process that requires the filing of a contests within five days after the canvass of the election, Timmer wrote. And that occurred at the end of November 2020.

The failure of a contestant to an election to strictly comply with the statutory requirements is fatal to his right to have the election contested, she said. The rationale for requiring strict compliance with the time provisions for initiating a contest is the strong public policy favoring stability and finality of election results.

Nor were the justices any more impressed by the arguments, prepared with the assistance of a Florida attorney, that they have the power to ignore the law.

This court  observes that petitioners have cited no authority for the proposition that they or anyone else may overturn the Arizona statutes that govern both the conduct of elections and the challenges to the results of such elections, Timmer said. Likewise, they cannot dictate the terms of a proposed effort to rerun the 2020 presidential election which was certified almost two years ago.

The new order represents the latest in what is becoming a string of defeats for We The People to alter past elections.

It started in May 2021 with a bid to oust several officials elected not just in 2020 but also in 2018, ranging from the governor and some legislators to the sheriffs of Pima and Maricopa counties. Here, too, were arguments of untested election equipment.

But the often rambling 26 pages of legal arguments and 116 pages of exhibits went a step beyond. They argued that once the offices were declared vacant, the states high court should install the 20 of them as replacements, at least until a properly run election could be called.

And it even asked the justices to overturn the 2019 Tucson city election, specifically naming Mayor Regina Romero as holding office illegally.

It took the court only days to toss the case, and not only for failing to file a challenge on time. Justice John Lopez, writing that ruling, said there is nothing in Arizona law that allows an individual to argue that the person holding the office is not doing so lawfully.

That right, Lopez said, rests solely with the attorney general. But the challengers said they didnt ask Mark Brnovich to act because, as someone who was elected in 2018 at an election they contend was illegally conducted, he has a conflict of interest.

Undeterred, group members went back to the Supreme Court in April 2021 with similar claims, only to have them thrown out for not complying with legal procedures.

And in October 2021 they were back again, alleging that the certificates of election of the presidential electors were invalid and void. That, too, met with the same legal result.

After the three legal losses, the challengers apparently recognized they could not handle the legal proceedings by themselves. So they asked the justices to allow Russell A. Newman, an attorney from Florida to represent them even though he is not licensed to practice law in Arizona.

Over the last six months we have attempted to obtain local counsel here in Arizona, but we have been unsuccessful, wrote three members of the group in the latest legal filing. The main reason we were denied counsel, was because of fear of losing their bar license or being sanctioned for filing a case involving the 2020 election.

They did not explain. But there is precedent for attorneys to be hit with legal fees  and even find themselves under investigation  if a court finds they filed an entirely frivolous lawsuit.

And theres something else.

Most of the Arizona lawyers lack the ability to defend our case, the challengers said, saying they lack knowledge of the claims in the lawsuit while Newman, who is listed as providing assistance in preparing the claim, does have that knowledge.

Timmer tossed the request, saying the courts decision that the latest claim has no merit makes the claim of needing help for the rest of the case moot.
Faced with deep cuts to the water supply and angry that other states are not doing their share, tribes and local governments in Arizona are increasingly talking about backing off earlier offers to give up some water.

The Gila River Indian Community said in August that it will begin storing water underground rather than contributing them to system conservation programs for Lake Mead.

In August, the Tucson City Council said it will order its full allotment of Central Arizona Project water next year. The vote reversed earlier indications that the city would cut back on its annual water purchase as part of a collaborative effort to keep more water in Lake Mead.

Officials in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Peoria and Glendale are considering following suit, asking to get their full allotment of water instead of financial compensation they might have received for reducing their take from the system.

The moves come as water levels in Lake Mead have fallen to historically low levels, sparking a federal proposal to cut consumption by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet per year. That would be done by reducing water allocation to states in the Colorado River basin  reductions that hit Arizona hardest and California, for the moment, not at all.

We all would be collectively willing to do more if we knew there was an overall plan, said Cynthia Campbell, water resources management advisor for Phoenix. Why are we giving up water that we can access later when there doesnt seem to be enough interest to make the needle move?

But a spokesperson for the California Natural Resources Agency said the state has long been working for years to conserve Colorado River water and that it is continuing to do so. And California is ready to work with others in the basin going forward, said Lisa Lien-Mager, the spokesperson.

Weve invested billions of dollars in urban and agricultural water conservation across Southern California through programs that reach virtually every Colorado River water user in the state, Lien-Mager said in an emailed statement. California has done a lot, and we are willing to step up again because we believe extraordinary action is needed.

The Bureau of Reclamation in August declared that lake levels have fallen far enough to trigger the second tier of the Drought Contingency Plan developed in 2019 by Arizona, California and Nevada. That plan calls for Arizona to get 592,000 fewer acre-feet of water from the river starting next year, compared to 25,000 acre-feet for Nevada and no reductions for California.

That breakdown has its roots in a series of water agreements and court decisions in the early 20th century that gave California priority rights over Arizona and Nevada during droughts, and specifically over the Central Arizona Project, the states largest water provider.

Despite that history, local officials say Arizona is bearing too much of the burden and needs help if the basin it to avoid a worse shortage. Arizonas proposed Tier 2 reduction is 21% of the states regular annual allotment of 2.8 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons of water, the amount it would take to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.

Specifically, they say, California needs to step up. Under the current plan, California would not have to give up any of its allocation until lake levels fall far enough to trigger Tier 2B, when the state would lose 200,000 acre-feet, or 4.5% of its annual 4.4 million acre-feet allotment.

Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Phoenix, wrote California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week, asking him to help keep Lake Mead from drying up, adding that he is concerned that California is failing to do its part to avert that catastrophe.

He pointed to testimony by Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton in June, when she called on Southwestern states to work together to find a way to conserve up to 4 million acre-feet on top of current conservation efforts. But California ignored this urgent call and failed to offer any significant contributions to protect the system to date, Stantons letter said.

He added that California rejected an earlier proposal from Arizona and Nevada that would have conserved 2 million acre-feet.

Lien-Mager said California has stepped up in some innovative ways to conserve water, resulting in over 1.5 million acre-feet of water conserved in Lake Mead over the past 15 years.

Those conserved water supplies added critical elevation to Lake Mead and helped forestall a formal shortage condition from as early as 2015 that would have required cuts from states such as Arizona, her statement said.

But Campbell said California is key to any hope for the basin.

You could cut Colorado River water from every major city in the West from Phoenix to Denver, and it wouldnt be enough without California, Campbell said. Its just math.

Patrick Dent, assistant general manager for the Central Arizona Project, said that all states receiving water from the Colorado need to step up.

There are certainly calls within our state and around the basin that California do more to protect the system than they have done to date, Dent said. But not just California, I think everyone needs to be a part of the next challenge.

In addition to the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan for the lower basin states, those in the upper basin  Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming  have their own multistate plan to respond to falling reservoirs. But rather than making cuts to each states water allotment, it focuses on conservation and releasing more dammed water into the river.

Stantons letter echoes Dent, that the Colorado cannot be saved without full participation.

The cuts necessary cannot possibly be borne by one or two states alone, Stanton said. Its time for all states, including California, to do their part.

Without any strong commitment, Campbell said the situation is dire.
The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

State law HB 2853, also known as Arizona Empowerment Scholarships, should be a serious concern to Arizona voters. Putting this law into practice will reduce future funding of district public schools at the rate of $7,000 per student. Passed on a party-line vote by Republican members of the Arizona Legislature with a one-vote majority, this law is one more nail in the coffin of public education in our state.

The concept of a common good is rooted in a social contract. It is a belief that we are stronger as a state and as a nation when we provide for the well-being of all members of society.

In Arizona for more than a century, a universally available public education has been one component of that important social contract (see Article XI of the Arizona Constitution). Public education advocates support the belief that providing high-quality education for all young people is a way to ensure the economic health of our state and the successful continuation of our democracy.

Taxes are collected to fund the common good. When we pay state taxes, those monies are not for the upkeep of the road in front of only our home or business, nor for police and fire fighters to protect only our own family or property. Public tax funds are not intended to follow your child or grandchild to a private or parochial school.

After eliminating public education funds that would have been made available through voter-approved Proposition 208, and while working with a $5.6 billion budget surplus, the 2022 Arizona Legislature allocated an additional $526 million for K-12 schools to improve teacher salaries. Then they passed HB2853 and made sure that Arizona Empowerment Scholarship monies will be taken from this additional funding.

In 2018, Arizona voters rejected expanding school vouchers by a 2-to-1 margin. With the Arizona Empowerment Scholarships, the Republican legislature has once again made an end run around the will of the voters. This universal voucher expansion allows any Arizona student to apply for a scholarship to attend private or parochial school. There are no financial or educational need criteria for obtaining these tax monies. And unlike public schools, the private and parochial schools at which students can use these funds are not held accountable for student learning outcomes or for how taxpayer funds are spent.

According to Capitol Media Services and as reported in the Arizona Daily Star, 6,500 Arizona students have applied for these taxpayer-funded universal vouchers as of Sept. 2. Of those 6,500 applicants, 75% are already attending private and parochial schools. So privileged Arizona families will be getting taxpayer-funded gifts, while less well-off children will be shortchanged in inadequately funded district public schools. And as Gov. Duceys press aide C.J. Karamargin notes: It is just getting started.

In Arizona today, where 90% of students attend district public schools, taxpayer funds are at work building our states future. Todays under-served public school students may be your children, grandchildren, or young relatives. Tomorrow they may be your neighbors, your employees, your grandchilds teachers, your doctor or dentist, or your grocery store worker. They will definitely be your fellow citizens who will vote and join you in determining the shape of the common good in our state.

Its not too late to stop this improper use of our taxes. If you havent already signed the petition to repeal HB2853, please go to the Save Our Schools Arizona website to learn where you can sign. At least 118,823 valid signatures must be turned in before Sept. 24, 2022.

The repeal initiative will stop the expansion until voters have the opportunity on the 2024 ballot to vote for or against vouchers that divert public funds from public education. Please sign today! Our K-12 students are counting on you.
Grieving is hard enough without going through it alone, yet many couples who lose a baby during pregnancy or childbirth do just that.

Paige and Austin Ryan were excitedly preparing for the birth of their first baby early in 2018 when they learned during a doctors appointment at 38 weeks that their son no longer had a heartbeat.

The pregnancy was pretty regular, honestly, Paige Ryan said. With it being my first, I didnt know a whole lot, obviously, but everything went very normal up until our last appointment.

Jacob Austin Ryan was stillborn on Jan. 23, 2018.

That sent us into a spiral, Austin Ryan said. But in the aftermath, he added, we had so many people reach out about their previous losses that had never been talked about.

When it first happens to you, you feel so isolated, Paige Ryan said, but the more people who come out, you realize, Im not alone at all.

The Ryans didnt want to be isolated in their grief, and they didnt want to be oblivious to others who were experiencing similar pain, so they organized a run at Case Community Park in October 2018, just nine months after they lost Jacob, to draw attention to the issue.

Five years later, the event has grown. The Ryans have partnered with Matt and Cassie Barnett  whose daughter, Elizabeth Jane Elle Barnett, was stillborn in August 2021  as race organizers for the 2022 Pregnancy & Infant Loss 5K and Fun Run.

Proceeds from the race, set for Oct. 8, will be donated to two nonprofit organizations: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Mommies Enduring Neonatal Death.

The race, held each year since 2018 except for 2020, when COVID-19 led to its cancellation, has drawn about 200 participants in each of the past couple of events. The event wasnt timed the first year but has been chip-timed since 2019 through Tatur Racing of Tulsa.

Although the race has always been held at Case Park, the Ryans  both Sand Springs natives and 2007 Charles Page High School graduates  have long-term hopes of moving the event downtown to draw more people to what they see as the heart of Sand Springs.

But one thing that wont likely change is the approximate date of the race.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and Oct. 15 is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, so the couple has always held the race close to that date.

The Ryans never received an exact cause of Jacobs death, with doctors essentially explaining to them that sometimes such things just happen.

But we were both really ready to try again (to have children) after Paige healed from the C-section, Austin Ryan said.

Eighteen months after losing their son, the couple celebrated the birth of daughter Joanna, whom they call Jo, and exactly two years later, daughter June was born.

Even though they now have two toddler daughters, their son is never far from their minds. The race is one way they can keep his memory alive.

It started totally with him in mind, obviously, Paige Ryan said, but now its growing into a bigger and more beautiful thing. Its really cool to be able to honor other families and other babies that have left.
Tulsa Ballet will open its 66th season with Creations in Studio K, its annual showcase of new and new-to-Tulsa dance works created by three of the worlds most in-demand choreographers.

Performances will be Sept. 16-25 at Tulsa Ballets Studio K theater, 1212 E. 45th Place.

Two of this years choreographers  Ma Cong and Nicolo Fonte  are well-known to Tulsa audiences. The third choreographer to be featured is Craig Davidson, an Australia native who serves as the resident choreographer for the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp, Belgium, considered one of the most prestigious dance companies in Europe.

His creation for Tulsa Ballet, All Things Considered, is only the second ballet Davidson has created for an American company. He made his U.S. debut in 2018 with a work for the Atlanta Ballet titled Remembrance/Hereafter.

Fonte, who has created three original works for Tulsa Ballet as well as staging his version of Bolero for the company, will debut a new piece titled Divenire.

Cong, who joined Tulsa Ballet in 1999 and rose to the position of principal dancer and resident choreographer before taking on the role of associate artist director of the Richmond Ballet, will return to stage one of his ballets, Melodia.

Originally created for Ballet Des Moines, Congs Melodia was most recently performed by TB II, Tulsa Ballets second company, as part of its 2019 On Your Radar program, where it was described by the Tulsa World as a work balancing exuberant whimsy and humor with passages that resonate with deep emotions. The current Tulsa Ballet II company will perform Melodia as part of Creations in Studio K.

Artistic director Marcello Angelini said Congs dance works have been instrumental in the growth of a generation of Tulsa Ballet dancers, as his choreography pushes the stylistic versatility and artistry of every dancer involved.

Our second company has been growing in scope, talent and accomplishment during the past decade, Angelini said. In fact, about 80% of the main company, including some soloists, are TBII alumni.

During the COVID pandemic, because of the nature of working in pods, TBII performed shoulder to shoulder with the main company, always in the same programs as the main company, he said. Because of their artistic and technical consistency, talent and their exuberant energy, they earned their place in the main companys Creations in Studio K.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the opening of Tulsa Ballets Studio K theater, which Angelini said was created specifically to provide a place to create new repertoire. The first Creations in Studio K was presented the following year.

Angelini said creating new work is important because tradition and innovation are one and the same. Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and other classic ballets were at one time new creations. Now, those works are the tradition of dance and it falls upon us to create the tradition of the next centuries.

Tulsa World Scene podcast: Switzer: The Players Coach
Tulsa-raised actress Heather Langenkamp cant wait for you to see her next project, but youll have to be patient because it wont premiere until the Halloween season.

The Midnight Club, a 10-episode horror series, will debut Oct. 7 on Netflix.

A spooky project is on brand for Langenkamp, best known for playing heroine Nancy Thompson in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

Langenkamp said it has become kind of a tradition for Netflix to release a new project from horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan during the Halloween season. Flanagan is the co-creator and showrunner of The Midnight Club, based on a 1994 novel of the same name and other works from author Christopher Pike.

The premise: At a hospice for terminally ill young adults, eight patients come together every night at midnight to tell each other stories  and make a pact that the next of them to die will give the group a sign from the beyond.

Langenkamp plays Dr. Georgina Stanton in the series. Its her meatiest role in decades.

I have done little parts here or little independent movies for friends or people who I thought had a good idea, but this is the first really big production that I have been a part of since the 90s, really, Langenkamp said.

Langenkamp spoke at length about The Midnight Club and why the series hit close to home during a phone interview in advance of the premiere.

First, an introduction:

Langenkamp was born in Tulsa and attended Council Oak Elementary School (formerly Lee Elementary) and Holland Hall before attending high school in Washington, D.C. Her father, Dobie, worked in the Jimmy Carter administration.

After high school, Langenkamp returned to Tulsa and got a summer job as a copy girl at the Tulsa Tribune newspaper. She saw a news item about a movie production needing extras and made her film debut as an extra in Francis Ford Coppolas The Outsiders. The scene she was in did not appear in the theatrical release, but she can be seen, briefly, walking past Ponyboy actor C. Thomas Howell in a school scene added to The Outsiders: The Complete Novel.

Coppola shot consecutive films in Tulsa, and Langenkamp earned her SAG card as an extra in Rumble Fish. She headed off to college (Stanford), and connections made on the set in Tulsa proved beneficial when she pursued an acting career.

Battling Freddy Krueger in the 1984 horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street put Langenkamp on the map. Though shell forever be associated with scary stuff, she guest-starred in multiple episodes of the sitcom Growing Pains and was in the cast of a spin-off series, Just the Ten of Us, which aired from 1988 through 1990.

Langenkamps husband also is in the film industry. She is married to Academy Award-winning makeup artist David LeRoy Anderson. They own and operate AFX Studio, a special effects studio, in Van Nuys, California. The Midnight Club got her back in front of the camera.

Anchoring the show as the enigmatic doctor who runs this hospice for young adults, Im honored to welcome Heather Langenkamp, Flanagan tweeted in February 2021. To horror fans like myself, Heather is royalty, and I am so excited to work with her.

All horror, he loves, Langenkamp said. But he professed his love of A Nightmare on Elm Street to me, so I had to be there and listen to it for half an hour, like how much he loved A Nightmare on Elm Street and Im like OK, I get it.

It was his fanboy moment?

He definitely is a fanboy in the most charming, delightful, sweet sense, Langenkamp said. Ive met a lot of fanboys in my career, and what I love is seeing a fanboy find success because thats what everyone dreams about is loving a certain thing as a child and loving a certain kind of movie and then actually getting to find a career in that.

Langenkamp said she didnt know much about Flanagan when she was asked to be on The Midnight Club.

I just knew that he had done these very, very successful shows on Netflix, she said. I had seen Hill House and I had seen a little bit of Bly Manor but anyway, once I got the part, I literally (sat down and watched) everything. By the time I got to Canada, where we shot the show, I think I had seen everything he had done. And he has a really strong style and I kind of could visualize what he was going to do with the show.

Maybe Flanagans tweet about Langenkamp can be categorized as gleeful.

He never knew probably that I was more gleeful than him, she said.

When the call came for Langenkamp to audition, she thought it might be for one episode or a cameo appearance. She said a lot of horror directors think its fun to have the girl from A Nightmare on Elm Street show up in a cameo. She usually declines because shes not keen on those kind of gigs.

I said, well, go ahead and send the dialogue and let me look at it, she said of The Midnight Club opportunity. And when I got it, it was a big part. I mean, the first scene he wanted me to do on tape was like a three-page monologue. I looked at my husband and went, Holy cow, this is the lead in the show.

Langenkamp anchors the cast alongside eight pretty amazing young actors whose characters are fighting cancer.

And then theres me, the doctor, who is kind of seeing them through to the end of their lives and she has a hospice where her philosophy is that when you know youre dying and you know you have terminal cancer and you only have six months or a year to live, why live in a hospital? Why live hooked up to machines? Why live going to the doctor every day when you could live another way, which is to have more agency with the choices that you make and the people that you see and the kind of life that you lead.

The kids in the hospice sneak out of their rooms and tell scary stories to pass the time. They get to know each other better and explore their feelings about dying and regrets, according to Langenkamp.

The stories are all spooky and they all have some kind of mystical or scary element, and whats fun about the show is that when the kids start telling the scary stories is they come to life and we are the people who are acting in their stories, basically, she said.

When I took the part, I just thought I was going to play the doctor and the person who owns the hospice, but what I ended up discovering is that I play all these different characters. My range of different people that I play is very broad in this, and its an actors dream to be able to play different characters.

Its like repertory theater and every week or every episode, my person appears as a different character in one of these scary stories. Its an anthology that way. Each week is its own story. I think theres one or two stories that go for two episodes because they are very complicated stories, but, in general, every episode was a new character I got to create. As an actor, you just dont have many opportunities to have this kind of a part except maybe once in a lifetime. So, in that way, I feel like I struck gold.

Heres why the show hits close to home: Langenkamp and her husband lost their son, Atticus Anderson, to brain cancer in January 2018. He was 26.

And so I see things in these kids that I saw in my son when he was battling cancer, she said, indicating that she offered suggestions for the show based on her experiences with Atticus. I think our collaboration on that issue was amazing because I had actually really wanted it to be authentic coming from a mom who lost a kid to cancer.

Langenkamp said Atticus was diagnosed with glioblastoma when he was 20. There were six years of ups and downs, including great times when the cancer was not problematic.

After Atticus death, his loved ones had to reset their lives. What are we going to do? How do we pick up the pieces? How do we go on with our lives with any kind of joy or sense of purpose?

Our son  he was an engineer; he had gone to Stanford and he was a role model for all of us  he always said just make cool (stuff). Thats what were all here to do. Just make stuff. And so when he died, my husband and I just thought, you know what? We just have to take that as our daily mantra.

Langenkamp asked herself this: What would I like to do in the next phase of my life?

I just really wanted to be an actor again and really go after getting parts that would be meaningful to me, she said. And, lo and behold, Mike Flanagan called me for this job.

It was meant to be. Langenkamp said it brought her joy to be part of The Midnight Club and to work with kids who all reminded her of Atticus in some way.

It was just such a dream come true, she said, adding that the show may provide lessons for those who have to take care of people who are sick.

Being a good caregiver is one of the biggest privileges you can have as a human being, she said. I think the character that I play really, really believes that taking care of the sick is a huge privilege. Thats how we feel about all of our care workers who took care of us during COVID.

Langenkamp, who hopes Tulsans will check out The Midnight Club, said she cant wait to see it. She hasnt seen an episode yet.

And Im, of course, incredibly nervous about that, she said. But I know that I did my very, very best. I literally put in everything that I have to play this part.

Tulsa World Scene podcast: Switzer: The Players Coach
Oklahomans have been sharing questions ahead of newly recommended bivalent COVID-19 vaccines arriving here. Among those eligible across the state, about 61% have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Who is eligible?

The bivalent vaccines are approved for those 12 and older who have already received at least one mRNA shot to build COVID-19 protection.

What makes this booster different?

Like all COVID vaccines, this contains no live virus  just a recipe. It is the same mRNA vaccine with 50% of the material coded for protection from omicron subvariants. The FDA has stated the changes in the mRNA sequences in the bivalent vaccines do not affect vaccine safety.

Why do we need a new vaccine recipe?

COVID-19 has mutated significantly during the global pandemic and will continue to do so, while vaccines are unable to keep up, as shown by reinfection rates. If the technology of these bivalent vaccines works, any dangerous variants that arise could be coded into new vaccines going forward.

How much protection can I expect from the bivalent shot?

No human studies have yet been done on the efficacy of the bivalent vaccine at preventing reinfections and providing long-term immune protection. The FDA, in deciding to authorize the bivalent shots, allowed for results of animal studies and other research into the ability of antibodies to neutralize the virus.

Should I get a flu shot, too?

A flu shot may be obtained at the same time in a different arm. Flu activity typically starts to increase in October, so now is a good time for Oklahomans to start thinking about influenza protection.

When is the right time to get a bivalent booster?

Many Oklahomans have already gotten a booster, which means a higher level of protection against severe complications if infected (the vaccine doesnt prevent infection). That protection, in the form of antibodies, wanes over time. Those seeking a bivalent booster are urged to wait two to three months after their last shot, even those considered at a higher risk. Those who are not immunocompromised may wait longer in between booster doses, according to CDC advisers. The wait for a booster would be similar for those who have recently recovered from a COVID infection; those antibodies will provide natural protection for about three months.

How long does it take the body to build protection after a shot?

Like most boosters, it could take seven to 14 days before antibodies start providing protection.

When will the bivalent shots be available?

The Tulsa Health Department has ordered 6,000 doses and will begin administering shots as soon as shipments of the bivalent vaccine are distributed in Oklahoma. Appointments are required and can be scheduled online at tulsa-health.org.

Are there side effects?

A rare side effect, heart inflammation, was found to sometimes affect teen boys and young men.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Featured video:
Double play: U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe managed to tout motorsports and moo moos during the same Senate hearing last week.

The Environment and Public Works Committee, of which Inhofe is a former chairman, was considering several bills, including one to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from cracking down on homemade hot rods and another to keep the EPA from going after farmers and ranchers for overly flatulent cattle.

Overregulation is something people dont understand until they are among those who are overregulated, Inhofe told two witnesses, drag racer Antron Brown and South Dakota cattleman Scott VanderWal.

Inhofe did not so much question the two as make a speech about regulation.

Oklahomas a small state, were a rural state, were an ag state, and I look at both of these bills that were going to be talking about today as things that will be very helpful, he said.

Lunch money: U.S. Sen. James Lankford said hes concerned that conflicts among the Biden administrations anti-discrimination policies, state law and local school board decisions could cause Oklahoma to lose eligibility for federal school nutrition programs.

The administration says schools cant discriminate against LGBTQ students, which some maintain new state laws related to restrooms and locker facilities do.

Dots and dashes: The House resumes this week after its August recess.  Inhofe and Lankford voted against confirmation of two district court nominees.  Lankford vented concerns after the Biden administration ordered Veterans Affairs medical facilities to provide abortions in cases of medical emergency, rape or incest.  In a floor speech, Lankford also objected to suggestions that Republicans believe that electric vehicles are socialism. They just dont believe theyre feasible on a large scale, Lankford said.

 Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World

Featured video:
Campaigns and elections: Gov. Kevin Stitt and Democratic challenger Joy Hofmeister have reportedly agreed to an Oct. 19 debate in Oklahoma City.

Griffin Communications and NonDoc are presenting the event at the Will Rogers Theater, 4322 N. Western Ave. The event is expected to be livestreamed by Griffins Oklahoma City TV station, KWTV, Channel 9.

Second District Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Markwayne Mullin fumed to constituents about President Joe Bidens Sept. 1 speech, in which Biden called extreme MAGA philosophy as like semi-fascism.

A full-throated supporter of former President Donald Trump, Mullin said Bidens speech was one of the most divisive speeches I have ever heard from an American president.

Instead of offering solutions to the many crises his administration has created, Biden chose to attack and further divide his fellow Americans, said Mullin, largely repeating a Republican talking point. He pushed blame onto his predecessor and pointed fingers at the 74 million Americans who exercised their right to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice.

During his speech, Biden said he was not talking about all Republicans or even the majority of Republicans.

Not every Republican  not even the majority of Republicans  are MAGA Republicans, Biden said. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology. I know because Ive been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

It is perhaps worth noting that Mullin attended Trumps June 20, 2020, speech at Tulsas BOK Center, in which the then-president made derogatory remarks about several minorities and warned that rapists would be free to break into womens homes with impunity if Biden was elected.

If the Democrats gain power, then the rioters will be in charge and no one will be safe and no one will have control, Trump said then.

Mullins Democratic opponent, Kendra Horn, questioned his suitability for office in light of Trumps apparent security violations and Mullins own freelance attempt to extract civilians from Afghanistan last year.

Markwayne Mullin has spent weeks deflecting and downplaying the seriousness of this threat to the nations security, Horn said. From his statements, it is clear Markwaynes first concern was not the lives at risk or that highly classified materials could easily fall into enemy hands. His first concern  was to  protect his interests.

Horn went on to assert that those interests lie not with Oklahomans, our government, our military, or the rule of law, but with himself or whatever he thinks will help him get elected.

The state House District 34 Republican runoff was certified after second-place finisher Andrew Muchmore withdrew his challenge. Michael Baughman was declared the winner by 11 votes and will oppose the Democratic incumbent in the Nov. 8 general election.

HB 1775: More than a dozen lawmakers, including state Sen. Cody Rogers, R-Tulsa, called on the state Department of Education to investigate a former Norman Public Schools teacher who resigned after controversy erupted over her giving her students a QR code for the Brooklyn Public Library.

The Brooklyn Public Library has offered to make books banned elsewhere available to students.

The district was concerned that this might have violated HB 1775, a bill signed into law last year that forbids schoolhouse discussions of race in such a way as to make someone uncomfortable, but it also said the teacher violated district policy concerning political statements.

I am a walking HB 1775 violation, Summer Boismier told KOKH, Channel 25. And one of the sticking points between myself and my previous district (Norman) was I would do it again in a heartbeat.  No regrets. Would do it again. Will do it again.

That upset the legislators. They acknowledged that Boismier may not have actually violated the law but said she should be investigated to determine whether any violations of law actually occurred, and if they did, discuss whether this teachers certification should be revoked.

Meetings and events: Just Desserts, the annual fundraiser for Heart of the Party, the Tulsa County Chapter of the Oklahoma Federation of Women, will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at the Tulsa Historical Society, 2445 S. Peoria Ave. Among those expected are candidates Joy Hofmeister (governor), Kendra Horn (U.S. Senate), Melinda Alzadeh-Fard (lieutenant governor) and Jena Nelson (state superintendent).

The Oklahoma Municipal Leagues 107th Annual Conference and Exposition will be held Tuesday through Thursday at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel and the Cox Business Convention Center. The OML includes most of the states towns and cities and plays an important part in shaping related policy.

Wednesdays Tulsa County Republican Mens Club meeting features Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, District 27 District Attorney Jack Thorp and Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control Deputy Director Brian Surber discussing marijuana.

The doors to the private dining room at Oklahoma Joes, 6175 E. 61st St., open at 11 a.m., with the meeting at noon.

Tulsa County Democratic Party Vice Chairman Drew Diamond will facilitate a meeting on planning and campaigns at 6 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Pipeliners Union Hall, 4823 S. 83rd East Ave.

Absenteeism: The Voter Reference Foundation, a nonprofit linked to efforts to prove unfounded fraud claims in the 2020 presidential election, said it has added Oklahomas absentee voter records to its online database.

For some states, VoterRef, as its called, has posted all voter registrations.

According to a press release, the information has been posted in hopes of increasing election transparency.

In practice, the idea seems to be making the information more accessible to people who want to cull through it looking for potential discrepancies, according to reports.

The records are already available to the public, although not always easy to access. They include information about who requests absentee ballots and whether the ballots are returned. The lists show only whether a ballot was returned, not how the person associated with it voted. That information is not recorded by the Election Board.

Critics say trying to match previous requests with current voter rolls is not valid because the latter change on a virtually constant basis.

Bottom line: Tulsa attorney Charles Sublett is the new chairman of the Grand River Dam Authority.

 Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World

Featured video:
Editor's note: The following version clarifies the exact dates of Banned Books Books. It was not included in the print version.

Oklahoma author John Wooley doesn't pause when answering what author had great influence on him but often ends up on many challenged book lists.

John Steinbeck.

Wooley, a writer of more than 25 books and host of the noted KWGS (89.5 FM) program "Swing on This," first read the "Grapes of Wrath" just after completing military service.

"It clarified in my mind the value of metaphorical truth  that something doesnt need to have actually happened for it to be true. Jesus Christ did it with his parables; Aesop did it with his fables; and John Steinbeck did it  with more than one of his novels, but especially with this one," Wooley said.

"It's fascinating and kind of amazing that the 83-year-old 'Grapes of Wrath' still manages to get some folks so worked up that they can't stand the thought of anyone being exposed to it. Among other things, this long-lived militant hostility speaks to the power, and the truth, in John Steinbeck's masterwork.

"It made me understand, for the first time, the challenges, attitudes and prejudices my Okie mother and her peers had to deal with during the Great Depression. Her situation wasn't nearly as dire as that of the Joads, but she did migrate to California, where she found work."

Interestingly, his mother couldn't stand the book, feeling that it denigrated her people.

"And no amount of my attempting to explain that the Okies were the good guys  or that Steinbeck was a great author  would change her mind. She went to her grave not understanding why he had become my favorite writer," Wooley.

That difference of opinion sums up literature. In what some people view as highly offensive, others find value and meaning.

Next week (Sept. 18-24) is national Banned Books Week. The fight against censorship has taken on a new meaning as extremist movements are being successful at removing titles from shelves, especially those around themes of races and sexual identity.

When looking at past challenged lists, titles getting complaints often reflect the times. Books being banned are about shifting cultural discomforts, and it never ages well.

Literature may be controversial and important. Good literature can make a person think, debate, feel bad and angry. It also can be enlightening, thoughtful and comforting. It can be both.

Steinbeck's story of the Oklahoma Joads making their painful westward migration was a bestseller when released in 1939 but also banned in several places and symbolically burned. Some believed it to be communist propaganda. Agriculture groups viewed it as a provocation to oppose farming labor practices.

Most notably, the county board in Kern County, California  where the fictional family ended their journey  voted 4-1 to ban the book from all county libraries and schools.

As if the book weren't available in the next county. Just like books today are available online from any number of booksellers.

Just like the "Grapes of Wrath," when "The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)" was published in 1965, it won critical praise for its confessional narrative structure. A New York Times review called it a "brilliant, painful, important book," and it was central in the civil rights and Black arts movements. It has become a must-read work of American literature.

Yet, then and now challenges are made, accusing it of being anti-white for exploring themes of Black ideology.

Tulsa author Hannibal Johnson, who has written extensively on the 1921 Race Massacre, cites the book as among his most influential.

"It offers an incisive look at system racism and an implicit call for social justice," Johnson said. "It is an inspirational tale of personal evolution and transformation against all odds. The truth borne of lived experiences contained in such a book may be threatening to some. This truth reveals the injustices that belie American ideals and American exceptionalism.

"Some may experience cognitive dissonance. Such truth, though, allows us the opportunity to do and be better; to move closer to our noble aspirations. Absent such truth, we will always fall short of our promise and potential."

In Oklahoma right now, many books are being challenged based on LGTBQIA+ content, with accusations of it being pornographic or "woke" (whatever that means). Some are graphic novels, and those cartoon images make adults uneasy.

Not all those titles are meant for young children. But, for some young adults, especially for those contemplating issues of sexuality and identity, those books can bring understanding.

The state does not have a law specifying books to be illegal. The censorship approach is more insidious; it's through laws like House Bill 1775 and threats to end teaching careers that lay down a chilling effect.

Many authors write books because they can't find what they want to read. They aren't seeing anything that describes their lives, thoughts or dreams.

Author George M. Johnson is the national honorary chairman for Banned Books Weeks. He is a Black nonbinary activist and author of the bestselling young adult memoir "All Boys Aren't Blue," which lands at No. 3 on last year's most challenged books.

"I know what it is like to grow up and not have stories about my own lived experience, nor the truth outside of an ahistorical context, Johnson said in a statement.

This is a fight for the truth that has always existed even if it rarely gets told. When the youth are empowered with stories about the experiences of others, they become adults who understand the necessity for equity and equality and have the tools to build a world the likes of which we have never seen.

Banning books and censoring thoughts to sanitize the world  as many in Oklahoma are attempting to do  does not make stronger youth. It only makes them ignorant and less prepared for a diversifying world.
Many Danish enterprises are increasing their investment in Vietnam as the country has been cementing its position to become a key hub for technological manufacturing in the region and the world as a whole, author David Hutt wrote in his article What's luring Danish companies to Vietnam?

According to the article published on the website of German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) last week, the number of Danish firms pouring capital into Vietnam is double the number of other Northern European companies.

Why Vietnam?

Denmark and Vietnam have had very close ties and last year we celebrated our 50th year of diplomatic relations, so Vietnam has always been a major investment destination for Danish companies," said Troels Jakobsen, head of commercial section at the Danish Embassy in Hanoi.

More and more Danish companies have diversified their supply chains and Vietnam is very high on the shortlist for Danish companies that wish to expand in Asia, Jakobsen added.

This year, Denmark has emerged as a big investor in Vietnam, mainly thanks to its toymaker LEGO Groups commitment to invest US$1 billion in its first factory in the country, probably a carbon-neutral plant.

We wanted a location that offered proximity to our major markets, enabling us to support customers and consumers with speed, a spokesperson of the group told DW.

We also needed a location where we can recruit a highly qualified workforce to produce the high-quality LEGO products we make.

Reporting news about LEGOs $1-billion investment in Vietnam, the Financial Times stated that Vietnam has positioned itself among international investors as a lower cost manufacturing alternative to China in recent years.

Vietnam has also become an important tech manufacturing hub. Teach giants, such as Apple and Samsung, have announced plans to expand their operations in the Southeast Asian country.

Last month, Apple unveiled a scheme to produce Apple Watch and MacBook in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Samsung has been the largest foreign investor in Vietnam for several years.

On September 8, the Bangkok Post reported that Thailands largest refinery Thai Oil Plc is keen on investing in oil refining, lube oil, and high-value petrochemical products in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.

On the other hand, Vietnam is investing heavily in renewable energy to push for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

According to experts, Vietnam is attractive to foreign investors owing to its favorable location, which is close to China and other markets, and its improvement of infrastructure and connectivity.

Attractive thanks to clean energy development

Since the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) came into force in August 2020, Europes trade and investment activities in Vietnam have boomed.

Last year, the two sides bilateral trade reached $63.6 billion, up 14.8 percent year on year.

According to DW, another attraction for Danish firms is Vietnam's drive toward renewable energy.

Lina Hansen, Danish State Secretary for Trade and Global Sustainability, said at the recent Vietnam-Denmark Business Forum that energy is a decisive factor for Danish enterprises investment in Vietnam.

Vietnam is currently among the world's 10 biggest producers of solar power, making up more than 11 percent of its electricity needs.

With a 3,260-kilometer coastline, Vietnam is also investing significantly in wind power.

Denmarks largest energy firm Orsted has proposed developing a 3,900-megawatt offshore wind power project in the northern Vietnamese port city of Hai Phong at an estimated cost of $13.6 billion.

Last month, Orsted signed a memorandum of understanding with PTSC Merchanical & Construction Co. Ltd. to initiate their cooperation in offshore wind power projects in Vietnam.

Vietnam has natural advantages for offshore wind, said Sebastian Hald Buhl, country manager of Orsted in Vietnam.

With over 3,000 kilometers of coastline, shallow water depths, and high consistent wind speeds, Vietnam offers excellent conditions to develop reliable and cost-competitive offshore wind projects."

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
About 200 people evacuated to higher ground after an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 struck islands in western Indonesia on Sunday, causing some property damage, the country's disaster mitigation agency BNPB said.

The quake in the Mentawai Islands west of Sumatra struck at a depth of 27 km (17 miles) and was followed by one of magnitude 5.3 in the same area, authorities said. There was no danger of tsunami.

One person was injured in the head by falling wood, and a school and health centre were among properties slightly damaged, the disaster agency said.

Officials speak to residents while surveying the area, following an earthquake, in Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, in this picture obtained from social media. Photo: Instagram/@julihasanah_/via REUTERS

Mentawai resident Nurjuli Hasanah told Reuters the quake felt strong and shook her wooden house. "Some of (the residents) are still in an evacuation shelter and some have gone back home, she said.

Also on Sunday, east of the vast Indonesian archipelago, an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck the Eastern New Guinea region in Papua New Guinea, reportedly damaging property and spreading panic among residents.

Indonesia straddles the "Pacific Ring of Fire", where different tectonic plates of the Earth's crust meet and create frequent seismic activity.
Check out the news you should not miss today:

COVID-19 Updates

-- Vietnams Ministry of Health reported 2,498 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, raising the national tally to 11,437,970, with 10,287,143 recoveries and 43,126 deaths.

Politics

-- Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son on Saturday paid a visit to the residence of British Ambassador to Vietnam Iain Frew to extend his condolences over the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Society

-- At least three people were injured after an automobile crashed into five motorcycles and one bicycle in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday afternoon.

-- A single mother in Dong Thap Province, located in Vietnams Mekong Delta region, has recently decided to donate her daughters heart, liver, kidneys, and corneas for medical purposes after the 25-year-old woman passed away due to a traumatic brain injury from an accident.

-- Three members from a family passed away due to serious burn injuries after being rescued from a fire that engulfed a bed sheet factory in Hanoi on Saturday afternoon.

-- Police in Ho Chi Minh City announced on Saturday the deportation of 14 foreigners who were captured illegally entering Vietnam in search of work in the country or in Cambodia.

-- On Saturday, five tons of fish, including over twenty varieties of rare and distinctive species, were released into the Hau River, connecting An Giang Province, Dong Thap Province, and Can Tho City in Vietnam's Mekong Delta region, in order to replenish the river's aquatic resources.

-- An eight-year-old girl from northern Hung Yen Province drowned after falling into a pond while participating in a Mid-Autumn Festival event in the neighborhood on Saturday afternoon.

-- A blaze broke out at an apartment in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday evening, as a resident burnt incense, causing significant property damage but no casualties.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A fire broke out at an apartment building in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday, with preliminary investigation showing that the incident was caused by incense sticks.

The flames started at a flat on the 20th floor of Diamond Riverside Apartment Complex on Vo Van Kiet Street in Ward 16, District 8 at around 9:30 pm on Saturday.

A lot of smoke came out from the apartment.

Smoke comes out from the apartment fire at Diamond Riverside apartment complex in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City, September 10, 2022 in this screenshot taken from a video clip.

After hearing the fire alarm, all residents fled their apartments and rushed downstairs.

Officers under the fire fighting and prevention police unit in District 8 later arrived at the scene and put out the fire.

No one was harmed in the incident, but many properties and items inside the apartment were burned down.

Preliminary information revealed that the blaze was caused by burning incense sticks.

Firefighters arrive at Diamond Riverside apartment complex in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City, September 10, 2022. Photo: Hong Loc / Tuoi Tre

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Five metric tons of fish of more than 20 rare and distinctive species were released into the Hau (Back) River in Vietnams Mekong Delta on Saturday to replenish the river's aquatic resources.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in An Giang Province released the fish into the Hau River section in An Giang, Dong Thap Province, and Can Tho City.

The fish were stored inside multiple tanks and sacks and were transported on ferries and boats.

Natural disasters and climate change have affected aquatic resources and biodiversity in general, Phung Duc Tien, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said at the event.

Fish are released into the Hau River in Vietnams Mekong Delta, September 10, 2022. Photo: Dang Tuyet / Tuoi Tre

The native aquatic species of the Mekong Delta have been threatened and are facing the risk of declining, Tien continued, adding that preservation is necessary in sustainable exploitation.

The agriculture ministry, in coordination with the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, plans to release about 60 million fish in many provinces and cities across the country this year, the official said.

This will bring about economic benefits, replenish the aquatic resources, ensure livelihoods for people in the long term, and raise awareness of aquatic resource protection, he elaborated.

People release fish into the Hau River in Vietnams Mekong Delta, September 10, 2022. Photo: Dang Tuyet / Tuoi Tre

About 587,000 fish weighing five metric tons were released into the Hau River on Saturday, said Nguyen Si Lam, director of the An Giang agriculture department.

The fish cost more than VND1 billion (US$42,500), funded by the state budget as well as local residents, Lam continued.

We encouraged local residents to support and join hands to protect the environment and aquatic resources, as well as exploit the resources in an effective and sustainable manner, the official stated.

Authorities in An Giang, Dong Thap, and Can Tho previously asked people to stop catching fish in the Hau River from September 8 to 15 to facilitate the release of fish on Saturday.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said it will work with relevant agencies in an attempt to relax visa policies, following complaints about visa woes that have driven foreigners, including experts, away from Vietnam.

The ministry added that it is handling complaints lodged by local people and enterprises at home and overseas in order to study and propose appropriate revisions to the countrys immigration policies, Doan Khac Viet, deputy spokesperson of the ministry told a regular press briefing on Thursday.

Responding to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspapers inquiry regarding obstacles facing foreign experts when they apply for a visa to enter Vietnam, Viet said the ministry is actively working with other countries to streamline immigration procedures.

He also cited the law on foreigners entry into, exit from, transit through, and residence in Vietnam as saying that when foreigners seek to enter Vietnam to work with enterprises and projects in the country, they must get their visa applications processed by the Vietnam Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security.

The Vietnam Immigration Department is in charge of determining the types and duration of visas, he explained.

The Southeast Asian nation reopened its doors to international visitors on March 15 this year after coronavirus outbreaks were brought under control.

However, its stringent visa policies have hindered foreign business people and experts from visiting Vietnam.

Earlier, the countrys regulations linked to the issuance of investment visas were more relaxed and considered one of the top factors that attracted foreign investors to Vietnam.

But the current visa regulations are more stringent.

Accordingly, investors must have contributed capital of less than VND3 billion (US$127,549) to be eligible for visas valid for a maximum of one year, while those with contributed capital of over VND3 billion can get a visa of three years or shorter.

Such prevailing visa policy is a major hindrance to the entry of foreign investors into the country.

A Lebanese entrepreneur runs a business in Vietnam with around seven employees but got his visa applications rejected.

Another one had to take a detour by buying a seven-day package tour so as to enter Vietnam and thereby incurred higher costs than normal.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Police in Dong Nai Province, southern Vietnam have detained a local suspect who used a gun to rob a bank transaction office and got away with some US$25,500 three days ago, a police official has said.

Police officers nabbed Le Huy Dung, a 34-year-old suspect in the robbery that happened at a Vietcombank transaction office in Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province on September 8, Major General Nguyen Sy Quang, director of the provincial police, reported on Sunday morning.

Dungs arrest was made very early on the same morning, and police searched his house soon later, seizing a handgun, a motorbike, and the cash he had stolen from the transaction office.

At 2:30 pm on Thursday, Dung, dressed in black and wearing a face mask and a helmet, was entering the Tam Phuoc Transaction Office in the namesake ward of Bien Hoa City.

At that time, there were about 20 people in the office, including bank employees and clients.

After sitting there for a while, Dung approached the cash counter, pulled out a gun, fired a shot into the air, and ordered the staff to give him money.

This supplied photo shows the bank robbery suspect being questioned by a police officer in Dong Nai Province after his arrest on September 11, 2022.

Hearing the shot, a security guard rushed into the office but Dung pointed the gun to him, ordering him to step back.

After putting many bundles of cash into a black bag, Dung ran out of the office and continued running across National Highway 51 to get to a place where he had parked his motorbike and escaped on the vehicle.

The whole robbery took place for less than five minutes and was entirely recorded by the offices security camera system.

The office later reported it had lost about VND600 million ($25,510) to the robber.

After being reported, provincial police hunted for the suspect and eventually detained him at 0:15 on Sunday when he was hiding in An Phuoc Commune of the provinces Long Thanh District, around 20 kilometers from the scene, according to Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Italian designer Maria Elena Di Terlizzi and her Vietnamese peer Quang Hoa have tailored 60 ao dai for a showcase in Rome in March 2023, with a view to winning the hearts of European customers.

The ao dai designs are part of the Ao Dai Heritage - Culture of Love project implemented by Golden Heritage Group, the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Embassy in Rome, and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam.

The project aims to promote ao dai to the international fashion market while applying the quintessence of Italian international technology to the making of the Vietnamese traditional long gown.

Italian designer Maria Elena takes measurements of former Vietnamese Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien. Photo: T. Dieu / Tuoi Tre

Ao dai easily catches the attention of foreigners, according to Huy Thanh, a member of Golden Heritage Group.

Ao dai can tell the world a lot about Vietnam, said Thanh.

The 60 new costumes were showcased at an event in Hanoi on Thursday night and scheduled for display shows in Rome and other famous heritage cities around the world.

Italian designer Maria Elena contributed 45 designs to the collection while the rest were made by her Vietnamese counterpart Quang Hoa, hailing from Hue City in central Vietnam, which has been dubbed the capital of ao dai.

A very feminine and elegant outfit, it requires the wearer to follow implicit rules and certain cultural norms, Elena said.

Models don new 'ao dai' designs made by Vietnamese designer Quang Hoa at a showcase in Hanoi, September 8, 2022. Photo: T. Dieu / Tuoi Tre

Elena plans to adjust the form of ao dai to make it more comfortable, as well as use new Italian materials to bring certain comfort to wearers, creating a more youthful, modern, and convenient appeal for the traditional costume.

She showed great confidence in the potential of the ao dai renovation project in the European market, where female customers love to try new experiences.

Currently, she has established a network of customers who are interested in the Vietnamese garment.

Im here to learn Vietnamese traditions and bring European modernity into the Vietnamese ao dai, making it a popular clothing choice for everyone, said Elena.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A project to establish the first-ever book street in Vietnams Mekong Delta region and the fifth of its kind across the country in Cao Lanh City of Dong Thap Province was announced on Friday.

The Cao Lanh City book street will be built on the premises of Van Mieu Park, which covers an area of about 10 hectares, next to Khong Tu (Confucius) Lake, according to Truong Quang Hoa - deputy general director of Saigon Central Sea Star JSC.

The new book street will be lined with 19 stalls along both sides of the main road of the park, including six book stalls, two old book stores, eight souvenir stalls, one exhibition area, one coffee shop, and one administration office.

The exhibition area will be dedicated to displaying works and products typical of the Mekong Delta culture.

Work on the Cao Lanh City book street is expected to start later this month.

The book street is slated to be inaugurated on November 20 this year on the occasion of the 40th Vietnamese Teachers Day, becoming the first book street in the Mekong Delta region and the fifth in the country.

Vietnam has opened four similar book streets in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, and central Thua Thien-Hue Province.

The one in Thua Thien-Hue Province, however, was closed in 2019 for selling pirated books.

Vo Phan Thanh Minh, chairman of Cao Lanh City, showed great confidence in the feasibility and efficiency of the project, saying that an estimated 2,000 people visit Van Mieu Park every day.

The number of visitors to the park even surges to some 500,000 during public holidays like Lunar New Year.

In addition, the book streets location is convenient for university students and officer workers.

The announcement of the project came after Cao Lanh City, the capital city of Dong Thap Province, was officially added to the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities along with 76 cities from 43 other countries on September 2.

In 2020, Sa Dec City in the same province also joined the network.

Cao Lanh is one of the cities in the Mekong Delta region that has paid attention to developing a reading culture and enhancing peoples knowledge and personality through books, said Le Hoang, vice-president of the Vietnam Publishing Association, as he hailed the book street project.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
EXCLUSIVE:

ABC will close down its long-running set construction facilities in Sydney.

The end of construction comes as part of the closure of its Lanceley Place site in Artarmon, expected to wind down by January 2023.

Internally-produced shows include Play School, The Set (pictured), rage, Good Game: Spawn Point, Frankly, Take 5 with Zan Rowe, Art Works, Mikki vs the World and a range of news and current affairs.

Following our departure from Lanceley Place, the ABC will no longer have the capability to build sets in house, operations manager Kym Doust has told staff. The ABC will now undertake all new set construction externally, using the services of set construction companies.

We have met with team members based at Lanceley Place and have commenced consultation on how the proposed changes will impact their roles.

Melbourne meanwhile, is understood to still have some small capacity for sets, props and costumes located in the inner west, after Ripponlea studios were closed in 2017.

Lanceley Place is being sold as part of a five year efficiencies plan by ABC within its property portfolio. Proceeds from the sale will help fund the development of ABC Parramatta and other staff accommodation projects.
Armoured fighting vehicles abandoned by Russian soldiers are seen during a counteroffensive operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kharkiv region

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian nationalists called angrily on Sunday for President Vladimir Putin to make immediate changes to ensure ultimate victory in the Ukraine war, a day after Moscow was forced to abandon its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine.

The swift fall of Izium in Kharkiv province was Russia's worst military defeat since its troops were forced back from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in March.

As Russian forces abandoned town after town on Saturday, Putin was opening Europe's largest ferris wheel in a Moscow park, while fireworks lit up the sky over Red Square to celebrate the city's founding in 1147.

In an 11-minute-long voice message posted to the Telegram messaging app, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin ally whose troops have been at the forefront of the campaign in Ukraine, dismissed the loss of Izium, a critical supply hub.

But he conceded the campaign was not going to plan.

"If today or tomorrow changes are not made in the conduct of the special military operation, I will be forced to go to the country's leadership to explain to them the situation on the ground," said Kadyrov.

Moscow's almost total silence on the defeat - or any explanation for what had taken place in northeastern Ukraine - provoked significant anger among some pro-war commentators and Russian nationalists on social media.

As the defeats unfolded, the Russian defence ministry on Friday posted video footage of what it said were troops being sent to the Kharkiv region.

On Sunday the defence ministry said Russian forces had struck Ukrainian positions in the region with airborne troops, missiles and artillery.

MOSCOW IS SILENT

Neither Putin, who is Russia's supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, nor Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had publicly commented on the defeat as of midday on Sunday.

"We take pride in Moscow, and love this city with its majestic antiquity and its modern and dynamic pace of life, the charm of its cosy parks, lanes and streets and abundance of business and cultural events," Putin told Muscovites, according to a Kremlin transcript of his congratulatory message.

Story continues

Putin, who has described his shock on being told as a KGB spy in East Germany that "Moscow is silent" as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said those who had fallen in the Ukraine operation had given their lives for Russia.

The defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

"They're taking the piss," wrote one prominent, pro-war military blogger on Telegram, who posts under the name of Rybar.

"Now is not the time to shut up and say nothing ... this seriously hurts the cause."

On Saturday the ministry announced a "regrouping" that would move troops away from Kharkiv to focus on the Donetsk region further in Ukraine's east - a statement that drew further anger from many Russian military bloggers.

Some of the pro-Kremlin war correspondents and former and current servicemen who have amassed large followings on Telegram accused the ministry of minimising the defeat.

DEFEAT?

Igor Girkin, a nationalist militant and former FSB officer who helped launch a 2014 war in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, compared the collapse of one of the conflict's principal front lines to the 1905 Battle of Mukden - a catastrophic defeat in the Russo-Japanese war which triggered Russia's 1905 Revolution.

Ukraine has hailed its rapid advance, which saw thousands of Russian soldiers flee, leaving behind ammunition stockpiles and equipment, as a turning point in the 6-month-old war.

Girkin, who has been unsparing in his criticisms of the country's top brass, dubbing defence minister Shoigu "the cardboard marshal", has said repeatedly that Russia will be defeated in Ukraine if it doesn't declare a nationwide mobilisation.

Nationalist anger at military failure is potentially a far greater problem for the Kremlin than pro-Western liberal criticism of Putin: opinion polls continue to show broad support for what Moscow calls the "special military operation".

As the capital celebrated Moscow Day with street parties and concerts on Saturday, rumblings of disquiet even spread to Russia's ordinarily subservient parliament.

Sergei Mironov, leader of the nominally opposition but Putin-loyal Just Russia party, said on Twitter that a firework display in honour of the holiday should be cancelled, in view of the military situation.

One message reposted on Telegram by the prominent war correspondent Semyon Pegov referred to the celebrations in Moscow as "blasphemous" and the refusal of Russian authorities to embark on full-scale war as "schizophrenic".

"Either Russia will become itself through the birth of a new political elite ... or it will cease to exist," it read.

(Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Catherine Evans)
Freshman setter Serin Maden

was

The UMBC volleyball squad (3-3) hosts Niagara (2-6) on Sunday, Sept. 11 to wrap up a drama-filled three match homestand. The match gets underway at Chesapeake Arena at 2:00 p.m.The Retrievers have knocked off a pair of outstanding opponents in Delaware and James Madison in five sets over the past week.The match will be streamed live on the America East digital network. A second consecutive career-performance fromhelped lead the UMBC volleyball team to a five-set victory over Sun Belt preseason favorite James Madison ((20-25, 25-21, 25-23, 22-25, 15-12) on Friday evening. Conteh recorded a career-high 32 kills after putting away 27 in last Sunday's five-set win over Delaware. Conteh became the first Retriever to tally 30 kills in a match since Krystal Mlemchukwu had 30 kills at UAlbany in 2014. She was also just the third player in the rally-score era to reach the plateau, and it's only the fourth such occurrence (and the second in the 25-point era).had 52 assists and a career-best 11 digs, while juniorhad a career-night as well, finishing with highs in kills (eight) and assists (four). For the second-consecutive week, freshman Madennamed America East Setter of the Week. In addition, Miller was tabbed as the Defensive Specialist of the Week. Maden averaged 10.89 assists per set as the team hit .377 in a 1-1 week. She posted career-high 53 assists with four digs in five-set win over Delaware, and had double-double of 45 assists and 10 digs in four-set loss to American. UMBC currently leads America East in assists (12.5) and kills (13.5) per set. Sophomore(4.75) and Conteh (4.54) are 1-2 in the league in kills per set. Bilusic is also tops in services aces (0.67), while Maden is far and away the leader in assists at 10.5 assists per set through 24 sets in 2022. Miller is averaging a league-best 4.3 digs per set as she has debuted as libero. Miller opened her UMBC as the team's primary setter in the spring of 2021 and competed as an outside hitter last fall. Niagara has recorded a couple of big victories in the early going, blanking America East's Bryant and knocking off the Ivy League's Penn, 3-1. They fell to James Madison in three sets (25-18, 25-16, 25-14) in a neutral match at The Peake on Saturday. Coming into the tournament, the Purple Eagles faced Colgate, and, similar to UMBC, fell to the Raiders in three straight sets. The Purple Eagles are an outstanding blocking side, averaging 9.4 blocks per match entering play this weekend. Senior Taylor Allen leads the way with 21 blocks in 22 sets of action. Freshman Kinga Wronska (56) and junior Lexi Bapst (51) have combined for 107 kills and form a solid offensive tandem for the Purple Eagles. This will be just the second meeting between UMBC and NU The Retrievers triumphed, 3-1, at the RAC in 2008UMBC continues is rigorous non-conference slate next weekend. The Retrievers travel to Richmond, Va. to face Old Dominion, host VCU and North Carolina at the VCU Invitational on Sept. 16-17.
HCM CITY  Local supporting industry companies should promote themselves and their products to foreign-owned manufacturing companies in Viet Nam seeking to source components within the country.

Speaking at a sourcing fair in HCM City last week, Vo Van Hoan, vice chairman of the city Peoples Committee, said foreign firms in Viet Nam are increasingly looking to source components and parts locally, offering Vietnamese enterprises an opportunity to enter global supply chains.

But to grab that opportunity, they need to improve quality and offer competitive prices, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted global supply chains, leading to a slump in production activities, and this underlines the importance of having strong supply chains that do not depend too much on any one country, experts said.

Viet Nam is now attracting great attention from global buyers, including foreign firms operating locally.

Sam Hui, general manager of Global Sources, an international B2B sourcing platform company based in Hong Kong, told Viet Nam News recently that Viet Nam has the potential to be one of the most sought-after sourcing destinations for buyers world-wide.

A 2021 survey by the company found Viet Nam ranked the number one destination from where buyers plan to source from Asia, outside China, in the next 12 months, followed by India, Cambodia and Bangladesh.

Buyers said their top three pain points in sourcing from the country are product quality, choice of suppliers and delivery time.

Another 2021 survey by JETRO on Japanese investment in Asia and Oceania found that 55.3 per cent of Japanese businesses in Viet Nam wanted to expand their operations in the country in the next one to two years, the highest rate in Southeast Asia.

When asked about raw materials and components, 86 per cent said they wanted to increase local sourcing of materials and components, with 88 per cent saying they would prefer to buy from local firms.

The country has emerged as a new production hub in the global supply chain with the presence of high-tech giants such as Samsung, Intel, LG, and Foxconn accompanied by a network of their satellite companies.

Le Nguyen Duy Oanh, deputy director of the HCM City Centre for Supporting Industries Development, said more and more buyers from the US and EU have come to the country to look for new sources of supply.

Foreign firms in electronics, mechanical engineering, robotics, and other sectors have also been seeking to buy components in the local market.

She, however, pointed out that procurement of components and raw materials in Viet Nam is made difficult by product quality and poor techniques.

Vietnamese firms need to resolve quality issues, expand capacity, reduce the rate of defective goods, and address management weaknesses, she said.

Experts said suppliers should also meet the requirements of buyers if they want to enter the global supply chain.

Buyers expect them to have good supply chain management, with a resource management system in place, they said.

They must also develop their own supply system rather than relying entirely on China, they added.

Manufacturing plays a vital role in Viet Nams economic structure.

From being a country whose export staples were agricultural produce and goods made by large labour-intensive industries, Viet Nam is gradually moving up the value scale with products such as precision mechanical products, electronics and components.

The two-day event, which ended on Friday, was organised by the Department of Industry and Trade, the HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority and the Saigon Hi-Tech Park.

It was attended by 20 foreign-invested firms, who were looking for more than 500 items, and 130 potential Vietnamese suppliers.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade, over four years the annual fair has connected 96 foreign-invested firms with 370 supporting industrial companies.  VNS
HCM CITY  Sustainability commitment is a key driver for growth and investment, panelists told an ASEAN++ business forum in HCM City on Friday.

Ng Jiak See, Deloitte Asia Pacific Financial Advisory Leader, said due to its strategic geographical location, ease of doing business, tax incentives and free trade agreements, ASEAN is one of the most attractive destinations for investors seeking to expand their global footprint.

But it needs to take immediate action to maintain this attractiveness, she said.

For ASEAN, in acting now, the region can generate a cycle of positive outcomes. Sustainable financing will support improvements to existing infrastructure, which in turn unlocks new sustainable assets, which in turn furthers transition into a low carbon economy, which in turn increases investor trust in sustainable investments, which in turn enhances attractiveness to investors, which in turn allows sustainable infrastructure to gain access to more funding. And the cycle goes round.

Viet Nam is one of four ASEAN countries among the faster growing economies in the world and one of three to get large FDI inflows, she said.

Viet Nam is also a top choice when multinational companies consider relocating a growing proportion of their manufacturing from China to ensure supply chain resilience, she added.

Cao Thi Ngoc Dung, president of the HCM City Association for Women Executives and Enterprises, said disruption of value chains, supply chains and trade connections are major issues that need to be promptly addressed.

Connectivity and co-operation activities in ASEAN play a vital role in promoting trade exchanges, strengthening regional supply chains and contributing to the economic recovery of the bloc post-COVID, she said.

Sustainable development is an inevitable trend for businesses and crucial to international trade, and consumers in developed markets, especially younger generations, prefer products from businesses that pursue sustainable development, she said.

Sustainable businesses even get priority from investors.

Sustainable development requires close links within the business community and there needs to be a thorough understanding of sustainable development in the supply chain, she added.

Phan Thi Thang, deputy chairwoman of the HCM City Peoples Committee, said circular and green economies had become inevitable for meeting the requirements of sustainable development.

The countrys economic hub, HCM City, is now focusing on efforts to promote a sustainable green economy, she said.

In line with the inevitable trend of sustainable development, the city targets developing a sustainable green economy by adopting science and technology and innovations and increasing labour productivity, she said.

The business forum was aimed at attracting foreign investment to ASEAN countries, creating opportunities for foreign trade and introducing the diverse and vivid cultures of the various member nations.

The event was organised by the Department of Industry and Trade and HCM City Association for Women Executives and Entrepreneurs.  VNS
HA NOI  An official visit to Viet Nam from September 12 to 14 by President of the Cambodian National Assembly Samdech Heng Samrin is an important political and diplomatic event in the Viet Nam - Cambodia Friendship Year 2022 to mark the 55th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship (June 24).

After Viet Nam and Cambodia set up diplomatic ties on June 24, 1967, their peoples stood side by side in the struggle for national liberation to secure historic victories in the spring of 1975. Viet Nam later assisted the patriotic forces and people of Cambodia to topple the Pol Pot genocidal regime, with the triumph on January 7, 1979.

Building on cooperation achievements in history, under the motto of good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, and comprehensive, sustainable and long-term cooperation, bilateral relations have been unceasingly consolidated and developing in all fields over the past years, generating practical benefits and actively contributing to peace, stability, and cooperation in the region and the world.

Political ties have been growing as seen in mutual visits, meetings, and discussions in various forms between the countries senior leaders, along with increasingly effective collaboration between their ministries, sectors, and localities.

A number of people-to-people diplomatic activities, especially in border provinces, have taken place, helping improve peoples understanding of traditional solidarity, friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance.

The two sides have also jointly organised many meaningful celebrations of the Viet Nam - Cambodia Friendship Year 2022 and the 55th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship.

In 2021, bilateral trade rose 79.1 per cent year on year to US$9.54 billion. It stood at $7.08 billion in the first seven months of 2022, up 17.8 per cent from a year earlier. Viet Nam has 188 valid investment projects worth $2.8 billion in Cambodia at present, ranking first among investors from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and fifth among all foreign investors in this country.

Meanwhile, partnerships in defence, security, border safeguarding, education - training, science - technology, tourism, and people-to-people exchange have been further boosted. The number of Vietnamese tourists to Cambodia surpassed 46,300 in the first three months of this year, making Viet Nam the biggest source of foreign visitors there.

Relations between the countries legislative bodies have also been growing in both bilateral and multilateral aspects. Under the cooperation agreement signed by the two parliaments in May 2019, the countries have maintained high-level mutual visits; shared experiences; and organised exchanges between the parliaments committees and the parliamentary friendship groups. They also agreed to enhance coordination to examine, promote, and supervise ministries, sectors, localities, and businesses implementation of signed agreements, helping intensify the Viet Nam - Cambodia comprehensive cooperation.

At many inter-parliamentary forums of the region and the world, NA delegations of the two countries have also increased discussing, consulting with each other, and coordinating their stances on many regional and international issues of common concern.

The visit by NA President Samdech Heng Samrin is an occasion for both sides to work out orientations and measures for bolstering parliamentary ties within bilateral and multilateral frameworks, exchange views on regional and international issues of common concern, and especially contribute to the success of the Viet Nam - Cambodia Friendship Year amid the 55th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship.  VNS
SYDNEY  Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Nguyen Tat Thanh has written an article highlighting the outstanding achievements in Viet Nam  Australia ties over the past five decades as Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son is on an official visit to Australia.

Son is visiting Australia from September 10-13 to co-chair the fourth Viet Nam-Australia Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

In his article, Thanh wrote that the two countries have shared common interests and offered mutual support and trust on core issues within both bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

He pointed out that economic and sci-tech cooperation is a bright spot in bilateral ties, with two-way trade surpassing US$10 billion for the first time in 2021. The figure soared by 40 per cent annually to $9.6 billion in seven months of this year. According to the latest statistics, Viet Nam has become Australia's 10th biggest trade partner, while Australia is the seventh largest trade partner of the Southeast Asian nation.

National defence-security cooperation has also been expanded based on mutual trust while education ties and people-to-people exchange have become ever stronger.

On the significance of FM Son's visit, Thanh said it is the first ministerial visit to Australia since the two countries reopened their doors following the pandemic. It is also the first visit to Australia by Foreign Minister Son under the annual foreign ministers' meeting mechanism. It takes place ahead of the 50th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties next year, starting a series of high-level visits between both sides in the future.

Through the visit, Viet Nam wants to consolidate and develop its strategic partnership with Australia, Thanh said, adding that it will give both sides a chance to review their ties and outline measures to deepen mutually beneficial collaboration further. Furthermore, it steps up several important contents about multilateral cooperation after ASEAN established a comprehensive strategic partnership with Australia in October 2021.

The ambassador said the economy, national defence-security, and innovation are the three key pillars of Viet Nam - Australia ties. Both sides will continue enhancing links across the priority fields of education-training, natural resources-energy, agro-forestry-fisheries, manufacturing, tourism, sci-tech, digital economy and services.

He suggested establishing a bilateral partnership in energy so that Australia can offer financial and technological support to Viet Nam to switch to a low-emission economy.

Toward the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties next year, he said they will further deepen ties via Party's external relation and State diplomacy channels, as well as in promising fields such as digital economy, sustainable supply chains, locality-to-locality cooperation, corporate support and cultural exchanges.  VNS
From October 20 to 28, a delegation from the EC will visit Vietnam to check measures against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. However, the European Union's delegation in Vietnam did not present a detailed schedule, according to a source by VIR.

Phung Duc Tien, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) cum deputy head of the National Steering Committee on Combating IUU Fishing has recently visited many coastal localities to inspect the implementation of ECs recommendations and regulations on IUU.

The MARD has requested localities to enlarge marine conservation areas by 2030 and establish anti-exploitation and fishing zones along the coast and major estuaries. IUU fishing refers to fishing activities that are not compliant with regional, national, and international fisheries conservation or management measures.

Right after the issuance of the yellow-card warning from the EC, Vietnam has been actively focusing on drastic actions as per ECs recommendations and regulations on IUU in order to remove the warning as soon as possible. There are three groups of solutions as follows:

The first one is institutional refinement, to keep in line with international regulations, including from the EU. This group includes reviewing and supplementing legal documents and enhancing sanctions in the revised Fisheries Law, documents, and action plans of the government.

The second one is to impose strict punishments for violations, improve the enforcement capacity of the state management system and fishermen in Vietnam, and end the situation of fishing vessels engaged in illegal fishing in the waters of other countries.

The third one is to strengthen communication, information, and training to make the system of state management of fisheries, businesses and especially the boat owners and fishermen understand about what are the measures to combat illegal unregulated fishing in practice.

In 2017, the EC issued the warning against Vietnamese fishery products exported to the EU. The decision had an impact on the country's seafood exports to the EU, which account for 1617 per cent of the country's annual seafood export value.

In August, Vietnam saw an increase in seafood exports to the EU, up 95 per cent from last years period, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

Vietnam's seafood exports decreased to less than $1 billion in July after sustaining above $1 billion in a row from March to June. This trend was sustained in August with sales down to $917 million, which is 3 per cent less than the turnover for July.

Following the ECs issuance of the warning, VASEP established an executive board and a programme titled Seafood Enterprises Commitment to Combating IUU Fishing in 2017 with many activities in companionship with the government to remove the yellow card.

The board has cooperated with various local and international parties. Specifically, the board has joined forces with localities to organise working sessions with fishermen to grasp problems in the process of combatting IUU fishing.

The association has conducted communication activities about Vietnams actions against IUU fishing on national and local newspapers, radio stations, and VASEPs information systems. It has created and published brochures and videos to disseminate information on IUU to relevant stakeholders in the seafood exploitation and processing chain.

Vietnam to have 184 fishing ports by 2050: draft plan Vietnam will have a total of 184 fishing ports, capable of handling approximately 3 million tonnes of fish annually, and 160 typhoon shelters for boats by 2050 under a plan drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

EC official impressed by Vietnams outcomes in IUU fishing combat Director for the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries International Ocean Governance and Sustainable Fisheries of the European Union Veronika Veits has expressed impression on Vietnams outcomes in following the ECs recommendations regarding the settlement of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Sakuko Japanese Store, a Japanese supermarket chain, has officially announced a new brand identity. The rebrand reflects the retailers long-term vision of investing in Vietnams retail market by providing high-quality Japanese-standard products to local consumers.

After 10 years in Vietnam, Sakuko Vietnam Retail Co., Ltd., the operator of the supermarket chain has set up a strong footprint in the mum and baby market. However, during the pandemic, Sakuko Vietnam recorded strong growth in other segments, especially food, healthcare, and home and life products.

The Japanese retailer pinpointed a lucrative opportunity to promote products in Vietnam beyond the mum and baby segment.

Cao Thi Dung, CEO of Sakuko Vietnam said, The pandemic has completely transformed the retail landscape. As a Japanese retailer, we are looking to capitalise on the customer behaviour changes. In particular, Vietnam customers are becoming more health-conscious as well as mindful of their spending. Sakukos goal is to become a bridge to help Vietnamese people purchase and use high-quality Japanese goods at reasonable prices.

Dung continued, By refreshing the brand identity with a new logo, we hope to bring a fresh look and impart a meaningful message for Vietnamese consumers. Sakuko Vietnam is positioned to be a go-to destination for families seeking authentic and quality Japanese goods. Our products also retain pricing comparable to supermarkets in Japan thanks to our direct relationships with Japanese manufacturers and trade promotion agencies.

As of present, Sakuko Vietnam is operating over 30 retail outlets in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and other localities. The retailer aims to expand its chain to 60 stores in Vietnam by 2025. Sakuko Vietnam also boasts a portfolio of more than 10,000 renowned and high-quality products in seven categories.

Another Japanese retailer AEON Vietnam also made adjustments to its business strategies to keep up with the developments in the retail market. During the pandemic, AEONs supermarkets and small-scale retail outlets witnessed a huge boost in revenue. Meanwhile, AEON Mall and other shopping malls saw a sharp decline in foot traffic.

Furusawa Yasuyuki, general director of AEON Vietnam, said that customers have changed their shopping behaviour considerably after the prolonged social distancing period, prompting the retail industry to make changes.

AEON Vietnam plans to expand the presence of its convenience store and supermarket chains like AEON MaxValu and AEON Citimart. With regards to shopping malls, the Japanese retailer will focus on improving customer experience and embracing omnichannel retail.

According to Cao Thi Thanh Huong, research manager of Savills Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's retail sector is expected to reach new heights thanks to accelerated economic recovery.

The growth in domestic consumer spending will naturally translate into more demand for retail goods and services. To capitalise on Vietnam's growing number of consumers, giant retailers with strong financial backgrounds such as Uniqlo and Muji will expand their physical stores in shopping centres.

Specifically, Uniqlo, the Japanese global apparel retailer, also aims to open several new stores in Vietnam this year. Uniqlo will launch some flagship ones in 2023 towards the 50th anniversary of Vietnam-Japan relations. Meanwhile, Japanese chain retailer Muji has a plan to open its fourth store in Vietnam in the third quarter of 2022.

A survey by the Japan Trade Promotion Organization also reveals that Japanese companies had shifted their focus to Vietnam as a result of production operations being halted because of supply chain disruptions during the health crisis.

About 55.3 per cent of all Japanese companies planned to increase their operations in Vietnam over the course of the next one to two years, the highest percentage in Southeast Asia. In contrast, only 2.2 per cent of Japanese enterprises in Vietnam wanted to reduce their operations, the second-lowest percentage in Asia after Pakistan and the lowest in Southeast Asia.

Speaking at the Vietnam-Japan trade and investment forum in Tokyo last month, Nguyen Hong Dien, Minister of Industry and Trade, called on Japanese firms to increase their investments in Vietnam and expand operations to ASEAN and other markets that sign free trade agreements with Vietnam.

The minister added that Vietnam has a policy of promoting the development of traditional and modern trade including markets, supermarkets, retail stores, and convenience stores. Meanwhile, Japan has strengths in these areas. The two sides can promote cooperation in developing retail channels and e-commerce infrastructure.

Japanese retailers jumping on board During the last few years, Japanese investors boldly expanded their influence in Vietnam, especially in the retail sector.

Retailers head to digital transformation to increase efficiency in COVID-19 With shopping behaviour trending to online during COVID-19, retail decision-makers are heading to technology-driven transformation to improve customer experience and performance.
The Vietnam Gloryprogramme is an event by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour and organised by Lao Dong Newspaper, held annually since 2004. After 16 occasions, Vietnam Glory honoured 245 units and individuals with exemplary achievements in the renovation and safeguarding of Vietnam.

The 17th Vietnam Glory Awards were broadcasted on national television on September 10 with the theme Fortitude of Vietnam. The jury selected seven outstanding companies and six individuals to honour this year.

Nguyen Dinh Khang, chairman of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour said at the ceremony, "These are units and individuals that have displayed fortitude and innovation in successfully applying digital transformation to overcome difficulties caused by COVID-19; achieved good outcomes in manufacturing and business operations, bringing added value to the countrys economy and society; and contributing to building a digital economy and society as stipulated by the Party at the National Party Congress XIII.

SABECO was honoured at the Vietnam Glory Awards

With a history of more than 147 years of establishment and development accompanying the changes in the country, SABECO has established its position as one of the leading corporations in Vietnam.

With a commitment to always accompany and contribute to the sustainable development and prosperity of the country and people, SABECO focuses on strongly developing high-quality domestic beer brands and raising the brand's position in the market, so that Vietnamese people can be truly proud of this brand.

During the pandemic, SABECO maintained jobs for more than 9,000 direct employees of the company, as well as contributed nearly $435 million to the state budget in 2021. Besides this, SABECO supported communities with more than $2.39 million nationwide through a series of initiatives such as Rise with Vietnam, Collecting Millions of Stars, Tet-One Home, and others.

The company has not only covered additional human resource expenses but also offered bonuses to employees.

Our core priority is to ensure stable jobs for the company's workforce, and we are always proactive to support people in need through practical actions. These initiatives and actions reflected SABECO's human-centred values, as well as our commitment to promote sustainable development for the country and the people of Vietnam, said Bennett Neo, general director of SABECO.

Bennett Neo, general director of SABECO, said that as a company with a long history in Vietnam, SABECO is always committed to bringing the best to the country.

"Along with our efforts to promote business activities and contribute to the socioeconomic development of Vietnam, we do not forget our responsibility in promoting and supporting the development of the community through sustainable development initiatives," Neo said.

Our core priority is to ensure stable jobs for the company's workforce, and we are always proactive to support people in need through practical actions. These initiatives and actions reflected SABECO's human-centred values, as well as our commitment to promote sustainable development for the country and the people of Vietnam, he added

In 2022, SABECO started its second phase of transformation, aiming to further step up in its journey to enhance its competitiveness and profitability.

Initially launched in 2020, SABECO 4.0 is the essential driver to change the business, utilising computerised innovations. This includes updating business processes and hierarchical designs, information systems and data streams, and administration structures, among others.

The ultimate objective SABECO wants to accomplish is to improve, normalise, and mechanise the approaches across the country to reinforce its market authority in the Vietnamese market.

Today, the companys network includes 26 subsidiaries and 18 associates and joint ventures, with more than 145,000 product consumption channels. For the last three years, it has offered a brand portfolio consisting of some of the most beloved beer brands in Vietnam, such as Bia Saigon Special, Bia Saigon Export, Bia Saigon Lager, Bia Saigon Gold, Bia Lac Viet, Bia Saigon Chill, and Bia 333.
The 1,070-hectare Son My I Industrial Park (IP), located in Binh Thuan province, promises to be a bright spot for investment and a pioneer in advancing the development of the countrys energy industry.

The construction kick-off ceremony was witnessed by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Vice State President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong, and other representatives of the government, as well as local departments and agencies.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and local leaders attended the groundbreaking ceremony of Son My I Industrial Park

At the ceremony, Prime Minister Chinh instructed relevant departments and central agencies to strengthen efforts to support the province, resolve difficulties, harness its advantages, and create favourable conditions to optimise progress of the IP.

PM Chinh surveying the grounds at Son My I Industrial Park with local leaders and others

According to Le Tuan Phong, Chairman of Binh Thuan Peoples Committee, Son My I IP is one of nine industrial parks in the province that have been approved by the prime minister.

Phong said that the current investment in and development of the parks infrastructure is expected to attract additional investment for future industrial production projects. This will contribute to the provinces industrial development, build on its natural advantages, and reshape its economic structure by increasing the construction industrys contribution to regional GDP.

These developments will be a driving force for socioeconomic growth in the southern region of the province, Phong added, supporting the successful implementation of the resolution of the 14th Provincial Party Congress for 2020-2025.

Le Quang Hieu, vice chairman of IPICO, said that Son My I is classified as one of the large-scale IPs both in Binh Thuan and the whole of Vietnam.

Aiming to become a smart and friendly IP with a sustainable energy centre at its core, Son My I will prioritise the development of renewable and clean energy which will reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, said Hieu.

Representatives of IPICO offer gifts to support the local community

In addition, he added, the location of Son My I is suitable for the development of an integrated seaport serving export-import of local goods and agricultural products. Upon approval, Son My I and its seaport will play a strategic role in the region and become the new major economic driving force in Binh Thuan as well as in the south-central Vietnam key economic zone.

Representatives from big energy and warehouse groups such as AES Vietnam, EDF, and Boskalis at the ceremony

Found in Ham Tan district, Son My I has a strategic location with direct links to major national infrastructure networks including National Highway No.1A, National Highway No. 55, and Phan Thiet-Dau Giay Expressway.

It is also easily accessible by airways as well as domestic and international waterways, and will be a vital gateway that connects the key southern economic zones.

The projects infrastructure will be aligned with international standards, apply innovative technology, and adopt the latest carbon emission standards. These unique competitive advantages help to differentiate Son My I as an attractive home for export businesses.

Son My I IP is zoned in four land use functions, including land for enterprises and factories, service centre areas, technical infrastructure areas, and green land and water areas.

The parks two liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plants, Son My 1 and Son My 2, are a key highlight, with a total capacity of 4500MW and covering an area of 200ha.

In addition, it will also include a 100-ha LNG warehouse port and 430ha for supporting industries.

In emphasising sustainability throughout its development journey, Son My I will actively support Vietnams net-zero commitments through careful policies and practices.

The park will have a subdivision specialising in the production of auxiliary equipment for the development of green energy industries.

Additionally, over 30 per cent of the total land area will be set aside for technical infrastructure, utility constructions, and industrial service zones, as well as key amenities for workers such as educational, training, medical, healthcare, and office facilities.

In particular, Son My I prioritises high-tech and clean industries which reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions and seek to lessen its reliance on fossil fuels by using green and renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and LNG.

Thanks to its strategic location, international-quality infrastructure, and an open and favourable investment environment, the park has already attracted leading international and domestic investors.

Among those are PetroVietnam Gas JSC, a unit of state-run Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, AES Group from the United States, and a consortium of Electricite De France with Japanese groups Sojitz Corporation, Pacific Corporation, and Kyushu Electric Power.

As one of the most critical projects that will play a pivotal role in promoting energy industry development in Binh Thuan and raising the provinces position in the national growth roadmap, Son My I has received full support from the state as well as the local authorities to ensure the projects timely progress.

Combined with IPICOs expertise and dedication, Son My I IP is targeted to have construction complete by 2025. Targeting large-scale projects with investment capital of billions of US dollars located within the park, once in operation, Son My I promises to become the centre of economic development for Binh Thuan as well as for neighbouring areas.

The park is also expected to create job opportunities for thousands of workers, improving the quality of life for local communities as well as setting the stage for Binh Thuans favourable growth trajectory.

Founded in 2017, IPICO aims to promote regional economic development, improve the quality of life for local communities, and conserve the environment. It strives to create optimal market conditions for global and local investment partners, bring prosperity to customers, and commit to serving the community while driving the next chapter of Vietnams sustainable growth story.

Son My I Industrial Park Investor: Son My Industrial Park Investment Construction And Trading Infrastructure Limited Company

Location: Hamlet 3, Son My commune, Ham Tan district, Binh Thuan province

Total area: 1,070 hectares

Groundbreaking date: August 30, 2022

Website: www.ipico.com.vn
NeighborWorks Waco is seeking volunteers to provide free federal income tax preparation for low- and middle-income residents, citizens with disabilities, and senior taxpayers. Volunteer training starts soon.

Upon completion of training requirements, volunteers will become IRS-certified tax preparers. They will assist local taxpayers with their tax returns from Feb. 1 through April 15.

For more information, call Sal Tahiri at 512-237-7568 or email atawaco24@gmail.com.

9/11 blood drive

Woodway First United Methodist Church, 21000 Woodway Drive, is hosting a blood drive to commemorate 9/11 at 9 a.m. Monday.

The event also include free blood pressure screenings and two talks beginning at noon: What You Should Know About Your Medications and "Its OK to Not Be OK," both by Vince Erickson with the Heart of Texas Behavioral Health Network.

Contact Nancy Small at 254-316-8365 or nsmall7868@msn.com for more information.

State of the City

The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce presents the State of the City and County Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, at the Baylor Club, 1001 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

It will feature presentations from Waco Mayor Dillon Meek and McLennan County Judge Scott Felton. Visit wacochamber.com to purchase tickets.

Walking tour of VA

Join Waco Walks at 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, for a narrated walk on the grounds of Doris Miller VA Medical Center, 4800 Memorial Drive. Participants will meet up in the Building 2 parking lot.

When the veterans hospital opened in Waco in 1932, it was the state's only veterans facility "dedicated to treating mental illness brought on by the horrors of war." Today, 90 years later, the VA medical center is still serving veterans in Central Texas.

Square dance lessons

Waco Stars Dance Club will host beginning square dance lessons starting Monday, Sept. 12, from 7 to 9 pm. at Allemande Hall, 106 Westlake Drive in Speegleville,

The first two lessons are free and $3 per person after that. No prior registration is needed.

Contact Wendell Moore 254-836-0093 or 254-715-2749 for information.

Free legal clinic

The First Monday Legal Advice Clinic will be held at 6 p.m. Monday ., at Indian Spring Middle School, 500 N. University Parks Drive.

Appointments are available by calling 254-733-2828.

Newcomers lunch

Waco Newcomers and Neighbors luncheon is at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21 at the Baylor Club inside McLane Stadium, 1001 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Reservations are due by Monday, Sept. 12.

Linda Howell and several other members of the Heart of Texas Storytelling Guild will preview the "Walking Tales" event that will take place in October at Oakwood Cemetery.

Call 719-210-7928 or email reservationsnnn@gmail.com for more information.

Quilters Guild

The Homespun Quilters Guild will meet Monday at 6:30 pm at New Road Church of Christ, 3100 S. New Road.

The speaker will be Cindy Owen from Heritage Quilt Barn, presenting Stepping Up Your Quilting Game.

Visitors are always welcome.
CEDAR FALLS  Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham will make an appearance on the University of Northern Iowas campus later this month.

Meacham will present Finding Hope Through the Lessons of Yesterday Sept. 19 as part of the universitys Joy Cole Corning Distinguished Lecture Series. The 7 p.m. event will be held at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Centers Great Hall, 8201 Dakota St.

As difficult as the present is, the American past is the story of challenges overcome, crises resolved, and progress made, notes an online promotion for the event. In this nonpartisan speech, Jon Meacham walks audiences through moments that have seemed intractable  which can include the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, the battle against polio, FDRs reaction to the first days of the Depression, Winston Churchills decision to fight on against Hitler, and the Cuban Missile Crisis  to offer lessons for leaders in how to endure and prevail when everything appears hopeless.

The series  established in 2001 by Corning, an alumna and former Iowa lieutenant governor  brings to campus nationally and internationally renowned leaders in the arts, business, education, government and the judiciary.

The series provides students with an understanding of what constitutes leadership across disciplines and helps them discover how people become leaders in their fields, according to a UNI news release.

Meacham is described by the university as one of Americas most prominent public intellectuals. With a depth of knowledge about politics, history, religion and current affairs, he has the unique ability to bring historical context to the issues and events impacting daily lives.

The author of several #1 New York Times bestsellers, Meacham has written acclaimed books about Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George H.W. Bush and civil-rights icon John Lewis.

Cedar Valley groups seek volunteers WATERLOO  The Volunteer Center of the Cedar Valley has announced the following needs of loc

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the Society of American Historians, Meacham is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, where he holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency. His latest book, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, will be published in the fall of 2022.

Admission is free; tickets are required. Tickets are available at the GBPAC and McLeod Center ticket offices or by phone at (319) 273-4849.

Group tickets (classes, for example) are available by email at: tickets@uni.edu.
WATERLOO  Almost 20 years after approving the creation of a municipal broadband utility, residents of Waterloo can vote on how to fund a fiber network backbone for their city.

Polls will be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday so voters can weigh in on a public measure to issue $20 million in general obligation bonds for the broadband system. Passage requires 60% approval by voters.

This is not a referendum  thats already proven, said Mayor Quentin Hart, referring to the 2005 vote approving the creation of the broadband utility.

This is a way to use lower interest dollars to go toward this project, he explained. If not (approved), well continue to look at other options. This is just the ability to use the financial tool before us.

Issuing general obligation bonds is a way governments can raise money for projects. These bonds are backed by the governments ability to tax its property owners, if necessary, in order to pay the bondholders.

Maggie Burger, a senior vice president at Speer Financial, a local municipal advising company, said there is no plan for any tax increases based on the bonds.

We had conversations with the city and council, and their intent is not to raise taxes, Burger said.

Andy Van Fleet, a board member for the citys telecommunications board, said when the broadband utility generates revenue, that revenue would be used to repay the bonds.

He noted Cedar Falls Utilities  which includes broadband in its services  last year had a net income of $4.88 million.

Waterloo has twice the homes Cedar Falls does, Van Fleet said. You can pencil that out and realize the profit can stay in Waterloo.

Some city residents are wary of using general obligation bonds  saying they fear taxes will eventually go up.

One person backing that statement is Chip Baltimore, a senior fellow at Taxpayers Protection Alliance and a former Iowa state legislator.

If youre coming at the first stage and using $20 million of GO bond money for this, then it tells me when you do the other stages youre going to come back to do it again, Baltimore said. Everybody pays those (taxes) but everyone may not want to use these things, and if it fails its on the property taxpayers to pay the debt.

At a recent City Council meeting, Steve Nadel, an attorney with Ahlers & Cooney P.C., said if any utilities are going to use the fiber backbone for their purposes, each utility usage would require a public hearing at a council meeting.

If approved, the bonds would be used to design, acquire, construct, install and equip all or part of a fiber optic backbone and fiber to the premises broadband communications system. The backbone project, which would connect 100 miles of fiber optic cable to over 100 sites across Waterloo, is expected to cost just over $29 million.

The fiber to the premises half of the project connects broadband to homes in the city. That more extensive project is expected to cost about $86 million.

Waterloo received $31.24 million from the federal American Rescue Plan that can be used for broadband purposes.

Van Fleet said the project has taken around four years to plan. The next step is to send designs to companies to see how it would be constructed and then receive bids from those companies.

Baltimore argues the cost could go higher due to rising prices of construction and materials.

The project comes after a study done by Magellan Advisors of Denver, Colo. The firm conducted a survey of 2,727 people in Waterloo. The top concerns found from the survey were reliability, price and speed of current internet services.

The median download speed was 75.26 megabits per second. The upload speed was 22.42 mbps.

Van Fleet said the broadband provided by the city would be one gigabit for upload and download speed. One gigabit per second is 10 times faster than 100 mbps, he noted. There would be no data caps  like an unlimited data plan on a phone.

Survey takers said one gigabit per second costs an average of $108.78. Van Fleet said pricing hasnt been finalized for the citys broadband service but it would be very competitive, if not priced below market.

Baltimore said this could be a problem due to the amount of competition in the area. The study done by Magellan noted at least eight broadband providers in the area.

In any other city we studied for these government-owned systems to work, the consultants are generally saying they need a market share of 50 to 70%, Baltimore said. If youve got 10 other providers and for the city to get even 40% of the market  that doesnt seem very likely.

Apart from the bonds and federal funds, Van Fleet said there are grants that could help pay for the project.

Its happening. The train has left the station and its moving forward, Van Fleet said. Im excited about it and it feels good to be a part of something progressive and beneficial to Waterloo.

Waterloo residents can go to any voting centers on Tuesday  no matter their address. These include:

ISU Extension, 3420 University Ave., Conference Room A

Crossroads Community Church, 3622 Hammond Ave.

MercyOne Kimball, 2055 Kimball Ave.

St. Paul United Methodist Church, 207 W. Louise St.

Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 420 Harwood, east entrance

Payne Memorial AME Church, 1044 Mobile St.

Zion Lutheran Church, 810 Kimball Ave., lower level

Cedar Valley Church, 3520 Ansborough Ave.

They can also vote early in person on Monday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the election office on the second floor of the Black Hawk County Courthouse, 316 E. Fifth St.
NEW YORK (AP)  Payment processor Visa Inc. said Saturday that it plans to start separately categorizing sales at gun shops, a major win for gun control advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting.

But the decision by Visa, the world's largest payment processor, will likely provoke the ire of gun rights advocates and gun lobbyists, who have argued that categorizing gun sales would unfairly flag an industry when most sales do not lead to mass shootings. It joins Mastercard and American Express, which also said they plan to move forward with categorizing gun shop sales.

Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardizations new merchant code for gun sales, which was announced on Friday. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered general merchandise.

Following ISOs decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules, the payment processor said in a statement.

Visas adoption is significant as the largest payment network, and with Mastercard and AmeEx, will likely put pressure on the banks as the card issuers to adopt the standard as well. Visa acts as a middleman between merchants and banks, and it will be up to banks to decide whether they will allow sales at gun stores to happen on their issued cards.

Gun control advocates had gained significant wins on this front in recent weeks. New York City officials and pension funds had pressured the ISO and banks to adopt this code.

Two of the country's largest public pension funds, in California and New York, have been pressing the country's largest credit card firms to establish sales codes specifically for firearm-related sales that could flag suspicious purchases or more easily trace how guns and ammunition are sold.

Merchant category codes now exist for almost every kind of purchase, including those made at supermarkets, clothing stores, coffee shops and many other retailers.

When you buy an airline ticket or pay for your groceries, your credit card company has a special code for those retailers. Its just common sense that we have the same policies in place for gun and ammunition stores, said New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who blames the proliferation of guns for his city's deadly violence.

The city's comptroller, Brad Lander, said it made moral and financial sense as a tool to push back against gun violence.

Unfortunately, the credit card companies have failed to support this simple, practical, potentially lifesaving tool. The time has come for them to do so," Lander said recently, before Visa and others had adopted the move.

Lander is a trustee of the New York City Employees Retirement System, Teachers Retirement System and Board of Education Retirement System  which together own 667,200 shares in American Express valued at approximately $92.49 million; 1.1 million shares in MasterCard valued at approximately $347.59 million; and 1.85 million shares in Visa valued at approximately $363.86 million.

The pension funds and gun control advocates argue that creating a merchant category code for standalone firearm and ammunition stores could aid in the battle against gun violence. A week before the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people died after a shooter opened fire in 2016, the assailant used credit cards to buy more than $26,000 worth of guns and ammunition, including purchases at a stand-alone gun retailer.

Gun rights advocates argue that tracking sales at gun stores would unfairly target legal gun purchases, since merchant codes just track the type of merchant where the credit or debit card is used, not the actual items purchased. A sale of a gun safe, worth thousands of dollars and an item considered part of responsible gun ownership, could be seen as a just a large purchase at a gun shop.

The (industry's) decision to create a firearm specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans one transaction at a time, said Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Over the years, public pension funds have used their extensive investment portfolios to influence public policy and the market place.

The California teacher's fund, the second largest pension fund in the country, has long taken aim on the gun industry. It has divested its holdings from gun manufacturers and has sought to persuade some retailers from selling guns.

Four years ago, the teacher's fund made guns a key initiative. It called for background checks and called on retailers monitor irregularities at the point of sale, to record all firearm sales, to audit firearms inventory on a regular basis, and to proactively assist law enforcement.

Associated Press writer Bobby Calvan in New York contributed to this report.
Its rare to find one Midwestern academic publicly questioning the economic and environmental impacts of ethanol.

Its even rarer to find four academics  one from a corn state land grant university, three from a leading university in the leading corn-producing state  raising objections to the biofuel and its byproducts that will use one out of every three bushels of corn grown in the U.S. this year.

But thats exactly what the co-hosts of the Iowa-based podcast, We All Want Clean Water, offered in the first episode of their second season. It was a 47-minute seminar on how best to put the most sacred of American ag policy cows out to pasture.

And it featured several cropaganda moments, a clever invention of the podcasts three co-hosts  Silvia Secchi, a University of Iowa professor of geographical and sustainability studies; Iowa colleague Christopher Jones, a research engineer and expert on Iowa water quality; and David Cwiertny, director of UIs Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination.

According to the three, cropaganda marries old-fashioned farm mythmaking to modern farm advocacy in Big Ags effort to maintain the status quo. Its chief goal is to beat down any fact or idea that threatens todays dominant ag policies.

Most of the podcasts myth-made moments were provided by Jason Hill, a professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering at the University of Minnesota, who has examined ethanol since 2005. His systems assessment of ethanol  a big picture of how science now views it  is that ethanol is not the direction we should be going.

In fact, Hill notes, a more sustainable transportation future would feature better options that give us greater benefits at less cost  (and) get us closer to a more sustainable transportation future.

For example, Hill told the three UI professors, if Congress raised the required fuel standard nationwide by a miniscule one-half mile per gallon, the environmental benefit delivered by the tiny boost would offset any environmental benefit from ethanol from all the corn we produce in Iowa today.

That just blows my mind, remarked podcast co-host Cwiertny, because thats an achievable standard in terms of fuel efficiency. Instead weve chosen to completely re-engineer our landscape here for corn and ethanol.

And even more ethanol-driven landscape reengineering is now in the works across the Midwest. Highly controversial carbon pipelines, backed by biofuel oligarchs like Archer Daniels Midland and Iowa political kingmaker Bruce Rastetter, will re-energize two very much aligned industries, ethanol and petroleum, says Hill.

The global fuel market, however, is rushing away from liquid fuels like gasoline and ethanol and toward either less liquid fuel or non-liquid fuels like electricity. By itself, that realignment will change todays transportation system dramatically and quickly, suggests Hill.

The question then wont be what fuel will we use, he reckons; instead it will be How are we going to get people from Point A to Point B safely because there will be many more ways to accomplish that other than with todays fuels.

That will have severe consequences for ethanol, he continues. Today, we use all the land dedicated to corn production in both Minnesota and Iowa combined for ethanol and it gets us enough fuel to offset six to seven percent of our gasoline Thats not a lot.

In fact, if federally mandated miles-per-gallon standards are raised just two more miles per gallon, Hill calculates, all the ethanol-making corn land in production today would be redundant. It simply wouldnt be needed.

That stark reality should push policymakers to begin to move toward the inevitable no-ethanol day.

But thats far easier said than done, noted podcast co-host Jones. Iowas corn acres devoted to ethanol alone are equal to 20 of the states 99 counties, he said. What are farmers going to do in those counties if ethanol goes away?

They will be paid an estimated $600 to $700 an acre in federal subsidiestodays societal cost to grow corn used for ethanol  to grow other proven carbon-friendly crops that give us the benefit of a renewed ecosystem, explained Hill.

Thats one renewable everyone wants.
Its well known Americas first president warned citizens about the negative impact political parties could have on the country. In George Washingtons farewell address on Sept. 17, 1796, he predicted politicians and their parties of preference could become unprincipled.

The divisiveness our political parties and their operative sons and daughters have purposely brought upon America is disheartening and shameful.

With the 2022 midterm national and state elections about eight weeks away the negative partisan ads already have begun. Its a sad state of affairs we have to endure disinformation, misinformation and political shenanigans every two years.

A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll noted 55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans believe it is likely the U.S. will cease to be a democracy in the future (Salon, June 23). An Aug. 12-16 NBC News poll revealed 21% of registered voters rank threats to democracy as the most important issue.

The democracy time bomb is ticking.

This should be a wake-up call to anyone who identifies as a proud American and values unity, individualism, equality, self-government, liberty and diversity.

Therefore, it could be argued the Nov. 8 election outcome will let us know in advance of the 2024 presidential election whether well continue to live in a will of the people democracy, or if America will fall to fascism.

According to Gallup, as of March, 40% of voters are independent, 30% are Democratic and 28% say they are Republican.

Party diehards who view their party policies as the gospel will blindly vote for their candidate like lemmings who cant think on their own accord, even if she or he is the devil.

Rachel Bitecofer, founding editor of The Cycle and revered election forecaster and analyst, feels 6-7% of swing voters (people who vote for a candidate opposite their registered party) affect every election. Plus, she notes 6% of independents tend to vote for whoever promises a break with the status quo (Politico, 2020).

Independent voters are independent for a reason. They know we have a deeply divided and antagonistic political system. According to a Pew Research Center survey, about two-thirds of independents are swing voters because both parties care more about special interests than about average Americans (www.center-forward.org).

Linda Killian, a senior scholar at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, notes about half of independents are closet Democrats/Republicans who vote regularly with one party. The remaining 50% are truly independent, with their allegiance swinging from election to election.

While Bitecofer, Gallup, Pew Research Center and Killian cant agree as to the precise number of swing and independent voters, the message is the same: Somewhere between 38 million and 65 million voters are sick and tired of our political party propaganda peddlers.

Recognizing that independents detest negative campaign ads, todays negative partisanship ads by the GOP and Democrats may drive independents to be even more serious about voting than heretofore. And, we know a lot of card-carrying Democrats and Republicans arent too pleased with their party, former politicians bold-face lies and antics and currently elected politicians actions, let alone their non-actions.

It would be wise for every registered voter to take the Nov. 8 election seriously, as it may give us an advance warning as to whether America will remain a democracy or fall to fascism in 2024.

What type of citizen will you be: a sit-at-home, nonparticipating voter, a party lemming, or a swing voter or independent voter? Your heirs and our countrys future depend on your precious vote, whether you view voting as a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities.
Irina Gen taught English and German in Russia until she answered a question from her 13- and 14-year-old students about its athletes being excluded from international events. Now she faces prison.

Until Russia starts to behave in a civilized manner, the non-admission of Russian athletes to competitions will continue forever, she said, adding. We are living in a totalitarian regime. Any dissent is considered a crime.

She also criticized the bombing of a Ukrainian maternity ward.

Patriotic students recorded and forwarded her remarks to Russias FSB spymeisters. Shes being prosecuted for anti-war remarks (fake news) and faces a possible 10-year sentence.

Russia requires teachers to explain to students why it went to war against a fascist regime in Ukraine.

In November, Iowa Senate president Jake Chapman, R-Adel, said teachers and other school employees in the Johnston district who provided obscene material to students should be prosecuted.

The offensive material was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexi, a Native American teen living in poverty while attending an affluent school, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, a Black teen at a private school.

Chapman proposed making it a felony. House Republicans also wanted cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers and fire them for failing to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance three times.

Nothing became law, but it reflects The 1776 Pledge by truth-averse Donald Trumps 1776 Commission (no historians) to restore honest, patriotic education that cultivates in children a profound love for our country.

Honest? Semi-fascism, anyone?

North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson decried teaching science and history in elementary schools. We surely dont need to be talking about equity and social justice, said Robinson, who is Black.

He supports school vouchers, envisioning that traditional public schools might be a thing of the past.

Actor-producer Kirk Cameron declared, Public education has become public enemy No. 1, while promoting his documentary The Homeschool Awakening.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, of course, is hellbent to rob public schools of money with vouchers.

In 2017 Iowa Republicans gutted the teachers bargaining rights, which wasnt only about money (the state minimum is $33,500), but also dealt with negotiating grievances.

Meanwhile, teachers are being harassed by parents who object to materials and, in some cases, take it to social media.

Surprise, public education is our most endangered industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 182,000 teachers left in February compared with 138,000 the year before, although COVID factors in, too.

In Iowa its become acute in some districts. Teach Iowa posted 1,600 teaching jobs in August.

Iowa teachers can be fined $1,000 for breaking contracts. The Cedar Rapids district, which lost 126 teachers last year, wont let them go freely.

Iowa City is offering $5,000 if new teachers stay two years. Des Moines will provide $50,000 in additional retirement benefits for school personnel with the requisite experience to remain this year.

The far right may be winning this Culture War battle, but its America thats losing.
Weather Alert

...Lingering Smoke Concerns, but Changes Are on the Way... * Smoke from the Mosquito wildfire will continue to produce unhealthy to hazardous air quality across the region this morning, but improving conditions are on the way. * Deeper southerly flow will push the smoke northward later today. Conditions may deteriorate in the Sierra Valley and from Truckee eastward to Highway 395 between Stead and Doyle this afternoon, with some eastward spread late in the day. Elsewhere, conditions should be better today, with significant air quality improvements Sunday into Monday for all areas. * An early season storm moves into the west coast this weekend, bringing much cooler temperatures, and chances for rain and high elevation snow Sunday through next Wednesday. The west side of the Sierra is favored for the highest liquid totals, with spillover into western Nevada limited until Monday or Tuesday. There are decent chances for wetting rains through much of the Sierra, northeast California, and northwest Nevada over the four-day period. * Higher passes such as Mt. Rose, Tioga, Sonora, and Ebbetts could see light slushy snow accumulations, but overall travel impacts will be minimal due to the recent warmth. * It will be rather chilly Sunday through Wednesday with temperatures 10-20 degrees below normal. It will drop into the 20s in colder Sierra valleys overnight, so be prepared if you are recreating in the back country. Western Nevada valleys will remain above freezing, so gardens are still safe from early season freezes.
Top Chinese legislator pays official goodwill visit to Russia

Xinhua) 09:05, September 11, 2022

Li Zhanshu, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok, Sept. 7, 2022. Li paid an official goodwill visit to Russia from Wednesday to Saturday at the invitation of Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. (Xinhua)

MOSCOW, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Li Zhanshu, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, paid an official goodwill visit to Russia from Wednesday to Saturday, at the invitation of Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.

During his visit, Li met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the country's far eastern city of Vladivostok, held talks with Volodin and Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko respectively in Moscow, and also met with leaders of the five State Duma factions.

When meeting with the Russian president, Li conveyed cordial greetings and best wishes from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Putin. He said that under the strategic guidance and personal efforts of President Xi and President Putin, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era has maintained a strong momentum of development.

Political mutual trust, strategic coordination and pragmatic cooperation between the two countries have reached an unprecedented level, setting a good example of good-neighborly friendship and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighboring countries, Li said.

Both China and Russia are at a critical historical stage of development and revitalization, enjoying great potential and broad prospects for cooperation, Li said.

China is willing to continue to work with Russia to firmly support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns, implement the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative put forward by President Xi, and turn high-level political mutual trust into more pragmatic cooperation results, Li said.

The top Chinese legislator said he firmly believes that under the leadership of President Xi and President Putin, the two sides will raise the bilateral ties to a new level and will follow the development path in line with their national conditions and achieve the great goals of their respective development and national rejuvenation.

Li also congratulated Russia on successfully hosting the 7th Eastern Economic Forum and briefed on the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Putin asked Li to convey his best wishes to President Xi. He said that the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era is special and important, and that the Russian side is satisfied with bilateral relations and cooperation with China in various fields.

Russia-China trade, especially against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, has shown a sound momentum of growth, Putin said, expressing his belief that the two sides will achieve greater goals of cooperation in this area.

More exchanges between the Russian and Chinese legislatures will play a positive role in promoting the development of bilateral relations, Putin said. He also wished the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China a success.

During his talks with Volodin and Matviyenko, Li said that the important task of cooperation between the legislative bodies of China and Russia is to promote the implementation of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and provide legal protection for the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations.

The NPC will continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with the Russian State Duma and Federation Council, tap the potential of the mechanism for regular exchanges, maintain a good momentum of high-level exchanges, and promote exchanges among friendship groups and special committees, Li said.

Li said that the NPC is ready to work with the two institutions to create a favorable environment for practical cooperation through legislation as well as examination and approval of treaties and agreements.

He added that the two sides should strengthen exchanges of experience on national governance and legislation regarding fighting against external interference, sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, among others.

Li thanked the Russian side for firmly supporting China on the Taiwan question.

Both Volodin and Matviyenko once again condemned Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region, saying that Russia firmly adheres to the one-China policy and is willing to deepen cooperation with China on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.

Volodin said that the legislative bodies of Russia and China should further upgrade their cooperation, expand cooperation models, enrich cooperation content, so as to jointly implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and contribute to the development of bilateral relations.

Matviyenko extended congratulations on the great achievements made by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. She said that the in-depth development of Russia-China relations has given the legislative bodies a new task of cooperation, and that both sides should actively promote cooperation in such fields as politics, economy, trade, finance and youth, as well as enhance sub-national, people-to-people exchanges and cultural cooperation.

When meeting with leaders of the five State Duma factions, Li said that all the groups have demonstrated their support to enhancing friendly cooperation with China, showing that it is the broad consensus of all parties and people from all walks of life in Russia to develop the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era.

China is ready to maintain close contact and exchanges with all parties in Russia to consolidate the foundation of the friendship and practical cooperation between the two countries, he said.

Leaders of the five State Duma factions expressed their willingness to play an active role in intensifying inter-party exchanges between Russia and China, and make unremitting efforts to deepen the development of Russia-China relations, so as to benefit the two countries and their people.

During his stay in Moscow, Li laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and visited Vladimir Lenin's former residence.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, the Bernalillo County Commissioners will make a decision with outsized consequences for the South Valley and the Pueblo of Isleta, directly across the railroad tracks from a new housing development. The county zoning ordinance does not allow this type of land use, and the locals do not want it. The county zoning administrator, the county Board of Adjustment, and Albuquerques Environmental Health Department have thus far denied all requests relating to the new asphalt plant. Commissioners are now considering Star Pavings appeal of a zoning administrator decision that it cannot build an asphalt plant on this site. Commissioners should deny the appeal.

The South Valley environment and its residents, including the Pueblo, have long been disproportionately impacted by water and air pollution. In the 1990s, a meat-packing facility cater-cornered to Star Pavings proposed asphalt plant stored its killing floor wastewater in unlined ponds. Wastewater seeped into the ground and contaminated groundwater, and overflow effluent was disposed just to the north of the Pueblos boundary. We know our neighbors in the South Valley could tell many stories about the effects of pollution on them and their neighborhood.

Recently, the South Valley has been moving on to better land uses. The Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge is protecting essential habitat for wildlife. This spring, New Mexico Film Studios broke ground near the refuge. Many small, non-polluting businesses are being incubated by the South Valley Economic Development Center. And the Pueblo continues to develop outdoor activity businesses along its north boundary  businesses that rely on clean air and water. These new developments are putting Albuquerque on the map for all the right reasons, supporting jobs that employ residents of the South Valley and stimulate our local economy while restoring ecosystems.

Star Pavings proposed asphalt plant on land between South Broadway and South Second Street threatens this progress. County zoning only allows the land to be used for agricultural use, with extremely limited exceptions for mulch storage. For 35 years, the owners of the land have used it primarily to store mulch, gravel, rocks and crushed concrete. Now Star Paving is asking the County Commission, for the first time ever, to allow it to build an asphalt plant on this land  a use that would increase pollution, traffic, and noise in the South Valley.

We should be going forward, not back. This plant would hurt economic revitalization in the South Valley, and approving it violates principles of environmental justice by shifting more pollution, traffic and noise into the backyard of the Pueblo and other South Valley residents.

County Commissioners will hear this issue at 3 p.m. Sept. 13. The Pueblo of Isleta, Mountain View Neighborhood Association, Mountain View Community Action, Friends of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, Los Jardines Institute and New Mexico Environmental Law Center urge our commissioners to protect the South Valley from new pollution and deny Star Pavings zoning appeal.

This guest column was also authored by Lauro Silva / board member, Mountain View Neighborhood Association; Marla Painter / president, Mountain View Community Action; Katie Dix / executive director, Friends of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge; and Virginia Necochea / executive director, N.M. Environmental Law Center.
I am pro-life. I am a woman of faith, but I have a story to tell.

When I was 16, I became pregnant.

It was the summer of 1987. My then-boyfriend, Tom, had just graduated high school. Neither one of us thought we were ready to be parents. The thought of telling my mother seemed out of the question.

My mom was an amazing woman who would have supported me no matter what, but, in my heart, I didnt want to disappoint her. Neither Tom nor I spoke to our families before we decided on an abortion.

I remember waiting anxiously to leave the morning of my appointment when my mom called. She said she wanted to take me shopping after work. I thought to myself Of all days, how could she choose today?

I tried to get out of it and told her Tom and I already had plans in town that day. Still, she insisted. My mom wanted to go to the mall to buy me clothes. Not wanting to alert her to anything, I reluctantly agreed.

My mind was in a million places as Tom drove me to the abortion clinic. To this day, I cant tell you where the clinic was or how to get there, only that it was in Albuquerque.

I remember lying on a cold table, the nurse telling me to count backward and suddenly feeling relaxed. Soon, a doctor arrived and told me I was going to feel some pressure.

I did. But I felt more  shame, regret and sadness.

After it was over, Tom held me while I cried. All I wanted to do was go home and hide in the safety of my bed. Instead, hours after taking the life of my first child, I was with my mom shopping  traumatized and confused.

To this day, its still unbelievable to me.

As a teenager, there was a lot I didnt know about life. Unable to feel my child in the first trimester, I had yet to develop a connection with the life inside me. How ironic that later I would feel so empty.

Tom and I eventually married, but he died of leukemia at age 32. The burden we had always carried together became much more painful following his death.

I didnt know the guilt and shame would silence me for 35 years. I didnt know I needed healing, nor how to get it. I didnt know how to ask for forgiveness or forgive myself.

Now my deepest desire for those who have experienced what I had is that you be whole and know you are not alone.

Its time to try to emotionally heal from the damage caused by easy and accessible abortions. Its hard, but you have to forgive yourself.

Too many underage girls are having abortions, especially in New Mexico where these young girls dont need parental consent.

Life is not always easy. If you know any pregnant girl in need, dont judge, but encourage them to choose life and offer her assistance in any way you can.

My story is a simple truth: a minors quick decision carries major consequences. Ive forgiven my choice, but I will always regret it.

Tina Dziuk is a Republican National Committeewoman for New Mexico.
I never thought my journey to fatherhood would start with aborting a wanted pregnancy.

Just a few months after being married in the majestic beauty of the mountains to the east of Albuquerque, my wife and I stood in the bathroom waiting to see the results on our first pregnancy test. The tiny digital display showed one word: Pregnant.

We waited excitedly for our doctor visits to begin. In the first ultrasound we saw merely a blinking dot of a heartbeat. Just a few weeks later we saw our baby, now the size of a lime, with recognizable arms and legs rocking back and forth soothingly on the screen.

My joy quickly turned to fear. The fetus had more fluid than normal behind the neck, which is correlated with a range of genetic disorders. A week later, chorionic villus sampling (CVS) confirmed a whole chromosome genetic disorder that often causes pregnancy loss, but can be managed with a reasonable quality of life, if the baby makes it to term.

Enduring my wifes terrible morning sickness, we chose to give our baby girl a chance and wait to see if she could survive.

As early as possible, we went for a full anatomy ultrasound to see if the internal organs were forming correctly. They were not. The medical tech listed half a dozen conditions including severe hydrops. We had to ask the doctor before they rushed off, Will our baby make it to birth? The answer was quick: unlikely.

My wife was still barely able to eat because of the morning sickness, which lasted all day. We knew we could not take any more of this than was necessary. We had to terminate the failing pregnancy.

After the procedure, we were given resources on pregnancy-loss support groups. At the time I did not know if that was necessary, but grief comes in stages, starting with denial. Even now, six years later, the memory of our loss brings tears to my eyes.

With the reversal of Roe v. Wade I am filled with fresh hurt and sorrow, the same pain I feel with renewed vigor each year on the due date we never reached. America has returned the right of the states to oppress the individual and control their medical decisions.

Do we really think that people are carelessly using abortion as birth control? Is former President Trump accurately describing it as being ripped from the mothers womb moments before birth? No, these inflammatory statements are designed to enrage people to the point where they will not think clearly.

 Having to choose to abort already hurts enough. We cannot accept these false narratives.

New Mexico has become one of the last bastions of reproductive care in the southern United States. We need to protect our rights; we cant let more clinics close. We need to vote in primaries and local elections, speak out, and get involved.  Protect love and family, keep the freedom of choice.
Who is responsible for the children? Parents often assume they are. While there are exceptions, all parents should provide a safe home, nourishment and support for their children.

As a mother of six whose children attended Albuquerque Public Schools, I have been heavily involved in the PTAs and understand both teachers and parents need to be a part of our childrens educational equation. Schools, on the other hand, are paid through taxes paid by parents and other New Mexicans to educate the next generation of young people while under their care. In this age of political polarization, that shouldnt be too controversial. Unfortunately, it seems to be.

Recently, when a parental rights proposal was introduced by APS board member Courtney Jackson, it wound up being tabled by the board due to pressure from outside groups that seem intent on pushing their agendas onto schoolchildren. Simply put, the parental rights proposal is designed to provide transparency and accessibility for parents and guardians so they understand, in the easiest terms possible, what their rights and responsibilities already are within APS. It does not create, grant or give any rights to parents that are not already present within the district. What it does instead is consolidate, make accessible and give an understanding of what exists in policies, procedures and state and federal law.

This policy is not intended to out students, to create fear, betray trust or hinder communication with our counselors. It is intended to foster and improve communication with our parents, their children and the schools. In fact, if students dont feel safe at home or have parents who are not supporting them, the community needs to know so we can solve that problem.

Simply cutting the parents out is not a solution. I do not want to send my child to a school district where the solution is to avoid parental involvement. That is why a detailed yet concise statement on parental rights is so important. Parents are important. They should be involved, have rights, and those rights are balanced with responsibilities. The education and outcomes of our students do not lie solely with the school and the teachers. The responsibility to educate our kids does not end when parents walk their children through the front door of their school.

This policy is about the rights of parents to be involved in their childs education. Parents are part of the education of their kids so the advocacy around that should focus on involvement and transparency. Parents need to email their support for the Parental Rights policy to the APS school board before Nov. 1. This is when the proposal will be reintroduced and start to move through the process of being considered by the school board.

Then please attend the school board meeting Nov. 3. I will be there because APS needs to know parents have a voice.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Part one of a two-day series.

The behavioral health clinic in Clovis where Justin Nutt works is short five or six therapists at any given time. He said theyve had the same therapist job openings since he started at the nonprofit three years ago.

Nutt, deputy executive director at Mental Health Resources Inc., said even behavioral health providers in big cities like Albuquerque and Las Cruces tell him they cant hire enough people. And the issue isnt easily fixed with money.

If I have $100 million but I have eight therapists, it literally doesnt matter that I have $100 million, because I can only provide so many services, he said.  What you end up with is the service vacuum.

The hiring challenges Nutt and his counterparts across the state have been grappling with for years are but a piece of the very complicated puzzle that is New Mexicos behavioral health system, which treats everything from substance use to depression and schizophrenia. And while the state actually ranks average to above-average when it comes to access to services, its behavioral health outcomes are among the worst in the nation  particularly for youth, according to a recent report from legislative analysts.

Local advocates and those who provide services, such as Nutt, blame those poor outcomes on the many hurdles they face in New Mexico, some deeply entrenched, which include a thinned workforce, inconsistent coordination of care, a complicated billing system and low Medicaid reimbursement.

Nutt compared the entire system to a weathered chain.

I think sometimes its one of those that one link in the chain gets rusty and it weakens the entire chain type of situation, he said. Thats my understanding  mental health has been a very weak chain for a very long time simply because of resources in the state.

JJ is on the wrong end of outcomes in the state.

Over the past several years she has bounced between hospitals, jail cells and homelessness as she battled a fentanyl habit, had a child and, at one point, suffered a gunshot wound. She is only 17 years old and started using hard drugs at age 10.

JJ said the system failed her repeatedly and other youths in recovery by often treating them like a criminal instead of someone who needed help.

The reason why almost every one of us started using drugs was because we were dealing with our own (expletive) at home. And no one sat down to be like  Hey, do you need some support? No one was there to lift us up, she said. Thats what hurts is the system automatically thinks, Oh, they went and stole this, theyre a criminal. What if I had to steal it? What if I didnt have money and I was hungry? Theres all these factors that come into play, not only for juveniles but even adults  And the second we do a crime, no one wants to bother to ask Why?'

New Mexico ranked second worst in the nation for youth suffering from a mental illness and among the worst six states for youth suffering from an addiction, according to an Aug. 18 Legislative Finance Committee report. The state was also ranked in the bottom 10 when it came to the general prevalence of mental illness among residents.

However, when it came to access to care, New Mexico was ranked more favorably  20th in the nation, but analysts pointed out that most providers are along the Rio Grande corridor.

The disparity between access and outcomes suggests the state should examine whether evidence-based programs and services are widespread, whether the quality of training mental health professionals is meeting the states needs and whether there are ways for the state to use its workforce more effectively, the report states.

Marina Pina, a spokeswoman for the Human Services Department, said the more favorable ranking for access in no way signals that the work is over to increase access to high quality care. Pina also pointed out that there is a significant lag in the rankings, which were based on 2019 data.

She said the state is working toward a more coordinated, easily accessible system of behavioral health care with initiatives like the 988 Crisis Support Line and the Crisis Now system, which help with responding to a wider array of urgent and crisis situations while building out a coordinated crisis system that is itself an easily remembered doorway to the behavioral health system of care.

Pina said HSD is also bringing Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, or CCBHCs, to New Mexico in 2023, which she said have a much more robust financing mechanism in exchange for a much more accessible suite of services.

The rankings come two years after the LFC found the state was losing traction when it came to adults receiving continuous medicated treatment for major depression and providing follow-up services to those who had been discharged from a facility.

Between 2014 and 2020, according to the LFC, the state tripled spending on substance use treatment and increased service delivery by 85%. However, analysts said, in that same timeframe the alcohol-related death rate, drug overdose deaths and violent crime rose 49%, 43% and 30%, respectively.

New Mexico also has the highest alcohol-related death rate in the nation and the second highest drug overdose death rate in the nation, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

In their report, LFC analysts suggest the state, which is investing $930 million for this fiscal year to improve behavioral health outcomes, should focus efforts on ensuring consistent care for youth and ensuring that this care is high quality and evidence based, while still expanding access.

Inadequate prevention

Max Kauffman, an attorney with Disability Rights New Mexico, said part of the problem in the system is not being proactive enough before there is a crisis. From cases he has seen, there is an under-utilization of Medicaid-mandated early periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment of children under 21 years old.

Such screenings can detect warning signs of an impending crisis, underlying trauma or mental illness that, if unseen, can lead to exacerbated behavioral health problems down the road.

The LFC report found CYFD wasnt putting the majority of funds toward proven programming and also hadnt been spending as much as it could have.

A 2021 study found that CYFDs Behavioral Health Program spent $7 million on evidence-based, research-based, or a promising program and $25 million that was not evidence-based or included overhead and other expenditures.

CYFDs Behavioral Health Program also decreased spending by nearly $2 million between 2021 and 2022 despite a $4.6 million budget increase in that same period, according to the report.

Analysts said the Legislature in 2022 appropriated $20 million to the Human Services Department and CYFD to expand services, which could be used to cover training costs to ensure providers are certified to deliver evidence-based services.

A separate 2022 study found providers who receive state funding for a school-based health center, or SBHC, focused more on teen pregnancy and suicide and less on substance abuse. People reported that shortages and long wait lists for substance use programs were a major problem in responding to needs, according to the study.

The study notes that people reported that the states Medicaid certification requirements for SBHCs were antiquated and overly burdensome, posing barriers to provide services via telehealth or mobile vans  a major need given the states rural and sparsely populated geography.

Kauffman said for providers it can be a difficult system to navigate.

Ive heard this from providers that the billing process is onerous, it can be discouraging, he said, adding that hes been told its often unclear what can be billed, and how and when.

For example, he said, mobile crisis services can be billed to Medicaid but while there may not be a specific category for it, you can bill aspects of the service individually.

So then it becomes very complicated  you have to put the pieces of the puzzle together  that would equate to mobile crisis services, Kauffman said.

He said providers could use assistance to navigate those processes and handoffs between providers, from one treatment level to another, could be easier with a free flow of information. A universal release could benefit communities, where a client signs one document to authorize a number of entities to coordinate from there.

Kauffman said he believed all of these roadblocks are compounded in rural New Mexico, where communities lack the infrastructure to sustain a viable behavioral health system  which should include 24/7 crisis triage, detox for adults and youth, peer support, supportive housing and other services that would leave communities less reliant on emergency rooms to solve the crisis.

Kauffman said offering medication assisted treatment, or MAT, in prisons is crucial to interrupt the cycle of re-incarceration that is linked to substance use.

Carmelina Hart, spokeswoman for New Mexico Corrections Department, said no prisons in the state offer MAT for substance use, except in the case of pregnant inmates. She said the department is studying best practices and developing a pilot program to be implemented in 2023.

Kauffman said a large part moving forward is how the state will measure the quality of services as programs develop and funding increases.

Thats a big piece to it, because you can have all of the services but if theyre poor quality, outcomes might not change, he said.

Paying providers

Nutt, who works for the Clovis nonprofit, said a key to solving the states problem is attracting more therapists, particularly to rural areas. He said the current workforce is stretched thin due to lower salaries and high demand driven by above average rates of addiction and suicide.

According to HSD, the number of incoming behavioral health practitioners has waxed and waned since 2014. Some years will see up to 600 workers come into the field, others will see around 200.

In 2021, there were 5,895 in the state.

Some providers are doing better than others.

George Griego, a financial specialist who works on the outpatient side of the state-funded Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, New Mexico, said he doesnt have those issues. He said they are fully staffed, serve 700 clients and schedule at least two new intakes a day.

The access is there, Griego said. The institute also has an after-hours crisis line with a psychiatrist on call and clinics in Santa Rosa, Pecos and Mora.

Were always taking on clients. Unfortunately, we discharge the same amount as we intake because people dont come to their appointments after a certain amount of time, he said. Griego said another issue they face in northern New Mexico is a reluctance to ask for help, steeped in the culture.

Thats always been kind of the issue, Griego said.

For those in rural areas, the pay cant compete with other states.

Nutt said therapists and other positions in the field here pay $20,000 less than places like Kansas and Texas, where he has worked. He said he knows several therapists who graduated in New Mexico and left to other states for more money.

We have this massive amount of people, per capita, needing help and a relatively small number of providers, per capita, there to give the help, unfortunately, Nutt said.

Nutt said his clinic serves up to 3,000 clients, 90% of them on Medicaid, from Harding, De Baca, Quay, Curry and Roosevelt counties. Some have to drive up to 70 miles to be seen.

He said the clinic only schedules out two days in advance and they open up the appointment book in the morning. He said within hours, the next 48 hours are often booked.

That really speaks to how high the need is versus how high the access to a therapist is, Nutt said.

He said its new patients who suffer the most.

Nutt said a new intake for them would be waiting until mid-October, but some private practices in the area arent taking new patients until January.

Im going to call you and Im going to say, Hey, man, Im feeling a lot of depression, I lost my job, I lost my wife, And youre going to tell me, Well, January 14th we can get you in,' he said. Thats a really long wait for somebody who, right now, needs that help.

Some still find the help they need.

JJ is now eight months sober and almost ready to leave Serenity Mesa, a youth recovery center perched on Albuquerques West Side. She said she recently had a craving, for the first time in months, and her serenity sisters at the center gave her a hug and told her not to give up.

JJ said she will miss them most.

But soon she will get an apartment, look for a job and take parenting classes to raise her 2-year-old boy. JJ said she is also getting her GED and wants to go into journalism and tell the stories of those going through what she has.

She said she is the most hopeful shes felt in years.

Day Two
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Several teens in recovery illustrate their addiction using colored pencils in a room at Serenity Mesa Youth Recovery Center on Wednesday. Maddie, 18, uses a sharpie to write words like manipulator, loss and save me in jagged letters swirling around a girl covering her eyes.

Between the silence and scrape of pencils, the group does smile and laugh.

At first glance, you wouldnt guess most of them have already been homeless, locked in a jail cell, overdosed on drugs and seen someone die from an overdose or shooting.

Jennifer Weiss-Burke, executive director at the 14-bed facility in Albuquerque, said the hurdles faced by youth suffering from an addiction are many.

An Aug. 18 Legislative Finance Committee report found the state ranked second worst in the nation for youth suffering from a mental illness and among the worst for youth suffering from an addiction.

My opinion is its just getting worse, Weiss-Burke said. Theres a huge lack of access to services for youth under the age of 18.

All of the teens at Serenity Mesa had to detox  often undergoing serious withdrawals  in a mental hospital or jail cell. Weiss-Burke said thats because there isnt a single youth detox facility in the state, although she hopes to open one in the next two years.

Weiss-Burke said if a teen comes to them detoxing on fentanyl they are sent to the emergency room, a complete waste of their time and money and resources, with a hefty bill and 12-hour wait.

So youve got a young person sitting in the ER waiting and theyre detoxing. The odds of them staying until they can talk to somebody and get help are almost zero. And so then they leave, and then theyre back out on the streets, Weiss-Burke said.

Most of the teens said they tried to reach out for help at school or elsewhere, long before they were heard. Phoenix, 16, said it took a couple of cries for help.

If I tried reaching out for help, it was just judgment, he said. They just think badly of you. Really, its somebody needing help, using drugs to cope with something.

At Serenity Mesa, Weiss-Burke said they take them to the movies or the zoo to break up therapy, an attempt to give them a childhood they missed out on.

Theyre just kids, she said as she watched four of the girls pick flowers and place them in each others hair.

She said the situation is made worse by fentanyl, the drug of choice for youth. The 30-day waitlist for the West Side facility has been full for two years straight with those needing help.

Weiss-Burke said the center helps those over 18 who graduate the program get an apartment until they get back on their feet. But, she said, younger teens dont have many options for transitional housing and places like Youth Development Inc. often have a wait list.

They recently tried to find a place for a 14-year-old boy recovering from a fentanyl habit but couldnt. She said he ended up in a shelter and then the state Children, Youth and Families Department got involved.

Weiss-Burke said the solution is not to have them bounce between shelters and treatments and jail and detention and living on some CYFD workers couch. That is, unfortunately, what a lot of these young people do  they just bounce from place to place to place.

Freddie, 18, is from Socorro, an area with some of the lowest behavioral health access in the state. He said there should be more lifelines, numbers to call on buses and in public areas.

Freddie said he has been using drugs since he was 13 and has gone through multiple relapses and overdoses, going from heroin to fentanyl.

I really have my whole life really felt like an outcast, felt alone. Ive had a lot of trauma in my childhood and I felt like drugs was the only way I could find somewhat of a happiness, but it wasnt even happiness. It was all in my head, he said.

Freddie said he doesnt know where hes going to end up after Serenity Mesa.

I dont know what my discharge looks like, I dont really want to think about that, he said, growing quiet and looking down at his lap.

Weiss-Burke said fentanyl created a perfect storm for youth, with skyrocketing addiction rates and frequent relapses. She said a youth struggling with addiction who doesnt have an acute mental health condition often wont qualify for help at a residential treatment facility.

Theyve got to reach a certain scale with their mental health before they get in. And right now were just trying to keep people alive, Weiss-Burke said.

In New Mexico, 1,215 people have died from a fentanyl overdose since 2019. The LFC report states there are 134,000 people in the state with an untreated substance use disorder.

Weiss-Burke said Serenity Mesa serves almost 100% Medicaid users but the billing system has low reimbursement and is bogged down with unnecessary denials.

A lot of it (is) back and forth  its denied, and were not really sure why, because they paid another claim that was exactly like it for a different person, Weiss-Burke said. She said many treatment centers dont accept Medicaid due to the rates and complications, and the system was too dependent on having enough beds filled to make ends meet.

The LFC report found that 20% of providers in the state do not serve Medicaid patients even though those with mental health and substance use disorders are overrepresented in the Medicaid population. The report suggests New Mexico could do more to leverage its existing behavioral health workforce by developing providers who accept Medicaid.

Weiss-Burke said the state could also make it easier for those providers to exist, streamline the process to get on Medicaid and increase reimbursement rates.

In the meantime, the youth are suffering.

When you actually are in the real world, dealing with these issues and dealing with these kids that need help, that are very much here today, gone tomorrow, every little bit counts, Weiss-Burke said. She lost her own son at 18 to an overdose in 2011.

Even if theyre just with you for a couple of days, she added, that couple of days may have opened a door that didnt exist anymore.

Coming Monday

A status report on Bernalillo Countys behavioral health tax.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Those tasked with defending people accused of crimes in New Mexico say over-incarceration is exacerbating behavioral health outcomes in the state and legislative analysts point to treatment gaps in the system as missed opportunities to address the issue.

An Aug. 18 Legislative Finance Committee report on behavioral health outcomes versus access cited significant treatment gaps in the criminal justice system. Analysts recommended better utilizing diversion, drug courts and reentry services, noting they are not necessarily widely available or used efficiently.

Social Work Director KC Quirk of the Law Offices of the Public Defender said over-incarceration fuels many behavioral health issues in the state.

The effect of being behind bars, she said, can send devastating ripples into a persons life that can reverberate for generations.

The justice system sits at the precipice of the trajectory of a persons life. And in a nanosecond, makes decisions that will forever impact somebodys life, Quirk said. And I dont think they take enough care.

Adolfo Mendez, chief of Policy and Planning with the 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office, said they have been raising the alarm that diversion programs and specialty courts are way under capacity and are taking action to change that.

He said the DAs Office has eliminated logistical and financial barriers to diversion, having a diversion officer in court to do intake then and there, eliminating fees associated with the diversion program for public defender clients and removing the admission of guilt requirement.

Mendez said they have 167 people enrolled in the felony diversion program and 41 in the misdemeanor program, double what it was a few years ago. He said they want to see the programs full and have the capacity for up to 400 people.

Mendez said they are also trying non-traditional methods to keep people from falling into the system, having a mobile center that connects people in the International District, known for its high crime, with resources and referring relatives or those close to someone involved in a crime with treatment and resources.

As a community, we need to strive for a criminal justice system that applies the optimum intervention for the right offenders at the right time, said 2nd Judicial District Attorney Raul Torrez, who is running for Attorney General. While our focus remains on the most violent repeat offenders, the DAs Office is committed to utilizing every available diversion program for low-level nonviolent offenders who have mental health or substance abuse disorders.

In New Mexico, the roots of those accused in homicides and violent offenses can often be traced back to property crimes and drug-related charges. Child abuse deaths frequently follow red flags and reports of neglect.

A rise in violent crime over the past several years has led to public scrutiny and political debate on issues like bail reform, referred to as catch-and-release by critics. A recent Journal poll found 85% of New Mexicans support changing the law to make it easier for judges to hold people accused of certain crimes behind bars.

Quirk said having more people in and out of jail only increases the number of New Mexicans with substance use disorders and mental illness. She said the state should intervene before people go on to commit serious crimes and emphasize services over punishment.

Quirk said the justice system should also treat each case individually; a drug charge doesnt always equal addiction and six domestic violence counseling sessions, a common order, wont always un-entrench generations of witnessed spousal violence.

Were missing it by just ordering people off to programs instead of really assessing what they need, Quirk said.

Furthermore, she said, the state needs to pay attention sooner. Working in victims services, with domestic violence and other cases, Quirk realized that offenders are often survivors of their own traumas.

That could mean assessing Adverse Childhood Experiences  survey scores when children go in for family medical care and offer services to soon-to-be-parents. Quirks vision of restorative justice: start young.

When a child gets in trouble for vandalizing a school, for example, she said he should have to meet with those who the graffiti impacted, such as the janitor.

Its not even young people with mental health (issues), but its young people with (bad) behavior. If we address it, maybe we can curtail something in the future, Quirk said.

She lamented that, if were going to have people locked up in a place like the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center, what she calls the largest mental health facility in the state, the county should at least take advantage by pouring more services into the jail like life skills and therapy.

She recalled a woman she worked with who had started a prison sentence, unable to read. The woman was released 22 years later, still unable to read.

Tell me how that happens? And how her life is going to be better? Quirk said. (To) come out with no more educational skills than you had before you went in? Thats not moving someone forward.

Quirk said at Crossroads for Women they taught the woman to read in a year.

I think its been too easy to just say, Oh, lock them up, instead of really figuring out  what the response needs to be, she said. Weve continued to cause great, great harm  And its never ever just the person who goes to jail. Its their family. Its their neighborhood. Its the community around them. Its every life that their life touched is now impacted somehow by their incarceration. Some for the better, maybe, but a lot for the worse.

Coming Monday

A status report on Bernalillo Countys behavioral health tax.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

When asked about the states behavioral health care woes, many point to Gov. Susana Martinezs 2013 audit that shut down 15 providers  most permanently.

But those who have been around long enough say that, by that time, the system had already seen its fair share of ups and downs  mostly downs  filled with tension and instability.

We had a lot of problems before that happened, Thomas Sims, former regional director of Value Options, told the Journal.

Rodney McNease, executive director of governmental affairs for University of New Mexico Hospital, called many of the issues system things.

Most people just didnt even know all these things were happening, in the background, unless you happen to be doing this work, he said.

Sims said the biggest disruptions were spurred by Medicaid budget overruns in the 1990s.

He said the state was often going over its budget and, as a possible solution, decided to turn to several managed care companies to administer the Medicaid health system.

Sims said the systems complexities led Gov. Bill Richardson to place behavioral health funding under one entity, giving Value Options a four-year contract in 2005.

McNease said this caused headaches for providers who had to switch over to the new construct under Value Options.

Sims said, around that time, then-Cabinet Secretary of the Human Services Department Pamela Hyde was pushing to spend more on community-based treatment and less on intermediate levels of care. For example, instead of putting a teen from Raton in residential treatment in Albuquerque, build an outpatient system in Raton where they can easily get services from their home.

She was trying to do something good and she had research behind it  I think it needed time and stability, Sims said.

He said it wasnt done gradually in a way that gave time for those community-based services to build up and mainly happened in big cities, like Albuquerque.

Sims said the change was very uneven and Value Options was to put the plan in place. But McNease said those community-based providers never fully materialized.

At the time, Sims was working at Value Options.

Value Options got off to a bad start, it was not paying claims and things were a mess. And after two years, the situation got a lot better, he said. By then the relationships between the state and company had deteriorated.

As a result, Sims said the state decided not to renew its contract with Value Options and gave another entity, Optum Health, a five-year contract in 2009. He said immediately there were problems; complaints about claims and contracting.

What they want, as well, is smooth transitions  Every system says were going to have a seamless transition. And I kind of roll my eyes at that and say thats impossible. There are too many glitches and things that happen, Sims said.

He said each company has different systems in place for paying claims, contracting and insurance benefits. Each change brought disruption and instability, which doesnt allow for any kind of baseline or way to measure progress.

Then, in 2013, Martinezs administration referred 15 behavioral health providers for investigation by then Attorney General Gary King, alleging possible fraudulent billing. McNease said the audit created more system disruption and shut down Medicaid funding to the providers, some of which were community-based and never recovered.

He said the state brought in providers from Arizona but they only stayed a few years, due to low reimbursement. Eventually the state created the first version of Centennial Care for the Medicaid system, which is more or less the system weve had ever since.

In 2016, Attorney General Hector Balderas had cleared the last of the 15 shuttered providers having found no evidence of fraud and called the overall situation regrettable. Balderas said the investigations identified $1.16 million in overbilling, as opposed to the $36 million the administration had initially alleged.

At the time, a spokesman for the Human Services Department doubled down, saying Balderas decision to allow these agencies to get away scot-free reeks of bad politics and shortchanges the people who rely on Medicaid the most.

Sims lamented the way things went in the past, but believes all is not lost.

It is possible to change the system and it doesnt have to be so adversarial and politically this and that, he said. It really doesnt have to be and I hope the state is moving past a lot of that.

Coming Monday

A status report on Bernalillo Countys behavioral health tax.
The Otero County Commission met Thursday for the first time since former Commissioner Couy Griffin was removed from office by court order earlier in the week in response to his participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Griffins nameplate and chair were absent as the two remaining commissioners called the regular meeting to order. Griffin, however, attended the meeting and spoke during the public comment session.

Each speaker was given three minutes to address the commission, and Griffin used his time to discuss two items on the agenda: funding for a road and a contract extension for the county attorney.

But Griffin also used the final minute of his allotted time to address his removal from office, telling those in attendance that his computer was seized by county officials before he was notified that state District Judge Francis J. Mathew had ruled Tuesday that Griffin could no longer serve in his elected position  or any other for the rest of his life.

This has been the hardest time of my life, not that Im trying to get anybodys sympathy. But its been very difficult for me, Griffin said. I think that its just very difficult that I dont have the respect of being able to be out by Friday without having the county sheriff or the sheriffs department standing guard.

In an interview Thursday, Griffin said he learned of the judges ruling during a phone call from the Otero County manager. Thats also when he learned he no longer had access to his county office, and that his county-issued computer was removed from his office.

Thats the thing that has hurt the most in this. I kind of was bracing myself because I figured that it was going to go this way, Griffin said. Ive been in my office, cleaning my office out today with the undersheriff standing guard in the room.

Mathew ruled Tuesday that Griffin was to be removed from his elected position and barred for life from holding any other elected federal or state positions.

The case against Griffin was initially filed in March by three New Mexico residents who argued Griffin should be removed from his elected position for violating the U.S. Constitution, specifically because of his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Griffin represented himself during a two-day bench trial last month in District Court in Santa Fe. In Tuesdays decision, Mathew ruled that Griffin had broken his oath to support the Constitution when he participated in the attack in Washington, D.C., violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Griffin said he plans to appeal the ruling and that during the appeals process, he wont be representing himself. Instead, he will be hiring some great legal minds.

The decision to represent himself during the bench trial was made, Griffin said, because he felt hed provided the judge with strong evidence to have the case dismissed, and he never thought the case would go to trial. He also expressed frustration that a judge, and not Otero County voters, had the final say.

The left is always crying about how our democracy is under attack. Well, what bigger example is there whenever the courts remove a duly elected representative only to make way for the governor to hand select who she wants to represent the people? Griffin said. Now its no longer the peoples choice. Its the governors choice.

Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokesperson for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, confirmed that the governor will fill the vacancy, adding that the governor accepts applications from eligible residents as possible replacements.

Gov. Lujan Grisham knows that New Mexicans expect their elected officials to uphold our Constitution and rule of law, Sackett said. Protecting our democracy cannot be optional  the people of Otero County deserve elected officials committed to protecting and upholding our laws.

This story was originally published in Source New Mexico  sourcenm.com  which is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news provider.
KYIV, Ukraine  Europes largest nuclear plant has been reconnected to Ukraines electricity grid, allowing engineers to shut down its last operational reactor in an attempt to avoid a radiation disaster as fighting rages in the area.

The six-reactor Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost its outside source of power a week ago after all its power lines were disconnected because of shelling. It was operating in island mode for several days, generating electricity for crucial cooling systems from its only remaining operational reactor.

Thats considered an unstable way of operating a nuclear plant, which could lead to damage to key equipment including turbines and pumps.

Nuclear operator Energoatom said one of the power lines was restored to its operational capacity late Saturday, making it possible to run the plants safety and other systems on electricity from the power system of Ukraine.

Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state  cold shutdown, the company said Sunday in a statement.

Energoatom said the risk remains high that outside power is cut again, in which case the plant would have to fire up emergency diesel generators to keep the reactors cool and prevent a nuclear meltdown. The companys chief told The Associated Press on Thursday that the plant only has diesel fuel for 10 days.

The plant, one of the 10 biggest atomic power stations in the world, has been occupied by Russian forces since early in the war, which marked its 200th day on Sunday. Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for shelling around the plant that has damaged the power lines connecting it to the grid.

Energoatom renewed its appeal for Russian forces to leave the Zaporizhzhia plant and allow for the creation of a demilitarized zone around it.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that has two experts at the plant, confirmed that external power has been restored there.

However, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he remains gravely concerned about the situation at the plant, which remains in danger as long as any shelling continues.

He added that consultations have begun on the urgent need to establish a nuclear safety and security protection zone at the plant.

The IAEA said it would take 30 hours to bring the sixth reactor to a cold shutdown state, but it will still require electricity for its safety systems after that. The agency said work is under way to restore other power lines at the plant, which remains occupied by Russian forces but run by Ukrainian engineers.

Also on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops and weapons from the plant and ensure its safety and security in line with IAEA recommendations.

Macron reminded Putin in a phone conversation that the Russian occupation of the nuclear plant was the cause for concern over its integrity, according to a statement from the French presidency.

___

Jon Gambrell and Hanna Ahrirova contributed.

___

Follow AP coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
As the war in Ukraine marked 200 days on Sunday, the country has reclaimed broad swaths of the south and east in a long-anticipated counteroffensive that has dealt a heavy blow to Russia.

The counterattack began in the final days of August and at first focused on the southern region of Kherson, which was swept by Russian forces in the opening days of the invasion. But just as Moscow redirected attention and troops there, Ukraine launched another, highly effective offensive in the northeast, near Kharkiv.

Facing the prospect of a large group of its forces becoming surrounded, Moscow pulled back its troops from Kharkiv in a dramatic shift in the state of play that posed the biggest challenge to the Kremlin since it launched the invasion Feb. 24.

The Ukrainian army has taken advantage of the relocation of the bulk of the Russian forces to the south and is trying to direct the course of the war, excelling in maneuver and showing great ingenuity, said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert with the Razumkov Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank. Ukraines quick gains, he added, are important both for seizing initiative and raising troops spirit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the military in a video address Saturday night, saying it has reclaimed about 2,000 square kilometers (over 770 square miles) of territory so far this month. He also taunted Moscow over its withdrawal, saying the Russian army was demonstrating the best it can do  showing its back and they made a good choice to run.

The Russian military debacle has provoked outrage among Russian military bloggers and patriotic commentators, who chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine. Even Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called mistakes that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.

Both sides have suffered heavy losses in Europes largest conflict since World War II. Ukraines military chief said last month that nearly 9,000 of its soldiers have been killed in action. And while Moscow hasnt reported its own losses since March, Western estimates put the toll as high as 25,000 dead, with the wounded, captured and deserters bringing the overall Russian losses to more than 80,000.

Ukraine has sought to mobilize the population to reach an active military of 1 million people, while Russia, in contrast, has continued to rely on a limited contingent of volunteers for fear that a mass mobilization could fuel discontent and upset internal stability.

As the war slogs on, a growing flow of Western weapons over the summer is playing a key role in the counteroffensive, helping Ukraine significantly boost its precision strike capability.

Since the counteroffensive began, Ukraine said, its forces have reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region.

In the Kherson region, troops sought to drive Russian forces from their foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper River, a potential vantage point for a push deeper into Ukraine by Moscow.

The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces had also left several settlements in the region but did not identify the towns.

The city of Kherson, an economic hub at the confluence of the Dnieper and the Black Sea with a prewar population of about 300,000, was the first major population center to fall in the war.

Russian forces also have made inroads into the Zaporizhzhia region farther north, where they seized Europes largest nuclear power plant. The last of its six reactors was shut down Sunday after operating in a risky island mode for several days to generate electricity for the plants crucial cooling systems after one of the power lines was restored.

Moscow has installed puppet administrations in occupied areas, introduced its currency, handed out Russian passports and prepared for local plebiscites to pave the way for annexation. But the counteroffensive has derailed those plans, with a top Moscow-backed official in Kherson saying the vote there needs to be put off.

The counterattack followed methodical strikes on Russian infrastructure and supply lines. Ukrainian forces have used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to pound the two bridges on the Dnieper, forcing Russian troops in the Kherson region to rely on pontoon crossings that also have faced daily strikes.

Last month, a series of explosions also hit airbases and a munitions depot in Crimea, underlining the vulnerability of the peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014 and has been crucial for its southern operations. Ukrainian authorities initially refrained from claiming responsibility, but the countrys military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyy, acknowledged in recent days that his forces hit them with rockets.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Kyiv has used the tactics of methodically exhausting the Russian army, weakening it and depriving it of a possibility to regularly beef up its forces.

Unlike in the south, where Ukraines counteroffensive proceeded more slowly on the barren steppes of Kherson that left troops vulnerable to Russian artillery, the Kharkiv regions forests offered natural cover that allowed for lightning-fast surprise attacks from multiple directions.

Swiftness and surprise have become key components of the Ukrainian army action in the Kharkiv region after Russian forces deployed there had been relocated to the south, Zhdanov said.

Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Virginia-based think tank CNA, said the counteroffensive has proven a very significant victory for Ukraine.

Russian forces appear to have been spread thinly, and military leadership unprepared despite earlier evidence of Ukrainian buildup, Kofman wrote. I think its fair to assess that Russia was caught by surprise with little in the way of reserves locally available.

After capturing the town of Balakliia, about 55 kilometers (about 34 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces quickly pressed their offensive farther east to Kupiansk, a rail hub vital for sustaining Russian operations in the region.

They claimed control of the strategic city Saturday, cutting supply lines to a big group of Russian forces around Izyum to the south. To prevent their complete encirclement, Moscow ordered the hasty retreat, claiming they were relocating to focus on the neighboring Donetsk region.

Zhdanov noted that a successful counteroffensive is key to persuading allies to further increase supplies of weapons to Ukraine, something that was discussed Thursday at a NATO meeting in Germany.

The events in the south and in the Kharkiv region must show to the West that the Ukrainian military knows how to handle the weapons and needs to develop their success, Zhdanov said.

___

Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv contributed.
TORONTO  When a young, bespectacled Al Yankovic picked up an accordion, few  especially Al, himself  would have predicted the long-running show-business career that would follow. But can you imagine if they did? That every step of Yankovics way  the first Hawaiian shirt, the epiphany of riffing on My Sharona as My Bologna  carried the same portentous sense of fate that rings through most music biopics?

Its a funny enough idea that shortly before the raucous midnight Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story  a nutty, authorized biopic that takes that concept and has as much fun with it as possible  Yankovic was still riffing. He was sitting alongside Daniel Radcliffe, who enthusiastically plays Yankovic in the movie, at a Toronto bar stocked with on-theme cocktails like Just Drink It.

Like, what if, Yankovic imagines, Weird had that much-memed moment in Baz Luhrmanns Elvis where Tom Hanks Tom Parker hears Presley on the radio for the first time, dramatically swings around and exclaims Hes white?!  only its Weird Al he hears and instead responds, Hes weird?!

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, written by Yankovic with director Eric Appel, does to Yankovics career pretty much what the 62-year-old comedian has been doing to pop songs for the last four decades. It distorts it through a funhouse mirror, turning Yankovics life into something that at its most absurd heights becomes its own parallel reality.

I never would have believed this would happen early in my life, and maybe even a year ago, says Yankovic. Thats one of the reasons why the movie is funny because it shouldnt exist. There are detractors that are saying: Why is Weird Al getting a biopic when there are a thousand names that should have gotten one before him? Well, thats kind of the point. Its not that I deserve it. The fact that I dont deserve it is why this exists.

Some, including Radcliffe, would quibble with that. Yankovic long ago outlasted many of the musicians hes parodied. Hes one of only five music acts to have a Top 40 hit in each of the last four decades. That ranks him among the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson, who have, of course, each received the Weird Al treatment (Like a Surgeon, Eat It). The New York Times has called Yankovic a completely ridiculous national treasure.

I cant explain it, shrugs Yankovic. I guess its just sheer tenacity because I should have gone away decades ago.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which will be released Nov. 4 on Roku, is itself an unlikely movie that began as a gag. About a decade ago, Appel and Yankovic made a faux-trailer for a Yankovic biopic for Funny or Die. Yankovic would play it at his concerts and bat away questions from fans about when the movie would actually be released. But a string of music biopics  many of which played so elastically with the truth that Yankovic sensed they were ripe for parody  made the premise even more appealing. Appel and Yankovic worked on a script and reached out to Radcliffe.

My first reaction on hearing the idea of me as Al was, Wait, what?' says Radcliffe. As soon as I started reading it, I was like, Oh, theres nothing else that Als biopic could have been but something that is inherently a parody of all musical biopics.

There are a few bits of autobiographic truth in Weird, but the movie quickly, as Radcliffe says, goes off the rails, wildly overinflating Yankovics trajectory and many of his encounters. Madonna (played by Evan Rachel Wood), desperate for the honor of a Yankovic parody, initiates a love affair with him, for instance.

The amount of people that have asked me about you and Madonna, sighs Radcliffe.

Yankovic notes that a door-to-door accordion salesman really did come to his familys house, as one does in the film. Its less true that Yankovics father abhorred the instrument as the devils squeezebox and violently pummeled the salesman.

That scene goes on for so long, Radcliffe says, shaking his head.

For the 33-year-old Radcliffe, the movie is in line with other eccentric, experimental films like 2016s Swiss Army Man that hes been drawn to since playing Harry Potter. A self-described Yankovic fan who listens to his polkas while working out, Radcliffe and Yankovic found themselves in many ways simpatico.

At some points in my life, I thought I needed to be stoic as an actor and stoic as a movie star, says Radcliffe. The success Ive had since Potter has been about whatever is weird about me, leaning into that. Thats the asset, actually, not to be avoided. And Al is like the model for that.

Radcliffe describes the rapid 18-day shoot of Weird as truly one of the best experiences Ive ever had on a set. Ahead of production, he dove into learning the accordion.

Nobody asked me to, by the way. It was entirely self-inflicted, says Radcliffe. I mean, if youre playing Al, what else am I doing? Youve got to make an honest attempt.

I cant tell you what a joy it was to wake up in the morning and get video of Dan playing My Bologna on the accordion, Yankovic says, earnestly.

My most common note was Please pump more,' adds Radcliffe.

Yankovic was in Toronto for only the evening with Colorado concerts the night before and the night after the premiere. Hes currently on The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour which concludes this fall at Carnegie Hall. At his concerts, he now sees fans of his from the 1980s with their kids  and in some cases, their grandkids  which is a little scary.

The continued affection people have for Weird Al  a performer who represents roughly the diametric opposite of an image-conscious, out-of-reach pop star  seems to somehow still be expanding. At the Weird premiere in Toronto, Hawaiian shirts and curly wigs were out in force. On the last day of shooting, Radcliffe says, the whole cast and crew dressed up as Yankovic.

Reluctantly, Yankovic acknowledges theres something, in fact, very real about Weird Al.

My nickname Weird Al has been empowering for a lot of people, he says. When I took on that name professionally it was a college DJ in the 70s. It wasnt calculated, obviously. I wasnt thinking that I was going to be, like, a role model decades later. But a lot of people that feel like outcasts or freaks or outsiders or didnt belong in some way would sometimes look to me and go, Heres a guy thats owning his weirdness, and hes comfortable with it.'

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Polio is the iconic epidemic, its conquest one of medicines heroic dramas. The narrative is by now familiar: Random, inexplicable outbreaks paralyzed and killed thousands of infants and children and struck raw terror into 20 th century parents, triggering a worldwide race to identify the virus and develop a vaccine. Success ushered in the triumphant era of mass vaccination. Now polios last hideouts amid the poorest of the poor in Asia and Africa are under relentless siege by, among others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Eradication is just a matter of time, and many more illnesses will soon meet the same fate.

But based on our research over the past two years, we believe this narrative is wrong  and wrong for reasons that go beyond mere historical interest. The misunderstanding of polio has warped the public health response to modern illnesses in ways that actually make them harder to prevent, control, and treat.

The reality, we believe, is that the virus itself was just half the epidemic equation -- necessary but not sufficient to create The Age of Polio. Outbreaks were not caused solely by poliovirus  the microbe was an ancient and heretofore harmless intestinal bug -- but by its interaction with a new toxin, most often innovative pesticides used to treat fruits and vegetables.

This alternative narrative makes better sense of the natural history of polio, and it resolves a number of anomalies that remain to this day. It suggests why poliomyelitis outbreaks emerged, evolved, and exploded the way they did; it probably solves, for the first time, the enduring riddle of why Franklin D. Roosevelt was afflicted 90 years ago this summer on Campobello Island; and it may mean todays billion-dollar-a-year eradication effort is misguided, if not downright quixotic.

These are large claims. Let us explain.

--

Polio was a strange illness, never fully understood even by those who devoted their lives to studying and subduing it. It was a summer plague, coming on in late spring and all but vanishing in the fall. Many thought contagion had something to do with water, and Americans kept their children away from swimming pools in droves.

There is a profound distinction between poliovirus  an enterovirus, one that enters through the mouth and takes up residence in the GI tract and bloodstream  and poliomyelitis, the paralytic form of the illness. In the vast majority of cases, the virus causes either a minor illness or an inapparent infection.

But in 1 or 2 in 100 cases, the virus somehow gets past multiple defenses and into the nervous system, where it finds its way to the anterior horn cells at the top front of the spinal column. There, it preferentially attacks the gray-colored motor neurons (polio means gray in Greek) and causes inflammation of the protective myelin sheath (myelitis). This interferes with nerve signals to the muscles and can lead to temporary or permanent paralysis of the limbs and the respiratory system. A small number of people who contract poliomyelitis -- on the order of 1 percent -- die.

The first recorded U.S. outbreak was in 1841 in West Feliciana, Louisiana (10 cases, no deaths). There was a half-century gap until the next cluster, in 1893 in Boston (26 cases, no deaths). Then, in 1894, came what is widely regarded as the first major epidemic, in Rutland and Proctor, Vermont (132 cases, 18 deaths). Thirty more outbreaks  from such seemingly disparate locations as Oceana County, Michigan, and Californias Napa Valley -- were reported in the United States through 1909. The worst by far was New York in 1907, with 2,500 cases and a five percent mortality rate, a harbinger of the 1916 epidemic in the Northeast that killed 2,000 in New York City alone.[i]

What is most remarkable about this list is that so few outbreaks of paralytic polio were recorded anywhere in the world before the latter 19th century. Poliomyelitis is considered an ancient scourge, but the evidence supporting that belief is quite threadbare. An oft-cited Egyptian drawing depicts a priest with a withered leg that could have stemmed from paralytic polio, but for most of recorded history there were few observations of the sudden-onset fever and paralysis in infants that characterizes the disease. The earliest well-documented case of infantile paralysis in an individual is widely considered to be Sir Walter Scott, afflicted as an infant in 1773.[ii]

There is little question that the poliovirus was endemic in humans for millennia; there may even have been isolated cases of poliomyelitis for much of that period. Yet the poliovirus did not trigger widespread outbreaks of poliomyelitis. Setting aside for now the 1841 Louisiana outbreak, reported retrospectively, something seems to have happened around 1890 to launch The Age of Polio in the United States. And something else must have changed around the end of World War II to create the large modern epidemics seared into the minds of older Americans, thousands of whom are poliomyelitis survivors and almost all of whom know someone who was afflicted.

While we have not written about polio, we have seen this pattern before. In our book, The Age of Autism  Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, we argued that something happened in the 1930s to launch The Age of Autism.[iii] We proposed it was the commercialization of ethyl mercury compounds for use in pesticides  seed disinfectants and lumber preservatives  and in vaccinations; we offered evidence of those inventions in the family backgrounds of the first autism cases identified in the medical literature, in 1943. Similarly, we proposed that the sharp rise in autism cases beginning around 1990 tracks with the federal government recommending several more mercury-containing shots.

Our attention was drawn to polio during our autism research when a virologist mentioned, in passing, that poliomyelitis could be triggered in some instances by injections. Called provocation poliomyelitis,[iv] this can happen when a needle stick punctures a nerve in the peripheral nervous system. An active poliovirus infection  typically, in a child exposed to the virus for the first time and not yet immune -- can gain access to the nervous system through a process called retrograde axonal transport, traveling back to the spinal column and triggering the dreaded paralytic form, poliomyelitis.

Such cases of provocation paralysis, we learned, occurred in Eastern Europe when antibiotics were excessively administered by injection; this practice led to multiple cases of poliomyelitis.[v] Bulbar polio  of the throat and respiratory system  was recognized as more common after tonsillectomies, again because nerve endings had been exposed.[vi] Outbreaks, then, can unquestionably occur as a result of an environmental injury, in these instances either excessive injection or surgery that led to peripheral nerve damage, in the presence of poliovirus infection.

We began to look at the poliomyelitis literature and found that another and much more comprehensive environmental theory of the disease had been put forward almost immediately after the early outbreaks, although it never gained mainstream attention. This theory proposed that what is called polio is not caused by a virus at all, but by poisoning from pesticides. In this theory, lead arsenate triggered the early clusters, and DDT kicked off the large outbreaks after World War II. (The pesticide theory has been championed in recent years by Jim West[vii] and by Janine Roberts[viii].)

That really got our attention. In our research for The Age of Autism, we investigated a paralytic illness we believe resulted from an unrecognized interaction between a toxin and a microbe. Called general paralysis of the insane, or GPI, it was a gruesome and universally fatal outcome in a percentage of people infected years earlier with the syphilis bacteria. We proposed that a manmade mercury compound -- ironically used to treat syphilis -- allowed syphilis to gain entrance to the brain. When penicillin was developed in the 1940s and actually killed syphilis infections, GPI disappeared because one of the two requirements for the illness  the microbe  was destroyed.

We suggested that a number of other illnesses may follow a similar pattern in which microbes and metals interact, including, in some instances, autism. So the idea that an environmental insult  whether a needle stick or surgery or a toxic metals exposure  could be at work in outbreaks of poliomyelitis intrigued us.

But we did not find the claim that polio was simply poisoning by pesticides alone to be persuasive. The strong versions of both the virus theory and the pesticide theory  that it was entirely one or the other  are too simple to explain the pattern of evidence. The strong viral theory cant explain the sudden emergence of poliomyelitis; the strong pesticide theory cant explain the sudden protective effect of poliovirus vaccinations. Rather, we propose that poliomyelitis outbreaks are man-made events that result from the synergy of microbe and toxin.

--

A threshold question  one that requires an answer for our argument to make sense  concerns what scientists call biological plausibility. What is the mechanism by which the virus and a toxin could cause such damage? Well look at the particular properties of lead and arsenate shortly, but our fundamental idea is that both the poliovirus and the pesticide enter the body by the same route -- they are ingested -- and both end up in the stomach. There, the toxin could damage the stomach lining in such a way that the virus gains access to peripheral nerves. This kind of virus-toxin interaction (perhaps with arsenic or lead acting alone as the toxin) took place sporadically before 1890 and increased dramatically, we propose, with the invention of more potent insecticides like lead arsenate. With the advent of DDT, the interaction became even more dangerous, dramatically increasing the number of cases.

The idea that toxins have played any role in poliomyelitis outbreaks is not widely accepted, to say the least. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1995 book, Polio, Peter Oshinsky dismisses it in a sentence: By 1952, the peak year of the epidemic, the search for answers had grown so desperate that a few blamed the dumping of poisons into the environment, especially the pesticide DDT, he writes.[ix]

Yet on the very next page, Oshinsky describes a farm family, frantic about the epidemic sweeping Iowa that awful summer. The parents tested the well water  it was fine  and used extra DDT to drive away flies. Still, nine of their 11 children were affected, two of them paralyzed. The family had done everything they were told to do, Oshinsky writes, everything they could. Why had it happened to them?

Why, indeed? The search for an answer begins in the 1850s in Medford, Massachusetts.

2. A Gypsy Moth Flaps Its Wings.

Etienne Leopold Trouvelot arrived in the United States from France in the late 1850s and settled into his brand new house at 27 Myrtle Street in Medford, a suburb of Boston. A self-taught scientist and later an astronomer affiliated with Harvard, his interest alighted first on insects, and he turned the land adjoining his home into a virtual boarding house for bugs.

To contain his hordes of larvae he constructed a stupendous barricade to encircle his grounds  a wooden fence eight feet high that encompassed his full five acres of shrubs and small trees, writes author Robert J. Spear. Netting was stretched from the perimeter of the fences across the trees and was supported in the middle on posts, making it possible for Trouvelot to walk upright through his specialized insectary.[x]

A decade later, he acquired a handful of gypsy moths, probably on a trip back to France  there were none in the United States. What happened next can be deduced from the title of Spears book, The Great Gypsy Moth War. Inevitably, insects escaped, not least because birds continually pecked their way into what they viewed as a very large diner.

The gypsy moths did not make their presence known outside the stupendous barricade for about a decade, but when they did, the results were apocalyptic. Lacking natural predators, they denuded trees  especially fruit trees  in what seemed like a single collective gulp. Then they crawled onward and upward. Citizens could only stare in disbelief as the dirt streets became carpeted with millions of larvae across Myrtle Street, writes Spear, turning its surface black with the bodies of fast-moving caterpillars.

Horrified residents combed gypsy moth larvae out of their hair, shoveled them off the steps, stomped them underfoot and burned huge clusters in noxious kerosene fires. But humans were simply outmatched. The Hellstrom Chronicles, the 1970s movie that suggested insects would inherit the earth, was coming alive in suburban Boston.

Even professional bug-killers were defenseless against the new arrival  Paris Green and London Purple, two state-of-theart arsenic compounds that were potent against most pests, didnt work at all. To some, it appeared that the food supply of the United States was at imminent risk. The state put together a Gypsy Moth Commission with an urgent mandate: Kill the bugs dead.

Fortunately  or so it seemed  a scientist working for the commission quickly found a solution. Adding lead to arsenic proved lethal to the larvae, and the new compound was sprayed on trees in and around Boston starting in 1893. It quickly proved its value against not just gypsy moths but all manner of agricultural pests. In fact, it worked better against codling moths, the source of the proverbial worm in the apple.

In the case of insects which do not readily yield to Paris Green, a different substance, used with great success by the Gypsy Moth Commission, with which it originated, may be applied, wrote George H. Perkins, state entomologist of Vermont in his annual report for 1893, published in early 1894. This is arsenate of lead; sodic arsenate 29.93%, lead acetate 70.07%, are mixed in water, from which arsenate of lead is soon formed.[xi]

--

Something else of note happened in 1893 in the Boston area. Two doctors used to seeing sporadic cases of paralysis in infants became concerned when the small caseload suddenly increased, to 23. There had only been six in the same September-November time span the year before.

Is Acute Poliomyelitis Unusually Prevalent This Season? asked Drs. James J. Putnam and Edward Wyllys Taylor in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal for November 23, 1893.[xii] It would not have seemed worthwhile to report these few observations had it not been that the number of cases observed at the Massachusetts General Hospital in September and October of this year is decidedly larger than usual, they wrote. (The comment shows that isolated cases of paralysis were not unusual in Boston, where the Gypsy Moth War had been raging since 1890. It was the number and timing that drew their attention.)

While the doctors noted the time of year, they did not notice that September and October were apple-harvesting season. They did ask other physicians who have seen these interesting cases, or may see them in future, to send brief records.

The future came quickly. Within seven months, Vermont  where George H. Perkins had given the formula for lead arsenate in his annual report  was hit hard. The first major polio outbreak to be recognized in the United States did not occur until 1894, writes well-known vaccine developer Samuel Katz. It came in Rutland, Vermont, for reasons I need an epidemiologist to explain to me. There had been scattered individual cases prior to that date, but this was the first recorded outbreak resulting in 18 deaths and 32 individuals with residual paralysis among a total of 132 cases.[xiii]

The outbreak was described in a classic report by Dr. C.S. Caverly, a Rutland physician and president of the Vermont Board of Health.[xiv] During the month of June, 1894, there appeared in a portion of the valley of the Otter Creek, in the State of Vermont, an epidemic of nervous disease, in which the distinctive and most common symptom was paralysis. Caverly didnt know what to make of it, but he noted that the cases tended to cluster along Otter Creek and its tributaries.

In 1896, in a follow-up report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Caverly noted something strange: During this epidemic and in the same geographical area, an acute nervous disease, paralytic in its nature, affected domestic animals. Horses, dogs and fowls died with these symptoms.

A horse died paralyzed in the hind legs, a fowl was paralyzed in its legs and wings. In the horse, the spinal cord showed atrophy of the anterior nerve root; in the fowl, an acute poliomyelitis of the lumbar portion of the cord ...[xv]

--







After the Boston and Rutland outbreaks, poliomyelitis clusters were reported in the United States almost every year. Earlier, we mentioned the 33 U.S. outbreaks recorded before 1910. Returning to that list, there appears to be an overlooked association with intensive commercial fruit and vegetable growing. After its introduction in 1893, lead arsenate was soon used on apples, apricots, asparagus, avocados, blackberries, blueberries (huckleberries), boysenberries, celery, cherries, citrus (in Florida), cranberries, currants, dewberries, eggplant, gooseberries, grapes, loganberries, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, pears, peppers, plums, quinces, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes and youngberries.[xvi]

With that in mind, consider these pre-1910 outbreaks:

--Boston, 1893. The year lead arsenate was first used there or anywhere.

--Rutland, Vermont, 1894. The year the state entomologist gave the formula for making it.

-- Cherryfield, Maine, 1896. Commercial blueberry-producing center.

-- San Francisco and the Napa Valley, 1896. Home to vineyards and many other crops.

-- Dutchess County and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., 1899. Agriculture and especially orchards  the countys Web site features a stylized apple.

-- San Joaquin Valley, California, 1899. The nations Salad Bowl.

-- San Francisco and vicinity, 1901. A reprise of 1896.

-- Galesville, Wisconsin, 1907. Apples again. The Chamber of Commerce logo features an apple, and the annual Apple Affair is held the first Saturday in October. Orchards from the area set up stands on the square where visitors can purchase apples and apple treats served up by local growers. Apple pie, apple slices, caramel apples, Apple Normandy, Queen's Apple, apple cider, apple juice -- if it's apple, you'll find it here.

-- Oceana County, Michigan, 1907. Self-proclaimed Asparagus Capital of the World, the largest asparagus producer in Michigan and one of the largest in the nation. Home to the National Asparagus Festival held the second week of June. (One of us, born in Chicago in June 1952, spent summers in Pentwater, in Oceana County. His parents wanted to get their children away from the risk of polio in the big city.)

These links, we suggest, are far from random, pointing instead to locations where circulating poliovirus strains might combine with the growing use of the new lead arsenate insecticide to disastrous effect. Other locations point more generally to agriculture  Central Illinois in 1905, the states of Iowa and Wisconsin in 1908, rural locations in Pennsylvania in 1907 and 1908  or to population centers where produce would be shipped  particularly New York City in 1907, a veritable fresh fruit and vegetable market to this day.

--

So the convergence of time and place in the early natural history of poliomyelitis outbreaks raises intriguing questions. But what can we say about the toxin itself and its relation to features of poliomyelitis? We can say:

Lead and arsenic can kill and paralyze humans.

Whether ingested or inhaled, several metals have long been recognized as hazards in the workplace and for miners; in Roman times, work in mercury mines was so lethal that only slaves and prisoners were sent into them. More recently, lead was removed from gasoline and paint because both inhalation and ingestion can stunt the mental development of children; arsenic has been banned from medicine and agricultural use in the United States; small amounts in apple juice, made from apples grown in China, triggered a national controversy this month.

That arsenic can produce paralysis was already known in the 14th century, begins the monograph On Arsenical Paralysis, written in 1893 by S.E. Henschen in Sweden. Since then many similar cases have been observed; and at present there are more than 150 cases of arsenical paralysis mentioned in the literature.[xvii]

The cases, he said, were comparatively few, and most recovered. He described the case of Maja Lisa Blomster, age 49, who in 1883 took a white tasteless powder on the advice of a traveler who said it would help her epilepsy. After that the patient experienced a prickly sensation or slight pains in the inside of the hands and soles of the feet, and when she walked she thought she felt something like needles between her feet and the floor.

The following morning she noticed on waking that the feet refused to do service. She tried in vain to bend and stretch out the foot joints and on trying to stand and walk the feet turned on the sides.

Lead is even more toxic to humans. The ancients were unquestionably aware of the dangerous character of lead and knew that it was poisonous when taken internally, wrote H.A. Waldron in Lead Poisoning in the Ancient World.[xviii] The most toxic sources appeared to be lead drinking goblets. And yet  shades of mistakes and misjudgments to come  the Romans and Greeks continued to expose themselves to the effects of a metal they knew to be harmful through their food and drink.

In the seventh century, Paul of Aegina gave the first account of an epidemic of lead colic he described as having taken its rise in the country of Italy, but raging also in many other regions of the Roman empire, like a pestilential contagion, which in many cases terminates in epilepsy, but in others in paralysis of the extremities.  of the paralytics the most recovered, as their complaint proved a critical metastasis of the cause of the disorder.

In Lead and Lead Poisoning in Antiquity, Jerome R. Nriagu of Environment Canada writes literary classics sparkle with passages on lead poisoning, reflecting, no doubt, the attempts by men of letters to deal with problems of their time.[xix] In The Uncommercial Traveler, Charles Dickens describes a woman who worked in the lead mills because she had no alternative but desperate poverty. What could she do? Better be ulcerated and paralyzed for eighteen pence a day, while it lasted, than see the children starve.

In the Book of Minerals, Albertus Magnus wrote in 1262 that care must also be taken lest it [lead] cause paralysis of the lower limbs, and unconsciousness. This, then, is the nature of lead in its constitution and effects.

And these, then, were the compounds chemists were mixing beginning in 1893 in Boston. Is it any wonder that Dr. Putnam raised the question the same year whether infantile paralysis was unusually common this season?

In fact, just two years before, a speech Putnam gave to the Massachusetts Medical Society was described in a British Medical Journal article titled, The Injuriousness of Arsenic as a Domestic Poison.[xx] Putnam points out that paralysis is only the final and gross symptom of a neuritis which may have been going on for a long time. Arsenic was hard to avoid, he added, because it was still widely used in medicine (a book about the ubiquity of arsenic during the era is titled The Arsenic Century).

Lead arsenate can paralyze and kill animals that ingest it. In January 1920, Veterinary Times published an article by J.W. Kalkus, head of Veterinary Science at the State College of Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, titled Orchard Horse Disease. This revealing piece begins: The writer recently had an opportunity of making an investigation of a disease which has been causing considerable loss among horses in certain sections of Washington.[xxi]

It went by several names, Kalkus reported, among them orchard horse disease; orchard poisoning; alfalfad horses; arsenate of lead poisoning; mold poisoning.

Regardless of the name, the circumstances were the same: The condition occurs in enzootic form in the irrigated apple orchard districts.  The disease was little known prior to the last three years.  It is now claimed by many that it is practically impossible to keep a horse for any great length of time on an irrigated orchard tract, where orchard-grown hay is fed, without the animal attracting the disease.  Present knowledge indicates this disease is confined to the irrigated apple orchard districts where fruit is grown on a commercial basis, and where it is common practice to use arsenate of lead in spraying fruit trees.

Alfalfa was grown as a cover crop between orchard trees. Lead arsenate spray was often applied so thickly that it dropped onto the alfalfa, giving it a gray color. While some veterinarians did not believe lead arsenate caused the problems  because it did not exactly mimic what was known of lead and arsenic poisoning  Kalkus seemed in little doubt. One reason is that such problems had already been reported.

Experiments with lead arsenate conducted on pigs, calves, and sheep produced symptoms similar to horse orchard disease, Kalkus wrote. Another researcher fed different amounts of lead arsenate to five cows, all of which died following symptoms of violent purgation, in some cases followed by paralysis.

The horses Kalkus describes all became ill with fever, apparent abdominal pain and a cough. Some started to recover, but were then affected by paralysis of the vocal cords. Kalter quotes a veterinarian who was convinced lead arsenate was the cause: As lead and arsenic are contained in the spray material it is highly possible that an idiosyncrasy exists, some individuals being susceptible to lead and acquiring the chronic form and others showing an acute form due to arsenic.

In early polio epidemics, both animals and people suffered from paralysis. In May 1912, The Medical Times published an article by Jacolyn Van Vliet Manning titled, The Correlation of Epidemic Paralysis in Animal and Man.[xxii]

A close relationship between paralytic cases in man and animal during epidemics of poliomyelitis has been observed in nine Western states of the United States as well as in England and Sweden, he wrote, affecting dogs, cats, sheep, hogs and fowl. One case: On May 27, 1911, a boy contracted poliomyelitis. One week before the boys illness a horse belonging to this lads father had an attack of what is locally known as poke-neck; it is said to have been paralyzed in the neck and forequarters; it fell down in the stable and was unable to rise.

In Minnesota in 1909, during an epidemic of 1,000 cases in humans, a state epidemiologist reported that a disease strongly analogous in clinical history and symptoms to the disease in the human had simultaneously afflicted three colts. Wrote Dr. C.S. Shore: In my veterinary practice of the past five or six years I have found a disease appearing among one or two year old colts that shows a line of symptoms corresponding closely to anterior poliomyelitis in children. I have had from five to six cases a year during this time, always occurring during the Summer months, and the majority of them during the month of August.[xxiii]

In fact, as Manning notes, C.S. Caverly made the same observation about the first U.S. epidemic in Vermont in 1894. Something was causing polio-like symptoms in both humans and animals at the same time, in the same place.

The poliovirus may have been a key co-factor in the human cases of poliomyelitis, but the local presence of lead arsenate is also demonstrated by the paralytic cases of animals. These could not have been caused by the virus, which only produces illness in primates. The simultaneous illness of humans and animals is thus a crucial but overlooked clue to causation.

There were concerns lead arsenate caused polio outbreaks. Astonishingly, lead arsenate was proposed as a cause of polio outbreaks early on. In Massachusetts, where the compound was first used, the State Forester reported in 1912, under a section headed Infantile Paralysis: In view of the fact that a feeling has been entertained by some people in the State that infantile paralysis has been caused in some instances by arsenate of lead used in spraying for the gypsy and brown-tail moths, the State Forester has caused a rigid investigation to be made in order to determine if there is any foundation upon which to base such fears.[xxiv]

On the other side of the globe, a New Zealand newspaper reported in 1914: The oft-expressed opinion that the arsenate of lead spray on fruit is the cause of the prevalence of infantile paralysis will be discussed at the next meeting of the Upper Clutha Fruit-growers Association at Bannockburn. The association is taking steps to obtain the result of Government experiments regarding this matter.[xxv] (We have not found a follow-up report.)

Toxins as a possible factor in outbreaks of paralysis were dismissed by biased investigators. Given these connections and concerns, what happened? Or rather, what didnt happen? Why did such strong clues about the nature of a disease that followed the planting season like clockwork year after year fail to crystallize in the minds of researchers?

The simple answer is that right from the start, the wrong people were in charge of connecting the dots. Regarding the fears of Massachusetts residents, the State Forester  whose job is to look after trees, not people  wrote that as a result of his research he is firmly convinced that the use of arsenate of lead has in no way been responsible for the existence of the disease [infantile paralysis], and apprehends no danger in the future from its use. Any anxiety concerning the danger from the use of arsenate of lead is entirely unwarranted.[xxvi]

As for animals, in 1897 A.H. Kirkland, a researcher for the Gypsy Moth Commission in Massachusetts, home to lead arsenate, conducted an experiment with a single horse fed the pesticide. The animal not only remained well and hearty but in better condition [italics in original] than before.[xxvii] That contradicted not only the Washington state report that described horse orchard disease, but several other veterinary studies.

A 1917 article in the journal Economic Entomology  by and for specialists who make their living controlling pests that threaten profits  also examined the risk to livestock and, by extension, people. So far as our experiments with guinea pigs may be relied on, the results indicated that five or even ten times the average maximum per apple found in our analyses could not be expected to constitute a dangerous single dose for a human being.[xxviii]

In the 1962 classic Silent Spring, Rachel Carson addressed this kind of convenient blindness and bias when she wrote about the inability of parties with an economic interest to acknowledge the damage pesticides caused to wildlife.

"The credibility of the witness is of first importance, she wrote. Compared to a wildlife biologist, the entomologist, whose specialty is insects, is not so qualified by training, and is not psychologically disposed to look for undesirable side effects of his control program.

Yet it is the control men in state and federal governments  and of course the chemical manufacturers  who steadfastly deny the facts reported by the biologists and declare they see little evidence of harm to wildlife. Like the priest and the Levite in the biblical story, they choose to pass by on the other side and to see nothing. Even if we charitably explain their denials as due to the shortsightedness of the specialist and the man with an interest this does not mean we must accept them as qualified witnesses."[xxix]

And so poliomyelitis spread unchecked through the first two decades of the 20th century before snaring, in 1921, its most famous victim.

3. Making Sense of Campobello.

Despite its name, the town of Cherryfield, Maine, calls itself the Blueberry Capital of the World, and there is no disputing the claim. Ninety-five percent of the worlds commercial blueberries are grown in surrounding Washington County, and Cherryfield is a major processing and shipping center. Machias, the county seat, hosts the annual Blueberry Festival every August. The festival puts on a musical, this year titled Blueberry Fields Forever, and a pie-eating contest  blueberry, of course.

The area has a couple of other claims to fame. Washington County hugs the Atlantic Coast where the United States meets Canada, the easternmost point in the United States; the city of Eastport is the first to see the sunrise. The region is known as Down East







[A Map of Washington County Maine, also known as Sunrise County, with Cherryfield and Campobello circled. Click photo to enlarge.]

Two miles offshore is the island of Campobello, part of New Brunswick, Canada, where Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family spent summers. It was on his beloved island in August, 1921  ninety years ago  that Roosevelt was afflicted with a paralytic illness diagnosed as poliomyelitis.

But this remote and lightly populated area already had a significant history with polio  one of the first clusters in the United States occurred in Cherryfield a quarter-century earlier, in 1896 (we cited it in our list of pre-1910 outbreaks with links to fruits and vegetables). Seven children were affected, and one died. In all the discussion and theorizing about Roosevelts illness over the intervening decades, this convergence has been overlooked.

--

Roosevelt arrived at Campobello on Sunday afternoon, August 7, on the yacht of a friend who sailed him up from New York City. The previous week, Roosevelt had visited a Boy Scout camporee on Bear Mountain, N.Y., not far from the familys Hudson River home in Hyde Park.[xxx]

At the dock, his family was waiting. His children played on the yacht through the adults cocktail hour, then were taken home while Franklin and Eleanor stayed for an elegant dinner on the fantailed aft deck, served by uniformed stewards.

Three days later, on Wednesday, August 10, Roosevelt went to bed early in the cranberry-red cottage on Campobello Island, unusually tired and suspecting a slight case of lumbago (lower back pain). He had chills during the night, and in the morning one of his legs was weak; the paralysis had begun. By the next night, both legs were paralyzed.

Because of the defining role it played in his life and, inevitably, world history, the days leading up to the attack have been dissected in detail by Roosevelts multiple biographers. Most historians believe he contracted the poliovirus on his visit to the Boy Scouts, which would have multiplied the chances of exposure to a youth with an active infection. Alternatively, he could have come down with the virus sometime between the Bear Mountain trip and his departure for Campobello.

After his arrival at Campobello, much has been made of a fall overboard while sailing in the Bay of Fundy; of his typically energetic activities on the day he first felt ill, which included putting out a small forest fire on a nearby island and going for a dip with his children in a freshwater pond near his house. The paralyzingly cold water of the Bay of Fundy became an ominous metaphor for what was about to happen, but was never a serious biological argument.

Since most victims were infants or children, the fact that Roosevelt was 39 at the time has also gotten attention. In 2003, a study in The Journal of Medical Biography proposed Roosevelt actually had GuillainBarre syndrome, not poliomyelitis.[xxxi] While interesting, the evidence for such a diagnosis is not strong. Arguing against it is a comment by Elliott Roosevelt, FDRs young son who was present when his father took ill. He and other children went on a previously planned camping trip  now without their stricken father -- because Eleanor wanted to keep them away from the risk of infection.

On that trip, Elliott wrote, each of us children had some of the same symptoms as Father but in much milder form. We had runny noses, slight temperatures, and, a telltale sign, an odd feeling of stiffness in the neck. These comparatively mild aches and pains got overlooked in the developing crisis which gripped us all.[xxxii]

Poliomyelitis remains the likeliest diagnosis: the timeline fits with an exposure at the Boy Scout camp. Estimates of the incubation period  typically a week or two, though that can vary considerably in either direction match the Roosevelt scenario, no longer than 13 days.

And Roosevelts presence in the worlds commercial blueberry capital at harvest time when his illness struck seems remarkable in light of the lead arsenate theory, which already had been proposed more than once in the decade before his illness. (Next years Blueberry Festival begins August 14.) Eleanor herself did the familys grocery marketing in Eastport, and Roosevelts love of blueberries and other fresh fruit is well documented. His chef in the White House, Henrietta Nesbitt, wrote that he was fond of blueberry and other pies.[xxxiii] In the cafeteria at FDRs presidential library in Hyde Park, the Henrietta Nesbitt Cafe, the most prominent picture is of the broadly grinning president being served a big piece of pie.

Before a trip to South America, Nesbitt wrote, I made up a list of his favorite dishes for the ships mess, and it was practically a copy of the list Mrs. Roosevelt had made out and had ready for me on my first day at the White House. That list began with Roast beef pink juice running and includes frozen strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for dessert. Eleanor Roosevelts recipe for Blueberry Pudding has survived.[xxxiv]

None of this shows FDR eating a mound of fresh blueberries treated with lead arsenate in August 1921, but it seems more probable than not.

--

Roosevelt famously survived polio, turning his personal tragedy into Sunrise at Campobello and leading America through the Great Depression and World War II, though his health flagged in later years as a result of his battle with polio. Some historians believe he was not up to the task of confronting Stalin at the Yalta conference that shaped the post-War world and led to the descent of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Ga., in 1945, the retreat where he had worked valiantly to overcome paralysis and help others do the same.

In death he became a symbol for the suffering of thousands of polio victims and galvanized the search for a vaccine. Sadly, despite the March of Dimes campaign he helped launch to find the cause and cure, polio outbreaks were about to get worse. Much worse.

4. Post-War Epidemics and the Triumph of Vaccination.

Life magazine for August 15, 1949, reflected the booming exuberance of the times. The cover, How to Dress for Hollywood, featured a buxom starlet in suitably sultry attire. There were ads for DeSotos and Nashes and Chevys to mobilize families and their growing broods of children; cigarettes like Pall Mall, whose greater length of traditionally fine, mellow tobaccos serves as a longer, natural filter to screen and cool the smoke on the way to your throat; toothpastes to brush away smokers breath and shine stained teeth, and articles on everything from a new sailboat called the Sunfish to a town in Louisiana that cut its taxes in half by installing slot machines.[xxxv]

But twin specters of death and destruction hung over this bright baby-boomer world  the anxiety over atomic annihilation if the Cold War turned hot, and every parents most proximate fear for their children, polio.

There were two articles on polio in this August issue. One was titled Summer season brings epidemics of this uncontrollable disease and noted that throughout the nation last week the threat of polio was growing. Starting with some spotty outbreaks during May and June the disease had reached near-epidemic proportions during the sultry drought-ridden month of July. By Aug. 1, 8,300 cases had been reported, a 43% increase over last year. Polio seemed more uncontrollable than ever.

The peak was still ahead  1952 would bring 58,000 cases -- but the path to prevention had already accelerated faster than any of the cars on display in Lifes pages in 1949. The year before, John Enders research group in Boston had cultivated the poliovirus in human tissue, a Nobel-winning breakthrough that cleared a path for Jonas Salks vaccine, which followed in 1955. Successful field trials among several hundred thousand children known as Polio Pioneers were announced on April 12, 1955  the tenth anniversary of FDRs death. Church bells rang out across the nation.

The jubilation was justified in terms of the vaccines effect on the poliovirus  by 1961, only 161 cases of poliomyeltis were confirmed in the United States, just 29 more than the first epidemic year of 1894. But with the outbreaks ending, basic research withered. As Life noted, how polio is spread, how the virus enters the body, they do not know.

--







In 1949, the same year as the Life article, Drs. Morton S. Biskind and Irving Bieber published DDT Poisoning  A New Symptom With Neuropsychiatric Manifestations in the American Journal of Psychotherapy. By far the most disturbing of all the manifestations are the subjective reactions and the extreme muscular weakness, they reported.[xxxvi]

In subsequent papers and testimony, Biskind linked DDT directly to cases of poliomyelitis  including a Dec. 12, 1950, statement to the Select Committee to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food Products, United States House of Representatives.[xxxvii] He quoted another doctor that wherever DDT had been used intensively against polio, not only was there an epidemic of the syndrome I have described but the incidence of polio continued to rise and in fact appeared where it had not been before.

This is not surprising since it is known that not only can DDT poisoning produce a condition that may easily be mistaken for polio in an epidemic but also being a nerve poison itself, may damage cells in the spinal cord and thus increase the susceptibility to the virus.

Facts are stubborn, Biskind concluded, and refusal to accept them does not avoid their inexorable effects -- the tragic consequences are now upon us.

The theory was also advanced by Ralph R. Scobey, who in 1952 gave a statement to the same House committee. Titled The Poison Cause of Poliomyelitis and Obstructions To Its Investigation,[xxxviii] it described associations between harvest seasons, fresh fruit consumption, and polio epidemics.

The next year, Biskind made the link even more explicit: In the United States the incidence of polio had been increasing prior to 1945 at a fairly constant rate, but its epidemiologic characteristics remained unchanged. Beginning in 1946 the rate of increase more than doubled. Yet far from looking into a toxic etiology, he said, virtually the entire apparatus of communication, lay and scientific alike, has been devoted to denying, concealing, suppressing, distorting and attempts to convert into its opposite, the overwhelming evidence. Libel, slander and economic boycott have not been overlooked in this campaign.[xxxix]

But the idea that the active compounds in pesticides could cause paralysis was hardly farfetched. Pesticides are designed to cause mayhem with the nervous systems of their targets.

Lead arsenate was an inorganic pesticide, DDT an organochlorine compound. Both cause neurons to fire randomly, interfering with the ability of the brain to communicate with the rest of the body and leading to paralysis, spasms and death. DDTs unintended impact on other living things was recognized after Silent Spring, though the focus then was on wildlife, not humans. That was enough to get both DDT and lead arsenate banned in the United States.

Because DDT required a co-factor  the poliovirus  to trigger outbreaks of poliomyelitis, the effect on humans was missed. Adding to the complexity may be the fact, observed in horse orchard disease, that living things react with different levels of sensitivity to toxins.

So DDT, we believe, succeeded lead arsenate not just as the insecticide of choice, but as an even more potent environmental co-factor in polio outbreaks. Understanding the role these toxins played was a significant insight and deserved serious attention, just as the early concerns about lead arsenate might have ended The Age of Polio almost as soon as it began.

The DDT theory, like the lead arsenate observation, failed because it wrongly dismissed the equally important role of the virus itself. It could not account for the prompt collapse of polio in the U.S. after the vaccine was developed. The vaccine clearly eliminated outbreaks in the United States. Subsequent attempts to show that domestic DDT use waned about the same time, or that polio was reclassified as other illnesses in an elaborate scam to hide the vaccines ineffectiveness, dont really stand up against the evidence.

The pesticide theory was an important one, and Biskind pointed to the synergy of toxin and virus when he suggested DDT might damage cells in the spinal cord and increase the susceptibility to the virus  though that is not the mechanism we believe was at work. But the virus hunters were not about to be distracted as they closed in on a vaccine that could stop the epidemics in their tracks. This meant, as we shall see, that in areas where the vaccination effort was less successful, co-factors could continue to trigger outbreaks.

Before addressing that, however, there are two more obvious tests to which we need to put our theory. Infantile paralysis occurred before lead arsenate was invented in 1893. How do we explain that? And what about polio outbreaks that have continued in the absence of either lead arsenate or DDT pesticides? Do they fit our new narrative?

5. Before.

Our research on the natural history of autism convinced us that while there may have been a few scattered cases throughout history, the disorder first occurred in appreciable numbers  as clusters and ultimately as an epidemic -- only after 1930. Observations at that time about the rarity and novelty of the disorder are far more persuasive than retrospective efforts to claim significant numbers of cases before then.

The same holds true for poliovirus. Nowhere is that clearer than in the 1917 book Poliomyelitis In All Its Aspects,[xl] by John Ruhrah and Erwin E. Mayer. It seems to be a disease of comparatively recent origin, they wrote. In the history of most diseases there is a gradual shading off into the older writers until the disease is lost in confusion of inaccurate descriptions. Not so with polio.

They continued: The disease is so striking in its symptomatology, so devastating in its results, and produces such a deep impression on the popular mind that it does not seem possible that any very considerable epidemics could have happened in the countries in which there were physicians making records of what occurred.

The same point is driven home by John R. Paul in his standard 1971 text on the disease, A History of Poliomyelitis[xli]. There was no idea in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that poliomyelitis was contagious, wrote Paul, a professor of preventive medicine and epidemiology at Yale who conducted important polio research himself. A half a dozen cases within a half-mile of each other might have escaped notice, but had there been larger outbreaks in the early or mid-19th century it seems highly unlikely that they would have gone unnoticed.

But just as arsenic and lead caused instances of paralysis before the invention of lead arsenate, there was also an emerging medical literature of poliomyelitis before recurring outbreaks began in 1893. Beginning just before 1800, theres a history of doctors who took a reasonable cut at identifying the disease. These include, in 1789, Michael Underwood, who used the term debility of the lower extremities[xlii]; and in 1840, Jacob Heine, who is sometimes credited as the first to diagnose poliomyelitis.

Several doctors later used the word paralysis in describing a similar condition in infants: West in 1843; Rillet in 1851; Duchesne in 1864. By 1860, Heine had pinpointed the spinal cord as the source of the paralysis, and in 1872, the great French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot called it tephromyelitis anterior acuta parenchymatose. This was a pretty modern description, but his precise nomenclature didnt quite catch hold. In 1874, German doctor Adolph Kussmaul coined the term poliomyelitis anterior acuta, later shortened to poliomyelitis.

Going further back, plausible descriptions grow sparse but include the crippled Egyptian priest in a stele dated from 1580-1350 B.C. In 460 B.C., Hippocrates wrote about clubfoot, which may have included some cases of infantile paralysis. And in 200, Galen also discussed clubfoot.

But those were vanishingly rare, and when Underwood described debility of the lower extremities in 1789, he clearly thought he was reporting a new phenomenon, just as Ruhrah and Paul asserted with the benefit of much greater epidemiological sophistication. This disorder either is not noticed by any medical writer within the compass of my reading, or is not so described as to ascertain the disease here intended, Underwood wrote. It is not a common disorder anywhere, I believe.

--







Outbreaks of more than one case, then, were a distinctly 19th-century phenomenon, and until the 1890s worldwide episodes can be counted on two hands[xliii]:

-- In 1835, John Badhams description of 4 cases in Worksop, England.

-- In 1830-36, Charles Bells discussion of multiple cases in St. Helena.

-- In 1841, George Colmers discussion of 8-10 cases in Feliciana, Louisiana.

-- In 1868, Bulls discussion of 14 cases in Odalen, Norway (cited by Leegard, 1914).

-- In 1881, Bergenholtzs description of 13 cases in Umea, Sweden.

--In 1883, a report of 5 cases in Arenzano, Italy (cited by Hull, 1917).

--In 1885, another report of 13 cases in Sainte-Foy LArgentiere, France (cited by Hull, 1917).

--In 1886, 9 cases in Mondel, Norway (cited by Hull, 1917).

-- In 1887, Oskar Medins discussion of 44 cases in and around Stockholm. This description uses the term poliomyelitis anterior acuta, argues that it is likely to be infectious and gives a pretty clear description of the modern disorder. His piece is considered a classic and polio used to be called Heine-Medin disease in honor of his very contemporary description.

Obviously, all these cases were described before the invention of lead arsenate in 1893. So there were undoubtedly other ways to make this pattern occur; a prime suspect would be arsenic in other forms, as well as other toxic metals, since they are well known to cause paralysis in workers and others exposed to them. Interestingly, both Badham and Colmer mention teething, and the latter said it was a likely cause. In fact, teething paralysis was sometimes used as a term for infantile paralysis.[xliv]

Teething powders containing calomel  mercurous chloride  were used beginning around then, and mercury is well-known to cause paralysis. Mercury in medicine was so widespread that it doubtless caused numerous disorders identified as something else, especially by the doctors who prescribed it. (Badham even prescribed calomel in repeated doses for his paralyzed patients.)

Teething powders also caused pink disease, a feature of which was sometimes paralysis. In Pink Disease, Charles Rocaz reports that Karl Petren of Lund (Sweden) has suggested that pink disease is due to chronic arsenical intoxication.  Nervous manifestations occur in the form of paresis [paralysis] of the lower limbs with pain, tingling and burning of the hands and feet.[xlv]

So a number of outbreaks might be explained by exposures to metals, including earlier pesticides and other products and medicines containing arsenic. The arsenic-containing Paris Green was originally a pigment and was used in wallpaper as early as 1814.

As for the larger Scandinavian clusters in the later 1880s, northern climes  think Campobello Island, Canada  are hospitable to berries. Also, apples are grown there and are part of the traditional cuisine. Keeping worms (actually codling moths, not gypsy moths) out of apples was something people were obviously concerned about for a long time before the war on gypsy moths provided the tools to fight codling moths.

But none of these reached the scale, or occurred with the frequency, of poliomyelitis outbreaks after 1893 and the invention of lead arsenate. This leads to the second test of our theory  once lead arsenate and DDT disappeared from the scene, why did poliomyelitis outbreaks continue, albeit in diminished fashion?

6. After -- The Persistence of Polio.

To summarize our theory: Polio is a virus, contagious like all viruses, and generally a harmless enterovirus. When it is introduced into the human body, it has the capacity to enter the nervous system when nerves are damaged. Damage can occur many ways: mechanically through needle puncture or surgery, or, we propose, biochemically via pesticidal or other toxic exposure. Once the virus enters the nervous system, it becomes dangerous in a way nature never allowed before. It spreads through the nervous system via "retrograde axonal transport." The resulting damage can lead to paralysis or death.

Two regions of the world continue to experience polio outbreaks, despite hopes the virus would be eradicated by 2000. This persistence has surprised and confused the experts.

The eradication campaign has been stalled from about 2002 to 2007  Why is it so difficult to complete the global eradication of wild poliovirus? asked Neal Nathanson of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in a 2008 medical review, The Pathogenesis of Poliomyelitis: What We Dont Know.[xlvi] (What we dont know turns out to be a lot  the paper runs to 50 pages.)

Currently, there are two epicenters that have resisted virus elimination, one in South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, northern India) and one in West Africa (centered in Nigeria). What explains the persistence of wild polioviruses in these two foci?

Nathanson cites three possibilities: those are warm climates, so poliovirus doesnt go dormant in the winter as it theoretically did in other countries; the prevalence of other enteroviruses means that the live-virus polio vaccine is not as effective because the other viruses interfere with it; and poor public health infrastructure couple with fears about vaccination made the achievement of herd immunity harder than expected.

If one considers the toxin idea, however, another explanation jumps out, especially in South Asia. Erase national borders for a moment. While outbreaks are small and have waxed and waned over the past decade, the primary sites have been directly south of the Himalayan range in a smiley-face arc that runs west from Nepal and Bangladesh, through the Northern India districts of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, into Pakistan and Afghanistan.







This also happens to be the area with the worst mass poisoning from arsenic in human history. This is not ancient history  it didnt even begin until the 1980s. It is a story of the single-minded war against microbes gone badly wrong. What happened is beautifully outlined in an American Scientist article, No one checked: Natural Arsenic in Wells.[xlvii]

The wells that now supply the people's drinking water are sealed from bacterial contamination; their tight concrete tubes reach down 60 feet or more, past surface contamination, write Phillip and Phylis Morrison. The big investment in concrete wells, originally made by UNICEF and the World Bank, has beaten back diarrheal diseases, making a real contribution to the vigor and quality of life of the people here.

But what no one checked was the possibility of another kind of contamination: the wells tapped into the deeper water table and pulled up arsenic that had been swept down the Himalayan watershed by the Ganges and Indus Rivers, both of which drain both slopes of the mighty range.

And that proved to be a catastrophic failure. A new calamity as astonishing as it is threatening confronts the country people of the Bengal Basin, the Morrisons write  a calamity that has continued to spread through India and westward. The drinking water, though sealed from infection, can hold a chronic dose of invisible, tasteless, odor-free dissolved arsenic.  That trace presence is a public poison.

In Bangladesh alone, the World Health Organization calls arsenic contamination of drinking water the largest mass poisoning of a population in history (an eerie echo of Biskind calling DDT use the most intensive campaign of mass poisoning in human history). In focusing solely on microbes, in failing understand the ecology they were tapping into, public health experts failed in their due diligence  no one checked, and so they simply missed the risk from the toxin. In a deep and disturbing irony, we believe that this arsenic exposure  born of a sincere but disastrously conceived effort to protect people from dangerous microbes -- has also led to the persistence of poliomyelitis.

--

On May 12, 2010, Bill Gates boarded a boat in the city of Patna, on the Ganges River in the Indian province of Bihar, and traveled 140 miles east to the small village of Guleria. He was there to personally take the Gates Foundations fight against polio into the heart of the beast. Bihar is one of only two Indian States where new cases of polio continue to be reported, according to UNICEF. Uttar Pradesh is the other.[xlviii]

This is also arsenic country. The districts on both sides of the Ganges, including Patna and Khagara, are among the 16 worst arsenic-affected districts in Bihar.[xlix] In neighboring Uttar Pradesh, as many as 20 districts have alarmingly high arsenic content in the groundwater and the state government is at its wits end.[l]

The consequences include lesions on the hands and feet, intestinal problems, and cancer that can kill. In India, the spread of arsenic contamination in groundwater seems to be assuming gargantuan proportions, reported Current Science in 2005. What is worse is that inhabitants of the affected areas are unaware and the local authorities totally oblivious to this grave problem. It was known that West Bengal (WB) and Bangladesh had high levels of arsenic in the groundwater, but slowly the problem is spreading to other states like Uttar Pradesh. This is confirmed by the reports of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi that people living in the Ballia district of UP also have high levels of arsenic in their blood, hair, nails, etc.[li]

This convergence has totally escaped the polio fighters, just as the arsenic risk from deeper wells escaped the planners (ironically, those planners include the same World Health Organization now combating poliomyelitis there). Most parts of India are polio free. Of the 35 states and Union Territories, 33 have stopped indigenous polio virus transmission. Only Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar remain endemic for polio virus because of the uniquely challenging conditions like poor environmental sanitation, high population density, high birth rate which make them the most challenging places on earth to eradicate polio.[lii]

But do those factors really make the two areas unique in all India? And why does the polio arc sweep across the same arsenic-poisoned swath of neighboring countries?

--

At the proverbial 30,000-foot level  Himalayan height, as it happens -- the theory makes sense. But it also holds up on the ground. District by district, city by city, the dots connect.

-- In West Bengal, Howrah District was singled out for high arsenic contamination[liii]  and polio. A case of poliovirus reported there in April has shocked the World Health Organization, UNICELF, Rotary International and the government itself.[liv]

-- In Pakistan, Another polio case in Muzaffargarh[lv] coincides with the fact that arsenic was recently found in Pakistan, in and around Muzaffargarh on the south-western edge of the Punjab.[lvi]

-- In Afghanistan, half a million people are potentially at risk from arsenic poisoning, and the country is one of four where poliovirus remains endemic.

Why, given the arsenic disaster in Bangladesh, are there no recent polio cases there? It appears the virus has been wiped out. Concerted efforts to eradicate polio in Bangladesh, resulted in the country being declared polio free in August 2000. [lvii]

Arsenic abatement also has been attacked most aggressively in Bangladesh, where the problem first surfaced. In Bangladesh and West Bengal, at present less people are drinking arsenic contaminated water due to growing awareness and access to arsenic safe water. But no doubt the problem would not have attained such gravity, if it were not ignored for quite a long time. Unfortunately today similar mistakes are being repeated in Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, and Assam where still the villagers are drinking contaminated water. Non recognition of truth continues.[lviii]

Indeed it does. Polio outbreaks, we believe, are persisting today for the same reason they arose. South Asia is simply a place where toxic interactions are triggering outbreaks that highlight the presence of the virus, like Luminol bringing out hidden blood splatters at a crime scene.

That would seem to spell trouble for programs guided by the belief that going after polio outbreaks will eradicate the virus  despite the vast resources currently being thrown at the effort.

On January 31, Bill Gates spoke at the Roosevelt House in Manhattan  Bill Gates Channels Franklin Roosevelt, as one news service put it -- where FDR recuperated after being stricken at Campobello. Gates said his foundation is making polio eradication its top priority because it is the thing we can do to most improve the human condition. He set a goal of 2013 but said, Eradication is not guaranteed. It requires campaigns to give polio vaccine to all children under 5 in poor countries, at a cost of almost $1 billion per year. [lix]

Polio eradication itself is a controversial priority. Bill Gates own vanity  a heroic effort to make as big an impact on the technological destruction of disease as he did on the technology of computer software  has driven his poliovirus campaign, but many public health advocates grumble that its a low priority. Millions die every year from preventable diseases ranging from pneumonia to diarrhea.

As Bill Gates presses forward in a costly mission to eliminate the disease, some eradication experts and bioethicists ask if its right to keep trying, reported The New York Times in February 2011. As new outbreaks create new setbacks each year, he has given ever more money, not only for research but for the grinding work on the ground.

We ought to admit that the best we can achieve is control, argued Arthur L. Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania bioethics center, who had polio as a child. Gates calls his critics cynics who are accepting 100,000 to 200,000 crippled or dead children a year if polio resurges.

We believe a more cost-effective way to reduce and contain poliomyelitis outbreaks  as well as improve total health outcomes -- would be an all-out effort to reduce arsenic contamination and make sure people in South Asia have safe drinking water.

7. Where was God? -- Lessons learned and lost.

What, then, is the natural history of polio telling us? Beyond the lessons for containing polio outbreaks themselves, we suggest that a single-minded focus on germs  and an unwillingness to explore novel and potentially uncomfortable ideas from outside medical orthodoxy  is an inadequate strategy when it comes to modern diseases.

Its hard to overstate the impact the polio experience has had on our modern medical culture, starting with the doctors who watched helplessly as its victims fell. J.R. Paul, in his definitive A History of Poliomyelitis, wrote how the flowering of scientific medicine brought a new point of view, an era of sudden and incredible hope that something might be done after all.

For a generation of medical professionals born in the heart of this period, the heroic conquest of poliomyelitis was among the most influential narratives that shaped their beliefs about medicine. These beliefs go far beyond science, as Paul suggests. As the crusade heightened, the world looked on expectantly.  Much as our grandparents had contributed during the nineteenth century to missionary societies, our dimes and dollars went to another religious cause, signalized by efforts to stamp out this pestilence and to alleviate the suffering and tragedy it inflicted.

Paul leaves no doubt as to the hero of this new religious crusade. [I]n due time, the disease was abruptly scotched by means of vaccination. It was to all intents and purposes finished. The crusade has been described as one of the greatest technical and humanistic triumphs of the age. It was one of those rare achievements which the world greeted as an example of what could be done when science and technology were directed to good use for mankind.[lx]

--

But the victory over the epidemics of poliomyelitis means our understanding of polio is essentially frozen in amber, circa 1955. Few diseases have been so completely conquered, at least at home, while being so incompletely understood, and that is not a good outcome. In leaving so many important topics on the table  why outbreaks occurred, why the pattern of contagion was so atypical for an infectious disease  scientists allowed some weak ideas to become conventional wisdom and some important ones to be missed.

The prevailing current explanation for the rise of poliomyelitis outbreaks is the hygiene hypothesis, which posits that such simple steps as clean underwear, better sanitation and good housekeeping, along with less exposure to germs like polio in early infancy, meant the effects of disease became much worse when children were finally exposed. This is not a satisfactory explanation, and it never has been  the epicenter of the 1916 epidemic was placed in possibly the filthiest place in Brooklyn, an Italian immigrant community evocatively called Pigtown. And hygiene certainly doesnt work very well to explain polios persistence among the worlds poorest, where sanitation is bad and public health infrastructure is close to nonexistent. (One injection stops smallpox, The Times noted in its article of Gates polio drive, but in countries with open sewers, children need 10 polio (vaccine) drops up to 10 times.)

Yet those ideas have spread and now are used to explain other ailments that are likely also mostly environmental, such as asthma (hygiene hypothesis: because children no longer tumble around in the barnyard with farm animals, they are less likely to be exposed  etc.).

And the connection of other illnesses to pesticides, and environmental toxins in general, has been slow in dawning, though it is now becoming clear that a range of degenerative and neurological diseases are related to such exposures.

In a new epidemiological study of Central Valley residents who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, researchers found that years of exposure to the combination of  two pesticides increased the risk of Parkinson's by 75 percent, reports Science Daily.

The Central Valley was also the setting for a study that found women who live near California farm fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides may be more likely to give birth to children with autism, according to a study by state health officials, reported the Los Angeles Times.[lxi]

The rate of autism among the children of 29 women who lived near the fields was extremely high, suggesting that exposure to the insecticides in the womb might have played a role. The findings echoes those from a 2005 study in Italy pesticides known as organophosphates could cause neurological changes that lead to autism.

Recall that the San Joaquin Valley, the Southern Half of the Central Valley of California, was the site of an 1890s outbreak of poliomyelitis, along with nearby San Francisco, Napa Valley, and other agricultural hubs. If mainstream scientists had made this connection between polio and pesticides a century ago  or even after the great epidemics ended in the 1950s  would pesticide use have continued in the same fashion, endangering great-great grandchildren of the first polio generation? Church bells might not have rung for this discovery, but the toll on later generations could have been greatly reduced.

--

Nor has the polio vaccine, for all of its efficacy, been a risk-free remedy. There were accidents and deaths from the beginning  starting with the Cutter incident in the first weeks of the mass vaccine campaign, in which tainted shots paralyzed dozens of children and killed five.[lxii] There is ongoing debate about whether a cancer-causing monkey virus, SV-40, infected millions of doses of vaccine in the 1960s and may be causing cancers today.[lxiii] There is the theory that mass vaccine trials in Africa in the 1950s gave rise to the AIDS epidemic  an idea that has been dismissed and derided by the medical industry with the same religious disregard for inconvenient truths as weve seen in other man-made epidemics.[lxiv]

And the live virus vaccine now in use in South Asia and Africa indisputably spreads the virus and, in a small percentage of case, causes poliomyelitis. For that reason alone, vaccination may perpetuate polio in the service of eradicating it. The vaccine strain also can and does mutate. (Polio spreads fast in Nigeria after rare mutation, reads a 2009 headline.)[lxv] The only thing better than ending polio epidemics, in short, would have been not causing them in the first place. The real polio narrative is an American tragedy as much as the triumph of scientific medicine.

--

Yet triumphalism is an ongoing legacy of The Age of Polio. Merely invoking the word today can shut down debate over public health, especially concerns over any aspect of vaccination policy. Asked during the presidential campaign of 2008 whether he favored vaccination choice, Barack Obama responded: I believe that it will bring back deadly diseases, like polio."[lxvi]

In a similar vein, a commenter on our blog who identified herself as Kim asked, What would you like us to do? Let's stop all immunizations. Guess what will happen? Measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, influenza will all come back. We will now not only have people scarred from the diseases, but so many people dying. People do not remember when people actually died from these diseases because they have been literally obliterated from the industrial nations.

I would give just about anything to have a grandmother, but she died from polio when my mother was 17 months old. I have empathy for those with autistic children, but we have gotten so focused on immunizations that we do not look at any other causes. So the next time you hug your child remember my mother who cannot remember any hugs from her mother. Be thankful you have a child to hug.

In offering our new narrative, we recognize the very real suffering over a very long time. In 1916, the year of the epochal Northeastern epidemic, a New Jersey nurse named Charlotte Talley wrote an article for The American Journal of Nursing with the antiseptic title, Tracing the Sources and Limiting the Spread of Infantile Paralysis.[lxvii] But her descriptions were deeply empathetic:

Blease, blease, do something, pleaded a Polish mother hysterically, clasping her hands in supplication, her mouth quivering. They took my boy to ospital and see, showing the bathtub full of soiled clothing, here are all the clothes from the sickness and no water to wash em. Landlady said she get plumber today. She gets no one.

The epidemic turned health workers into bystanders to despair.

A little girl of nine had died of paralysis after a few days of great suffering. She had been a beautiful, bright, lovable child, the pride of the household, Talley wrote. Apparently, despite all her parents precautions, she had played with a neighbor child with an inapparent infection and may have been exposed to the virus that way.

Where was God? asked Talley. It is difficult to understand how such things are permitted by Providence to occur. Evidently human intelligence is expected to work out this serious problem in order to prevent such disasters.

The suffering of polios victims is honored by learning all of its lessons, including the danger of environmental toxins and the perils of ignoring their role in modern disease; the risk of focusing all of our energy on vaccinations as magic bullets, and the fundamental ethical obligation to search for the truth without fear or favor. Only then can we work out the real nature of illnesses that confront us here and now, ranging from autism to Parkinsons to the persistence of poliomyelitis itself. Only then can we begin to prevent such disasters as The Age of Polio.

--

Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill are co-authors of The Age of Autism  Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, published in paperback in September by Thomas Dunne Books. Olmsted is Editor, and Blaxill is Editor at Large, of ageofautism.com.
Twenty-one years after 9/11 in this supposedly "Islamophobic" country, U.S. Muslims have gained unprecedented political and cultural influence. The Muslim population in the U.S. increased to 3.85 million in 2020. Mosques have more than doubled from 1,209 in 2000 to 2,769 in 2020. These are not grounds for any grudge, as the U.S. is magnet for people seeking prosperity and religious freedom.

But it is troubling that for a country based on the rule of law, Islam and Muslims have acquired an immunity and exemption from any critical scrutiny, no matter how justified. This "Islamic exceptionalism" operates blatantly at the political and cultural levels and is a recurring pattern going back to almost immediately after 9/11, when George Bush declared that "Islam is peace."

Take Biden's reaction to the stabbing of Salman Rushdie on August 12. His statement, ostensibly defending free speech, had important omissions. It made no mention of Islam or even "Islamism" or the First Amendment and, most importantly, to the right to commit blasphemy, which was the fundamental motive for the stabbing. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, made an even more squeamish statement, completely omitting any mention of freedom of speech, Islam, or blasphemy and trotted out a few cookie-cutter horror words: "Today, the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is appalling."

Contrast Biden's response with that of the French. Following the Samuel Paty beheading in October 2020, giant images of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohamed were projected onto two town halls under heavy security. On both sides of the Atlantic, the fundamental issue was blasphemy, but the responses could not have differed more.

Biden's speech on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 made no reference to any religion. But he did mention the followers of only one religion: Islam. Predictably, and cynically using this opportunity to reinforce Muslims' victim status (despite their flourishing since 9/11) and keep them firmly voting Democrat, he issued a sham warning against the "darker forces of human nature: fear and anger, resentment and violence against Muslim Americans, true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion." Our political class uses the adjective "peaceful" only for Islam.

Ilhan Omar, a Muslim supremacist, who has made herself invincible by donning the woke cloak of "fighting for justice, for equality, for the right for us [Muslims] to equally exist in this country" and notably ungrateful to the U.S., given her life history, vaporized the human suffering of 9/11 when she said, "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

Her breezy dismissal of the 9/11 carnage came in the same speech that she opened by lamenting "a tragic, tragic nightmare that has happened to Muslims in New Zealand," referencing the Christchurch attacks. For comparison's sake, the New Zealand attacks left 49 dead against the 2,997 on 9/11. She has suffered no political consequences and is invariably elected by her "Islamophobic" voters.

The determination to exonerate Islam is deeply embedded in mainstream media. On September 11, 2018, the New York Times tweeted (and later deleted) that "airplanes took aim" at Twin Towers on 9/11. For the Times, the malignant agency of Osama bin Laden and the international team that planned the carnage counted for nothing.

During the Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando in 2016, the killer Omar Mateen placed a "chilling, calm, and deliberate" call to 911, calling himself an "Islamic soldier." Obama admitted that Mateen had pledged allegiance to "ISIL" and said that "countering this extremist ideology is increasingly going to be as important as making sure that we are disrupting plots from the outside."

Yet, if an attack that is clearly terrorist in nature (it is immaterial if it was mixed up with troubled sexuality, as claimed) is somehow transmogrified and elevated seamlessly into a national memorial for gay rights and excludes any reference to the Islamic motivation of this act, then we as a nation have traveled long and hard down the road of self-delusion and surrender to Islam.

Major Nidal Hasan's terrorist attack in Fort Hood in 2009, which killed 13 people and wounded dozens, was classified, incredibly, as "workplace violence." In 2021, he exulted and congratulated the Taliban in a triumphant victory message from death row after they had seized control of Afghanistan. On death row, Nidal's sentence is likely meaningless, as he will probably live his full life.

De facto sharia in the U.S.

The world knows only too well the slaughter provoked by the satirical Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Muslims consider such portrayals of their prophet as hate speech and an intolerable attack on Islam. They accuse the West of double-standards, citing criminal prohibitions of Holocaust denial as proof.

But this argument can argument be easily refuted. Apart from the fact that we are being asked to calmly and rationally accept that murder is an appropriate and justifiable response for cartoons, what would happen if a courageous arts teacher gave an assignment to his students to conduct historical research and draw a respectful and accurate picture of the Muslim prophet? Would this be considered hate speech?

Assuredly yes, for Muslims consider any pictorial representation of their prophet as blasphemous. But for the U.S., compliance to this prohibition with its First Amendment guarantee of free speech leaves us with only one conclusion: that sharia law is the de facto law in the U.S., to which the U.S. Constitution must capitulate. In this respect, at least, we are not at all different from Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Apart from these constant political and cultural exceptions made for Islam (and Islam alone), the behavior and actions of sections of the Muslim population in the U.S. deserve scrutiny.

Although Muslims make up a bit more than one per cent of the U.S. population, they constitute about nine percent of the state prison population. Muslim immigration has dramatically increased the risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) which is understood in many Islamic countries as a religious obligation. In North America, Muslims commit most of the honor killings.

We have reached here because of the unbreakable alliance of the left and Islam. Leftists' frequent accusations of "Islamophobia" are grossly exaggerated and more powerful than any weapon. This does not imply that Muslims cannot be targeted. But the left's partnership with Islam has succeeded in achieving a unique moral inversion. Leftists have conferred upon a specific religion and its followers blanket immunity from hostile examination, and simultaneously labeled those as making any enquiry, no matter how justified by facts, as intolerant, and excluded them from the streams of authorized debate.

September 11 was the day that the towers fell, and the U.S. began its submission to Islam. Unless checked, it will surely hasten our downfall as a nation.

Image: CreaPark via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
Axios reported, U.S. urges Israel to take steps to stabilize Palestinian Authority.

Its an old story; the Arabs cause trouble and Israel is blamed. Two examples of this pattern are;

After the intifada in 2001 in which 1038 Israelis were murdered, President Bush sent Sen Mitchel to Israel on a fact-finding mission. He produced the Mitchell Report in April 30, 2001, which recommended, inter alia, the freezing of Israel settlement activity ... and other Israeli confidence-building measures, and; Every time Hamas fires rockets by the hundreds at Israel civilians. When it defends itself, Israel is blamed. The solution demanded was that Israel negotiate a ceasefire and make concessions.

The same applies to the situation in Israel and Judea and Samaria

The Government of Israel has documented the Wave of Terror 2015-2022.

This year alone it records: 1328 attacks, 19 deaths and 51 injured.

The Oslo Accords provide that in Area A, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is entirely responsible for security, in Area B, the PA and Israel have joint responsibility and in Area C, Israel is solely responsible.

(source)

As IDF Major General (res.) Gershon Hacohen explained on the Mideast News Hour this week, over the past year, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has transformed the Jenin area into a Gaza-like terror enclave in northern Samaria. It exerts control over Jenin and all areas of the region. Recently, Iran has funded the formation of joint PIJ, Fatah, PFLP and Hamas terror cells throughout Judea and Samaria.

Khaled Abu Toameh wrote on this situation a few months back. Jenin: Despite economic prosperity, PA failed to disarm militiamen :

Since then (2002), the armed groups in the camp and other places in the Jenin area have managed to rebuild a vast network of terrorist infrastructure. The PA was not eager to combat the phenomenon and often chose to look the other way. The PA leaders did not want to be accused by Palestinians of cracking down on the fine men of the revolution, especially in a place like the Jenin refugee camp, which became a symbol of the Palestinian struggle against Israel. Although most of the incitement is taking place on social-media platforms, it is also coming straight from the horses mouth: Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, the Gaza Strip, Qatar and Lebanon.

Axios noted:

The Biden administration urged the Israeli government to take urgent steps to stabilize the Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials are deeply concerned that the deteriorating situation in the West Bank and an increase in violence could lead to a major crisis. At the same time, an economic crisis has made it hard for the PA to pay salaries, further eroding its legitimacy and control in major cities like Hebron, Jenin and Nablus.

And true to form, Biden sent Barbara Leaf, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, to Israel to address the developing crises with Israel and the PA.

No one cares more about the developing crises than Israel, so why doesnt the US stay out of it? Instead, they micro-manage the situation to make sure Israel does what the US wants.

As for the economic crises, it is all of the PAs making.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) reports:

The Palestinian Authoritys legislation and allocations of monthly salaries and benefits rewarding imprisoned and released terrorists, and the families of Martyrs, amount to $300 million annually. This financial reward clearly demonstrates the PAs institutional commitment to sponsoring terror against Israel.

To deal with this policy, The US Congress passed into law the Taylor Force Act in 2017, which withholds US aid to the PA until:

the Secretary of State certifies in writing to the appropriate congressional committees that the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and any successor or affiliated organizations (A) are taking credible steps to end acts of violence against Israeli citizens and United States citizens [...] (B) have terminated payments for acts of terrorism against Israeli citizens and United States citizens to any individual, after being fairly tried, who has been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism and to any individual who died committing such acts of terrorism, including to a family member of such individuals; (C) have revoked any law, decree, regulation, or document authorizing or implementing a system of compensation for imprisoned individuals [..] (D) are publicly condemning such acts of violence and are taking steps to investigate or are cooperating in investigations of such acts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Why isnt Barbara Leaf tasked with forcing the PA to comply with this US law in return for its aid? Instead, she is tasked with getting Israel to stabilize the PA, which increasingly is weakening and losing its control in Area A.

The Axios Report above noted described the situation in detail:

that the PA President Abu Mazen has accused Israel of being responsible for undermining his ability to control his territory due to both the economic hardships caused by Israeli incursions to thwart terrorist attacks, as well as the incursions, themselves. The PA claims that they are unable to pay the salaries of their Security forces due to the economic crisis associated with the night time Israel raids which he claims are eroding its legitimacy and control in major cities like Hebron, Jenin and Nablus. Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, who leads the Israeli domestic security service in charge of gathering intelligence in the West Bank and Gaza, told Leaf he is highly concerned about the PA's situation and the ability of the Palestinian security forces to function, Israeli sources briefed on the meeting said. Palestinian leadership blames Israel for the weakened security forces. The situation on the ground is worse than it seems," Bar told Leaf, according to the Israeli sources. He claimed that Israel doesn't want to send the military for incursions into Palestinian cities, but has no choice due to increased violence. Leaf also met with Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT, the Israeli Ministry of Defense agency in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, who also painted a dark picture of the situation. Israeli sources said Alian told the U.S. senior diplomat that he is doing everything in his power to stabilize the situation but thinks it might not be enough to stop the snowball." He added that more significant steps require political decisions. Leaf then met with Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata for what Israeli sources briefed on the matter said was a tough meeting. Leaf stressed that the PA could collapse and the ball is in Israels court when it comes to strengthening and stabilizing it, the Israeli sources said.

To make matters worse, The Biden Administration is demanding that Israel closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement. It not only tells Israel what to do but how to do it.

The US policy is not dictated by the desire to achieve peace. It weds itself to the unworkable and unattainable two-state solution (TSS). Underneath it all is the goal of weakening the State of Israel.

Caroline Glick, in her Mideast News Hour interviewed Major General Gershon Hacohen on the subject of the terrorism in Judea and Samaria. He blamed it all on the Oslo Accords, which were intended to achieve separation of Jews and Arabs. This is otherwise known as the TSS, though the Accords never called for same. Hacohen said that this solution is based on six assumptions, all of which have been proven false.

Separation is the solution. We separated from Gaza and Jenin and got terror in return. Separation is reversible or so the late PM Rabin advised, but the US wont allow it. Withdrawal gains Israel international legitimacy. Not true. Every time we enter Areas A to apprehend terrorists or Gaza we lose international legitimacy. The world claims our intervention is the problem not the terrorism. Can achieve demilitarization. Demonstrably false. Look at Gaza or Jenin. Prosperity brings peace. Not true, Jenin is the richest city in Judea and Samaria but is the center of terrorism and the most deadly Israel and PA will be partners. On the contrary, the PA is promoting terrorism not fighting it.

It is time to abandon the TSS.
At this point in time I have no regard for the probity or competence of the Intelligence Community and neither, apparently, does Judge Aileen Cannon, who earlier this week ordered the appointment of a Special Master to review those documents seized in the Mar-a-Lago raid, which it claims are classified. The Department of Justice appears to have been surprised that it has lost credibility and filed a motion seeking a stay on that portion of the order and a Notice of Appeal to the Eleventh Circuit indicating its intention to file an interlocutory appeal.

I dont think the trial judge who issued a very well-considered order will grant the stay. I dont think the Eleventh Circuit will, either. I dont think the Eleventh Circuit will even grant an interlocutory appeal on this matter. I do think all of these pleadings reveal the weakness of the grounds for a search and seizure of materials at the home of Donald J. Trump, the overreach of the warrant, and the expansive search itself. Worse for the DoJ and FBI, I believe their actions amount to a claim that under no circumstances does the judiciary have a right to question anything the Intelligence committee does as long as it makes a claim of national security. Such a claim is scary and should be -- and I think will be -- denied.

Without going into all the fine points of what it means to say a trial court order is an interlocutory order, basically it means that the order is not a final one. In this case, it is merely an order covering discovery matters in a trial. As Seth Barrett Tillman tweeted, The government has not been forced to return any materials, and no privilege rulings have been made for which to take an appeal. He also gives an example of such an interlocutory, unappealable action by a trial court: He notes that J. Messitte refused to decide Trumps motion to dismiss the Emoluments Clauses case and sat on it for three years until after the election when he dismissed it as moot after Trump lost.

Why is the DoJ so desperate to prevent a Special Master, even one with security clearance, to view those documents the department asserts are classified? (The parties each have offered two candidates for the position, one of Trumps candidates, in fact, sat on the FISA court. Is he less certain to do this job properly than the National Archivist?) There are several possible explanations for the desperation I can think of -- none of which do credit to the attorney general. The first and most common supposition is that the documents which they claim must be kept even from the eyes of the Special Master relate to the FBI and DoJs role in fashioning and perpetrating the phony Russian Collusion fairytale. That would be damning indeed, and frankly, I see it as the most likely explanation: It is improper to classify documents simply to prevent embarrassment to persons or agencies. And anyone who does this is subject to sanctions. Obamas Executive Order 13526 reads in relevant part:

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall

information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail

to be declassified in order to: (1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;

(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;

(3) restrain competition; or

(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.

Despite leaking staged photos of the fruits of the search, along with claims that it involved nuclear information, in the latest pleading its revealed that the searchers seized copious amounts of news clippings, some clothing, passports, personal tax records and material clearly covered by attorney-client privilege. In other words, the agents seem to have viewed this is a general warrant to grab everything, something not permitted. The only nuclear thing mentioned is some document about the nuclear capacity of a foreign government -- hardly the nuclear code which had been bruited about by some media lackeys.

I think the delay rankles and disturbs DoJ as much as the likelihood that a Special Master will find the classified information was legally declassified by Trump and had been improperly classified in the first instance to protect those who engaged in this wrongful smear of a political candidate.

This, the second of my suppositions is related to the Hail Mary effort to stay the portion of the order which temporarily enjoins the government (pending completion of the Special Masters review or further court order) from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes. The warrant was issued before the grand jury in D.C. even received or reviewed the 15 boxes of documents Trump turned over to the government. This suggests the department was eager to use whatever they could hose up at Mar-a-Lago before a further examination of the legality of their actions could be done -- and not coincidentally -- in time to affect the midterms.

In the meantime, the department yet again has been engaged in a leak to poison public opinion and any potential jury trial.

The feds continued to leak like crazy after the order, in a form of lashing out, getting the word out to The Washington Post that some of the documents related to a foreign governments nuclear program (the leak didnt say that such documents were classified). For years during Russia Collusion attacks, whenever there was a news cycle that might help Trump in the public eye, the feds leak something to grab back the news cycle; that tactic seems to be renewing itself.

Like Mark Wauck, I see these pleadings as asserting that the Intelligence community -- the very folks who promulgated and promoted the Russian Collusion story and went on to cast substantial doubt on the Hunter Biden computer contents, asserting they were likely Russian disinformation -- should be the sole arbiter of such matters. The problem with losing your credibility is that no sensible person will trust you again. As lawyers often tell juries, "false in one thing, false in everything." True of government officials and agencies as it is for the rest of us.

In sum, my hunch is that this latest effort by the Deep State is not going to go anywhere for a long time, if at all.
In terms of strong political feelings, Democrats and Republicans are pretty evenly divided in America. Its the independents who shift political outcomes in America. Thats why it matters that a Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 50 percent of Independents would like to see Joe Biden impeached. When you add that to the Republicans and, believe it or not, the Democrats who want him out of office, theres a majority dreaming of a Biden impeachment.

Rasmussen Reports is behind a paywall, but Townhall helpfully summarizes the conclusion:

According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, Republican and Independent voters overwhelmingly agree that Biden should be impeached, along with a third of Democrats. Overall, 52 percent of likely U.S. voters say they would support the impeachment of Biden, with 38 percent saying they would strongly support it. The poll margin includes 77 percent of Republicans, 50 percent of Independents and 32 percent of Democrats who would like to see the current president get booted from his position.

Thats the good news. Now for the bad news: Americas voters have taken the measure of the Republican party and believe that, even with an impeachment wind at their back, congressional Republicans probably wont do a darn thing to call Biden to account:

47 percent believe it is likely the GOP will attempt to impeach the president, while 43 percent dont see it happening in his first term.

Since the likelihood of Biden having a second term is as close to zero as something can be without being impossible, if Republicans dont impeach Biden in 2023 (assuming they have a majority in Congress), hell never be called to answer for his conduct.

Image: Joe Biden (edited). YouTube screen grab.

However, if Republicans do become the majority and they do have even a little burning ember in their collective bellies, there are a lot of grounds for impeaching Biden. A year ago, Reps Bob Gibbs (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Arizona), Brian Babin (Texas), and Randy Weber (Texas) filed articles of impeachment. They based the articles on Bidens lawless conduct on our southern border and his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which involved abandoning American citizens and billions of dollars in weapons and equipment. Ted Cruz would add to the list Bidens lawless vaccine mandates. Our own Ed Brodow also adds theres the evidence from Hunter Bidens laptop showing decades of unlawful influence peddling, the destruction of Americas energy sector, Bidens illegal racial discrimination, and his using the DOJ and FBI to attack his political opponents.

In other words, if Republicans can summon even a modicum of courage, a majority (yes, a small one, but still a majority) of the American people will be behind them if they impeach Biden. Its true, of course, that Kamala will be as bad as Biden himself. Still, it is important for the rule of law to call Joe Biden to account for his many damaging, illegal, unconstitutional, and even treasonous actions against America and her people.
For those who do not know, the Balfour Declaration was a note written in 1917 by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour. It was a short letter explaining his governments position on a Jewish homeland in what was called Palestine. The letter would become know as the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration states:

His Majestys Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The failure was not the declaration, but lack of action following the official notice.

(source)It is worded to make certain things perfectly clear. Palestine would become the homeland for the Jewish people. And the rights of non-Jewish Arabs, Christian and Muslim alike, would be respected.

There is no mention of an Arab state being created out of Palestine. Only a Jewish state.

source

Rather than carry through on their word, Britain dragged her feet for decades at the loss of millions of European Jewish lives who could not go to the land as promised.

There was no Jewish state created out of Palestine.

The Holocaust would have been far more limited had that Jewish state been allowed to go forward. Having a nation of their own, as promised by the British Foreign Secretary, would have saved millions of lives.

Rather than face the anti-Semitic Roosevelt Administration, who went out of their way to limit as many Jewish refugees from reaching America as possible, those fleeing for their lives could have gone to Israel.

Even with all the knowledge gained about what was happening under Hitlers reign leading up to the war and during, Britain refused to budge on giving up Palestine.

It would take the newly created United Nations in 1947, 30 years after Balfour, to force Britains hand. But not without putting in place the first two-state solution. That was how Israel and Jordan both came into existence.

The land that today makes up Israel and Jordan was supposed to be the Jewish homeland. Despite the loss of a great deal of land, the Jewish people and Arabs who joined them accepted. The Arab world, including the newly created Jordan, did not. Those Arab Muslims who wrongly call themselves Palestinian today were Jordanians who either left of their own accord or fought against Israel.

The Arab response was to attack the newly formed state of Israel. The Arabs wanted to kill every Jewish person to continue what Hitler started. As well as the Arabs who joined with Israel.

Without any government coming to their aid, Israel fended off the Arabs armies. It should have been an overwhelming and quick defeat. God intervened, since there is no other explanation for Israel surviving.

Despite numerous wars and terrorist attacks by Islamic Arabs, Israel has never forced Israeli Arabs out of the country. They have always held their end of what Balfour called for. They have protected the civil and religious rights of Arab Christians and Muslims, unlike Jordan, who forced out not only the Jewish people who had been living on the eastern side of the Jordan River for thousands of years, but Arab Jordanians as well.

Those who wrongly call themselves Palestinians today are Jordanians who were either forced out or put in Jordanian camps. Israel never committed ethnic cleansing; Jordan did.

The failure of the Balfour Declaration was not the end result of Israel being an independent nation who continues to treat Israeli Arabs as Israelis. No, the fault lies in Britain not carrying it out when they should have.

Bob Ryan is a writer who has an MBA. He is an American Christian Zionist who staunchly supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He has been a weekly blogger at the Times of Israel since 2019.
Recently the New York Post reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul awarded a government contract to a New Jersey-based firm called Digital Gadgets for COVID-19 tests during the Omicron wave.

Digital Gadgets charged as much as $13 per unit, while other vendors charged the state just $5 for rapid tests.

Digital Gadgets was paid around $637 million for millions of tests as Hochul pushed schools to stay open amid the omicron wave last year.

The troubling revelation was that Digital Gadgets donated nearly $300,000 to Kathy Hochuls campaign.

The deal was made under suspended procurement rules enabled by a state of emergency that Hochul has renewed every month since late last year.

This has obviously raised concerns about alleged pay-to-play behavior ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Since Hochul is a Democrat, no news organization, apart from the New York Post, has reported this story.

There have also been other alleged instances of Hochul rewarding her donors, handsomely.

Hochul backed the Penn Station redevelopment project that could potentially direct more than $1 billion in tax breaks to a real estate investment trust named Vornado Realty Trust. The head of Vornado, Steve Roth, donated $68,700 to Hochuls campaign in December.

Hochul paid $600 million to build a $1.4 billion stadium for the Buffalo Bills. A firm called Delaware North is a major food supplier at the Buffalo Bills Stadium. The problem is that Kathys husband, Bill Hochul, is senior vice president and general counsel for Delaware North. Bill Hochul has recused from all New York state business activities.

In recent times, there have been other cases of conflict of interest and corruption.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings revealed that House Majority Whip James Clyburn paid his grandson Walter A.C. Reed a sum of $21,000 in campaign funds since April 1. Reed has been paid $58,500 by the 'Friends of Jim Clyburn' campaign committee since October 2021.

The campaign committee also paid $7,500 in rent to a firm called 49 Magnolia Blossom LLC which is controlled by Clyburns daughter, Jennifer Clyburn Reed, and Reed. The Clyburn campaign has paid the Magnolia Blossom more than $70,000 since March 2020.

FEC records also revealed that Clyburn has paid over $260,000 to family members since 2010 via the Friends of Jim Clyburn' campaign committee.

FEC records also revealed that Democrat Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes paid her son David Crenshaw $18,283 and her daughter Asia Clermont $ $21,299 from her campaign fund and since entering Congress.

Hayess campaign committee Friends of Jahana Hayes paid $15,000 to Crenshaw and $2,551 to Hayes daughter, Asia Clermont,.

Hayes also reimbursed herself $250 dollars for petty cash despite the FEC having strict rules about petty cash reimbursements.

Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters paid her daughter from campaign funds for dubious services.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs campaign paid her boyfriend handsomely for "services." AOC also engaging in deceptive fundraising oddities.

These are just a few instances that have come to light, there must be myriad other instances of conflict of interest, corruption, and pay-to-play deals.

Back in the stone age, a wealthy donor bribed a politician and in exchange was awarded a lucrative government contract. It left such an obvious trail that these politicians were caught and their careers ended.

Those days are over.

Now every politician runs a campaign that is a complex multimillion-dollar organization.

The donor donates handsomely to the campaign which is perfectly legal.

Politicians hire their family members, relatives, and friends for their campaigns. The job titles are impressive and so are the handsome salaries paid. At times, contracts pertaining to the campaign are given to family members for which exorbitant amounts are paid. At times, allies of the donor offer them lucrative employment. Once again this is legal.

The politician then awards big-dollar government contracts to donors. All of this is legal.

This is a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Few manage to establish the connection and how this is legalized corruption.

Even if a connection is established, the politician can feign ignorance. He could claim that his campaign is vast and it is impossible to keep track of all donations.

While regular people suffer due to Bidenflation, politicians and their family members and cronies remain insulated. They dont have to look for jobs and pay bills like regular people, it is all taken care of, it and it is legal.

This explains why the mediocre prefer a career in politics and why term limits will never be enforced.

This two-tier system causes people to be very cynical and suspicious about their government.

What irks them further is the likes of these corrupt politicians have the audacity to talk down to regular people.

Image: MTA, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the pro-abortion side of America hastily grope to patch the gaping torpedo hole in their destroyer, and along with the pro-life community, realized that a new theater of battle is opening. No longer is abortion legal by default in all 50 states, as many already moved to regulate or nearly outlaw the practice completely. Like a cornered animal, the abortion industry is baring its four fangs, protecting its precious prey, and one of these fangs is surprisingly religious. Weve seen the Biden administration dictate that religious people can still be religious while supporting abortion, and now, this kind of equivocation is being attempted.

On August 1 of this year, three rabbis in Florida filed a legal complaint against the state regarding the 15-week abortion ban. The rabbis argue that in Judaism, counseling women for abortion is an integral part of their religious expression. In their complaint, the rabbis point to the Old Testament, calling it the .primary source of Jewish law and theology and claim, the sanctity of all human life is the core tenet of Judaism.

If a core doctrine of Judaism is the unequivocal sacredness of all human life, then it would seem counseling women for abortion represents the opposite of expressing their religious beliefs. How could one hold that the sacredness of all human life is justification for ending the life of another human? Strangely, it seems like the rabbis are saying that trespassing against their religious core doctrine is a requirement to express their religion.

Furthermore, the rabbis insist Florida law is a pernicious elevation of the legal rights of fetuses. Pernicious? Do they mean to say that protecting a child in the womb is wicked? Also, if it is true that these Jewish leaders hold that the sacredness of all human life is a core tenet of Judaism, then all human life must be equally sacred, voiding the concept of differing degrees of rights.

The elevation of the legal rights of any category of person presumes a prior injustice, the start of which is most certainly found in the devaluation of that category of person. The dehumanization of a category of person was done before in America with Black slaves, and in turn, corrected by the Civil War, It was done under the law to Jews in Germany too, which one would imagine might be lingering in the minds of rabbis. Again, this injustice was also rectified by war  WWII.

Bottom line, if all humans are equally sacred, the reduction or elimination of the rights of any group of people by any other person or group of people is unjust always and everywhere and ought to be resisted.

Perhaps the rabbis are unaware of their unlikely ideological partner making similar arguments, The Satanic Temple. They too are attempting to pick away at a civilized order in states with laws designed to protect their youngest citizens. Yet, the rabbis in Florida may not find comfort recalling that ritual child sacrifice is described in a key text of the law, Leviticus 20:2-5 and elsewhere. But, the practice is only and always described as the cause of great judgment from God. And, inconveniently for the rabbis, the Jewish law requires not only judgment upon those performing the terrible acts but also judgment upon those who know about it and choose to do nothing to stop it.

Why is moral culpability for committing the sin transferred to those who refuse to stop it in scripture? To intentionally destroy a human disrespects God, dehumanizing all people, destabilizing all of society. And while the science of embryology demonstrates that the pre-born baby is fully human and a person distinct from his mother, it is only the fundamental truth informed by sacred scripture that tells us why those boys and girls ought not be violated. That fundamental truth is every human, without qualification, is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

So, these rabbis' arguments insisting that abortion is essential to freedom of religion is not only an attack on truth of what it means to be human but also an attack on the foundation of society. In the womb where a boy or girl ought to be most protected, recognized as sacred and loved, Satan would have religious mouthpieces denying their dignity and worth  leaving a baby to the compassion of the cruel, under the guise of the freedom of religious expression. Christians must recognize this tragic deception for what it is and speak ever more loudly and lovingly, declaring that all people are made in the image of God from the moment of fertilization, and are worthy of equal protection.
Karen Bass is a U.S. Congresswoman who is currently running for office as the Mayor of Los Angeles. She is a hardcore leftist, so much so that she called a prominent Communist Party USA member, not just a friend, but also a mentor. She is consistently in favor of gun control measures. And on Saturday, she announced that someone broke into her home and stole two of her guns:

Candidate for Los Angeles mayor and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass says her home was burglarized overnight. Bass said Saturday afternoon that her home had been broken into late Friday evening and two firearms were stolen, despite being safely and securely stored.

I have no problem whatsoever with Bass possessing firearms. While I disagree with her politically, shes a law-abiding citizen, and I believe this would be a safer, more polite country if every law-abiding citizen-owned firearms.

Image: Karen Bass by Karen Bass for Mayor. Public Domain.

The problem I have with Bass is that she, like everyone else in the Democrat party, doesnt think you ought to own firearms. There are no gun control laws, whether nationally or in her home state of California, that she doesnt support. Heres a list of gun control initiatives Bass supports (culled from here, here, here):

Forcing gun dealers to report all sales to the federal government

Banning magazines holding more than ten rounds

Requiring mandatory background checks for all firearm sales (including private exchanges)

Reinstating the federal assault weapons ban

Requiring background checks to purchase ammunition

Banning bullet buttons

Banning lending guns to ones own family members without a background check

Repealing stand your ground laws

Every one of these ideas, while ostensibly saying people can purchase and possess guns, in fact hugely limits peoples ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The time and money hurdles of background checks, not just for guns but for ammo, will inevitably result in some people being unable to afford a gun and others being unable to get guns quickly when their need is serious (e.g., stalking because restraining orders dont stop people).

And of course, the government has no right to tell you what kind of a gun you need or want or how much ammo youll need or want. (This video is stunning for the clarity with which it shows how multiple bullets may not stop or even slow someone mentally ill or on drugs.)

In other words, Karen Bass doesnt want you to have a gunbut its perfectly okay for her to have two guns. Like all leftists, her double standard comes naturally. She is smarter, more reliable, more honest, and more trustworthy than you are, so the ordinary rules, the ones she wants for the rest of you, just dont apply. Life is good for the nomenklatura.
When I awoke that Tuesday morning, I turned on my radio and suddenly realized that the world would never again be the same. I went to my weekly office meeting, where one of my colleagues asked if I had any idea as to how long this turmoil would last. I told her that it would likely be quite a while, if ever, before things settled down.

While driving home, I wondered if we were worthy to prevail through the ensuing struggle. At the time of Pearl Harbor, America was much more cohesive, and thus unified for the global conflict. Also, it was obvious then that we were attacked by none other than the Imperial Japanese, rather than some amorphous cult of religious fanatics.

The term "weak state" came into use during the previous (ahem) "adventure" in Somalia. Added to this mix then came the term "asymmetrical warfare." A conflict between a modern, first-world military and dispersed third-world terrorists can only be considered asymmetrical.

I had my doubts about the durability of the political unity that came with the immediate aftermath. And, sure enough, it evaporated once military activities were initiated. I also had doubts about our ability to actually know how well we were doing while fighting asymmetrically. The one consolation happened when I looked at a map and saw Iraq and Afghanistan...making a "Persian sandwich" out of Iran. Aha! A big-picture strategic objective. Not really, however.

And then came the conspiracy theories. Somehow, the collapse of the Twin Towers was an inside job. I was given a DVD intended to promote such dissent, with Rosie O'Donnell screaming (and perhaps soiling herself), "Steel doesn't burn! Steel doesn't burn!" The video showed someone putting a tea kettle on a stove burner. What wasn't said was that the trivet on the stove was made of iron  not steel  just like the hardware that goes inside a fireplace. Iron may be more brittle than steel, but it has a much greater heat tolerance. Steel does burn. Just ask anyone who's used a cutting torch.

In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman describes a plausible analogue to today's Islamic terrorism that occurred over a century ago. The international anarchist movement focused on The Act. U.S. president William McKinley was assassinated, along with King Humbert of Italy and a bunch of French parliamentarians...all as part of a wave of anarchist acts. Steps were taken to pre-empt further murders, but anarchists being anarchists, the movement fell apart. Religious fanatics, however, have a deeper commitment to their cause.

Mark Steyn wrote in After America that Muslim communities in various parts of Europe used to be well integrated into the surrounding environment. Children, wearing ordinary clothes, played in public. Then the ayatollahs took over Iran, and the religious police started showing up everywhere, and the women started covering up.

Christendom was seriously conflicted during the wars of the Reformation. But eventually, there was a Renaissance followed by an Enlightenment. Perhaps Islam would benefit by such a catharsis, at least with regard to its relations with the outside world.

Image: Nancyswikiaccount via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).
The proclamation of the new King has been read to the people of Northern Ireland at Hillsborough Castle.

The Norroy and Ulster King of Arms Robert Noel formally declared the accession of Charles III to the throne following the Queens death.

Amid heavy rain, around 200 invited guests were inside the castle grounds, while hundreds more watched from under umbrellas outside the main gates.

Hillsborough Castle is the royal familys official residence in Northern Ireland, and the Co Down village was recently honoured with a Royal prefix in recognition of its long-standing regal links.

The Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) band led a procession of a Proclamation Guard from the 2nd Battalion of the RIR (Kelvin Boyes/PA)

The ceremony began with the Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) band leading a procession of a Proclamation Guard from the 2nd Battalion of the RIR and representatives of Lisburn and Castlereagh Council to the front of the castle.

Prior to the proclamation, a 40-second fanfare was sounded by a bugler.

A bell in the clock tower of the castles Court House chimed once at 12pm to signal the start of the reading.

As Norroy and Ulster King of Arms, London-born Mr Noel is one of three senior officers of arms at the College of Arms in London.

Following the proclamation, a 21-gun salute was fired by the 206 (Ulster) Battery Royal Artillery.

After the last round, the bugler sounded a royal salute before the RIR band played a verse of God Save The King.

Mr Noel then invited guests to cheer three times for Charles.

Guests included Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Northern Ireland Office minister Steve Baker.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie and Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister were also there.

After the short service concluded, the bells from St Malachys Parish rang out across the village.

The armed forces played a major role in the ceremonial activities, with senior figures from the Royal Navy, Army and RAF in attendance.

An official proclamation ceremony takes place at Hillsborough Castle (Kelvin Boyes/PA)

Commodore Kris Nicholson from the Royal Navy represented the First Sea Lord at the service.

He told the PA news agency: It was a huge privilege.

A huge honour and one of the highlights on the ceremonial side of my career. This is my first time here and I was hugely impressed.

I understand there has been renovations recently, and the grounds, the inside of the castle, it is superb and reflects extremely well on the occasion.

Brigadier James Senior, Commander of the 38 (Irish) Brigade, represented the Army.

He said: It is a great moment of solemnity as we reflect on Her Majestys seven decades of service, but then also a moment of change for our country as we look forward to the reign of King Charles.

As well as these fantastic public buildings, there is a very warm and deep sense of affection for and between the people of Northern Ireland and our late Queen. But then also similarly with His Majesty.

Air Officer NI Marshall Sean Reynolds is the RAF Chief of Air Staffs senior representative in Northern Ireland.

He said: It is a moment of sadness as we reflect on Her Majesty.

I was lucky enough to get to meet her on a number of occasions and she had that unique ability to make you feel like you were the only person in the world when you spoke to her.

But we are also welcoming the new monarch, His Majesty the King.

There is a huge amount of pride in how the armed forces managed to do this so well.

My hats off to the Royal Artillery for a magnificent gun salute to mark the occasion.

As well as the VIP guests, more than 100 residents of Hillsborough were invited inside the palace grounds to watch the ceremony.

Pauline Hampton and Collette McGowan were invited to Hillsborough Castle (Jonathan McCambridge/PA)

Pauline Hampton and Collette McGowan, who both live in the village, spoke of their pride at receiving an invitation.

Ms Hampton said: I ring the church bells in St Malachys, Hillsborough Parish Church, and an invitation was kindly extended of which I accepted.

It meant everything to me to be here today. It truly was a momentous occasion.

The weather certainly did not put us off. We would have been here no matter what the weather.

I was devastated when I heard the news about the Queen, we knew at lunchtime that she wasnt well. It was just devastating when the news came through at teatime.

When asked about the new King, she said: Charles has had a good teacher, I dont think he will go too far wrong.

Ms McGowan added: I think Charles will do a great job.

He has watched what his mother has done for the last 70 years and I think he will make a good king.

The ceremony in the small Co Down village comes ahead of Charles first visit to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, when he will travel to Hillsborough Castle to view an exhibition on the Queens long association with Northern Ireland.

Later on Sunday, the proclamation was read at Belfast City Hall by the High Sheriff of Belfast, John Hussey, before a special meeting of the council where representatives paid tribute to the Queen.
Charles is to be proclaimed King at a ceremony at Cardiff Castle on Sunday.

The former Prince of Wales ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday.

He was then formally proclaimed King at a historic ceremony in St Jamess Palace following a meeting of the accession council during which Charles swore an oath to privy counsellors.

Proclamations will take place in other parts of the UK, including Wales, at about midday today.

Up to 2,000 people will be allowed to attend the event, with spaces inside the grounds available on a first come, first served basis. Gates are expected to open at 10am.

The Welsh flag which has been flying at half-mast since the death of the Queen, will be at full-mast during the ceremony (Ben Birchall/PA)

Several main roads through the city centre are due to be closed between 7am and 2pm.

Prior to the Proclamation, 26 men of the 3rd Battalion the Royal Welsh  supported by the Band of the Royal Welsh and accompanied by the regimental mascot, a Welsh billy goat called Shenkin  will march from City Hall at 11.25am along Boulevard de Nantes, North Road and Duke Street to Cardiff Castle.

At the castle, the Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary, Tom Lloyd, will make the proclamation in English and the Lord Lieutenant of South Glamorgan, Morfudd Meredith, will proclaim King Charles in Welsh.

After the readings, members of 104th Regiment of the Royal Artillery will fire a 21-gun salute before the singing of God Save The King and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Wales national anthem.

A 21-gun salute will be fired to mark King Charles III being proclaimed in Wales (Ben Birchall/PA)

It will be the third time in three days that canon fire has resounded across the city to mark both the Queens death and her son Charless accession to the throne.

Flags on the castle and council buildings, which were at half-mast were returned to full-mast on Saturday, to coincide with the Reading of the Principal Proclamation of the new monarch in London.

Flags will return to half-mast at 1pm on Sunday after the Proclamation is read in Cardiff.

The Senedd has also been recalled on Sunday at 3pm to allow members to pay tribute to the Queen.

However, all other business has been suspended until after the state funeral.
Thousands of mourners have flocked to Windsor to pay tribute to the Queen.

Large crowds had already gathered on Sunday morning, and, by the afternoon, roads in the town were closed and walkways were packed with people.

Local churches also paid tribute to the Queen during Sunday worship, with one close to Windsor Castle set to hold a special service later in the day.

A photo of Queen Elizabeth II during a service at St Stephen and St Agnes Church in Windsor, following her death on Thursday. Picture date: Sunday September 11, 2022.

King Charles III ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday.

He was then formally proclaimed King in a historic ceremony at St Jamess Palace in London following a meeting of the Accession Council, during which he swore an oath to privy counsellors.

A sea of flowers, cards and tributes were being placed outside the gates of Windsor Castle ahead of the local proclamation of the monarch near the Queen Victoria statue in the Berkshire town.

Stewards had been trying to divert mourners on a different route to the gates as a large crowd was building up.

Roads were also closed off.

Military veterans could be seen among those paying tribute.

People walk past the window of a shop in Windsor paying tribute to the Queen (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Alvie Porter-Smith, 87, who lives nearby, speculated that the number of people visiting on Sunday could be the largest yet.

He told the PA news agency: Already there are queues along the Long Walk, but its a rather nice atmosphere, with people making conversation.

Also among the visitors was Lucy Pursley, from nearby Maidenhead, with her mother Kathy and three children, who took five bouquets of different-coloured flowers which they had each picked out at a nearby shop.

Ms Pursley said: We really wanted to come here and show our respects. Each of us picked our flowers out and have written a message on them.

It would be nice to know someone from the royal family read them just so they know what the Queen meant to everyone, even children.

Stuffed toys, cards, letters and gift bags were also seen among the tributes.

Ned Hart, 43, from Egham in Surrey, said: Ive been here every day and have laid flowers each time.

Its nice to see the the pile of tributes building up; I hope the whole area is covered by the time of the funeral.

The number of children and young people Ive seen here is also heart-warming, the next generation will not forget our great Queen.

Windsor Parish Church of St John the Baptist will hold a special service for the Queen at 5pm.

Reverend Canon Sally Lodge, Rector of Windsor, during a service at St Stephen and St Agnes Church (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Local churches paid tribute to the former monarch and spoke about the next chapter under King Charles III earlier in the day.

Reverend Canon Sally Lodge, speaking during a Sunday service at the Parish Church of St Stephen & St Agnes, said: Gracious God, we give thanks for the life of your servant Queen Elizabeth, for her faith and her dedication to duty.

Bless our nation as we mourn her death and may her example continue to inspire us.

She went on to praise the dedication to public service of King Charles III.

Members of the church had the opportunity to sign a book of condolence and will sing the national anthem after the service ends.
Charles invited his friend Alan Titchmarsh to come and see us soon for tea the day before becoming King.

The prince spent Wednesday working and hosting guests at Dumfries House in Cumnock, the broadcaster and gardener said.

He said that, after dinner at the East Ayrshire home, the heir to the throne and his guests had coffee in a tapestry-lined gallery as they were played jaunty Scottish airs on a guitar and penny whistle.

The prince tapped his foot in time with the music before giving the man on the whistle a bottle of Scotch and the woman on the guitar a bottle of champagne, chatting casually to both, Mr Titchmarsh wrote in The Sunday Telegraph.

The recital was short, the applause genuine, and, after making his way around the room, shaking hands with almost everyone there, smiling, thanking them for coming and encouraging them in their endeavours, the prince headed for the exit.

Because I stood by the door, he shook my hand last of all and said Come and see us soon for tea. I thanked him and he left the room as Duke of Rothesay, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and assorted other titles, unaware that he was doing so for the very last time. He was happy; it had been a good day.

Charles and Alan Titchmarsh share a love of the great outdoors (Chris Jackson/PA)

The next day, he woke up early as usual, but by the middle of the afternoon those ancient appellations would be redistributed among more junior members of his family. Prince William became Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. Prince Charles would have but one title: The King.

King Charles III was formally confirmed as the nations new monarch during a meeting of the Accession Council on Saturday.

The Queens coffin will begin its journey to its final resting place when it travels from Balmoral to Edinburgh on Sunday morning.

In London, Charles will meet Baroness Scotland, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, at Buckingham Palace, and later host High Commissioners and their spouses, from countries where he is head of state, in the royal residences Bow Room.
The Queen with Daniel Craig as James Bond (BBC One/PA)

James Bond star Daniel Craig described filming a scene with the Queen for London 2012 as an incredible thing.

The world saw a more spirited side to the monarch when she made a cameo appearance in Danny Boyles opening ceremony for the Olympic Games.

In the comedy sketch, Craig, who played British spy 007, called at Buckingham Palace to summon the Queen to the event.

The Queen, who was sitting at her writing desk, made him wait before greeting him with the words: Good evening, Mr Bond.

They walked together, along with some of her corgis, towards a helicopter and set off, flying over London to the Olympic Stadium, concluding with a stunt double of the Queen parachuting into the arena.

Seconds later, the real Queen, wearing the same peach dress as the stunt double, entered the stadium to rapturous applause.

Reflecting on his time filming with the Queen, 54-year-old Craig told the BBC at the Toronto International Film Festival: What an incredible thing.

We will not see the likes of her ever again. To be alive during her reign is something else.

He added: (Im) very saddened, so I suppose good luck to Charles, really.

King Charles III during the Accession Council at St Jamess Palace (Victoria Jones/PA)

Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who co-wrote the Queens TV appearances with Paddington Bear and Daniel Craig, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme on Friday that the Queen had volunteered herself for the Bond scene.

He said: We went to the Palace asking for permission to represent her and to know what she was wearing on the day, and it was her amazing dresser who said No, no, she wants to be in it. She was game and she was up for that.

In fact on the day when we were filming, she asked Danny Boyle if she could have a line because there wasnt a line in the script, probably because when I was typing the script I didnt quite know how you would type the character of the Queen What would you type?

Charles, the former Prince of Wales, ascended to the throne following the death of his mother on Thursday.

He was then formally proclaimed King Charles III at a historic ceremony in St Jamess Palace following a meeting of the Accession Council during which he swore an oath to privy counsellors.

 Craig was at the Toronto International Film Festival at the world premiere of Glass Onion, the sequel to his hit film Knives Out.
Camilla is known so far as Queen Consort, but the Duke of Edinburgh rejected the offer of becoming Prince Consort in the early years of Elizabeth IIs reign.

Philip, the longest-serving consort in British history, died in April 2021, after being married to the Queen for more than 73 years.

The husband of a reigning Queen does not become a King and, unlike a Queen Consort, is not crowned or anointed at a coronation.

The Duke of Edinburgh during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifles from Philip to the Duchess of Cornwall (Adrian Dennis/PA)

No-nonsense Philip turned down the chance to use the title Prince Consort  which was given to Queen Victorias husband, Prince Albert  according to correspondence by then-prime minister Sir Winston Churchill in 1954.

Sir Winston engaged in a series of secret letters with his Lord Chancellor about the prospect of Philip becoming Prince Consort.

Other titles suggested included Prince of the Commonwealth and Prince of the Realm.

But the discussion was brought to an abrupt end.

Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), Princess Elizabeth (centre) and King George VI after his coronation (PA)

Sir Winston wrote that the Queen had made the suggestion to the duke, but that he refused even to consider accepting any new title at present.

He added: Her Majesty asked that the matter should be allowed to rest indefinitely.

Philip was made the Duke of Edinburgh by Princess Elizabeths father, George VI, just before his 1947 wedding.

The Queen later made him a prince of the UK in 1957.

Camilla is expected to be crowned at Charless side at his coronation, just as the last Queen Consort, the Queen Mother, was.

She is expected to wear the Queen Mothers 1937 coronation crown.

No date has been set for the coronation, but Elizabeth IIs ceremony was 16 months after her accession.

As the wife of the King, Camilla is technically Her Majesty The Queen, but in their briefings and statements Buckingham Palace has kept to Queen Consort.
BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers has marked the death of the Queen with a specially-recorded scene that was broadcast at the start of Sundays episode.

Listeners heard two of the serials longest-running characters, Lynda Snell and Lilian Bellamy, reminiscing about the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.

When you think of our lives since then, and everything thats happened to us, the Queen has always been there  shes just always been there, Lynda reflected.

Steady as a rock, Lillian replied. Its going to be strange without her, I think.

Its going to be very different without her, Lynda added.

The two characters were also heard discussing a book of condolence that had been set up in the church in Ambridge  the fictional West Midlands village where The Archers is set.

Lynda, who is played by Carole Boyd, revealed that she had struggled to find the right words to add to the book, deciding finally on a simple sentence: Dearest Maam. Rest in peace. You were an inspiration.

Do you think that was enough? she asked tearfully, to which Lilian, who is played by Sunny Ormonde, replied: Yes, I think that was perfect.

The Archers cast members Sara Coward and Arnold Peters with Princess Margaret during the recording of a special episode of The Archers in 1984 (PA)

The Archers has been broadcast on BBC radio since 1951 and has clocked up more episodes than any other continuous drama serial in the world.

Although the soap opera is based in a fictional village, it has twice featured cameos from members of the real British royal family: Queen Elizabeth IIs sister Princess Margaret, in June 1984, and the then Duchess of Cornwall  now the Queen Consort  in February 2011.

Princess Margaret appeared as the surprise guest at a fundraising fashion show for the NSPCC in the ballroom of Ambridges local hotel Grey Gables, while Camilla appeared in her role as president of the National Osteoporosis Society.
Churches in Windsor are paying tribute to the late Queen amid huge crowds visiting the town.

A constant stream of thousands of people placed flowers, cards and stuffed animals outside the gates of the castle on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a church in the Berkshire town was packed with well-wishers lighting candles ahead of a small service of prayers to commemorate the late monarch.

King Charles III ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Thursday.

He was then formally proclaimed King in a historic ceremony at St Jamess Palace in London following a meeting of the Accession Council, during which he swore an oath to privy counsellors.

People had been arriving early on Sunday to lay down their tributes, some with tears in their eyes.

People make their way along the Long Walk towards Cambridge Gate outside Windsor Castle to lay flowers following the death of the Queen (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Nearby roads were closed off and walkways were blocked as an accession proclamation ceremony took place near the Queen Victoria statue.

Crowds sang the national anthem and shouted God Save The King as the band of The Household Cavalry marched at around 12.30pm.

Windsor Parish Church of St John the Baptist saw huge queues of people waiting to light candles to commemorate the late Queen.

Staff at the church told of being very busy during the day, with well-wishers leaving messages expressing their sadness and gratitude.

The band of The Household Cavalry march past a statue of Queen Victoria following an accession proclamation ceremony at Windsor Castle (Andrew Matthews/PA)

It comes ahead of a small service of prayers which will take place at 5pm to pay tribute to the Queen.

Reverend Canon Sally Lodge, speaking during an earlier service at the nearby Parish Church of St Stephen & St Agnes, said: Gracious God, we give thanks for the life of your servant Queen Elizabeth, for her faith and her dedication to duty.

Bless our nation as we mourn her death and may her example continue to inspire us.

She went on to praise the dedication to public service of the King.

Church-goers had the opportunity to sign a book of condolence and sang the national anthem after the service ended.

Reverend Lodge said a larger commemoration service would take place later in the week.

People line the High Street in Windsor ahead of an accession proclamation ceremony at Windsor Castle (Andrew Matthews/PA)

It came as stewards implemented a one-way system for those wishing to lay tributes at Cambridge Gate near the castle, due to the large numbers of people forming on the Long Walk.

Military veterans could be seen among those paying tribute.

Alvie Porter-Smith, 87, who lives nearby, speculated that the number of people visiting on Sunday could be the largest yet.

He told the PA news agency: Already there are queues along the Long Walk, but its a rather nice atmosphere, with people making conversation.

Varun Singh, 34, who was with his wife Karanpreet, from Taplow, Buckinghamshire, said: We wanted to pay our respects to a great Queen before the working week starts, she deserves that.

Its a really warm atmosphere and everybody is calm and respectful.

I hope the new King knows what his mother meant to everyone, and I know he will do a wonderful job.

William Robert, 67, from the local area, brought a large bouquet with a written message attached.

He said: Its a message declaring my thanks for the Queens life of service and immense love for her nation.

Im very emotional, actually, her death has deeply moved me and Im sure the country and its people as well.

A photograph in memory of the Queen seen in the window of a shop in Windsor, Berkshire (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Children could be seen laying down Paddington Bear toys and drawings of the late Queen, along with cards and letters.

Also among the visitors was Lucy Pursley, from nearby Maidenhead, with her mother Kathy and three children, who took five bouquets of different-coloured flowers which they had each picked out at a nearby shop.

Ms Pursley said: We really wanted to come here and show our respects. Each of us picked our flowers out and have written a message on them.

It would be nice to know someone from the royal family read them just so they know what the Queen meant to everyone, even children.

Ned Hart, 43, from Egham in Surrey, said: Ive been here every day and have laid flowers each time.

Its nice to see the pile of tributes building up; I hope the whole area is covered by the time of the funeral.

The number of children and young people Ive seen here is also heart-warming, the next generation will not forget our great Queen.
A woman was arrested after a protester held an anti-monarchy sign ahead of the accession proclamation of King Charles III in Edinburgh.

Police Scotland said the arrest was made outside St Giles Cathedral, where the Queens coffin is due to be held on Monday.

Moments before the proclamation on Sunday afternoon, a demonstrator appeared in the crowd opposite the Mercat Cross.

An Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, publicly proclaiming King Charles III as the new monarch (Jane Barlow/PA)

She held a sign saying f*** imperialism, abolish monarchy.

Officers appeared behind her and took her away, prompting the crowd to applaud.

One man shouted: Let her go, its free speech, while others yelled: Have some respect.

A police spokesman said a 22-year-old woman was arrested in connection with a breach of the peace.

It came after hecklers were heard booing during the event.

During the first proclamation of Charles, the Lord Lyon King of Arms gave a speech before declaring God save the King, which the crowd repeated.

One man was heard booing throughout the cheers.

The national anthem was then sung but, afterwards, people could be heard calling for a republic.

After Lord Lyon King led three cheers, saying hip hip to replies of hooray, booing was heard for a second time.

Some mourners called the hecklers disrespectful, saying they should have avoided the proclamation if they believe in a republic.

Helen Smith, 48, from Livingston, told the PA news agency: I believe everyone does have a right to protest, but I thought it was the wrong place at the wrong time.

(It was) incredibly disrespectful to the event that we were just seeing.

Ms Smith, an engineer, she feels it dampened the event for the rest of the crowd.

We saw the police keeping an eye on things behind us, and we thought something was going to kick off, and it did, she said.

We just felt disappointed because the eyes of the world are on us at the moment.

Its a massive moment in history. Weve had the death of the longest-serving monarch weve ever had, weve got the new King being proclaimed, and then we have the heckling at the back and the shouting.

Members of the public are seen during the ceremony (Jane Barlow/PA)

Ann Hamilton, 48, said she thought the interruptions were terrible.

Ms Hamilton, who travelled from Dumfries, told PA: Theres tens of thousands of people here today to show their respect.

For them to be here, heckling through things, I think it was terrible. If they were so against it, they shouldnt have come.

Once everyone was singing God Save The King with their full voices, it was drowning them out.

Donald Maclaren, 64, of Livingston, added: Its very disrespectful. There is a time and a place if you want to protest, but this isnt it.

Somebody shouted, Republic now. Then, when they were doing the three cheers, somebody was booing.

Liz Maclaren, 67, also branded it disrespectful, saying: The boos sounded like one person.
Bafta has cancelled its annual tea party in Los Angeles, following the death of the Queen.

The organisation, which has been closely linked to the monarch and the royal family for over 50 years, said it was deeply saddened by the news.

The event, which celebrates the stars of the screen, had been due to return following a two-year hiatus caused by the pandemic.

But in a statement on Thursday, the organisation, of which the Duke of Cambridge is the current president, said it would no longer take place.

In light of todays very sad news of the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the annual Bafta Tea Party will no longer be taking place this weekend, according to a statement shared with the PA news agency.

We are deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty The Queen, whose close association with BAFTA spanned over 50 years. Our thoughts are with the Royal Family, to whom we offer our deepest sympathy. https://t.co/tVMYYCGrFB pic.twitter.com/UNxlfYtdzQ  BAFTA (@BAFTA) September 8, 2022

We are deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty The Queen, whose close association with Bafta spanned 50 years.

Our thoughts are with Baftas President HRH The Duke of Cambridge and the Royal Family, to whom we offer our deepest sympathy.

In 1976 Baftas new headquarters in Piccadilly, London, was officially opened by the Queen and attended by past presidents of the organisation, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, as well as HRH Princess Anne, who was president at the time.

Later in 1996, when the Academy celebrated its 50th anniversary, the Queen and Philip attended a special event to mark the milestone.

Presentations were made of a Lifetime Achievement Award to cinematographer Freddie Young and the BAFTA Fellowship to Dame Maggie Smith.

The monarch received her own Bafta award on April 4 2013, the occasion of a reception for the British film industry hosted by Her Majesty at Windsor Castle.

An honorary British Academy Special Award was presented by Sir Kenneth Branagh in recognition of her outstanding patronage of the film and television industries.

Earlier, in a separate, lengthy online statement Bafta said the Queen occupies a unique place in the academys history and will be missed enormously.

Through her various patronages, The Queen was renowned for her support of the UKs creative industries, having been patron of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Royal Variety Charity and the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.

Over the years, The Queen has visited countless film and television organisations, supporting their efforts by highlighting the work they do.

The Queen occupies a unique place in the Academys history and will be missed enormously.

The Tea Party, which comes the weekend before the annual Emmy awards, was due to take place on Saturday at the The Maybourne Beverly Hills, in Los Angeles.
The Queens coffin has arrived at the royal residence in Edinburgh after a six-hour journey from Balmoral.

The coffin remained in the Throne Room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight, where staff have been able to pay their final respects.

Here is a day-by-day account of what will happen next, leading up to and including the Queens funeral on Monday September 19.

Monday September 12

King Charles III and the Queen Consort are to visit Westminster Hall in London where both Houses of Parliament will express condolences to the new monarch.

Later on Monday, Charles and Camilla will fly to Edinburgh where they will attend a Ceremony of the Keys and the King will inspect the guard of honour.

Charles will then lead the royal family in procession as the Queens coffin is taken from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to nearby St Giles Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving.

(PA Graphics)

Members of the public will be able to view the coffin at the cathedral and pay their respects from 5pm for a period of 24 hours.

The King will then hold audiences with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Alison Johnstone, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament.

Later in the evening, the King and other members of the royal family will mount a vigil at the cathedral in honour of their mother.

The hearse carrying the coffin arrived at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, on Sunday after a six-hour journey from Balmoral (PA)

Tuesday September 13

The King and Queen Consort are to fly to Northern Ireland on Tuesday to visit Hillsborough Castle, where they will view an exhibition about the late Queens long association with the province.

The King will then meet Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and party leaders, and receive a message of condolence led by the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

After a short reception at Hillsborough, the King and Queen Consort will travel to St Annes Cathedral for a service of prayer and reflection. Before the event Charles will meet leaders from all the major faiths in Northern Ireland and then later the royal couple will return to London.

The Princess Royal will accompany the Queens coffin when it is to be flown to London by RAF aircraft to RAF Northolt on Tuesday evening, it will then be taken to rest at Buckingham Palaces Bow Room.

A rehearsal for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster is also expected to take place.

Details about the route for the lying-in-state queue will be provided late on Tuesday September 13.

Wednesday September 14

In a tribute to his late mother, the King will lead Wednesdays procession behind the gun carriage carrying her coffin to Westminster Hall, where the Queens lying in state will begin before the state funeral on September 19.

The coffin, adorned with the Imperial State Crown, be transported on a gun carriage of The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery from Buckingham Palace.

The King, members of the royal family and senior staff of the late Queen and Kings households will walk slowly behind in a dignified silence without music in a route that will take 38 minutes.

(PA Graphics)

The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct a short service following the coffins arrival.

Those wishing to pay their respects will be able to file solemnly past the Queens coffin 24 hours a day from 5pm on Wednesday September 14 until 6.30am on the day of the funeral  Monday September 19.

Senior royals are also expected to pay their own moving tribute, standing guard at some stage around the coffin  the tradition known as the Vigil of the Princes.

Thursday September 15

Lying in state continues and a rehearsal is likely to take place for the state funeral procession.

Friday September 16

The King and Queen Consort are expected to travel to Wales while lying in state continues.

Saturday September 17  Sunday September 18

The lying in state continues and heads of state will begin to arrive for the funeral.

Monday September 19

The State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen will take place at Westminster Abbey on Monday 19th September. Prior to the State Funeral, The Queen will Lie-in-State in Westminster Hall for four days, to allow the public to pay their respects.  The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 10, 2022

There will be a national bank holiday to allow as many people as possible to watch the Queens funeral.

Lying in state will continue until 6.30am.

The coffin will be taken in a grand military procession from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey for the state funeral.

Senior members of the family are expected to follow behind  just like they did for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh.

The military will line the streets and also join the procession.

(PA Graphics)

Heads of state, prime ministers and presidents, European royals and key figures from public life will be invited to gather in the abbey, which can hold a congregation of 2,000.

The service will be televised, and a national two minutes silence is expected to be held.

After the service, the coffin will be taken in procession from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch and then travel to Windsor.

Once there, the hearse will travel in procession to St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle via the Long Walk, after which a televised committal service will take place in St Georges Chapel.

Later in the evening, there will be a private interment service with senior members of the royal family.

The Queens final resting place will be the King George VI memorial chapel, an annex to the main chapel  where her mother and father were buried, along with the ashes of her sister, Princess Margaret.

Philips coffin will move from the Royal Vault to the memorial chapel to join the Queens.
Queen Elizabeth II and Liz Truss meet at Balmoral Castle.

Liz Truss will look back on a momentous week in which her life and the country she now leads were changed for ever.

It began with the 47-year-old on the brink of ascending to the highest office in the land and finished at a ceremony to proclaim a new monarch as the second Elizabethan Age came to an end.

She was, no doubt, well aware of the daunting challenges facing her as she waited on Monday in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster for the result of the Tory leadership election to be announced.

Liz Truss is congratulated by her husband Hugh OLeary after being announced the winner in the Tory leadership election (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

But after a summer dominated by the darkening economic outlook, she can now expect to see the ties which bind the United Kingdom together questioned once more.

Downing Street announced on Saturday that the Prime Minister will attend a series of services of reflection with the King in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales over the coming week.

No 10 rejected suggestions it was a tour of the nations designed to shore up the Union in the face of nationalist sentiment  particularly in Scotland.

Liz Truss is welcomed by the Queen at Balmoral (Jane Barlow/PA)

But with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon preparing a legal challenge to enable her to stage a second independence referendum, the issue will not go away.

Ms Truss was reportedly already aware the Queen was gravely ill when she went to the House of Commons on Thursday to set out her plans to cap soaring energy costs threatening to plunge millions into crisis.

The previous evening the monarch had cancelled a meeting of the Privy Council  which she had been due to conduct remotely from her Scottish retreat at Balmoral  on the advice of her doctors.

Liz Truss chairs her first Cabinet meeting (Frank Augstein/PA)

Shortly after midday  as Sir Keir Starmer was delivering his response to her opening statement in the energy debate  the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Nadhim Zahawi, appeared in the Commons chamber with a note for Ms Truss informing her the Palace was about to issue a statement on the Queens health.

A little after 7pm, the Prime Minister, dressed in black, emerged on the steps of Downing Street to confirm to a stunned nation that their Queen of 70 years had died.

It was the same spot where, just two days earlier, she had entered No 10 in triumph after being invited by the sovereign to form a Government during an audience at Balmoral.

By Friday, as the country was coming to terms with the fact that it had both a new head of state and a new head of Government, she was being ushered in to Buckingham Palace for her first audience with the King.

Liz Truss has her first audience with the King (Yui Mok/PA)

For a moment, thoughts of the cost-of-living crisis were put to one side as the nation mourned its loss. Ms Truss will be well aware, however, that any respite will be temporary.

She still has to explain how she will pay for the massive intervention in the energy market  predicted to cost tens, or even hundreds, of billions of pounds  while delivering her promised tax cuts.

She knows that even within her own party, many MPs are deeply sceptical about her plans while a range of pressing issues is piling up in her in-tray  not least the continuing war in Ukraine.

But whatever happens in the coming weeks and months ahead, these past seven days are ones she will never forget.
The Quinjet rests high atop the Avengers Headquarters at Disney California Adventure Park. The building will likely be the site of a new attraction that will have Avengers battle King Thanos. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The newest expansion to the Disneyland Resort  Avengers Campus at California Adventure Park  will add an attraction that will pit the legion of Marvel superheroes against an army of villains, led by a crown-wearing genocidal King Thanos.

That was one of dozens of announcements made Sunday at D23, the Disney Expo at Anaheim Convention Center, by Disney's head of Parks, Experiences and Products Josh D'Amaro. Each announcement was met by screams, applause and shouts from about 7,000 Disney fans in the convention hall, many dressed as princesses, superheroes, Jedi knights, pirates and other Disney characters.

In addition to the new attraction at Avengers Campus, D'Amaro unveiled new artist renderings of the planned overhaul to the Pacific Warf area at California Adventure Park that will soon resemble a Japanese-inspired tribute to San Francisco, called San Fransokyo. He also showed fans images of the planned redesign of Paradise Pier Hotel  one of three Disney-owned hotels in the resort  to be renamed Pixar Place Hotel, decorated with colorful art from the characters and scenes from Pixar Pictures.

He offered no exact opening dates for the changes and little details about the attraction except to say that all the Avengers superheroes would be battling a white-bearded King Thanos  the warlord from Titan  and his army of bad guys. Disney executives have hinted that the newest attraction will be based at the Avengers Headquarters, which is also the landing pad for the aircraft used by the Avengers, the Quinjet.

The Avengers Headquarters on Avengers Campus at California Adventure on June 2, 2021. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The pandemic shutdown of Disney parks across the globe in 2020 and 2021 prompted the media giant's executives to reconsider ways to expand and overhaul its theme parks, D'Amaro said. "We are continuing to think about what is next," he said.

But there were some additions D'Amaro offered with specifics: Two new nighttime attractions will launch in January, a light show called "World of Color  One" at Disney California Adventure and a new fireworks show called "Wonderous Journeys" at the Disneyland Park. He also said that "Magic Happens," a parade that was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic shutdown, will return this spring.

D'Amaro also said new costumed characters will soon greet and mingle with parkgoers at Disneyland and California Adventure Park. The Mandalorian and Grogu  sometimes called Baby Yoda  from "The Mandalorian" television series will appear at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in November and a giant Hulk character will stomp around Avengers Campus next week, he said.

"There are so many things happening at the Disneyland Resort that we haven't finished talking about it," he said to the screams of fans.

Before the Disneyland resort closed for 13 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney executives had hinted that the headquarters for the Avengers superheroes would house an E-ticket rated attraction but they remained tightlipped with details about the ride. There has been almost no further mention of the building since the theme parks reopened.

Avengers Campus, the land themed for Marvel superheroes, is the latest expansion at the Disneyland Resort, opening June 2021, only two months after Disneyland and California Adventure reopened from the pandemic shutdown. The six-acre land opened with only one new ride, Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. The land features Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: Breakout, which previously existed as Twilight Zone Tower of Terror before its superhero makeover was completed in 2017.

D'Amaro also announced new attractions at Walt Disney World in Florida and Disney theme parks in Japan, France and China. He announced the name of the newest Disney cruise ship  Disney Treasure  and new routes to Australia, New Zealand and the Bahamas.

Disneyland has been investing heavily in the Anaheim resort over the last few years and plans to continue to do so.

In 2019, Disneyland opened its 14-acre Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, a $1-billion expansion that features two rides, shops and retail outlets themed to the Star Wars movie franchise.

In addition to the recently opened Avengers Campus, Disney proposed last year a plan dubbed Disney Forward that would change the parks land use map to squeeze new attractions, shops and eateries into underdeveloped areas of the existing resort, specifically around two Disney hotels west of the theme parks and on the site of a parking lot east of the resort. The media giant has declined to disclose overall construction costs or other details.

The proposal would require the city of Anaheim to approve an overhaul to land use plans that were approved in the 1990s. City officials say no public hearings have been scheduled to discuss the Disney Forward proposal.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Queen Elizabeth II helped oversee the transition of the British empire to the Commonwealth, but she was also the symbol of a nation that rode roughshod over people it subjugated

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP)  Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empires former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Beyond official condolences praising the queens longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her fathers death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queens reign, and well into Britains harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

Two lorry loads transporting Kikuyu people arrive at a reception camp outside Nairobi, Kenya, on April 28, 1954, after 5,000 British troops and 1,000 armed police rounded up some 30,000 to 40,000 men for screening. (AP Photo, File)

Movement permit, the document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugos grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

Most of our grandparents were oppressed, Mugo tweeted in the hours after the queens death Thursday. I cannot mourn.

Suppression of the MauMau was from 1952-1960. Most of our grandparents (born 1920s) were oppressed. Pic is my Grandmother's movement pass. I cannot mourn. pic.twitter.com/948x1i9yBf  Alice  (@Nimmz_Mugo) September 8, 2022

But Kenyas outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queens rule before becoming the countrys first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries, Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

Some of the many Kikuyu tribesmen who were detained as Mau Mau suspects after the forced evacuation of Kikuyus accused of squatting on European farms in the Thomsons Falls area, Kenya, wait to be transported on Nov. 30, 1952. (AP Photo, File)

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in, said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

Elizabeths reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the regions borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gazas Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to correct British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queens perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

Thousands of flag-waving youngsters cheer as Queen Elizabeth II and the her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, ride through the Kaduna racecourse in Northern Nigeria on Feb. 2, 1956. (AP Photo, File)

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was held by many as bearing responsibility for the islands tragedies.

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in todays world, because we are the worlds largest democratic country, said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

In Kenyas capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion with a lot of bitterness and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was a very young lady then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time, Kahindi said.

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering spiritual connection in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia, he said.

Jamaican school children greet Queen Elizabeth II at the National Heroes Monument in Kingston, Jamaica, on Feb. 14, 1983, during the second day of the queens visit to the former British colony. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)

The queens dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: Shes seen more as the mother of the world.

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

You have contradictory consciousness, said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this years visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialisms implications, Thame said  during the visit, William expressed his profound sorrow for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isnt surprising since she was presented by the British as this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us, but young people arent awed by the royal family.

The only thing I noted about the queens passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery, Spence said. She shouldve apologized.

Guerrillas who fought a war for seven years rejoice as they leave the stadium in Zimbabwes capital Salisbury (present-day Harare), following independence celebrations marking the birth of the state of Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980. (AP Photo/Matt Franjola, File)

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. Please download theGrio mobile apps today!

The post I cannot mourn: Former colonies conflicted over the queen appeared first on TheGrio.
Matter of respect

Having lived in the Kansas City area for most of our lives, without question the most rewarding of these years have been our 64 years of marriage and the family weve raised together. My husband, Neil, and I are now blessed with 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

We want for our grandchildren the opportunity to be married and have a family. That opportunity now exists for all of our grandchildren, including those who are gay.

But that freedom could be threatened, as certain Supreme Court justices may be looking to reconsider the 2015 ruling that established the right of same-sex couples to marry and have their marriages recognized and respected nationwide.

The Respect for Marriage Act, which would ensure the freedom to marry cannot be eroded, is before the U.S. Senate. We strongly urge the senators on both sides of the state line  Roy Blunt, Josh Hawley, Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran  to keep families like ours in mind and put to rest our concerns, and those of thousands of their LGBTQ constituents, by supporting this important legislation.

- Blanche Sosland, Kansas City

Spell it out

Washington Post commentator Jennifer Rubin seems to feel obligated to explain what President Joe Biden really means about what he says. (Aug. 8, 9A, No, Biden didnt condemn the entire GOP)

I am waiting for her to explain his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, his southern border policy, his college accomplishments and on and on. These comments should fit well with her apologist stance.

- Jerry Kaplan, Prairie Village

Dont convene

Its interesting to go through the history of constitutional conventions among the 44 states that allow them and the almost universal lack of enthusiasm in state after state for amending their constitutions using this seemingly friendly, neighbor-to-neighbor, homespun gathering of just us folks, no elected officials.

We hear phrases such as causing irreparable damage, dangerous, unnecessary, hurting the most vulnerable and harmful to working men and women. I give The Star Editorial Board high marks for breaking down some pragmatic reasons Missourians might want to carefully think about the damage that could be done at a convention  removing hard-fought wins that were put into our constitution for a reason: to protect them.

Remember that in 1962, 1982 and 2002, Missourians voted no in large majorities to holding a constitutional convention. We have no way of knowing what the outcome of this gathering would be. However, we do know we face a hyperpartisan landscape in our state capitol, and the stakes couldnt be higher for real people, our neighbors.

Vote no on the Constitutional Convention Question on the Nov. 8 ballot.

- Pat Bartholome, Kansas City

Fit to lead?

Republicans are apparently hapless at rigging elections in their own favor. Given they cant achieve what they claim is so easy for Democrats to do, are they qualified to run the country?

- Kirsten Frogley, Shawnee

Dog dangers

What happened to the leash law in Lexington, Missouri? Do we no longer have such a law? Every day, dogs are running loose. I see one pit bull in my area not on a leash. Is this not against the law?

Just recently, this dog jumped up my front door, trying to get inside to my small pets. I was not able to get out the door to chase the animal away. Police were called and four cars responded. But, of course, the dog was gone by then, so basically, nothing could be done.

It has always been my understanding that it is against the law to allow your dog to run loose within city limits. When did that change? Most city residents obey the law. Only a few do not. If you are outside, you should carry pepper spray or have some other way to protect yourself.

Why put a law on our books and not enforce it? Perhaps our animal control department needs help. There is a lot of territory to patrol.

Call your City Council member and complain about this before someone is injured. Something needs to be done, and soon. People should not be afraid to walk in their own neighborhoods. Please enforce our laws.

- Carolyn Milligan, Lexingon, Missouri

Interns lessons

As a participant in Bank of Americas Student Leader program this summer, I was given the opportunity to intern with local nonprofit Youth Volunteer Corps. Other student leaders and I were given service projects for organizations. One example was with the YMCA Northland Head Start Program, where we formed strong relationships with kids age 3 to 5. Each of their stories was unique, and this experience allowed me to grow not only as a leader, but as a person.

After the internship, I joined 300 other students across the nation in a virtual leadership summit that included workshops on important social issues such as the minimum wage and racial disparities.

The value of participating in an internship is remarkable, as Ive learned so much about communication and teamwork skills. I was able to take the initiative in bringing everyone together and getting us involved instead of people feeling as if they were working alone. The connections and friendships created from this opportunity were life-changing, and I recommend anyone interested in serving the Kansas City community to apply.

Ill always feel thankful to have participated in the Student Leader program.

- Joy Yan, Kansas City
A North Carolina civil rights group is weighing in on a Wake County death penalty case, arguing that a standard method of selecting jurors will exclude Black people, women and Catholics from considering the case.

Jury selection for Brandon Xavier Hills capital murder trial is set to start this week

Hill is one of two men who could face the death penalty for the 2016 slaying of a pregnant April Holland and Dwayne Garvey at the former Americas Best Value Inn near Crabtree Valley Mall.

In 2019, a Wake County jury found Seaga Gillard guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the killings and sentenced him to death.

The jury found Gillard guilty of the double homicide after a trial in which prosecutors showed jurors the shooting, which was captured on video. Prosecutors said the men sought out Hollands prostitution services, but ended up killing her and her boyfriend, who had three children together. Holland was four months pregnant.

Jurors sentenced Gillard to death after hearing multiple victims say they encountered Gillard and Hill after advertising prostitution services on dating websites and apps, The News & Observer reported.

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union argued recently that Wake County prosecutors shouldnt be allowed to disqualify jurors for a pending capital trial of Brandon Hill if the jurors say they cant sentence someone to death.

The women expected a single customer, but two men came to their door, tied them up, robbed and sexually assaulted them, they testified.

How it currently works

In Gillards and other capital cases in North Carolina, prosecutors strike prospective jurors whose opposition to the death penalty prevents them from being able to sentence someone to death.

A general opposition to the death penalty isnt enough, according to North Carolina Superior Court Judges Bench Book, a resource for judges put together by the UNC School of Government staff.

However, when jurors beliefs would substantially limit their ability to follow a judges instructions during a capital sentencing hearing or prevent them from fairly considering the imposition of a death sentence, the juror must be excused, the book states.

The N.C. Supreme Court in 1992 rejected the argument that juries selected under the current standard are more inclined to convict than a jury that has not been death qualified, the book states. In 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court held the practice, known as death qualification, doesnt violate a defendants right to an impartial jury.

ACLU arguments

Over a two-day hearing on Aug. 29 and Sept. 1, American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina attorneys Henderson Hill and Brian Stull presented evidence on Hills behalf to argue the current practice is discriminatory and violates Hills rights to a fair trial, as well as some community members right to serve on Hills jury.

The hearing is likely to resume Monday or Tuesday, depending on when the parties decide to start jury selection, as well as fit in other pretrial hearings.

Its unlikely that Judge Paul Ridgeway would rule against existing law and precedent, but the hearing does create the opportunity for ACLU attorneys to get their anti-death penalty arguments before the Supreme Court if Brandon Hill is convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

The jury selection process is expected to take weeks, and testimony is expected to start in mid to late October.

The witnesses in the ongoing pretrial hearing included national experts who discussed the history of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and related traumatization of Black people following lynchings and disparate death penalty outcomes.

The experts also discussed how polling shows a general decline in support for the death penalty for people convicted of murder, from 79% in 1988 to 54% in 2021.

Some of the evidence included a 2022 study of jury selection for 10 capital trials in Wake County from 2008 to 2019.

The study found the death qualification process disproportionately excluded Black potential jurors, who were removed at 2.27 times the rate of white potential jurors.

It also found that women and religious people were excluded at a higher rate.

The study, which focused on Black and white potential jurors, showed that in the 10 cases, there were 1,027 jurors of those races considered.

Of the 979 white people, 111 or 11% were removed due to their stance on the death penalty, the study found.

Of the 211 Black jurors, 52 or 25% were removed.

In those 10 cases, two of the juries had no Black people and four had one Black person.

Mona Lynch, a criminology professor at University of California, Irvine, testified about mock jury studies that compared juries whose members all said they could sentence someone to death to juries that included individuals with mixed views on the death penalty.

The study found mixed juries were more skeptical, spent more time considering the evidence and had better recall of the case facts, Lynch testified.

Another study found that if at least one Black man was on an actual jury, it was less likely to sentence someone to death

The research is very strong that Black defendants are going to suffer as a result of having disproportionate exclusion, she said.

Death penalty in Wake

In general, North Carolina death sentences have dropped significantly since the 1990s, when juries sentenced between 20 and 34 people to death annually, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 2007, from zero to fewer than five people have been sentenced to death each year.

The last North Carolina execution occurred in 2006, as litigation over the states method of lethal injection and other issues halted state killings.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has been criticized by criminal justice reform advocates for continuing to seek the death penalty in a system they say is flawed and disproportionately affects the poor and Black people.

Freeman wont pledge to not seek the death penalty, she has said, because she wants to be able to discuss that option with families whose loves ones have been murdered. Freeman declined to comment Friday as the judge is considering the motion.

Earlier this year, the ACLU of North Carolina launched a campaign to educate voters on issues, including Freemans use of the death penalty, before the May Democratic primary for Wake district attorney. Freeman won 59% of the vote against challenger Damon Chetson, a defense attorney who pledged not to seek the death penalty.

Freeman faces Republican challenger Jeff Dobson in the Nov. 8 general election.
Let the people vote

HR.5399 has stirred up a lot of emotion in the Palmetto State. Those crafting the bill make it more restrictive as the days go by.

Our representatives are supposed to do as their constituents would desire; however, it seems that they arent listening to the states citizens.

Its time to determine this issue the most diplomatic way possible  put it to a vote. Let the citizens of South Carolina vote on whether to uphold abortion rights in the state of South Carolina. This is an issue for the people.

The only reason our legislature wouldnt allow a vote would be because they believe they would lose. Its time to allow the people to have their say.

Cynthia Parker, Columbia

Tell us more

The public needs more information about the USC Board of Trustees.

A short resume about each board member would be informative. Explain how someone becomes a board member. How are they selected? What are the politics involved?

Are the board members paid for serving? If so, how much? Who determines their compensation?

USC is a multi-million-dollar operation. Are there potential conflicts of interest between any trustees business and USC spending or business contracts?

The legislature wanted to restructure the board but what is the structure? The good ole boy system with the legislators and board seems intact.

Kim Chillag, Columbia

New low

Sen. Lindsey Grahams latest pronouncement warning of riots in the streets if former President Donald Trump is indicted is troubling for at least two reasons.

He is either issuing a clarion call for extremists and insurrectionists to take to the streets if Trump is indicted, or he is trying to intimidate the Department of Justice into not indicting Trump under the threat of violence.

This is a new low for Graham who will seemingly do anything to stay in Trumps good graces. He should, however, be worried about his own future as he tries to avoid having to testify before a Grand Jury in Georgia looking into election irregularities.

Lewis Huffman, Columbia

Protect our kids

While South Carolinians certainly need to continue to debate many of the issues before our legislature and current in our political contests, one would hope we would also continue to solve problems that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on.

For me and many others, one of these issues is the online safety of our children and grandchildren who because of a lack of proper safeguards and regulations are under constant bombardment from threats they should not have to face.

Presently California is awaiting the governors signature on significant new extensive safeguards to protect children from the many threats they can face online.

And, although I must confess that I do not always look to California for guidance, this legislation is worthy of serious consideration because it truly addresses the worries many of us have about the safety of our precious ones.

Thus, I write in the hope that our legislature and my fellow South Carolinians will pay attention to this proposed legislation and sooner rather than later enact similar protections for our own children and grandchildren.

Philip W. Jacobs, Newberry
NEW YORK CITY  A single word is all that's needed for teachers union head Randi Weingarten to describe what worries her most as American children return to school for what will be a third pandemic year: Everything.

It may not be an especially encouraging admission, but nor is it exactly a surprising one. Teacher shortages, learning loss, curriculum wars, the lingering fear of the coronavirus and the ever-present fear of school shootings are just some of the challenges educators, parents and children are confronting as summer turns into fall.

As the head of the American Federation of Teachers, with its 1.7 million members and immense sway within the Biden administration, Weingarten knows shell face especially tough scrutiny if the 2022-23 school year is marked by disruption and disorder.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, center, greets a supporter on stage with AFT President Randi Weingarten, right, after speaking at the American Federation of Teachers convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Monday, July 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

I wish I had 10% of the power and influence attributed to me, Weingarten told Yahoo News in a wide-ranging conversation at a coffee shop near her upper Manhattan home on a late August afternoon. You have 50 million students. You have 16,000 school districts. You have thousands of people making decisions.

Decentralized as American schooling may be, there is not a more influential  or controversial  educator in the United States than Weingarten. She has been praised for pushing to reopen schools and blamed for keeping them closed. Conservatives revile her for an unapologetic commitment to social justice, as well as a conviction that public-sector unions are central to the broader fight for American democracy.

As a union of public service employees, she said at her first national convention as president in 2008, we are Public Enemy Number One for those who take pot shots at the public schools, the labor movement and the very concept of government serving a greater good.

First lady Jill Biden, with Weingarten, left, at an AFT convention, July 15. (Michael Dwyer/AP)

Education secretary Miguel Cardona is a close associate. The Trump political strategist Steve Bannon once invited her to dinner, in an unlikely attempt at intellectual and political courtship. Like most of the nations most powerful figures, she seems to live on the high-speed Acela train between Washington and New Yorkand on Twitter, where she is frequently an unscripted and opinionated presence.

In real life, the voluble and energetic 64-year-old makes no apologies for exercising political power, arguing that policy outcomes cannot be achieved by other means. Policy gets done through politics, she says, her classic New York accent undiminished by status or time. People have to be involved in politics to make policy.

She becomes especially animated in talking about how Republicans treat teachers like completely disposable widgets who cannot be trusted to do the jobs they were trained for. That distrust is not necessarily new, but the lurid accusations of grooming children, proffered by the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are.

Its a malevolent, disingenuous, insidious, disgusting thing to say about a teacher, Weingarten says. Her voice rises, her hands chop and thrust, at one point slamming against the metal scaffolding that flanks our outdoor table. In a moment of self-awareness, she looks over to a young woman at a nearby table and apologizes. It will be the only apology she offers in nearly two hours of conversation.

Even as union power waned across the nation throughout the Obama and Trump years, Weingarten established herself as an increasingly prominent broker within an increasingly technocratic Democratic Party. A famous photograph from 2019 shows Weingarten leaning on the shoulder of then-candidate Joe Biden during a Houston town hall. His arm is draped over her shoulder. Their hands clasp, and they are both smiling.

AFT president Randi Weingarten and then-candidate Joe Biden at a Houston town hall in May 2019. (American Federation of Teachers)

Critics say that Weingarten used her influence to change Biden administration guidelines for reopening schools, thus confining children to the disastrous experiment that was remote learning for much longer than necessary. The full extent of that experiment is only now coming into view, with recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress standardized test showing that 9-year-olds lost two decades of gains in math and reading during the pandemic.

Weingarten disputes the charge of being pro-closure. Its complete bullst, she says, blaming then-President Trump for blustering about reopening schools without actually doing anything to reopen them.

Its completely false. And its the kind of propaganda and demonization that they like to do, Weingarten says, pointing out that the AFT first released reopening guidelines in April 2020, when the vast majority of schools across the country remained closed. Those guidelines, however, included stipulations like six feet of space between students, making them utterly unrealistic for most school districts.

We did the best we could, Weingarten argues. Again, an unsatisfying answer. Again, a tough pandemic truth. The disrepair of American schools was well known to American teachers, who listened to promises of ventilation upgrades with understandable skepticism. When this reporter taught in Bushwick, Brooklyn, during the mid-aughts, landing a classroom with windows that opened was akin to winning the lottery. Water fountains were ranked by the color of water they produced.

Weingarten always defended her union members, but she never made claims like her National Education Association counterpart Becky Pringle, who predicted in the fall of 2020 that 50,000 children would die if schools were reopened. In the pandemic's two-and-a-half years, 910 children between the ages of 5 and 18 have died from COVID-19, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

FILE - Wearing a mask to protect against the spread of COVID-19, kindergarten teacher Amber Ximenz prepares her classroom at Southside Independent School District in San Antonio, on Aug. 13, 2020. Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts executive order that forbids school districts from imposing mask mandates on schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was upheld Monday, July 25, 2022, by a divided federal appeals court panel in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Nor did she argue, as Los Angeles teachers union leader Cecily Myart-Cruz did, that a benefit of remote learning created no real setbacks. "Its OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables," Myart-Cruz offered as reopening anxiety was mounting. "They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.

Instead, Weingarten subtly moderated her positions, becoming increasingly vociferous about the need to return to the classroom, especially after vaccines became available in late 2020. A glowing profile in the New York Times in late 2021 can be seen as a testament to her ability to read political currents without forsaking her ideological commitments.

As the 2022-23 school year approached, Weingarten argued that masks were no longer necessary, another shift that put her out of step with progressive educators.

The science constantly changed, Weingarten says. And then you had politics polluting the environment. It created a lot of fear.

Detractors say much of the fear was stoked by the unions themselves. And while the science did change, it was apparent within weeks of the pandemics landfall in the United States that children rarely experienced serious or fatal bouts of COVID-19. By early summer, schools had reopened in parts of East Asia and Europe without serious incident.

The right-wing attacks against Weingarten have continued, many of them proffered by outlets like Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, all of which are owned by conservative mogul  and Republican kingmaker  Rupert Murdoch. After the NAEP results were made public on Sept. 1, a Journal editorial laid the blame at her feet with an editorial titled, Randi Weingarten Flunks the Pandemic.

Abigail Schneider, 8, completes a level of her learning game on a laptop in her bedroom, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. As more families pivot back to remote learning for quarantines and school closures, reliable, consistent access to devices and home internet remains elusive for many students who need them to keep up with their schoolwork. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Weingarten does not downplay the learning loss caused by the pandemic. But she also sees attacks like those emanating from Murdochs outlets as an affirmation of what she said when she became AFT president in 2008. I understand what the right wing is doing here, Weingarten says. They hate public schools, and they hate unions. They always have.

In 2021, the opposition to remote learning morphed into resistance to critical race theory, a charge led by activist Christopher Rufo and taken up by DeSantis in Florida and other Republican governors. The debate over teaching about race spawned a parallel debate over gender. If the controversies reflected genuine discomfort about how to talk about genuinely contentious issues in the classroom  and at what age it was appropriate to talk about them in the first place the partisanship playing out on social media and cable news turned what could have been a national conversation into a shouting match.

Rufo's project to brand all progressive educational content "critical race theory" succeeded to an astonishing degree, powering the introduction of new restrictions in classrooms across the country. A group of Texas educators sought to redefine the enslavement of Africans in the American colonies as "involuntary relocation." Districts banned Maus, the graphic novel about the Holocaust, and the Harry Potter series. In Florida, where some of the most restrictive rules went into effect, teachers had to remove flags bearing the edict to "coexist."

Educators could not help but recall the anti-communist witch hunts that had necessitated strong teachers' unions in the first place.

Two books of the graphic novel "Maus" by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman are pictured in this illustration, in Pasadena, California, U.S., January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/Illustration

[Ronald] Reagan would actually be turning in his grave right now about how the Republican Party has now operated with respect to democracy, Weingarten said. In her view, Trumps Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other conservatives are trying to create a Christian national state, a project that first requires the destruction of public education.

Its a fundamental resistance to the institutions that give voice and agency to everyone, Weingarten says.

Between saving democracy and shoring up standardized test scores, she has more than enough work for the year ahead, especially now that merely keeping schools open is not seen as the achievement it perhaps was in 2021.

Whats keeping me up at night is that this needs to be, and we need to do everything in our power to make this, as joyful and as normal a year as possible, Weingarten told Yahoo News. Kids need a sense of joy. They need a sense of normalcy.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described First Lady Jill Biden as an AFT member.
A senior Metropolitan Police officer has said policing in the run-up to the Queens funeral will be a hugely complex operation.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy on Sunday said hundreds of extra officers had already been called in as thousands descended on the capital following the monarchs death.

Officers are likely to be concerned with managing crowds, with a huge number of mourners expected to queue for several hours, including overnight, to pay their respects to the Queen as she lies in state, expected to be from Wednesday.

Stuart Cundy, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police (Yui Mok/PA)

Leaders from around the globe will also travel to the UK for the state funeral on Monday, meaning security will be of increased concern.

Mr Cundy said: Our role is to ensure this is going to be a safe and a secure set of events.

Our policing operation is hugely complex, with a huge amount of detail within it, as you can well imagine.

So were always mindful of all manner of different potential things that might occur. We know that not just the eyes of the United Kingdom but the world will be on London at this point in time.

Members of the public are being encouraged to engage with police and speak to them if they have any concerns.

Mr Cundy said: This is a point in time for everybody to remember Her late Majesty the Queen, to pay respects, and I think also to celebrate the long life of public service which she demonstrated.

As a police officer, we swear a solemn oath and its a real privilege to be serving His Majesty the King. The Met is well prepared and people will already have seen significant policing presence of my colleagues here in London, and that will continue to build over the coming days.

Were working closely with other police forces here in London, and many other partners and other agencies that are involved in the many events that will take place from now leading up to the state funeral on Monday.

World leaders are expected to be in London for the state funeral, but Mr Cundy said the force was prepared for their visit.

He said: As part of our policing operation, and we have much experience with this here in the Met Police, is to protect key individuals that may be coming at different points in time, but particularly to the state funeral on Monday, and then undoubtedly that will be many people, many significant individuals from across the world, but we have excellent protection officers that will be working with other colleagues to ensure that theres a safe and secure environment for people to come and pay their respects and to remember that life and public service of Her late Majesty the Queen.
Thousands of well-wishers lined the streets as the Queens coffin embarked on the first stage of its journey to her final resting place.

Draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top, the Queens oak coffin was seen in public for the first time at 10am Sunday as it began its six-hour trip from the Queens summer sanctuary in the Highlands to Edinburgh.

It was carried to the hearse by six Balmoral estate gamekeepers tasked with the symbolic gesture after it had been at rest in the ballroom so the Queens estate workers could say their goodbyes.

As the cortege made its stately progress, flowers were thrown into the hearses path by crowds on both sides of the road in Ballater  the closest village to Balmoral  which was sombre and silent.

The Queen and her family were often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the royal family have space to be themselves.

Many shops in the picturesque Victorian village had photographs of the Queen in their windows.

Well-wishers lined the streets as the hearse passed through Ballater, the closest village to Balmoral, on its journey to Edinburgh (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Along the 180-mile route, crowds broke into applause after the cortege passed.

Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was a sad and poignant moment as Her Majesty, The Queen leaves her beloved Balmoral for the final time.

Writing on Twitter, she added: Today, as she makes her journey to Edinburgh, Scotland will pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.

The Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence were in a limousine as part of the procession directly behind the hearse.

The Princess Royal and her husband Admiral Sir Tim Laurence travelled behind the hearse on its journey to Edinburgh (Paul Campbell/PA)

The cortege passing along Edinburghs Royal Mile on its journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse from Balmoral (Peter Byrne/PA)

Meanwhile, Charles was proclaimed King to large crowds at Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, at Cardiff Castle, in Wales, and at Hillsborough Castle, in Northern Ireland, as he prepares to embark on his first tour of the UK since the Queens death.

Operation Spring Tide will see Charles travel to Cardiff with Camilla on Friday after attending similar ceremonies in Belfast and Edinburgh this week.

A trumpeteer sounds a fanfare during an Accession Proclamation Ceremony at Cardiff Castle, Wales (Ben Birchall/PA)

Later, the Queens grieving grandson, now the Prince of Wales, spoke about his deep affection for Wales on a call with Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, a Kensington Palace spokesperson said.

As the cortege approached Holyroodhouse, crowds were 10 deep in places on Edinburghs Royal Mile, a famous thoroughfare the Queen knew well.

The Queens children and their spouses  Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex  watched as soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland carried the coffin into the palace.

In a touching gesture, deference to the Queen was still observed, with the royal women curtseying and the men bowing their heads.

The cortege passes down Edinburghs Royal Mile on its journey from Balmoral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse (Jane Barlow/PA)

Pallbearers carry the Queens coffin as it arrives at Holyroodhouse (Alkis Konstantinidis/PA)

Elsewhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a sermon on Sunday morning, acknowledging that many people will be navigating their way around the raw and ragged edges of grief.

Speaking at Canterbury Cathedral, the Most Rev Justin Welby said those who met the Queen were always struck by her ability to make them feel as though they were the most important, the only person in the room, the only person in the street, in the crowd.

The Archbishop of Canterbury delivers a sermon at a special service at Canterbury Cathedral on Sunday (Gareth Fuller/PA)

King Charles III has the same ability to see the value of each person as God sees them.

That is his conscious understanding of people.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown added he believes the new sovereign will bring in a more informal, Scandinavian-style monarchy in the years ahead.

I think that what Prince Charles has already indicated is that the monarchy is going to be smaller, he told the BBCs Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.

A well-wisher kisses the Kings hand during a walkabout outside Buckingham Palace on Thursday (Yui Mok/PA)

Its going to be more like a Scandinavian monarchy in the future, but not in a bad way  more informal.

He stopped as he entered Buckingham Palace and talked to people in the crowd, and that was a signal that he was sending that he wanted people to feel that he was approachable.

On Monday, the King and the Queen Consort will travel to Westminster Hall, where both Houses of Parliament will meet to express their condolences, before travelling to Edinburgh to join a procession along the Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral.

(PA Graphics)

It will be followed by a service and the Vigil of the Princes by members of the royal family.

Members of the public will be able to view the Queens coffin in St Giles Cathedral from 5pm on Monday. A queuing system will be in place, with security checks and restrictions on mobile phones applying.
India sits astride critical sea lines of communication, a position that uniquely empowers it to become a truly regional naval power

With the induction of INS Vikrant as its first indigenously built aircraft carrier, India seems all set to further augment its naval prowess. While, undoubtedly, Vikrant would be a considerable force multiplier insofar as our maritime power projection capabilities are concerned, with the Chinese aggressively pushing for expansive influence globally through both the Belt and Road initiative and a blue water navy, in their efforts to exercise greater dominance in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), it is apposite to ask  how ready is India to counter this threat that could potentially diminish its ability to secure its strategic, economic and, most especially, trade interests?

India sits astride critical sea lines of communication, a position that uniquely empowers it to become a truly regional naval power. To achieve this objective, it needs to do two things. First, India needs to develop the capacities that would enable it to become the linchpin security provider to nations that inhabit the IOR rim. This would enable India to play a stabilising role in the region by ensuring the security of sea-lanes and providing humanitarian assistance when required.

Second, the Indian navy would require to have substantive tactical presence in the West Indian Ocean Region that consists of, among others countries, such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar, Kenya, Somalia, the French overseas Island of Reunion, the British Indian Ocean Territory and Diego Garcia, the latter two being colonial vestiges transformed into Western military bases. These two goals are, of course, interrelated. India cannot hope to achieve this with just an aircraft carrier or even two, no matter how significant an achievement it may seem at first blush. Two carrier battle groups do not really make for a blue water navy until and unless you have overseas military and maritime facilities where the navy can be forward deployed.

The West Indian Ocean Region is, therefore, of critical import. Indeed, Indias maritime security strategy of 2015 recognises that for India to have a true blue water navy, there is absolutely no option but to have a naval presence in the region. Thus the worm-eaten strut of no bases abroad is a non-sequitur. Creating a blue water navy is a gargantuan task but simply building more carrier battle groups without the support infrastructure where they have to operate to play a meaningful role can be a self-defeating enterprise. A more conceptual approach is required to make the navy a player in the Indian Ocean region.

The Chinese are on the ball with despatch. The PLA Navy (PLAN) is far ahead of us in terms of having a substantial presence in the Indian Ocean region. While the commissioning of its newest aircraft carrier, Fujian, in June this year, Beijing is eyeing overseas facilities that would help sustain and support its blue water naval presence with even greater urgency.

This search for overseas bases has even the US worried. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of the US militarys Africa Command, referred to Chinas attempts at creating naval bases around Africa as the most significant threat.

China is focussing on the Indian Ocean with laser intensity. It has invested in ports in multiple countries to augment its maritime presence. In 2017, it built a naval base in Djibouti that lies on the Horn of Africa adjacent to the Gulf of Aden. With Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and a surveillance station on Coco Islands in Myanmar, the Chinese have gradually enhanced their maritime footprint and are now looking beyond the String of Pearls at other partners in the western Indian Ocean  Madagascar being one among myriad other potential candidates. With two decades of debt diplomacy in Africa to boot the Chinese have developed the equities and IOUs to move from a commercial to a military presence on that continent.

The Chinese naval base in Djibouti houses helicopter pads and is big enough to host aircraft carriers and submarines. The Chinese even attempted to develop a facility in the United Arab Emirates, which was nipped in the bud after the US intervened. With Chinas Ream naval base in Cambodia coming to fruition, its ability to dominate the Gulf of Thailand and, by extension, both the mouth of the Indo-Pacific and South China Sea, as well as surmount the Malacca dilemma, would get further enhanced.

Chinas 2019 defence white paper is instructive in outlining its naval strategy going forward. It is explicit in stating  the PLA must develop overseas logistics facilities and safeguard China's overseas interests. The Chinese have long spoken of the String of Pearls paradigm which posits that China needs a string of bases across the Indian Ocean to protect Chinese resources and shipping lanes. Through their basing strategy, the Chinese hope to achieve two things  first, they seek to project their military might; and second, they aim to sustain their military power at longer distances from their own coastline. However, now their aspirations have gone far beyond the String of Pearls. Both these aspects must lead India to think of newer ways to counter Chinas influence in the Indian Ocean.

Last, as the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean grows, it is bound to negatively affect Indias ability to both manoeuvre and protect its interests. It is well understood that the String of Pearls Plus and China's Belt and Road Initiative considerably heighten Indias strategic vulnerability. While the British, the Americans, and the French have multiple bases all around the world  partly the legacies of empire and partly due to the Cold War  India needs to assert its own dominance in the region through a carefully calibrated approach that takes the apprehensions of the West Indian Ocean Region countries into consideration. There has been an increase in maritime and security cooperation with the West Indian Ocean Region countries but much more needs to be done.

India needs to leverage its goodwill it enjoys in these countries to enhance naval cooperation and commercial activity.

Its basing initiatives, both in Mauritius and Seychelles, seem to have stalled substantively because of domestic opposition fermented by both friends and adversaries who do not want India to acquire a foothold in the playground of the great powers. This undermines our strategic and tactical presence considerably. India must be cognisant of Themistocles's old adage that he who commands the sea, commands everything. It is as true today as it was then.
The 3,750-km Bharat Jodo Yatra is taking place at a time when many predict the further decline and demise of the Grand Old Party.

Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, who is not exactly in the good books of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has a never-say-die spirit. His favourite quote is: You are not defeated when you lose. You are defeated when you quit!

It seems Rahul Gandhi too believes in Paulo Coelhos quote that sends out the message: keep fighting whatever the odds. And the odds are many for the Congress and its leader.

As Mr Gandhi embarks on an ambitious nationwide yatra, the picture thats projected is of a determined man undaunted by defeat, dejection, ridicule and rejections. The 3,750-km Bharat Jodo Yatra, billed as the longest padayatra ever, is taking place at a time when many predict the further decline and demise of the Grand Old Party.

If its really a new beginning, as the party claims, it will be good for the organisation. This is because consistency has never been Rahuls virtue and therefore the 150-day yatra is an acid test for the young leader to emerge as the Oppositions prime challenger. There are already several leaders preparing to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the next polls. In this era of 24-hour politics, people want their leaders to be proactive. The laidback are laggards. The quitters are the defeated.

With debacles in two successive Lok Sabha polls since May 2014, the Congress is already down in the dumps and the only way it can now go is up. As the political clock starts ticking for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, just 20 months away, Rahul is trying to put the house in order with the yatra.

But the attacks and barbs from the ruling BJP and its sympathisers on the exercise undertaken by the young leader signifies that they are a bit rattled within. Everyone knows Rahul is the favourite punching bag of those striving for a Congress-mukt Bharat.

Perhaps, no leader in post-Independent India would have been ridiculed as much as Rahul. One must have real daring and character to get going amid such slander.

This isnt to say that Rahuls leadership doesnt have flaws. They are many like with any other leader. The problem is that only his flaws are magnified by a section of the media. Consistency isnt one of his strong points, but speaking truth to power is. No other Opposition leader has dared to expose the powers that be in such a manner as he has done. Thoda hatke, thoda bachke is the cautious line adopted by several others, especially the leaders of regional parties, while Rahul has insisted that he is afraid of no one.

As a political commentator put it: The government of the day is adamant in showing Rahul as intellectually inadequate, emotionally unstable and now also an alleged money-launderer.

If one believes Rahuls detractors that he isnt a wise man, to put it mildly, he should have been ignored. Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his loyalists constantly targeting Rahul for the past eight years? Why the sobriquet Pappu? Why the false concern of what will happen to the Congress under him? Why so much criticism when he goes abroad? They should have just ignored him. Let the sleeping dogs lie  that should have been their strategy.

But the strategy is different. It is aimed at demoralising the opponents so much so that they give up fighting and become the vassals of those in power and are content with the crumbs doled out to them. The narrative of a strong leader entails that others remain meek and servile no matter what it might cost the republic.

In such a time, to remain the key Opposition leader is the worst predicament. Its a real test not only of strength, stamina and endurance alone, but also the will to fight and stand up for ones values and convictions. These are not normal times, when those in power publicly proclaim their intention to rid the country of a key Opposition force.

The yatra should be seen in this light. It is a bold attempt to connect with people on the lines enunciated by Mahatma Gandhi. The yatra will cover 3,750 km from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Jammu and Kashmir.

It is a cardinal principle in electoral politics that any party can attract allies in elections only if it shows its presence on the ground and has a strong support base. The Congress must work on a war footing to make its organisation shipshape and expose the omissions and commissions of the ruling side.

What better way to do this than to connect with the people through a yatra? The Congress message must be taken to the people as attempts are being made by hook or crook to show that the BJP, that has emerged as the worlds largest political party, is the only one gaining ground through its ideology and the rest will be falling by the wayside sooner rather than later.

Rahuls refrain, while making his mark as a leader with a difference, is the belief that hatred, anger and violence will destroy us. The politics of polarisation is dangerous. History has shown that sometimes one man with courage can be the majority.

The Congress has suffered several reverses, including in many states, but at the same time its also a fact that its the only pan-India party in the Opposition that can take on the BJP. It has been seen time and again that the regional parties have their limitations.

Mahatma Gandhi had once said: All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on the fundamentals. Any compromise on the fundamentals is a surrender, for it is all give and no take.

Rahul has taken the cue. The path of the Mahatma is a difficult one. But Gandhiji had shown how he could change the narrative through his Dandi March, through which he had taken on the mighty British Empire. It had taken place in 1930, almost a century ago.

It has to be seen whether the yatra led by Rahul Gandhi can be a game-changer. The exercise is equally aimed at breaking the inertia within the party, overcoming the internal wranglings and turning the organisation into a united force. How far he will succeed will depend upon how hard he tries. Those who had come to power eight years ago promising achhe din are yet to deliver and a churn has already begun. Rahul has to show whether his long march becomes a turning point in Indian politics.
At the Angelus, Francis urged the faithful to pray for his trip to Kazakhstan, where he will meet other religious leaders to engage in dialogue inspired by the mutual desire for peace, the peace which our world thirsts for. The pope also remembered Sister Maria De Coppi killed in Mozambique.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis spoke today to the faithful gathered in St Peter's Square for the Angelus prayer.

In his address, he said that God does not rest easy if we stray away from Him, but rather gets moving to look for us. For this reason, the pontiff also urged the faithful to do the same with those who have strayed away from the Christian life.

Francis explained that the three parables of mercy in today's liturgy (Lk 15:4-32) summarise the heart of the Gospel: God is the Father who excludes no one and comes in search of us whenever we are lost.

Ultimately, the main characters in all three stories could rest easy: the shepherd is missing a sheep, but he has ninety-nine others; [. . .] the woman is missing a coin but has nine others; and even the Father also has another son, obedient, to devote himself to. [. . .]. Nonetheless, there is anxiety in their hearts [. . .] about what is missing.

For the pontiff, this is how God is. He is grieved, He trembles in his innermost being; and He sets out to come and look for us until He takes us back into his arms. The Lord does not count losses and risks; He has the heart of a father and mother, and suffers for the absence of his beloved children. [. . .] God always awaits us with open arms, whatever the situation in life in which we are lost.

He also calls upon us to accept such restlessness when we look at those who have strayed away from the Christian life. [D]o we truly miss those who are missing from our communities? Francis asked. Or are we comfortable among ourselves, calm and blissful in our groups, [. . .] without compassion for those who are far away?

Hence, he calls upon us to reflect on our relationships. [D]o I pray for those who do not believe, who have drifted away, who are bitter? Do we attract those who are distant through the style of God, which is closeness, compassion, and tenderness? The Father asks us to be attentive to the children he misses the most. Let us think of someone we know, who is close to us and has perhaps never heard anyone say, You know, you are important to God.

At the end of the Angelus, Pope Francis called on the faithful to pray for the apostolic journey he will undertake in Kazakhstan in the coming days, from 13 to 15 September.

"I will take part in the Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. It will be an opportunity to meet many religious representatives and to engage in dialogue as brothers and sisters, inspired by the mutual desire for peace, the peace our world thirsts for.

In this regard, the pontiff mentioned the new mission by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, in Ukraine "to visit various communities and bear concrete witness to the closeness of the Pope and the Church.

Finally, the pontiff remembered in his thoughts Sister Maria De Coppi, the Italian Comboni missionary killed in Chipene, Mozambique, where she lived her apostolate for almost sixty years. May her witness give strength and courage to Christians and all the people of Mozambique.
by Giorgio Bernardelli

The Vatican delegation and Chinese authorities met in a city with no official bishop since 2005. Archbishop Celli was able to meet 92-year-old underground Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen. Meanwhile, a report to the National Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives puts the number of Catholic churches in the country at 4,202 with 110,000 new baptisms in the last six years.

Milan (AsiaNews)  A year after the latest episcopal ordination in China, Bishop Cui Qingqi of Wuhan-Hankou on 8 September 2021, a Vatican delegation led by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli met with Chinese authorities in Tianjin, Vatican Secretary of State Card Pietro Parolin announced in an interview with an Italian TV network.

The trip, which took place in late August and early September, was centred on the renewal of the two-year provisional agreement between the Holy See and the Peoples Republic of China regarding the appointment of bishops, signed in 2018 and renewed on 22 October 2020, and therefore close to its expiry date.

Since Pope Francis publicly expressed hope that the agreement would be renewed and announced the positive outcome of the visit of the Vatican delegation, one can easily conclude that the Agreement was effectively renewed even though an official announcement will likely be made on a day closer to its formal expiry.

Indeed, a crucial date is approaching for China, 16 October, and the opening of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China. It is unthinkable that the agreement with the Vatican could still be under discussion so close to a date that will define the regimes internal balance of power and Chinese President Xi Jinpings place in it.

Back in April, in an interview with CNA, Card Parolin said that he hoped" that the renewal would provide an opportunity to make clarifications or review some points of the Agreement.

Thus, this raises a question. Was the visit by the Vatican delegation to Tianjin an opportunity to achieve results in this regard? Since the content of the original agreement is still a secret, it is hard to answer. Things will become clear if and when new appointments are made.

Yet, as noted by Hong Kong Catholic blogger Lucia Cheung, there is also an internal Chinese element that rules out major changes in the agreements renewal. Earlier this year, Wang Zuo'an, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, resigned, replaced by Cui Maohu, a party official without a background in the religious bureaucracy.

In view of this, discussions on substantive aspects would require more time, probably until next year. But this did not happen.

Significantly, in Tianjin, a metropolis in northern China, the Vatican delegation visited 92-year-old Bishop Melchior Shi of Hongzhen, head of the underground community, who, with the approval of the Holy See, was ordained as a coadjutor by his predecessor, Mgr Stephen Li Side, who passed away in 2019.

Although Tianjin has been without an official bishop since 2005, Mgr Shi Honghzen has never been recognised by Chinese authorities because of his refusal to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and has been under house arrest for quite some time. During their meeting with the elderly prelate, the Vatican delegation was able to give him a pectoral cross on behalf of the pope.

The great Diocese of Tianjin remains a significant test for the agreement on episcopal appointment. Although the meeting appears to be a sign of openness towards the elderly prelate, the issue of a new bishop is still unclear.

As Lucia Cheung notes in her blog, the Vatican had already picked a local priest, Fr Yang Wangwan, as Mgr Shi Honghzens successor before 2018. But his name does not appear among the delegates sent by the Diocese of Tianjin to the 10th National Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, held in August in Wuhan. Thus, it is very hard to imagine that he could be officially recognised as the head of the Church in Tianjin.

As AsiaNews noted with respect to the Wuhan Assembly, the documents of the official Church do not refer to any agreement with the Holy See on episcopal appointment.

Recently, chinacatholic.cn, the official website of state-controlled Catholic organisations, published a report presented in Wuhan by Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Haimen (Jiangtsu province), who was elected to head the Council of Chinese Bishops, an organisation not recognised by the Holy See along with the CPCA.

According to the report, the process of episcopal appointments over the past six years, that is since the previous Assembly, was completely autonomous, led by the CPCA. It also provides some interesting data on the Church in China today.

Overall, the country is divided into 98 dioceses, has 4,202 churches, and another 2,238 active sites. Some 66 bishops took part in the meeting, notes Bishop Shen Bin, thus confirming that at least a third of the dioceses are without a bishop.

In the last six years, 289 new priests were ordained, 161 new sisters made their profession of faith, and almost 110,000 baptisms took place, he adds.

Also noteworthy are some other references to pastoral activities. In the past six years, 550,000 copies of the Bible were printed with more than 100,000 handed out for free in the poorest regions.

Bishop Shen Bin also mentions initiatives carried out in various churches across the country during the Year of the Family and the Year of Saint Joseph, two initiatives promoted by Pope Francis for the universal Church but also celebrated in mainland China.

Last but not least, with respect to the charity work by Chinese Catholic communities, he explains that "according to partial statistics, churches in China have offered material aid to the needy worth at least 173 million yuan (US$ 25 million).
Email Newsletters

Get the best of The Aspen Daily News in your inbox. Our newsletters are free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Americas Aggressor program was initiated in the early 1970s, being a response to the high air combat loss rate experienced during the Vietnam War. Some, including Air Force and Navy brass, attributed this loss rate to the lack of dogfighting skills among American pilots, especially when faced with technologically equivalent enemies.Thats how the idea of a professional adversary force conducting a program of intense dissimilar air combat training was born within the ranks of the Air Force. Loaded with the most modern pieces of hardware available, this adversary force, best represented by a team called the 64th Aggressor Squadron, is now regularly conducting training exercises, teaching airmen how to respond, act and react when faced with equally skilled and weaponized adversaries.The F-16 you see in the main photo of this piece is an Aggressor, and is pictured here as it was flying over the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) in mid-July, during the Red Flag-Nellis 22-3 exercise. Piloted by the 64th Capt. Tim Joubert, the plane looks locked and loaded, and scary as they get for whoever is not ready for it.But, if you look close enough though, the plane is not the first thing that catches the eye in this pic. If you focus you attention ahead of the flying weapons platform, on the ground, youll spot a blob of sorts, a strangely shaped shadow, one that has you thinking at first, as the brain tries to find ways to identify it.Then, the brain fog lifts, your eyes see more shadows clustered to the north, and its then when you realize they are cloud shadows playing around on the surface of the desert.Just as bening, after all, as the F-16s of the 64th.
Although revolutionary when compared to the current variant, in use since 1983, xEMU will probably not be tailored to suit astronauts of all shapes and sized and, just like the Space Shuttle spacesuit, will be something people will have to adapt to, and not the other way around. And it will probably not be fit for the needs of Mars astronauts.As it stands, crewed Mars missions are not envisioned before the 2030s. Its too early to talk about them, but not too early to pave the way. And one way researcher Bonnie Dunbar from Texas A&M University is planning to do that is to use Digital Thread for the development of Mars spacesuits.Digital Thread (DT) is defined as the use of digital tools to design, evaluate, and manage products, and its already a thing in some aspects of human activity. Its unclear how thatll work for custom spacesuit design, and this is why Dunbar submitted the idea of a feasibility study to NASA, which rewarded her with an Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I grant.The study aims to identify all key components of a spacesuit and current manufacturing technologies, map those to DT components, identify technology gaps, benchmark required technologies and capabilities in industry, academia and government, and develop a conceptional DT model for future Spacesuit Development and operational support.If it proves itself, the concept could be used to create custom spacesuits for Mars astronauts (and those going to other places in the future), anthropometrically shaped space ships which must protect the crew from the extreme environments of space, while at the same time allowing for all the mobility they need to perform their tasks.Being in pre-feasibility study phase, this project is still in its infancy, but dont be surprised if upcoming spacesuits will be born thanks to what you read about above.
One very busy bee in this respect is German Thunderbike , which constantly releases new two-wheelers onto this world. A particular aspect we love about these guys is that they go the extra mile, and try to photograph their Harleys in the most diverse of settings, hoping to increase the impact they have when first seen.One quick look at the attached gallery, and you know theyve succeeded in doing exactly that with one of their latest builds, the Rumblin Joe. A former Street Bob , the bike was customized, then sent to a car graveyard for the photo shoot.Now flaunting classic bobber lines, the bike looks right at home between the wrecks, not because its like one of them, dead and useless, but because of the exact opposite, being young (its a 2022 model year) and (re)fit.The Street Bob underwent the usual Thunderbike conversion process, being fitted with about 30 new and aftermarket parts to make it stand out from stock. In all, and not taking into account the man-hours, paint job, and short header exhaust system (supplied by Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde), the parts are worth close to 7,000 euros, which is about the same in dollars at todays exchange rates.We get fatter wheels, made so by using special Avon tires, wide handlebars up front and a minimalist approach at the opposite end, new fenders, a leather saddle, and a paint job in anthracite gray, enhanced by the use of black here and there.
kW

Sure, we do have the Voyagers, Pioneers, and New Horizons, but those were only meant to study our system's outer planets. Yet, a truly interstellar ship not existing doesnt mean they have not been imagined every now and then. Some have even gotten detailed studies, like Americas nuclear interstellar spaceship design, an idea so outrageous it got a fitting name: Project Longshot.Longshot was a study conducted by the U.S. Naval Academy and NASA back in the late 1980s. With the Space Shuttle program at its height, people felt inspired, and were looking to travel well beyond our solar system, in search of new wonders.Well, not travel per se, as Longshot was not a spacecraft meant to carry crew, but a fully autonomous (yes, they were aware of the concept back in the 80s) probe. It was supposed to travel to the Alpha Centauri star system, located 4.37 light years from our own Sun, to study its three suns, the Alpha (A), Beta (B), and Proxima.How far is that? Well, consider the Space Shuttle we mentioned, with its 15,500 mph (28,000 km) orbital speed, would have needed some 190,000 years to get there. The New Horizons , traveling at 36,400 mph (58,500 kph), would need 78,000 years. By comparison, the Longshot should have been capable of making the trip in just... 100 years.How would that have been possible? The probe would have used a pulsed fission nuclear drive, one that wasnt available at the time the project was drawn up, but was believed to become available in 30 years or so  thatd be about now, if you think about it, and no such thing is in sight.The reactor was imagined with an output of 300, and was supposed to power both the pulse drive of the spaceship and its instruments. It would have used liquid potassium fuel, enriched with uranium nitride pellets.The ship comprised the head, six cylindrical fuel tanks, the central truss, the fission power reactor, and the fusion drive system. The modular components of the Longshot would have been assembled here on Earth, then they would have been launched in orbit, where they could be assembled at Space Station Freedom, the precursor that never came to be of the International Space Station (ISS).Once ready, the ship would have launched using conventional drives, and once it got far enough, would have ignited its nuclear drive and set off on its mission.Longshot was envisioned as a 396 tons (873,000 lb) spacecraft, but much of that weight would disappear en route, as fuel got burned, and the fuel tanks got jettisoned: tanks one and two after more than 33 years, three and four after 66 years, five and six after 71 years. At the 71-year mark, the spacecraft would have rotated, and engine and shield would have separated as well.Once at its destination, Longshot was supposed to enter an elliptical orbit around Beta Centauri and start sending back data from the system. The main things scientists were to look for during the mission: properties of the interstellar medium, characteristics of the Alpha Centauri system, and astrometry.A series of instruments were believed to be best suited for the mission, namely IR and visual imagers, UV and astrometrical telescopes, high-energy particle detectors, spectrophotometers, magnetometers, and of course lasers for communication. The ship was outlined in such a way as to include three of each, given how there are no rocket scientists so far out to repair hardware if it malfunctions.Those who dreamed this thing up were planning to have it launched in the first decades of the 21st century. Like many other projects in the space industry, factors conspired to kill Project Longshot long before it was made. Even more disturbing is that, at a time when we should be well on our way to another star system, were fighting tooth and nail just to send something around our own Moon.For a complete look at what a proposal for an interstellar spaceship looked like back in the 1980s, open the PDF attached below. Its a bit long, but most definitely worth the read.The video below is a short virtual trip in the Alpha Centauri system, put together by Kosmo.
New documents obtained by Dossier Center reveal a few more details about the super-secretive and also super-expensive and impressive megayacht known as Scheherazade (formerly Project Lightning), which shipyard Lurssen delivered to the owner in 2020. As of the time of press, Scheherazade is arrested in Italy , where it had docked for repairs some months before current sanctions against Russian oligarchs went into effect. Scheherazade is the stuff of superyacht legends, and its not only because of whoever might own it, or the fact that its been seized by the Italian government. At 459 feet (140 meters) in total length and a volume of 10,167 GT, it is the worlds 12th largest vessel; with a reported cost between $700 million and $1 billion, it is also among the most expensive.The fact that no one who shouldnt be there was ever allowed onboard has given it a mythical and mysterious aura, with reports saying that every screw and even the toilet-paper holder are made of solid gold . Those reports should be taken with a grain of salt (or two), but leaked photos do show that whoever owns Scheherazade is not a man of regular (or subtle) tastes.Speaking of the Scheherazade owner, Dossier Center says that its undoubtedly Putin, even though establishing this for a fact is more of a mission impossible than Ethan Hunt has ever had to complete. Dossier Center is a group that tracks the criminal activity of various people associated with the Kremlin and is backed by Open Russia opposition movement founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Dossier Center has had access to European documents related to the build and the seizure of Scheherazade and, if not able to verify the owner of the megayacht with accuracy, its at least able to put a figure on the build.That figure is $592 million or 583 million, but Putin didnt dig in his own pockets to get it. As per the report, it was Putins oligarch friends who all chipped in for the build, which was presented to him as a 2014 Christmas or New Year present. 2014 was a good year for Putin, with accomplishments like the Sochi Olympic Winter Games, the annexation of Crimea, the start of the war in Eastern Ukraine, and the impending birth of his child with former gymnast-turned-politician Alina Kabaeva.Russian oligarchs chose Lurssen and commissioned the build of what would become Scheherazade ; billionaire investor Gennady Timchenko handled the collection of the money and was the middleman in the relationship with Lurssen. The shipyard had previously delivered vessels of similarly impressive size, like Dilbar and Graceful, the latter of which is also owned by Putin. Five companies paid for the build: Alera Assets (225.9 million / $229.3 million), Diams Overseas (288.4 million / $292.8 million), High Definition (60 million / $60.9 million), Imperial Yachts (3.9 million / $4 million), and Onda Mare (3.9 million/ $4 million). An unknown party made two transfers of 1.1 million ($1.2 million) each.The paper owner of Scheherazade is Bielor Asset, whose owner changed names and nationalities depending on when you started taking a closer look at it. In March 2022, in a letter to Italian authorities, oil businessman Eduard Khudainatov confirmed he was the de facto beneficiary of Bielor Asset. Wealthy as he might be, he doesnt have the financial resources to own several yachts, including Scheherazade: he is also the straw owner of Suleiman Kerimovs 106-meter (348-foot) Amadea and Igor Sechins 135-meter (443-foot) Crescent This obvious and very elaborate attempt to hide all connections Putin has with Scheherazade, as well as the fact that its main crew is made up of members of the FSO , or the Federal Protective Service that Putin uses, point to the fact that he is the true beneficiary. Captain Guy Bennett-Pierce, who heads the British crew, has previously told the media that he had no knowledge of the identity of the owner, nor had he ever seen Putin onboard. The report says that Kabaeva, Putins mistress, was onboard several times and that she even moved to Italy in recent years.This report doesnt establish for a fact that Putin owns the gigantic, outrageous megayacht, but it offers crumbs that could lead to this conclusion. Until authorities are able to clear all this out, if ever, Scheherazade has switched the flag country to Malaysia, and is registered officially as a houseboat . An enormous, five-deck, 40-guest and 90-crew houseboat, with two helidecks, one hangar, a spa facility, and a pool that becomes a huge nightclub. All of it dripping in gold, allegedly.
SUV

Rapper Fabolous, whose real name is John David Jackson, loves the finer things in life, and he doesnt miss an opportunity to show that. He usually rides around in one of his Rolls-Royce Cullinans, but his collection also includes a Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 and a newly added 2023 Range Rover In one of his latest posts on Instagram, Fabolous posed at a gas station next to his silver Rolls-Royce Cullinan with yellow accents . It seems to be his go-to vehicle, because hes been flaunting it a lot recently.The rapper wrote in the description that I get my gas in Jersey cuz they pump ya gas & will take a fit pic for you too lol. And, indeed, they did take some pretty good pictures of him. He didnt fail to comment on the high prices, though, adding in the comment box, Gas Prices so high Ahk gotta take this pic for me.Fabolous has a lot of reasons to love driving his Cullinan. One of them is that its the onlyin Rolls-Royce's current lineup, which makes it even more special. It has an imposing exterior, combined with Rolls-Royce's usual luxury inside the cabin. The Cullinan is also very powerful, powered by Rolls-Royce's 6.75-liter V12 twin-turbocharged engine, which delivers 563 horsepower (570 ps) and 627 lb-ft (850 Nm) of torque to all wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission. It can hit 62 mph (100 kph) in 5.2 seconds, with a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph).Besides hanging out in his Cullinan, the rapper just attended DJ Khaleds album release party for God Did on September 10. Fabolous also didnt miss the opportunity to match his ride there, which was his white Ford Bronco
The Taliban leadership in Kabul

Saeed Naqvi

The spate of terrorist acts in the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the latest one on the Russian embassy, begin to make sense in terms of the image that has stayed with me ever since I visited the most Anglaise of hill stations in the South-Ootacamund.

Part of the copycat culture colonialism left behind in Ooty was the annual Hunt except that horsemen and hundreds of hounds chased not a fox but a jackal. When the Royal society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals banned the sport, the Brown Sahibs had no option. They too had to bring down the curtain on the sport.

The Sunday Read



A pity, I could not watch the hunt but, I said, I would like to see the pedigree hounds which dog lovers would exchange the world for. Without much fuss, we were escorted to some well-appointed kennels where the canines appeared to be most content.

This is when an idea began to gestate in my mind. Hounds trained for the annual hunt can be parked in Kennel once their utility as hunters is over. What do states do with redundant human material trained to slaughter, dismember, decapitate plant bombs in mosques and blow themselves up for booking with the Houris in paradise?

Once the annual hunt was outlawed, hounds could be kept in kennels, sterilized, or given away to bonafide dog lovers. What does one do with redundant, thoroughbred terrorists? You cant shoot them, because the ones who escape the firing squad will sing like canaries. If this spare Jihadi talent is left to its own devices, it will find employment in places that are not on the list of locations to be destabilized.

Once the Mujahideen had helped push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, the Americans packed up their bags and left. Like water finds outlets through crevices in the ground, the Mujahideen, found their way to Kashmir, Egypt, Algeria, and heaven knows where else en route. When the matter of expanding Muslim terrorism spilling out of the Afghan Jihad was reported to Zbigniew Brzezinski, he shrugged his shoulder: We wanted to defeat the Soviet Union and not worry about come stirred up Muslims.

Quite imperceptibly, the stirred up Muslims mutated into assets, to be transferred from place to place, remote controlled. The transferability of terrorists as an asset became most transparent after they had done useful destructive service in Syria.

American authorship of the Syrian operation was available in the US newspapers as well as in Congressional hearings. There were early reports of the Obama administration preparing for something akin to the colour revolution in Syria. This entailed a deployment of technology which would neutralize official methods of suppressing news. The West does nothing without wearing the garb of high morality. So, promote shadow internet and mobile phone systems which dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by shutting down communications network.

We have all of this on the authority of the New York Times. James Glanz and John Markoff of the NYT describe an operation on the fifth floor of L street, Washington DC, where a group of young entrepreneurs, looking like a garage band, are assembling deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype internet-in-a-suitcase, to be applied against the Syrian regime.

The ground has to be prepared for Liberation Technology. Just when the US ambassador to Damascus, Stephen Ford, and his French counterpart, Eric Chevalier, were visiting Homs, Huma, and Darra to meet clusters of anti-regime protesters, I was in President Assad's palace with a former Indian Ambassador to Syria. We were meeting Buthaina Shabaan, Assads most elegant adviser known to my ambassador friend from the years of his posting.

I asked Shabaan something that puzzled me. Is it common in your country to have ambassadors mingle with insurgents? She straightened herself and looked me in the eye. It just shows how penetrated we are.

Ed Peck, a former US ambassador to some Middle Eastern countries who happened to be independently in Syria, wrote us a letter

I have been dismayed by the accolades and support given to Ambassador Ford, our man in  and now out of Syria, for stepping well out of the traditional and appropriate role of a diplomat and actively encouraging the revolt/insurrection/sectarian strife/outside meddling.

A few years later Abu Bakr al Baghdadi puts out a video from Mosuls main mosque on July 4, 2014, declaring the formation of an Islamic Caliphate. In August 2014, Obama gives a significant interview to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Asked why he did not order air strikes against ISIS just when it reared its head in June-July 2014, Obama makes an admission:

Airstrikes on Baghdadi in July, Would have taken the pressure off Nouri al Maliki Iraqs stubbornly anti-American Shia Prime Minister. In other words, the rapid march of ISIS from Mosul to the outskirts of Baghdad was facilitated to keep the pressure on Maliki. In September 2014, Maliki was shown the door. Moral: terrorists can be assets in circumstances.

Friedman becomes more brazen once Trump is in the saddle: he writes that Trump must give up the pretense of fighting the IS  because that is neither the USs nor Israels national interest. Trump should let ISIS be Assads, Irans, Hezbollahs, and Russias headache.

Russians, Iranians, and Chinese have all been talking about militants from Syria having been flown to Afghanistan. A new US-friendly government has been brought into being in Pakistan which, by most accounts, facilitated a drone to fly through its air space to kill Al Qaedas Ayman al-Zawahiri in the center of Kabul. Taliban says they do not know. Surely there is a body somewhere?

Also Read: Rise and fall of Gorbachev: My two and a half interviews

Meanwhile, about 70 Afghan envoys are working for Afghanistan but not for the Taliban. Who is paying their salaries? The Times London reports that the US did not take the even UK into confidence on the secret annexure to the Doha Accord with the Taliban. It is all very mysterious.

Saeed Naqvi is a veteran Journalist
Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
In Wisconsin, a group of doctors and lawyers is trying to come up with guidelines on how to comply with a newly revived 173-year-old law that prohibits abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman. They face the daunting task of defining all the emergencies and conditions that might result in a pregnant womans death, and the fact that doctors could be punished with six years in prison if a prosecutor disagrees that abortion was necessary.

A similar task force at an Arizona hospital recommends having a lawyer on call to help doctors determine whether a womans condition threatens her life enough to justify an abortion. Already, the hospital has added questions to its electronic medical forms so they can be used to argue that patients who had abortions would have died without them.

And in Texas, oncologists say they now wait for pregnant women with cancer to get sicker before they treat them, because the standard of care would be to abort the fetus rather than allow treatments that damage it, but a state law allows abortion only at risk of death. Some hospitals have established committees to evaluate whether a pregnancy complication is severe enough to justify an abortion.

Two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion, the medical consequences extend far beyond abortion clinics and women seeking to end unwanted pregnancies. Doctors who never thought of themselves as abortionists, to use the language of the courts decision, say the criminalization of abortion is changing how they treat women who arrive in emergency rooms and on labor and delivery floors with wanted but complicated pregnancies.

During the 50 years of Roe, abortion became the standard of care in many medical situations. Now, laws ban it or make it unavailable in about half the states, usually with exceptions only for rape and incest or to save the life of the pregnant woman. While a few states have attempted to specify conditions that qualify, the laws are generally vague and have failed to account for every possibility. With lawmakers attempting to regulate medical procedures, medical providers say they have to think like lawyers.

A lot of us go into emergency medicine because of the imperative to take care of every patient  the person without housing and a CEO  and were really proud of that ethical obligation to say, Heres the patient in front of me and Im going to do everything I can for them, said Dr. Alison Haddock, an emergency physician in Houston and chair of the board of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Now, she said, Were no longer basing our judgment on the clinical needs of the woman, were basing it on what we understand the legal situation to be.

Physicians would more typically talk to hospital lawyers about guardianship when caring for elderly or psychiatric patients, Haddock said. Now, when patients arrive with ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages or hemorrhaging  all situations where abortion has been established as standard care  the questions for the lawyers are more pressing: Do we wait until the fetus is definitely dead, or is mostly dead good enough? she asked. If theyre telling us to wait for the condition to be fully emergent, how much bleeding is too much?

Having to consult a lawyer in an emergent situation is a whole new ballgame, she said.

Doctors in Texas began dealing with the questions even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization. A law that took effect a year ago effectively banned most abortions after six weeks.

Some hospitals have instituted policies requiring one or two additional physicians to review the decision before an abortion can proceed. In states including Indiana and Louisiana, the law requires two doctors to certify that a woman faces life-threatening risk before she can get an abortion.

Dr. Julie Kwatra, an obstetrician in Scottsdale, Arizona, faced so many questions from doctors and nurses the weekend of the Dobbs decision in June that she and others at her hospital formed a committee to come up with guidelines to protect patients health and doctors from liability. A court has blocked one state law banning abortion, and the governor said abortion was still legal. But the states attorney general said he intended to enforce a ban that was written before Arizona became a state, so providers have almost entirely stopped.

The confusion, Kwatra said, was eminently predictable, given the number of situations where physicians have to terminate pregnancies to protect the health or life of the pregnant woman. But even she was surprised at the number and range of hospital employees who have emerged with concerns.

Forensic nurses who care for sexual assault victims in the emergency room said they would no longer provide morning-after contraception for fear it would be considered an abortion drug. Because the old law punishes those who aid and abet an abortion, an anesthesiologist worried that he might be prosecuted for putting a patient to sleep for an abortion. A neonatologist worried about liability for declining to resuscitate a fetus judged no longer viable.

We already work under a cloud of getting sued. Thats what we signed up for, Kwatra said. This is different. This is criminal liability, not civil liability. This is jail time.

Some anti-abortion doctors argue that the concerns about not being able to provide lifesaving abortion care are overblown  blatantly absurd, as Dr. Christina Francis, the chair of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said at a congressional hearing in July.

Not a single state law restricting abortion prevents treating these conditions, Francis argued, because they make exceptions for any life-threatening emergency.

Anti-abortion groups contend that life-threatening conditions are rare in pregnancy and can be treated by inducing labor or performing a C-section rather than an abortion. Even if the baby does not survive, wrote Dr. Ingrid Skop, an obstetrician and the director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group, these humane procedures allow a grieving family to show love and say goodbye.

Several high-profile cases of women denied care have captured headlines and set doctors on edge. But doctors say these extreme cases are not isolated; hospitals are routinely refusing or delaying care. One study of two Dallas hospitals in the nine months after the Texas ban took effect found that women had to wait an average of nine days for their conditions to be considered life threatening enough to justify abortion. Many suffered serious health consequences while they waited, including hemorrhaging and sepsis, and one woman had to have a hysterectomy as a result.

The Biden administration wrote medical providers in July, reminding them that they had to comply with a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The law requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing treatment to any patient who arrives with an emergency condition or in labor, or transfer them to a hospital that can provide it. That, the letter said, meant they must provide an abortion, even in states that ban it, if it is required to stabilize a womans health.

The Justice Department also sued Idaho, saying its new ban on abortion made it impossible for providers to comply with the federal law. A brief filed by a coalition of states in support of the lawsuit enumerated cases across the country where emergency physicians have had to perform abortions to save womens lives. Well beyond common complications like miscarriage or a separated placenta, they included heart conditions, kidney disorders, sickle cell anemia, acute leukemia and at least one case of preeclampsia so severe that the womans liver began to fail.

But Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued the administration for its guidance on the federal law, accusing it of an end-run to turn hospitals and emergency rooms into walk-in abortion clinics. Courts in the two states reached different conclusions: A federal judge in Texas agreed with the state and temporarily blocked implementation of the federal guidance on emergency treatment; one in Idaho agreed with the Biden administration and blocked the state law.

Theres such confusion, said Dr. Allison Linton, an obstetrician in Milwaukee, and when doctors are hearing this risk of a felony charge, theyre erring on the side of fear.

In Wisconsin, an abortion ban on the books since 1849 was blocked while Roe was in effect. Now, the governor and attorney general, who do not support the law, have asked a court to determine whether it can be enforced. In the meantime, prosecutors say they intend to enforce it, so providers have stopped abortions.

Linton recalled a woman who recently arrived at a nearby hospital with a stillborn fetus. The required procedure was an induced delivery, not abortion, but still, doctors declined to do it, so she and others received an alert to help find a physician who was willing. Patients with conditions that dont even fall under the ban are being denied care, Linton said.

Even before the Dobbs decision, she said, a committee of lawyers and doctors across the state began working to try to come up with a list of what qualified as exceptions under the law, and indications to help other doctors determine when a womans life can be said to be at risk. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has recommended that hospitals set up such task forces. But it also warned that it is impossible and dangerous to attempt to create a finite list of conditions to guide doctors. Medicine is too complex, no patients symptoms or conditions are the same, and they can deteriorate rapidly.

Roe, which prohibited states from banning abortion before viability, allowed doctors to offer patients options of how they wanted to be treated. Now that patient autonomy has gone away, said Dr. Abigail Cutler, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Im compelled by my conscience to provide abortion care, and I have the training and the skills to do so compassionately and well, she said. And so to have my hands tied and not be able to help a person in front of me is devastating.

Feeling squeezed between the law and their duty to care for patients, doctors are becoming more outspoken in their opposition. In The New England Journal of Medicine, two breast cancer doctors in Colorado, Dr. Nicole Christian and Dr. Virginia Borges, argued that because so many therapies can result in fetal anomalies or stillbirth, breast cancer patients had to be able to choose abortion. And given their broad impact on medicine, abortion restrictions should be of concern to any physician who has a patient who could be, could become, or is pregnant.

More than a dozen medical and public health associations, including the American Hospital Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, joined Democracy Forward, a group aligned with Democratic causes, to file briefs in the Texas and Idaho lawsuits regarding emergency abortion care.

The Idaho ban, one of the briefs argues, willfully disregards what it means to pregnant patients  and their doctors  to be told that, alone among all patients seeking emergency care and contrary to medical guidelines and ethics, they must wait until their life is in jeopardy to receive treatment.

Some others have said that these are incredibly rare situations, Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., the president of the American Medical Association, said in an interview. To the contrary, this is happening every day, all the time in these states.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
MEXICO CITY (AP)  Mexicos state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos oil company acknowledged Thursday it released a huge plume of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the Gulf of Mexico late last year.

A report published in June by Spanish university researchers in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters estimated that the leak contained about 40,000 tons of methane.

The article estimated that would be equivalent to releasing about 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The gas release came in December when one of the company's oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico stopped flaring, or burning off oil well gases. The company, known as Pemex, claimed the gases escaped unburned for a few hours. Researchers said it happened over a period of over two weeks.

Petroleos Mexicanos acknowledged Thursday that the leak occurred accidentally after winds and rains extinguished flames meant to burn off the gas.

But the company said only 22% of the gas release was methane, and the rest was innocuous nitrogen.

The company, known as Pemex, said the total amount of methane released was 2,224 tons, about 5% the amount estimated by the Spanish researchers.

However, that would still be a very large amount of methane to release at one time and in one place.
NEW DELHI (AP)  India on Sunday observed a day of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II with flags lowered to half-staff on all government buildings.

Official entertainment events were also canceled as a mark of respect to the departed dignitary, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
Iran condemns fresh U.S. sanctions against its intelligence ministry

Xinhua) 09:14, September 11, 2022

TEHRAN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Saturday condemned the new U.S. sanctions against its intelligence ministry, which has been accused of launching an alleged cyber attack on Albania.

"This new sanctions label, just like the previous illegal U.S. sanctions against the Intelligence Ministry, will never be able to create the slightest upset in the determination of the security servants of the Iranian people," Nasser Kanaani, spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on Iran's Intelligence Ministry and its Minister Esmail Khatib, citing alleged cyber attacks by Tehran on the Albanian government in July.

On Wednesday, Albania severed diplomatic relations with Iran. The United States supported Albania's move and vowed to take action in response to the alleged attack on its NATO ally.

Kanaani said that Washington is the "designer of this scenario" and Tirana is only a victim of Washington's scheme.

He blamed the United States for, what he called, forcing Albania to host an Iranian "terrorist sect," referring to the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).

For years, America has provided the MKO with all-out support besides training and arming it in the field of cyberspace, said Kanaani, adding that this organization has "constantly served and still serves as a tool in the hands of America to carry out acts of terror, cyberattacks, and wage psychosocial war against the Iranian government and nation."

Kanaani said the U.S. government's move to instrumentalize the MKO, which he said has the blood of over 17,000 Iranian civilians and statesmen on its hands, is "a clear example of organized support for terrorism" against Iran.

Iran will use all its capacities within the framework of international law to realize the rights of the nation and defend itself against this sinister conspiracy, he added.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
As the war in Ukraine marks 200 days, the country has reclaimed broad swaths of the south and east in a long-anticipated counteroffensive, dealing a heavy blow to Russia
Business writer

Tony Dobrowolski's main focus is on business reporting. He came to The Eagle in 1992 after previously working for newspapers in Connecticut and Montreal. He can be reached at tdobrowolski@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6224.
COEUR D'ALENE - A around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, Kootenai County Deputies responded to the 6200 Block of West Prairie Avenue in Post Falls for a report of a physical domestic dispute.

According to the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, deputies arrived on scene and a female victim said she had been struck with a table, thrown at her by a male subject.

Deputies attempted to make contact with 42-year-old Christopher L. Wilburn, of Wallace, at the Post Falls residence but he was uncooperative and made threats to the deputies on scene and refused to come out of the residence.

The Kootenai County Joint Agency SWAT Team was called to the scene. During negotiations, Wilburn told police he had several propane tanks "set up in the residence," says a press release. He also allegedly threatened SWAT members and Deputies with a bat and refused to follow any commands.

At about 7:40 p.m., Wilburn surrendered to SWAT members and was taken into custody.

Wilburn was charged with Aggravated Battery, Resisting Arrest and was transported to the Kootenai County Jail. Additional charges may be forthcoming as the investigation continues.

The female victim suffered injuries to her leg and was treated by medical personnel.

Wilburn has prior arrests in Kootenai County dating back to 2002 for charges ranging from Burglary, Malicious Injury to Property and Obstructing.

This was the second SWAT Team deployment in three days in Kootenai County. The first incident was on Thursday to assist the US Marshalls Office with a wanted felon out of Montana who was located at a residence in the Post Falls area.
Studio Manager

Remuneration: cost-to-company Location: Cape Town, Woodstock Education level: Diploma Job level: Mid/Senior Own transport required: Yes Job policy: Employment Equity position Type: Permanent Reference: #StudioManager Company: King James

Manage daily schedules

Manage and plan campaigns through the Creative Hub department

Ensure delivery of execution and production

Help guide and create project plans and ensure communication of roles & responsibilities throughout Campaign Supersquad

Schedule creative meetings

Oversee jobs and ensure they are on track, on time and on budget

Ensure time-sheets are completed and submitted on time

Oversee the forecasting of work and planning to ensure the most financially and creatively balanced solutions

Identify skills gaps and resource accordingly

Drive and coordinate awards entries

Keep abreast of advertising trends in accordance with industry best practice

A relevant tertiary qualification

Proficient in MS Office (i.e. Outlook/Excel/Word etc.)

Experience working on WorkBook will be advantageous

Minimum five years working experience as a studio manager (or in a similar role i.e. traffic manager/project manager) in an advertising agency

Strong organisational and administrative skills

Strong time management skills

Strong negotiating skills

Strong multitasking skills (able to work on multiple projects at any given time)

Thorough understanding of the creative process with the ability to think ahead and plan before each next step

Team player with ability to work independently

Able to remain calm in a pressurised environment

Accountable

Logical thinker (big picture thinking)

Agile

Motivated and goal orientated

Resilient

Reliable

Good sense of humour

Meticulous with attention to detail

Other: Flexible and willing to work beyond normal office hours; comfortable working on alcohol brands and comfortable to work on-site (at the King James office)

King James  Part of Accenture Song is seeking a resourceful Studio Manager to join their creative team. The successful candidate will work on projects of varying sizes, budgets and clients, requiring both people and process management skills; working closely with the creative hub teams and project leads as well as heads of departments to coordinate and drive workflow and execution.Interested in joining the purple blood team? Please submit a concise CV to az.oc.semajgnik@jksreerac-jk . Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Should you not hear from us within 1 week after submitting your application, kindly consider your application as unsuccessful. Posted on 11 Sep 19:56, Closing date 30 Sep
The terrorist threat behind the attacks continues to menace the country, the US president warned

US President Joe Biden has renewed the national emergency declared by former president George W. Bush in the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 for another year.

The terrorist threat behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people continues, Biden wrote in a Thursday memo published in the Federal Register, adding that the powers and authorities adopted to deal with the attacks must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2022.

The 9/11 emergency declaration is just one of several Biden has extended this week alone. Also on Thursday, the president prolonged a national emergency he had declared the previous year regarding sectarian violence and human rights abuses in Ethiopia, while on Tuesday he announced the renewal of an emergency declared by his predecessor Donald Trump in 2018 regarding the threat of foreign interference in or undermining public confidence in US elections.

Biden has declared at least six national emergencies since taking office in January 2021 and extended several more, including the Covid-19 pandemic emergency. The National Emergencies Act endows the president with over 136 powers, most of which do not require congressional approval to wield. Since its passage in 1976, more than 60 national emergencies have been declared, with only about half of them officially concluded.

The president has largely abandoned predecessors focus on external terrorist threats like the al-Qaeda hijackers held responsible for 9/11, opting to focus attention instead on domestic terrorism, which the FBI has declared to be the primary threat facing the nation.
BlackRock Unregulated Investment Firm: A virtually unregulated investment firm today exercises more political and financial influence than the Federal Reserve and most governments on this planet.

The firm, BlackRock Inc., the worlds largest asset manager, invests a staggering $9 trillion in client funds worldwide, a sum more than double the annual GDP of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This colossus sits atop the pyramid of world corporate ownership, including in China most recently, writes F. William Engdahl, a strategic risk consultant and lecturer, best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook.

Since 1988 the company has put itself in a position to de facto control the Federal Reserve, most Wall Street mega-banks, including Goldman Sachs, the Davos World Economic Forum Great Reset, the Biden Administration and, if left unchecked, the economic future of our world.

BlackRock is the epitome of what Mussolini called Corporatism, where an unelected corporate elite dictates top down to the population.

BlackRock Unregulated Investment Firm: How the worlds largest shadow bank exercises this enormous power over the world ought to concern us. BlackRock since Larry Fink founded it in 1988 has managed to assemble unique financial software and assets that no other entity has.

BlackRocks Aladdin risk-management system, a software tool that can track and analyze trading, monitors more than $18 trillion in assets for 200 financial firms including the Federal Reserve and European central banks.

He who monitors also knows, we can imagine. BlackRock has been called a financial Swiss Army Knife  institutional investor, money manager, private equity firm, and global government partner rolled into one. Yet mainstream media treats the company as just another Wall Street financial firm.

There is a seamless interface that ties the UN Agenda 2030 with the Davos World Economic Forum Great Reset and the nascent economic policies of the Biden Administration. That interface is BlackRock.

Team Biden and BlackRock

By now it should be clear to anyone who bothers to look, that the person who claims to be US President, 78-year old Joe Biden, is not making any decisions. He even has difficulty reading a teleprompter or answering prepared questions from friendly media without confusing Syria and Libya or even whether he is President.

He is being micromanaged by a group of handlers to maintain a scripted image of a President while policy is made behind the scenes by others. It eerily reminds of the 1979 Peter Sellers film character, Chauncey Gardiner, in Being There.

What is less public are the key policy persons running economic policy for Biden Inc. They are simply said, BlackRock. Much as Goldman Sachs ran economic policy under Obama and also Trump, today BlackRock is filling that key role.

The deal apparently was sealed in January, 2019 when Joe Biden, then-candidate and long-shot chance to defeat Trump, went to meet with Larry Fink in New York, who reportedly told working class Joe, that, Im here to help.

Now as President in one of his first appointees, Biden named Brian Deese to be the Director of the National Economic Council, the Presidents main adviser for economic policy.

One of the early Presidential Executive Orders dealt with economics and climate policy. Thats not surprising, as Deese came from Finks BlackRock where he was Global Head of Sustainable Investing. Before joining BlackRock, Deese held senior economic posts under Obama, including replacing John Podesta as Senior Adviser to the President where he worked alongside Valerie Jarrett. Under Obama, Deese played a key role in negotiating the Global Warming Paris Accords.

In the key policy post as Deputy Treasury Secretary under Secretary Janet Yellen, we find Nigerian-born Adewale Wally Adeyemo. Adeyemo also comes from BlackRock where from 2017 to 2019 he was a senior adviser and Chief of Staff to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, after leaving the Obama Administration.

His personal ties to Obama are strong, as Obama named him the first President of the Obama Foundation in 2019.

And a third senior BlackRock person running economic policy in the Administration now is also unusual in several respects. Michael Pyle is the Senior Economic Adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.

He came to Washington from the position as the Global Chief Investment Strategist at BlackRock where he oversaw the strategy for investing some $9 trillion of funds. Before joining BlackRock at the highest level, he had also been in the Obama Administration as a senior adviser to the Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, and in 2015 became an adviser to the Hillary Clinton presidential bid.

The fact that three of the most influential economic appointees of the Biden Administration come from BlackRock, and before that all from the Obama Administration, is noteworthy. There is a definite pattern and suggests that the role of BlackRock in Washington is far larger than we are being told.

What is BlackRock?

Never before has a financial company with so much influence over world markets been so hidden from public scrutiny. Thats no accident. As it is technically not a bank making bank loans or taking deposits, it evades the regulation oversight from the Federal Reserve even though it does what most mega banks like HSBC or JP MorganChase dobuy, sell securities for profit.

When there was a Congressional push to include asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard Funds under the post-2008 Dodd-Frank law as systemically important financial institutions or SIFIs, a huge lobbying push from BlackRock ended the threat. BlackRock is essentially a law onto itself. And indeed it is systemically important as no other, with possible exception of Vanguard, which is said to also be a major shareholder in BlackRock.

BlackRock founder and CEO Larry Fink is clearly interested in buying influence globally.

He made former German CDU MP Friederich Merz head of BlackRock Germany when it looked as if he might succeed Chancellor Merkel, and former British Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne as political consultant. Fink named former Hillary Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills to the BlackRock board when it seemed certain Hillary would soon be in the White House.

He has named former central bankers to his board and gone on to secure lucrative contracts with their former institutions. Stanley Fisher, former head of the Bank of Israel and also later Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve is now Senior Adviser at BlackRock. Philipp Hildebrand, former Swiss National Bank president, is vice chairman at BlackRock, where he oversees the BlackRock Investment Institute. Jean Boivin, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, is the global head of research at BlackRocks investment institute.

BlackRock and the Fed

It was this ex-central bank team at BlackRock that developed an emergency bailout plan for Fed chairman Powell in March 2019 as financial markets appeared on the brink of another 2008 Lehman crisis meltdown.

As thank you, the Fed chairman Jerome Powell named BlackRock in a no-bid role to manage all of the Feds corporate bond purchase programs, including bonds where BlackRock itself invests. Conflict of interest?

A group of some 30 NGOs wrote to Fed Chairman Powell, By giving BlackRock full control of this debt buyout program, the Fed makes BlackRock even more systemically important to the financial system. Yet BlackRock is not subject to the regulatory scrutiny of even smaller systemically important financial institutions.

In a detailed report in 2019, a Washington non-profit research group, Campaign for Accountability, noted that, BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, implemented a strategy of lobbying, campaign contributions, and revolving door hires to fight off government regulation and establish itself as one of the most powerful financial companies in the world.

The New York Fed hired BlackRock in March 2019 to manage its commercial mortgage-backed securities program and its $750 billion primary and secondary purchases of corporate bonds and ETFs in no-bid contracts.

US financial journalists Pam and Russ Martens in critiquing that murky 2019 Fed bailout of Wall Street remarked, for the first time in history, the Fed has hired BlackRock to go direct and buy up $750 billion in both primary and secondary corporate bonds and bond ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), a product of which BlackRock is one of the largest purveyors in the world. They went on, Adding further outrage, the BlackRock-run program will get $75 billion of the $454 billion in taxpayers money to eat the losses on its corporate bond purchases, which will include its own ETFs, which the Fed is allowing it to buy

Fed head Jerome Powell and Larry Fink know each other well, apparently. Even after Powell gave BlackRock the hugely lucrative no-bid go direct deal, Powell continued to have the same BlackRock manage an estimated $25 million of Powells private securities investments.

Public records show that in this time Powell held direct confidential phone calls with BlackRock CEO Fink. According to required financial disclosure, BlackRock managed to double the value of Powells investments from the year before! No conflict of interest, or?

A Very BlackRock in Mexico

BlackRocks murky history in Mexico shows that conflicts of interest and influence-building with leading government agencies is not restricted to just the USA. PRI Presidential candidate Pena Nieto went to Wall Street during his campaign in November 2011. There he met Larry Fink. What followed the Nieto victory in 2012 was a tight relationship between Fink and Nieto that was riddled with conflict of interest, cronyism and corruption.

Most likely to be certain BlackRock was on the winning side in the corrupt new Nieto regime, Fink named 52-year-old Marcos Antonio Slim Domit, billionaire son of Mexicos wealthiest and arguably most corrupt man, Carlos Slim, to BlackRocks Board. Marcos Antonio, along with his brother Carlos Slim Domit, run the fathers huge business empire today.

Carlos Slim Domit, the eldest son, was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Latin America in 2015, and currently serves as chairman of the board of America Movil where BlackRock is a major investor. Small cozy world.

The father, Carlos Slim, at the time named by Forbes as Worlds Richest Person, built an empire based around his sweetheart acquisition of Telemex (later America Movil). Then President, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, in effect gifted the telecom empire to Slim in 1989. Salinas later fled Mexico on charges of stealing more than $10 billion from state coffers.

As with much in Mexico since the 1980s drug money apparently played a huge role with the elder Carlos Slim, father of BlackRock director Marcos Slim.

In 2015 WikiLeaks released company internal emails from the private intelligence corporation, Stratfor. Stratfor writes in an April 2011 email, the time BlackRock is establishing its Mexico plans, that a US DEA Special Agent, William F. Dionne confirmed Carlos Slims ties to the Mexican drug cartels. Stratfor asks Dionne, Billy, is the MX (Mexican) billionaire Carlos Slim linked to the narcos? Dionne replies, Regarding your question, the MX telecommunication billionaire is. In a country where 44% of the population lives in poverty you dont become the worlds richest man in just two decades selling Girl Scout cookies.

Fink and Mexican PPP

With Marcos Slim on his BlackRock board and new president Enrique Pena Nieto, Larry Finks Mexican partner in Nieto Penas $590 billion PublicPrivatePartnership (PPP) alliance, BlackRock, was ready to reap the harvest.

To fine-tune his new Mexican operations, Fink named former Mexican Undersecretary of Finance Gerardo Rodriguez Regordosa to direct BlackRock Emerging Market Strategy in 2013. Then in 2016 Pena Nieto appointed Isaac Volin, then head of BlackRock Mexico to be No. 2 at PEMEX where he presided over corruption, scandals and the largest loss in PEMEX history, $38 billion.

Pena Nieto had opened the huge oil state monopoly, PEMEX, to private investors for the first time since nationalization in the 1930s. The first to benefit was Finks BlackRock. Within seven months, BlackRock had secured $1 billion in PEMEX energy projects, many as the only bidder.

During the tenure of Pena Nieto, one of the most controversial and least popular presidents, BlackRock prospered by the cozy ties. It soon was engaged in highly profitable (and corrupt) infrastructure projects under Pena Nieto including not only oil and gas pipelines and wells but also including toll roads, hospitals, gas pipelines and even prisons.

Notably, BlackRocks Mexican friend Pena Nieto was also friends not only with Carlos Slim but with the head of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo Guzman. In court testimony in 2019 in New York Alex Cifuentes, a Colombian drug lord who has described himself as El Chapos right-hand man, testified that just after his election in 2012, Pena Nieto had requested $250 million from the Sinaloa Cartel before settling on $100 million. We can only guess what for.

Larry Fink and WEF Great Reset

In 2019 Larry Fink joined the Board of the Davos World Economic Forum, the Swiss-based organization that for some 40 years has advanced economic globalization.

Fink, who is close to the WEFs technocrat head, Klaus Schwab, of Great Reset notoriety, now stands positioned to use the huge weight of BlackRock to create what is potentially, if it doesnt collapse before, the worlds largest Ponzi scam, ESG corporate investing. Fink with $9 trillion to leverage is pushing the greatest shift of capital in history into a scam known as ESG Investing. The UN sustainable economy agenda is being realized quietly by the very same global banks which have created the financial crises in 2008.
By enlisting the sectarian insurgent-allied, US-funded White Helmets for chemical weapons probes in Syria, the OPCW abandoned impartiality and broke its fundamental rules for collecting evidence.

Before it mired the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in an international cover-up scandal, the April 2018 probe of an alleged gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma achieved a milestone. After numerous claims of chemical weapons use in Syria, Douma marked the first time that an OPCW fact-finding mission (FFM) deployed on-site to conduct its own investigation.

Douma was not the OPCWs first try. Four years earlier, in May 2014, the chemical watchdog sent a team to the town of Kafr Zita. As in Douma, the organization was mandated to scrutinize insurgent-generated claims of a toxic bombing by the Syrian army. But unlike in Douma, the OPCW never reached its destination. After a roadside bomb hit the OPCWs four-vehicle convoy, armed insurgents opened fire and briefly kidnapped the inspectors.

The assault proved fateful. The OPCW abandoned not only the Kafr Zita mission, but all other on-site deployments in Syria going forward. It was not until the Syrian and Russian armies regained control of Douma in April 2018  and after another violent attack, this time on a UN security team  that the OPCW would get back on the ground.

The four-year period between Kafr Zita and Douma, however, did not put an end to the OPCWs investigations in Syria. No longer sending its own staff into a war zone, the OPCW outsourced its duties to groups still able to operate there. Most of these missions concerned alleged chemical attacks in insurgent-controlled territory, where the Syrian government was always the accused culprit. In such cases, one of the OPCWs main newfound proxies was a group known as the White Helmets.

As an OPCW partner, the White Helmets carried out many of the sidelined scientists normal tasks. White Helmets members identified sampling locations; collected and tagged the samples; gathered video and photo evidence; and, in some cases, selected witnesses for interview. They then traveled to the neighboring Turkish border and handed material to OPCW staffers operating out of hotels. Some White Helmets members even claimed to be victims or witnesses of chemical attacks, and provided their testimony.

In enlisting the White Helmets, the OPCW pointed to the groups claim to be a neutral organization that conducts rescue missions and other life-saving work. But from the outfits founding abroad to its activities on the Syrian battlefield, the reality was very different. Far from being impartial, the White Helmets were allies of  and funded by  belligerents in the Syria dirty war. And in the OPCW investigations in which the White Helmets participated, this overlooked conflict of interest shaped the outcome in their sides favor.

OPCW partners with White Helmets, the hidden soldiers of Syrias sectarian insurgency

The White Helmets were established in Turkey by the late James Le Mesurier, a British military veteran, and his then-employer, the Western intelligence contractor Analysis, Research, and Knowledge, or ARK. With funding from the State Department and UK Foreign Office, ARK branded the White Helmets and provided its training and equipment, according to a 2019 report in The Intercept. The US and UK governments have funded the White Helmets to the tune of $70 million since 2014. Millions more have flowed into its coffers from NATO and Gulf allies.

Over the same period, footage and media coverage of the White Helmets  including an Oscar-winning documentary  has been used to drum up Western public support for these same states multi-billion dollar covert military campaign to overthrow the Syrian government. White Helmets leaders have even lobbied for direct Western military intervention on the insurgents side.

Inside Syria, the White Helmets have cooperated with insurgent militias and operated exclusively in territory under their control. White Helmets members celebrated Al-Qaedas 2015 conquest of Idlib province, participated openly in executions carried out by militants, and posed gleefully with the corpses of Syrian soldiers. In 2016, an influential Al-Qaeda cleric said the group is no different than Syrias mujahideen. The following year, a top Al-Qaeda leader in Syria praised the White Helmets as hidden soldiers. In 2018, the White Helmets collaborated with the Turkish militarys ethnic cleansing operation in the majority-Kurdish northern Syrian city of Afrin, drawing local outrage.

Left: A White Helmets member celebrates Al Qaedas capture of Idlib, March 2015.

Right: White Helmets assist an execution carried out by insurgents in Haritan, May 2015.

The White Helmets insurgent ties have even unnerved some of their state backers. In 2018, the Netherlands became the first government to suspend funding for the White Helmets, citing inadequate monitoring and the danger that money could fall into the hands of armed groups, including Al Qaeda. The following year, Le Mesurier, the White Helmets founder, died in an apparent suicide days after admitting to pocketing donor money and trying to conceal it.

The White Helmets and its supporters have described the groups insurgent ties as an aberration, a necessary compromise to save lives in areas under Syrian-Russian bombardment, and even Russian disinformation. But for the OPCW, the White Helmets foreign sponsorship alone created a conflict of interest that has escaped wide scrutiny.

In partnering with the White Helmets, the OPCW enlisted a group backed by states that armed anti-government insurgents, making them belligerents in the Syria conflict. These same states accused the Syrian government of chemical attacks while funding the White Helmets. The White Helmets were in turn tasked with validating these allegations for the OPCW  in some cases, for allegations that its members had initially spread.

The OPCW-White Helmets arrangement would have been akin to the OPCW subcontracting external organizations founded and funded by the Syrian governments allies, Russia and Iran, to help investigate alleged chemical attacks that they blamed on insurgent foes.

Teaming up with the White Helmets not only required the OPCW to abandon its impartiality, but to also ignore its most fundamental standards for the collection and analysis of evidence.

The OPCW defies its own chain of custody rules

From a distance, the OPCWs enlistment of the White Helmets could be seen as a practical solution to the perilous security climate in Syria. Properly trained, a group with free rein to move through insurgent-held territory without fear of attack could theoretically do the work that OPCW inspectors no longer could after the violent kidnapping in Kafr Zita.

But this seeming workaround violated the OPCWs core protocol for chemical weapons probes. To ensure full confidence in the integrity of samples gathered for chemical analysis, the OPCW requires that physical evidence collection strictly ensure chain of custody. This means that OPCW inspectors must have full control of samples from the time that they are gathered at the site of an alleged chemical attack until they are delivered to international forensic laboratories for analysis.

The OPCWs documented procedures are unequivocal about this. If a sample was not under OPCW custody at any point during a mission, OPCW policy states, it will not be accepted for OPCW verification purposes. The OPCWs chain of custody requirements are so stringent that any inspector who is not specifically assigned for evidence-related tasks is not allowed to deal with any item linked to an investigation site.

In early Syria operations, the OPCW adhered to these standards. When Western and Israeli officials began accusing the Syrian government of chemical weapons use  an alleged violation of President Obamas so-called red line  the OPCW laid down a red line of its own. The OPCW would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors dont gather in the field, because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity, OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan said in April 2013.

We [the OPCW] were really considered the only ones that could go in there with the chain of custody and with that integrity and retrieve true facts that could stand up to scrutiny in larger arenas, Scott Cairns, the OPCW team leader for the OPCW/UN investigation into the 2013 Ghouta sarin attack in Syria, noted that same year.

Accordingly, the OPCWs initial Fact-Finding Missions (FFMs) in Syria rejected samples that OPCW inspectors had not collected themselves. In a December 2014 report on several alleged incidents, including Kafr Zita, team leader Malik Ellahi noted that certain samples could not be accepted on account of chain of custody issues.

Unbroken chain of custody, therefore, is the standard underpinning the integrity of OPCW investigations. When the OPCW outsourced its evidence collection duties in Syria to third parties starting in 2015, it abandoned this bedrock protocol. Samples that would have previously been disqualified were now welcome.

The OPCWs new sample collectors included the White Helmets.

OPCW adopts insurgent-aligned White Helmets as Syrian field team

An October 2015 report about several alleged chemical weapons incidents in Syria introduced the White Helmets to the OPCW fold.

The report noted many references to the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD)  the White Helmets official name. To apparently vouch for the White Helmets credibility, the OPCW reproduced a quote from the groups website, in which it claims to act neutrally, impartially, as humanitarians.

Beyond visiting the White Helmets homepage, there is no indication that the OPCW conducted any additional vetting of the organization, or raised any concerns about its new Western-funded, insurgent-allied field team.

When it came to handling the potential evidence from samples gathered by the White Helmets and other external groups, the OPCW at first attempted to portray a cautious approach. The report claimed that evidence from remotely gathered samples would be treated as tertiary, only to be used as supporting evidence. As there was no chain of custody, the team had no certainty that the samples had not been contaminated (accidentally or deliberately) before handover to OPCW investigators.

The 2015 report appeared to acknowledge this point:

[t]he entire chain of custody could not be verified, thus the possibility of cross-contamination could not be ruled out. Therefore, although such samples would be considered as primary evidence under optimal circumstances, given the constraints as described, the FFM regarded the samples as tertiary evidence. As such, the results from such analyses were treated more as supporting information than of significant evidential value.

But even in treating such tertiary evidence as supporting evidence, the OPCW distorted its own definition.

Under OPCW protocol, tertiary evidence is defined as evidence that is still developing as an analysis capability, and that is merely a useful reconnaissance indicator,  for example, identifying potential locations of interest  or may be potentially ambiguous. Nowhere is it described as potentially supporting information. This seemingly cautious approach is also based on a faulty premise: that the White Helmets could be trusted not to have tampered with or provided fake samples in the first place.

When it came to abandoning the OPCWs commitment to a chain of custody in Syria, the tertiary category would prove to be just a first step. With time, any trace of skepticism about the integrity of the White Helmets samples would evaporate.

OPCW upgrades White Helmets Chemical Sample Unit

By 2017, the OPCW gave the White Helmets and the material it collected a full upgrade. FFM reports now referred to White Helmets operatives as the Chemical Sample Unit. Though no chain of custody had been established, the samples furnished by the White Helmets were suddenly treated as primary evidence.

In April 2017, insurgents in the Al Qaeda-controlled town of Khan Shaykhoun accused the Syrian government of dropping a sarin-filled bomb and killing over 80 people. The White Helmets helped spread the allegation by releasing photos of victims allegedly suffering from nerve agent exposure. Within days, the US endorsed the insurgents claims and launched airstrikes on Syria.

In the aftermath of the US bombing, the OPCW investigated the incident from neighboring Turkey. Inside Syria, White Helmets members gathered alleged evidence and brought it across the border. According to the BBCs Chloe Hadjimatheou, a self-described journalist with ties to UK-backed intelligence operatives and insurgents in Syria, White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier worked alongside the group and helped select witnesses.

The OPCW FFMs June 2017 report on the incident effectively endorsed the stated pretext for US air strikes by concluding that sarin was used as a weapon in Khan Shaykhun. That finding, the OPCW stated, was based on factors including the analysis of environmental samples.

At the same time, however, the report acknowledged that the entire chain of custody for those samples could not be categorically verified. For the environmental and biological-environmental samples taken at the site of the alleged attack and analyzed by the OPCWs Designated Laboratories, the report stated, all samples were taken by the chemical sample unit of the SCD [White Helmets].

Without explanation, samples collected by the White Helmets for the OPCW in Khan Shaykhun were granted full evidentiary status. Subsequent reports likewise treated White Helmets-collected samples no differently than had they been gathered by the organizations own inspectors.

In a May 2018 report on an alleged chemical attack in Saraqib three months earlier, the OPCW again noted that all samples had been taken by the SCD [White Helmets]. These samples played a critical role in the reports conclusion. Endorsing the allegation spread by insurgents, the OPCW declared that chlorine was likely used as a chemical weapon, in Saraqib.

The factors underpinning this conclusion, the report said, included an analysis of environmental samples demonstrating the unusual presence of chlorine in the local environment.

Gone, once again, was not only the foundational OPCW protocol that would have ruled these samples to be inadmissible. The ploy of downgrading them to tertiary or supporting information was discarded as well.

OPCW relies on White Helmets-supplied witnesses, not evidence

As an OPCW proxy, the White Helmets duties extended beyond gathering chemical samples.

The OPCW relied on witnesses often supplied by the White Helmets, or who were White Helmets members themselves. Many reports carried a standard caveat that states:

As with other allegations investigated by the FFM, the team was not able to visit a secured site immediately after the alleged incident. [T]he team therefore relied on the testimony of interviewees, samples as made available by the interviewees, and limited hospital records.

Original hospital records were not just limited, but in many cases unavailable. This meant that the outcomes of investigations were decided on samples provided by the White Helmets; on testimony from the White Helmets; and on testimony from other alleged witnesses also provided by the White Helmets or other third parties.

Interviews of alleged witnesses were in fact central to multiple probes where no samples were provided. In Idlib province, captured by Al Qaeda in May 2015 and therefore off-limits to OPCW inspectors, several investigations had no biological or environmental samples at all. The OPCWs report on these incidents noted their evidentiary gaps:

The inability of the team to visit the scene due to significant security issues, however, created several deviations from the ideal. Thus, the team could neither identify their own witnesses nor take their own sample[s].

Along with sample collection, the key investigative pillar of witness testimony  now in many cases the only source of evidence for the alleged attacks  was also in external hands. And it showed.

In one investigation of an alleged May 2018 chemical attack in Saraqib, in Idlib province, said to have caused around 70 victims, six individuals were interviewed. Five of them were first responders,  most likely White Helmets  and the sixth a member of the local media. The OPCW noted that none of the six were in Saraqib during the incident, but in the nearby town of Sarmin. The report also noted that the testimony was not first hand and that it could not cross-check this information from different sources such as medical professionals, victims, casualties and direct witnesses. On top of that, no biomedical and environmental samples were collected or received.

The Saraqib investigation therefore relied entirely on the testimonies of six people whose accounts could not be verified, and whose impartiality could not be assured.

Yet the OPCWs overarching conclusion from the investigation of these incidents in Idlib was that:

It can therefore be concluded that the evidence received throughout the interview process gave the team a reasonable degree of confidence that a chemical had affected people in various locations in the Idlib Governorate.

The OPCW judges White Helmets consistent narratives credible, despite zero corroboration

Despite relying so extensively on the testimonies of the White Helmets and other alleged witnesses, the OPCW took a lax approach to assessing their credibility. In multiple reports, the OPCW presumed that because it received a consistent account from different interviewees, their collective narrative must have been reliable. As one report put it:

Interviewees gave a consistent narrative of the incident, the reported medical signs and symptoms and the way samples were collected. The FFM was able to place witnesses at the site at the time and correlate their medical assessment. Based on these factors the FFM determined that at least 16 people displayed symptoms associated with exposure to an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor [nerve agent].

The same argument was used across several reports, substituting only the number of casualties and the chemical to which the victims were allegedly exposed. The consistency in narratives is hardly surprising, considering how many witnesses and sample collectors all came from one organization: the White Helmets.

One of the most telling consistencies between testimonies comes from an alleged March 2015 sarin attack at Ltamenah, where witnesses reported seeing what appears to be an improbable scenario. According to the report:

One witness who inspected the first crater described it as being about 1.5 meters in diameter by one meter in depth. Inside, there was a bubbling liquid and metal fragments. Another witness who saw the crater on the first day described the bubbling liquid as similar to water. Days later, the same crater was seen having a black bubbling liquid.

The idea that sarin  a chemical with a boiling point higher than water  would stay bubbling for days in the porous soil is as hard to fathom as pouring boiling water in soil and expecting it to still be bubbling after minutes, let alone days later. Yet somehow, the worlds top chemical watchdog saw no cause for skepticism.

With many FFM investigations relying on nothing more than testimonial evidence  where many of the interviewees were members of the insurgent-allied White Helmets  corroborating the credibility of such testimonies should have been vital. In Syria, for some unexplained reason, this never took place. Instead, to validate witness accounts, the OPCWs investigators substituted corroboration with consistency and presumably hoped that no one would notice.

By enlisting the White Helmets as on-site investigators, the OPCW apparently also hoped that no one would take note of the groups insurgent ties and foreign sponsors.

In doing so, the OPCW abandoned its stated commitment to impartiality and handed its mandate to one side of the Syria proxy war  the very elements that had attacked its inspectors in May 2014.

And by presenting the White Helmets as neutral, objective partners, the OPCW gave the groups insurgent allies and foreign sponsors a backchannel to influence investigations critical to the goals of their decade-long war to overthrow the Syrian government. The allegations that Syria has used chemical weapons against its own people have been used to help justify sustained proxy warfare, sanctions, and, in two consecutive years, US-led military airstrikes.

In the most controversial of such incidents, the alleged Douma chemical attack of April 2018, the OPCW managed to send its own inspectors to the scene. But as the second part of this report will show, the ever-present White Helmets compromised the OPCWs investigation yet again.
Now for the first time it seems he'll go straight to the source, as he's set to be the keynote speaker, via video link, to a major meeting of American defense contractors later this month. The Hill is confirming that "he headlines the annual Future Force Capabilities Conference and Exhibition hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA)" in Austin, Texas on September 21.

Getty Images

Ukraine's defense minister Oleksii Reznikov is also scheduled to address the conference. Naturally, both are expected to emphasize a message that more and heavier arms are needed if Ukrainian forces hope to sustain their eastern and southern counteroffensive, which in the last days has been widely reported as successful - at least so far.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has on Saturday admitted his army has had to "regroup" troops from Balakliya and Izyum in Kharkiv Oblast. This is being taken as a sign Ukraine's military is being pushed back from Kharkiv and could be taking heavy losses, with the day prior Zelensky announcing Ukraine has taken back over 30 settlements in the region.

"We are gradually taking control over more settlements, returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our people." Zelenskiy said. "Our army, intelligence, the Security Service of Ukraine continue active actions in several operational directions. They continue successfully."

This is the message he's expected to stress in addressing the major arms expo in August. In the audience will be representatives from the leading military weapons manufacturers in the US:

News of the Ukrainian presidents speech to the NDIA  whose membership includes defense industry giants like Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics  comes as Kyiv looks to fend off Russias invasion as it drags through its sixth month. Eight defense contractors  including Raytheon, Lockheed and General Dynamics  attended a meeting at the Pentagon in April to discuss how the U.S. could speed up production to help Ukraine fend off Moscows war. The U.S. has committed $15.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including $14.5 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

A number of independent observers are noting just how obviously this brings to the fore one of the key motives of US hawks, especially officials tied closely to the military-industrial complex, who have shown no interest in pushing both warring sides to the negotiating table. In fact, evidence has recently emerged strongly pointing to Washington and London playing the role of behind-the-scenes saboteurs to prior ceasefire talks.

Fresh off his appearance at Wall Street, where he pitched corporations on the plunder of his country's assets, Zelensky will appear at a conference of arms makers in Texas to present his country's war as a fantastic business opportunity. #SlavaRaytheon https://t.co/zSNTT6Kcp3  Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 9, 2022

Instead the past months have seen these officials by and large argue for Congress to sign off on essentially a "blank check" bonanza of Ukraine arms procurement. Like other recent conflicts, for example in the Middle East, they see the Russia-Ukraine war as fundamentally an opportunity.

Journalist Max Blumenthal sums up the unspoken reality nicely: "Fresh off his appearance at Wall Street, where he pitched corporations on the plunder of his country's assets, Zelensky will appear at a conference of arms makers in Texas to present his country's war as a fantastic business opportunity."

You will find more infographics at Statista

And Zelensky will without doubt continue to get the red carpet rolled out for him by the world's wealthiest defense firms, given he singularly remains the arms contractors' #1 foreign client - and all at the expense of the common US taxpayer to boot.
On 9/11 2001 three steel-framed high-rise buildings collapsed completely at near free-fall speed allegedly due to fires  which, if true, makes them the only steel-framed high-rises in construction history to have ever done this. Only two of these buildings had been struck by planes.

The official explanation for this event is that Moslem terrorists somehow confounded all the usual security procedures and attacked America because they hated our freedoms.

This version of the meaning behind 9/11 was the catalyst for the perpetual war currently being waged, the ultimate fail-safe irrefutable argument to silence criticism of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo and the creeping emergence of fascism in the Western world.

A narrative as crucial as that needs to be closely examined, but the mainstream media has not only failed to perform this function, it has successfully persuaded many intelligent people that it doesnt need to be done, and that only lunatics would bother subjecting the official story to any examination.

Eighteen years ago the idea of large scale false flags or government deceptions may have seemed absurd to most of us. But the unraveling of so many official narratives in recent years; the lies over WMDs, the lies over Ghouta, the lies over Libya and Ukraine, the repeat evidence for wholesale manipulation, if not fabrication, of events to promote war, means it ought to be impossible for any thinking person to simply take the events of 9/11 on trust any more.

How can any of us continue to question everything 9/11 has brought us, but not question 9/11 itself?

It all comes down to some very basic questions:

Has the government sufficiently explained its version of events?

Does this version fit the observed facts better than any other?

The fact this is still considered by so many intelligent people to be an out there thing to ask speaks volumes about how much even the most savvy of us are currently brainwashed.

But beyond the media silence, complicity and ridicule things are changing.

Today New York first responders are launching a campaign for a new inquiry into the events of 9/11.

A new scientific study finds fires did not bring down WTC7.

The Lawyers Committee for 9/11 Inquiry are working on behalf of victims families to get justice for those who died or were injured that day.

The phrase conspiracy theorist is an empty meme invented to deter enquiry. We dont think this is a good thing and we dont intend to be controlled by it. We believe facts really should be sacred  however unpopular they may be and whatever label someone may have attached to them.
A dichotomy between loyal patients on the one hand and skepticism of authorities on the other exists for hundreds of bone setters practicing in Hyderabad. (Representational image; Pixabay)

Hyderabad: Neeraj P (name changed) recently suffered a sprain in his neck. To get relief from shooting pains, he went to a bone setter (orthopaedic practitioner) whom his family has been regularly consulting for any orthopaedic ailments.

The bone setter massaged Neerajs neck, which gave him temporary relief. However, by evening, the pain worsened and Neeraj visited a neurologist. The doctor told him that he initially only had a sprain, but after his visit to the bone setter, he had suffered a spasm, which was more painful and more severe. In spite of this experience, Neeraj and his family still vouch for the bone setter, saying this case was a one-off, and till date they had good results whenever they consulted him.

A dichotomy between loyal patients on the one hand and skepticism of authorities on the other exists for hundreds of bone setters practicing in the city. Though the health department and medical associations are against allowing them to practice as they did not enjoy legal recognition, the practice is thriving and continues to draw patients, who swear by their competence levels.

President of Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) Dr. Mahesh Kumar said that bone setters are considered as quacks by the medical community.

Orthopaedic doctors receive so many cases where people who have taken treatment from bone setters are suffering from complications such as malunion (fracture healing in an abnormal position), nonunion (failure of broken bone to heal properly) and osteomyelitis (infection of the bone), he said.

Dr Kumar said the practice is especially popular in Hyderabad as people lack awareness. They are seen as a cheaper alternative but people can approach government hospitals for free treatment. We have taken up the issue of quacks with the Telangana State Medical Council (TSMC) on umpteen occasions, he said.

TSMC Registrar Dr Hanumantha Rao said the council was aware that there were lots of bone setters practising in Hyderabad and they do not have any legality. We have circulated all the ITC sections under which they can be booked to DMHOs and have told them to apprehend quacks and report to the police. Apart from that, we dont have any power, he said.
Tens of thousands of fans came to hear about the future of Star Wars, but ultimately it was the beloved pulp hero Indiana Jones - alias actor Harrison Ford - who stole the show at the annual Disney-powered fan convention D23 Expo in Anaheim, California.

Ford appeared on the events main stage with the films director James Mangold and his new co-star, British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, before introducing a sneak preview of the planned fifth Indiana Jones film. Disney has not released the clip online.

Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge at D23 in Anaheim, California. Credit:Disney

The 80-year-old actor who shot to fame as smuggler Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy, fought back tears as he addressed the crowd. Thank you for making these films such an incredible experience for all of us, Ford said.

Indiana Jones movies are about fantasy and mystery, but theyre also about heart, Ford said. We have a really good story to tell, as well as a movie that will kick your ass.
More than $1.5 trillion of assets in Australia are now being managed according to responsible investing principles, making up 43 per cent of the total market, as a rising number of investors use their positions as shareholders to agitate for change on ethical and sustainability issues.

The proportion of investment managers using corporate engagement to try and influence the behaviour of companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has doubled in the past two years from 21 per cent in 2019, to 45 per cent last year. A total of $726 billion in assets was managed using this approach in 2021, compared to $471 billion in 2020.

Estelle Parker from the Responsible Investment the Association Australasia.

The Responsible Investment Association Australasias annual benchmark report, released on Monday, found there was $1.54 trillion in responsible investments in Australia in 2021, up from $1.28 trillion in 2020. It also found that 17 per cent of Australians held responsible investments in 2021 (up by 28 per cent from the previous year), driven largely by Gen Xers and Millennials.

The research reviewed the investment practices of 140 financial institutions over the course of 2021, identifying 74 of these as leaders in the field, including well-known brands such as AMP Capital, BetaShares, Fidelity, Janus Henderson, Pendal, Perpetual and UBS; and super funds Active Super, AustralianSuper, Aware Super, Cbus, HESTA and UniSuper.
Top road safety and trauma experts are calling for the introduction of adaptive speed locks in new cars that would stop young inexperienced drivers from using their accelerators as deadly weapons.

Research in NSW and South Australia showed intelligent speed adaptation  smart warning devices that can also be set to stop a car from exceeding the speed limit  could save 200 lives a year, and reduce speeding by 89 per cent if it was fitted to all cars.

Intelligent speed adaptation uses GPS to determine the speed limit and warn the driver, and in some cases intervene, if they exceed it. Credit:NSW Centre for Road Safety

After this weeks deaths of five young Picton High students aged 14 to 16 in a car crash, the experts also renewed calls for more programs to encourage learners and P-platers to drive the familys best and safest car rather than older vehicles, which are overrepresented in fatal crashes.

Professor Raphael Grzebieta and Dr George Rechnitzer from the UNSW Transport and Roads Safety Research Centre issued a joint statement to The Sun-Herald saying the deaths of five young people when 18-year-old driver Tyrell Edwards, the only survivor, crashed into a tree on a country road at Buxton was tragic.
HYDERABAD: A 19-year-old student succumbed to injuries after he came under the wheels of a truck trailer while going for the Ganesh idol immersion in the early hours of Saturday.

The victim, G Jaisai, along with the organiser G Praveen, their relatives and friends were on their way to Hussainsagar when the accident occurred.

Around 1.20 am, the driver, Senthil Kumar Armigham, halted the truck at Abids. As Sai was getting down to distribute prasad to bystanders, the driver started the vehicle and Sai came under the wheels, said his friend Rajesh Tiwari.

Sai died on the spot, a plate of prasad still in his hand.

Jaisai, a resident of Aliabad, Shalibanda, was pursuing his second year of interior designing from Vasavi Interior College, Ameerpet, police said..

"He had left along with neighbours for the immersion, like he does every year,'' said N. Neha, a friend of the victim.

Sai's father G. Ravi Kumar said, I received a call from Sai's friend Vishal stating that Sai had met with an accident and was in serious condition. Later, the Abids police asked him to rush to the Osmania General Hospital.

When i reached the hospital I was told that he was dead, Ravi Kumar said.

The driver all of a sudden started the truck without warning and without checking that the wheels were clear due to which I lost my son, Ravi Kumar said.

Sai's sister G. Neha was in deep shock and not in a position to speak.

We recorded the statements of four eye witnesses. All of them gave statements against the truck driver, said Abids inspector B. Prasad. Police took the driver into custody and booked a case of causing death by negligence and culpable homicide against him.The victim's body Was shifted to the Osmania Hospital mortuary for postmortem.
Two women killed after car crashes into Perth lake

Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later.

Dismiss
Cramped in his tiny cockpit, the pilot lost the weight from dehydration. His flying suit was dripping with perspiration when he stepped from his plane.

U-2 plane soon after landing with its braking parachute billowing behind. Credit:The Age Archives

AMERICAN U-2 pilot Captain Eddie Dunagan lost nearly 6 lb. in weight during a six-hour flight at 60,000 feet from Fiji to Laverton yesterday.

First published in The Age on September 13, 1962

American U-2 pilot Captain Eddie Dunagan. Credit:The Age Archives

Captain Dunagan, 30, piloted one of the two U-2s from the United States that arrived at Laverton yesterday.

The ungainly, gull-like U-2s will be stationed permanently at Laverton to take upper air samples south of Australia for fall-out and radioactivity tests.

After stripping from their clumsy flying suits Captain Dunagan and the other pilot, Captain Joe Hyde (33), asked for beer to replace the fluid they had lost on the flight.

Beer is a great body rejuvenator and puts back the fluids, Captain Hyde said.
Governor-General David Hurley has formally proclaimed King Charles III as the reigning monarch in a ceremony at Parliament House in Canberra that involved politicians, military and Indigenous people.

To start the process, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was joined by 16 ministers at Government House on Sunday morning for a meeting of executive council. They recommended to Hurley that he issue the proclamation of accession. The meeting included Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Affairs Minister and Senate leader Penny Wong and Trade Minister and deputy Senate leader Don Farrell.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General David Hurley and members of the Executive Council. Credit:Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images

Several hundred members of the public gathered on the lawns of Parliament House for the proclamation ceremony, which took place at midday.

This was the first time such a ceremony has been held at the Parliament House forecourt since the building was opened in 1988. Australia proclaimed allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II down the hill at Old Parliament House on 8 February 1952.
Nairobi: Though Queen Elizabeth II was revered by many in Africa, her death also reignited a different sort of conversation  one that touched on the legacy of the British Empire and the brutality the monarchy meted out to people in its former colonies.

In a younger generation of Africans growing up in a post-colonial world, some lamented that the Queen never faced up to the grim aftermath of colonialism and empire, or issued an official apology. They said they wanted to use the moment to recall the oppression and horrors their parents and grandparents endured in the name of the Crown, and to urge for the return of crown jewels  rare massive diamonds  taken from the continent.

Many Africans want Britain to return prized diamonds that adorn the Imperial State Crown (pictured here worn by Queen Elizabeth II as she delivers the Queens Speech in Parliament in 2016). Credit:AP

You can look at the monarchy from the point of view of high tea and nice outfits and charity, said Alice Mugo, 34, a lawyer in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. But theres also the ugly side, and for you to ignore the ugly side is dishonest.

Mugo said she recently found her grandmothers movement pass, issued when the British colonial government in Kenya declared a state of emergency to help suppress the anti-colonial Mau Mau rebellion. The passes restricted the free movement of Kenyans.
Hong Kong: A senior Chinese official offered Beijings most robust endorsement yet of Moscows war in Ukraine, telling a group of Russian lawmakers that China understands and supports Russia, particularly on the situation in Ukraine, according to an official Russian description of the meeting.

Li Zhanshu, the third-ranking member of the Communist Party of China, visited Moscow last week after attending an economic forum in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, where he met with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Li is the most senior Chinese official to leave the country since the start of the pandemic.

Chairman of Chinas National Peoples Congress Li Zhanshu with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok last week. Credit:AP

Li travelled in advance of a trip by Xi Jinping, Chinas leader, who is expected to go to Kazakhstan on Wednesday and Uzbekistan later in the week, where he will meet with Putin at a gathering of leaders from the region.

Russia is touting warming ties with China as its war drive is facing setbacks, with Ukrainian forces retaking territory in the countrys north-east and some Kremlin allies grumbling about the grinding conflict lasting longer than expected.
Burlington, Ont.Sept. 10, 2022 The City of Burlington has activated its Crisis Management Team due to six unprovoked coyote attacks on residents. The latest was reported to the City from a retirement home employee regarding one of their residents.

Today, Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward spoke to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), Graydon Smith, who expressed sincere concern for the health and safety of our residents and is working with us to help address this serious risk to our community from these unprecedented and unprovoked attacks. One victim was a two-and-a-half-year-old boy who was on his backyard deck. The coyote grabbed him by the neck in an attempt to drag him away. City staff are in active discussions with coyote wildlife management experts at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) to collaborate on solutions for the Burlington community.

City of Burlington staff will present a report to council on coyote management recommendations at the Corporate Services, Strategy, Risk and Accountability Committee Meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 9:30 a.m. for approval at the City of Burlington Special Council Meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 14 at noon.

The most recent unprovoked coyote attack occurred this morning at 8:20 a.m. at a retirement home on New Street in the Roseland area. The victim was sitting out on their front patio in a chair. She was relaxing and awoke to the pain of the coyote biting her in the hip area. The coyote was startled when she woke up but tried to approach her again. She was able to scare it away. The retirement home employee saw what happened and ran out to check on the resident. The coyote ran across New Street into a neighbourhood. An ambulance was called for the victim and she was taken to hospital.

The coyote is described as a smaller sandy coloured coyote. The City is asking residents to continue to be vigilant in these areas and report coyote sightings using the form at burlington.ca/coyotes.

Anyone attacked by a coyote is advised to seek immediate medical attention and report the attack to the Halton Region Health Department and to the City of Burlington Animal Services at animalservices@burlington.ca or 905-335-3030.

These attacks are uncharacteristic of coyotes and this cluster of attacks on humans are the first reported in Burlington.

City of Burlington Animal Services staff are patrolling the area to locate this coyote and its den. They are also working with a Certified Wildlife Control Professional to eliminate the coyote.

While staff have been monitoring the area since the last attack on Aug. 24, they have found several neglected properties in the area that could be offering ideal denning areas for this pack of aggressive coyotes. Bylaw Officers are being dispatched and prioritizing by bringing these properties to meet bylaw requirements and to remove the opportunity for coyotes to den on these sites.

Municipalities are responsible for taking appropriate actions to manage resident coyote sightings, encounters and attacks and take appropriate action. If a coyote attacks a person, the City has a Council approved Coyote Response Strategy in place that is currently being followed to prioritize and deal with this situation.

Burlington is a city where people, nature and businesses thrive. Sign up to learn more about Burlington at burlington.ca/subscribe and follow @CityBurlington on social media.

Quick Facts

In 2015, Burlington City Council approved a Coyote Response Strategy that provides guidelines on preventing and managing conflicts with coyotes.

These are the first reported coyote attacks on humans in Burlington.

Coyotes are native to North America and can be found living in urban and rural areas.

Food sources like mice, rats, and garbage are readily available in urban areas, attracting coyotes to residential neighbourhoods.

Concerns about direct or indirect feeding of wildlife can be reported to Animal Control at animalshelter.mailbox@burlington.ca

Hand feeding and ground feeding wildlife on private or public property is prohibited by the citys Lot Maintenance Bylaw (49-2022) and is subject to a fine.

To request an audit of your yard for coyote attractants by city Animal Control staff, please email animalshelter.mailbox@burlington.ca.

Quotes

Mayor Marianne Meed Ward

I join all of my colleagues on council in expressing our heartfelt distress to the resident attacked this morning. We want to assure residents were taking immediate actions to protect our community, including convening a crisis team and a special council meeting this week to implement our action plan. I want to thank Minister Graydon Smith and his team for stepping as soon as I reached out to him, connecting our staff to their wildlife and coyote expertise so that we can protect our residents. We will continue provide regular updates to the community as we deal with this urgent situation.

City Manager Tim Commisso

The City continues to deal with an unprecedented and extremely serious public safety matter with the sixth coyote attack occurring this morning on an elderly resident. As City Manager, I can assure all residents, that protecting the community from these attacks is our absolute highest priority. We will be directing all available City resources including Bylaw enforcement, Animal Services and external wildlife professionals, to respond to this crisis including investigating and rectifying coyote feeding inquiries and dealing with overgrown derelict building sites that are contributing to this situation.

I am also very grateful for the immediate response and expertise we have received from Provincial officials in dealing with this unprecedented challenge facing our City.

Links and Resources

Learn more about living with coyotes at www.burlington.ca/coyotes



Read the Council approved Coyote Response Strategy that includes an escalation process to deal with various levels of coyote interactions with residents and pets.

Report a coyote sighting online at burlington.ca/servicerequest

Watch a video about how to wildlife proof your property

Map of coyote attacks

Attached: map pinpointing the unprovoked coyote attacks in the City of Burlington

-30-

Media contact:

Carla Marshall

Communications Advisor

carla.marshall@burlington.ca
Realty firm Developers is looking to acquire a few land parcels this fiscal to build housing projects with sales potential of Rs 3,000-4,000 crore, a top company official said.

The company will acquire these land parcels either through outright purchase or by forming Joint Development Agreements (JDAs) with landowners.

Mumbai-based Developers Ltd, part of Mahindra Group, is one of the leading real estate players in the country. The company's market cap recently touched USD 1 billion (about Rs 8,000 crore).

In an interview with PTI, the company's Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arvind Subramanian said is looking to acquire new land parcels for business expansion in three focus cities -- Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune and Bengaluru.

He highlighted that the company already acquired a land parcel this fiscal that has a Gross Development Value (GDV) of Rs 1,700 crore and the deal pipelines are strong.

"Last year, I had set a guidance of Rs 2,500 crore worth of new land acquisition. All these numbers are GDV, so the sales value of the new land that we acquire and not the cost of land acquisition. We did Rs 3,800 crore last fiscal year and this year we have already done Rs 1,700 crore. We will certainly be doing at least an equivalent amount in the rest of the year," Subramanian said.

In terms of the GDV, he said the new land acquisition should be in Rs 3,000-4,000 crore range and the company was well above the guidance in creating new business development opportunities.

in July informed about acquisition of a new land parcel in Pune, which has a development potential of 2.1 million square feet with an estimated sales value of Rs 1,700 crore.

On increasing competition among large players for land acquisition, Subramanian said: "There is a lot of heightened interest in land and developers are getting very active. But at the same time the landowners have also become much more selective about which developers they want to do business with..."



Five years back, he said, landowners would simply give land to whoever give the highest, bid but not any more.

"Now landowners realise that people may have given the highest bid but they are not able to complete the transaction because they are not able to get financial closure. So many landowners are saying: look, I will only do business with a larger, more well-established developer, corporate developers so that I can have surety that my deal will get completed," Subramanian said.

On the operational front, Mahindra Lifespace is targeting a 2.5-fold jump in its annual sales bookings to Rs 2,500 crore in the next three years.

The company had achieved sales bookings of Rs 1,028 crore in the last financial year.

"The first quarter has set us up very well for the year. We are expecting very strong continued growth in quarter two and the rest of the year as well. We will certainly be above our FY22 numbers. The question is how much above, which time will tell, but we are extremely positive," he said.

The company clocked Rs 600 crore of residential sales during the April-June quarter of the current fiscal year. The collections from customers were also healthy at about Rs 270 crore.

Asked about the FY23 target of sales bookings, Subramanian said the company does not give annual guidance but it will be significant growth over the previous fiscal.

"We have demonstrated over the past several years that we know how to do strong launches. So, now it is a question of land acquisition, approvals and getting ready for launch. As long as we are able to address that and keep moving that pipeline, I think the numbers will happen," he observed.

On new launches, Subramanian said three new projects/new phases of existing projects have been launched so far this fiscal in Bengaluru, Pune and Gurugram.

The company has plans to launch new projects or new phases in Chennai, Pune and Mumbai this fiscal year.

Mahindra Lifespace development footprint spans 32.14 million square feet of completed, ongoing and forthcoming residential projects across seven Indian cities.

The company also has over 5,000 acres of ongoing and forthcoming projects under development/management at its integrated industrial parks across four locations.

reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 75.70 crore in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The company had posted a net loss of Rs 14.04 crore in the year-ago period.

The total income fell to Rs 117.34 crore during the April-June quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal from Rs 154.20 crore in the year-ago period. Its share price closed at Rs 537.65 apiece on Friday, while market cap was Rs 8,309 crore.

Housing sales have revived significantly after the second wave of the Covid pandemic. The demand is shifting towards credible developers who have financial bandwith to develop projects on time.

All big listed developers have reported strong sales bookings in the last financial year and also the first quarter of this fiscal. The full year guidance for FY23 of most of the players are higher, despite increase in interest on home loans.

Real estate consultants are of the view that housing sales in 2022 calendar year would breach the 2019 pre-pandemic level.

(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 on Saturday arrested three sharpshooters of Lawrance Bishnoi-Goldy Brar gang from near Barwala-Bawana road, officials said.

The accused were identified as Naveen, 23, Manoj, 28, and Karambir, 28, all three residents of Jhajjar in Haryana, they said.

The three were nabbed after police laid a trap near the Helipad on Barwala-Bawana road on Saturday around 4 pm, they said.

Despite being warned to surrender, the assailants fired three to four rounds from their pistols in their bid to escape, police said.

A police personnel wearing a bulletproof jacket got hit by a bullet, they said.

All three accused were in direct contact with Goldy Brar, who lives in Canada, through Signal app for the past many days.

Brar was able to arrange money, shelter, and weapons for the accused, who were contracted for a hit job on a person whose identity was to be disclosed on the very day of the execution, police said.

All three were wanted for an armed holdup of a liquor shop in Jharsa, Gurgaon in Haryana, police said.

Three pistols and 11 live cartridges were recovered from their possession.

(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.)
Incessant rains over the past two days have reportedly led to tilting of the giant 89-feet Ganesh idol established in old Gajuwaka of Visakhapatnam. (DC)

VISAKHAPATNAM: Incessant rains over the past two days have reportedly led to tilting of the giant 89-feet Ganesh idol established in old Gajuwaka of Visakhapatnam. Thousands of devotees, including many from surrounding villages, have been visiting this idol since the festival began.

Perceiving possible threat to devotees, Gajuwaka police reached the spot on Saturday morning with engineers of Roads and Buildings. They found the giant statue tilting to the left by about a foot as also cracks in the tummy and trunk regions. It is suspected the tilt has come about as length of casuarina scaffolding posts supporting the idol is lesser on this side.

I myself have found the frame supporting the idol tilting to the left. As it is continuing to rain, I have advised the organisers to complete nimajjanam of the idol at the earliest, area circle inspector K. Srinivasa Rao told Deccan Chronicle. R&B engineers too gave a similar suggestion to avoid any untoward incident.

We made some arrangements by using winch ropes and suggested the organisers to erect statue next year in the presence of engineers, executive engineer of R and B Ch. Ramesh told this correspondent

However, SV Entertainers chairman K. Ganesh Kumar, who has been organising the Ganesh fete in Gajuwaka for the past 11 years, maintained that the idol is not tilting. Since we asked permission to keep the idol till September 18 but rains have started, police consulted R&B engineers and asked us to conduct immediate nimajjanam, Ganesh said.

I have not found the idol tilting or with any cracks, said Kolli Siva Prasad, a dealer of edible oils in the industrial belt of Gajuwaka.

As a precautionary measure, Gajuwaka police have, in an official letter, told organisers not to allow any devotees within 100 feet of the statue from any side. They have suggested that cranes and ropes be deployed to prevent the idol from further tilting because of the rains.

Police have gone on to warn the organisers that if they do not follow the advice given to them by R&B engineers, the organisers will be held responsible for any untoward developments that may occur.

It is stated that though organisers are keen on having the statue in situ till September 18, they will perform the nimajjanam on Sunday afternoon with the help of fire tenders.

In the interim, members of the Utsav committee told reporters that certain elements are spreading rumours about the tilting of the giant idol.
Chief Minister has alleged that there was a security breach during his rally in on Friday.

Tension prevailed during Ganesh immersion procession at MJ Market in on Friday when a leader confronted Sarma on the dais and tried to dislodge the mike.

"A man with a personal security guard came close to me on stage and asked why I was criticising the Telangana Chief Minister. I told the person that I have not started my speech yet, how could you anticipate what I would say," Sarma told mediapersons here on Saturday.

Taking a jibe at the government, Sarma said, "We believe in Atithi Deva Bhava. There may be differences in political ideology, but in Indian culture, we never demean our guests."

According to Sarma, the whole incident lasted for about 30 seconds before other people present there whisked the man away.

Sarma said the entire incident showed that there were loopholes in the security arrangement.

"Had someone from the general public came to the stage, it would have been a different issue. But when a ruling party worker is involved in such an incident, it looks really odd," he added.

When asked about his immediate reaction after the incident, Sarma said, "I never fear any such situation."

Meanwhile, the Union Home Ministry has sought clarification from the government on this incident.

--IANS

tdr/arm

(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.)
Delhi LG V K Saxena has approved a proposal to forward a complaint to the to probe the alleged corruption in the procurement of 1,000 low-floor buses by the DTC, official sources said on Saturday.

A complaint addressed to Saxena in June this year had highlighted the appointment of the Minister of Transport as the chairman of the committee for tendering and procurement of buses by DTC in a premeditated manner.

It had also claimed that the appointment of DIMTS as bid management consultant for this tender was done with an aim to facilitate wrongdoing.

The complaint had alleged irregularities in a July 2019 procurement bid for 1,000 low floor BS-IV and BS-VI buses, and another bid made in March 2020 for the purchase and annual maintenance contract for low floor BS-VI buses, the sources said.

The complaint was forwarded to the Chief Secretary on July 22 to seek comments from the departments of the and consequently their recommendations.

The report, which was submitted by the Chief Secretary on August 19, had pointed out certain irregularities, following which Saxena has now forwarded the complaint to the CBI, they said.

The is already conducting a preliminary inquiry in the matter, they added.

Saxena has approved the clubbing of the current complaint with the complaint already being inquired into by the central probe agency.

A committee headed by retired IAS officer OP Aggrawal (retd) constituted to look into the charges of corruption in the procurement of buses in June 2021, in its report submitted in August 2021, had clearly indicted the AAP government for procedural deviations in the entire tendering and procurement procedure, the sources said.

"Criminal misconduct by public servants in this tender exercise will be ascertained by the investigating agency, ie the .

"On the basis of this, the Chief Secretary recommended to refer the matter to the CBI, which was approved by the LG," said a source.

There was no immediate reaction from the on the matter.

(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 family members of activists arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case claimed they were "systematically" denied medical treatment and the condition of activist Vernon Gonsalves was yet another act of "criminal negligence" of prison authorities.

Gonsalves, arrested for his alleged role in the case, was recently admitted to the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai.

As per his lawyer, the activist he had been diagnosed with dengue and was on oxygen support.

The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered at the Elgar Parishad conclave, held in Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, 2017, which police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon Bhima war memorial located on the city's outskirts.

One person was killed and several others were injured in the violence.

The case, in which over a dozen activists and academicians had been named accused, was initially probed by the Pune police and later taken over by the Investigation Agency.

In a press note issued on Saturday, the family members of these sought state intervention in the functioning of prison authorities to ensure speedy treatment to all "political prisoners".

Citing Gonsalves' condition, the press note claimed medical treatment was delayed and that it was yet another act of "criminal negligence" on the part of authorities of the Taloja Central Jail in neighbouring Navi Mumbai, where he was lodged.

"Gonsalves (65) had fever on August 30, and even though his condition was steadily deteriorating, he was treated with just paracetamol and antibiotics in jail for almost a week. After much pleading, he was taken to the JJ Hospital on September 7 and was given oxygen support, the note said.

"However, instead of continuing his treatment, he was callously brought back to jail where his condition continued to worsen. It is only after his lawyer and wife, Susan Abraham, approached court and obtained an order that the prison authorities finally admitted him in the emergency ward of the JJ Hospital, where he is still under treatment, it said.

The press note cited the recent deaths of several undertrial prisoners, including Father Stan Swamy, after allegedly being denied prompt medical attention.

"It has barely been a year since Father Stan Swamy, also an accused in the Elgar case, passed away while still a prisoner after being denied prompt treatment following COVID-19," it saidclaimed.

"Similarly, it was only very recently that we heard the shocking news of the death of Pandu Narote, a 33-year-old Adivasi, in Nagpur jail where he was convicted under various UAPA charges for having Maoist links," the note said.

Narote's lawyer also alleged that his death was caused due to gross negligence by the prison authorities, the note alleged.

Talking about poet-activist Varavara Rao, another accused in the case, the press note said he too was subjected to inhuman treatment in jail where he was denied proper medical care in spite of his age and various serious ailments.

It was only last month that he could acquire a medical bail from the Supreme Court.

The others accused in the case have also been systematically denied medical treatment, the note said.

Their family members demand that the state immediately and urgently intervene in the functioning of prisons so as to ensure speedy treatment to all "political prisoners" such as Gautham Navlakha, Dr Hany Babu and others, the note said.

"We also demand the immediate release of political prisoners who are languishing in jail as undertrials for years. If the state is incapable of guaranteeing their safety and security in prison, it would be better that courts intervene to grant bail to these political prisoners so that their precious lives are saved, it said.

(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.)
External Affairs Minister on Saturday signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Secretary-General of (GCC) Nayef Falah Mubarak Al-Hajraf on the mechanism of consultations between India and the GCC.

The MoU was signed between the Secretariat General of the cooperation council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Government of India.

Besides, Jaishankar held a bilateral meeting with the Secretary-General and discussed the relevance of India-GCC cooperation in context with the current regional and global situation.

"Productive meeting with @GCC Secretary General Dr Nayef Falah Mubarak Al-Hajraf. Signed the MoU on mechanism of consultations between India and GCC. Exchanged views on the current regional and global situation and the relevance of India-GCC cooperation in that context," Jaishankar tweeted.

The External Affairs Minister is on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia from 10-12 September 2022, his first trip to the Kingdom as India's External Affairs Minister.

"Began my visit to Saudi Arabia with an interaction with our community. Appreciated the contribution of our Diaspora in facing challenges. Spoke to them about our country's resilience, especially during time of the Covid & transformation that is underway in India," Jaishankar tweeted.

[{90d8454a-3ece-4ca3-ac3a-0c4ffb9b41e8:intradmin/ANI-20220910194146.jpg}]

Upon reaching Saudi Arabia, Jaishankar addressed the Indian diaspora in Riyadh. During his address, Jaishankar highlighted that India has made powerful efforts to actually grow its economy and move toward becoming a higher-income country.

"A lot of this required a vision, prudent management of our fiscal resources. It has required policies which made it easier for banks to lend .. to make it easier for small and medium companies to get lending, for self-employed people to get lending."

He said that India thinks about the ways in which it can change its credit, banking, education and labor policy. "Many big reforms have taken place and we can see the result of that in two very interesting developments. In the year ending 31 March, 2021 we have posted the highest export that we have ever done. Our total exports were 670 billion USD. We had to trade in goods for 400 billion USD."

Jaishankar stressed that the idea of India as a trading power has become credible today.

He noted that despite the challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis, India is confident that it will be the fastest-growing major economy in the world this year with at least 7 per cent growth.

Noting the world is facing many fallouts of the Ukraine crisis such as rising oil prices, Jaishankar while addressing the Indian diaspora in Riyadh said, "We are very confident that India will be the fastest growing major economy in the world this year. We will get at least 7 per cent growth."

The External Affairs Minister said that when he holds the meeting, his Saudi counterpart will be meeting "the Foreign Minister of the fifth largest economy, the Foreign Minister of a country that not only responded to the COVID challenge but also come out of it very strongly.. one whose digital infrastructure capabilities such as health infra has grown in this period and despite the challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis, India is confident that it will be the fastest-growing major economy in the world this year with at least 7 per cent growth, a country whose ability to take care of its people abroad has also been demonstrated."

Jaishankar also lauded the growing ties between India and Saudi Arabia.

"During the past few years, we saw our international friendships. Saudi Arabia was very helpful and provided supplies of oxygen. Two years of Covid are when the country was tested but we came through," said Jaishankar.

Speaking about the key role the Indian diaspora plays in the ties between the two countries he expressed appreciation for the Indian community in Riyadh.

"In many ways, all of you shaped the image of India and what Saudis think about India and what we are about. Consciously or unconsciously, all of you through your achievements, contributions, profession, and friendships have collectively built up what is the total Saudi perception of India. For that, your country will be always grateful."

"I would like to express my appreciation for the government and the country for all of you. We know, it's not always easy living abroad," said Jaishankar.

"We have two and half million Indians living in Saudi Arabia, at the time the numbers have been more. Naturally, you will have your concerns, your interests, your problems and it's very useful for me to know that, to understand that, so, that when I engage with the authorities, with my counterpart or with the officialdom, I have also your interest at heart. In some way, we as the govt or I as Foreign Minister or the Embassy or the foreign ministry can be helpful to advance your interest to make you more comfortable, to ensure that your requirements are met and your problems in whatever way may be addressed," he added.

During his two-day visit, the external affairs minister will co-chair the inaugural Ministerial Meeting of the Committee on Political, Security, Social and Cultural Cooperation (PSSC), established under the framework of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council, with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

"The two Ministers will undertake a comprehensive review of the entire bilateral relationship and will discuss the progress under the four Joint Working Groups of the PSSC Committee, namely Political & Consular; Legal and Security; Social and Cultural and Joint Committee on Defence Cooperation," the MEA said.

The meetings of these Groups and Senior Officials (at the Secretary level) have been held over the past few months, the release added.

"Both sides will also discuss regional and international issues of mutual interest including their cooperation at the United Nations, Group of Twenty (G20) and (GCC)," the MEA said.

India-Saudi Arabia relations have strengthened considerably over the past few years including in political, security, energy, trade, investment, health, food security, cultural and defence fields.

The top leadership of both countries remained in close touch even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

(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 torrential rain in the city that flooded the houses and offices of tech honchos and turned roads into rivers of sorts could not fill most lakes, thanks to the land mafia who turned the feeder canals of these water bodies into a sewerage drain and diverted their flow, environmentalists said.

This mischief by the land sharks in connivance with some vested interests in various civic agencies and in the government led to the death of lakes in the city, Leo Saldanha, coordinator of Environment Support Group alleged.

Benglauru, which the British rulers had called as a 'City of thousand lakes' for having over 1,600 lakes, has about 400 water bodies today in the metropolitan region.

"Those lakes which disappeared gave way for residential layouts, bus stands, bus terminals and tech parks. Sadly, those 400 lakes are also on the verge of destruction," Saldanha told PTI.

Citing the example of Subrahmanyapura Lake in South Bengaluru, he said it has reduced to a cesspool and is choked with weeds. One can hardly imagine that barely 15 years ago, people used its water from drinking and took bath in it, he pointed out.

"Ironically, not only the Bangalore Development Authority developed a layout on another lake 'Venkatarayana Kere' on the upstream of Subrahmanyapura Lake, but a powerful builder also constructed two massive residential complexes exactly on the feeder canals of these two lakes -- Subrahmanyapura and Venkatarayana Kere," Saldanha claimed.

Further, the Bruhat Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) reduced the width of its feeder canal from 60 ft to a mere 10 feet wide drain in two years. The feeder canal of the lake carries the sewage of the nearby apartments and residential layouts, he claimed.

The drain does not empty a drop of rainwater into the lake. Instead, it is diverted to straightaway flow into the subsidiary of the Vrushabhavathi river. The Vrushabhavathi river is now reduced to a major sewage drain, Saldana said.

"It is a fact that the Subrahmanyapura lake got the attention of the court from 2009 and we are now in 2022. The attention of the court was focused on it. But even with the judicial oversight, the Raja Kaluve (feeder canal of the lake) has been destroyed. Apartments have been constructed. This shows the weakness of the system," Saldanha said.

Ravi Kumar, a resident of Chikkalasandra in the region, charged within a radius of two km of the Subrahmanyapura lake, land sharks gobbled up Chikkasandra Lake, Ittamadu Lake and Narayana Kere and turned them into a residential layout illegally while the civic agency finds itself helpless to recover them.

"The civic agencies had removed encroachment of Chikkalasandra lake a few years ago but today once again the encroachers are back. This time even the Bruhat Mahanagara Palike is parking its garbage vehicles inside the 'lake bed', allowing others to encroach on it," Kumar alleged.

Noted activist S R Hiremath who led a campaign against the encroachment of government land in Karnataka, especially in Bengaluru said Bellandur Lake, which is the largest water body of the city, had been the victim of rampant encroachment as residential developments happened on its wetland region and its feeder canals.

"I had fought a legal battle against the encroachment with the help of eminent lawyer Prashant Bhushan in the Supreme Court and also fought cases in the High Court. The problem is those who grabbed the government lands are very powerful and are holding important posts in government institutions as well as all the political parties," Hiremath said.

Due to the heavy downpour in the past one week, the lake swelled to monstrous proportions submerging all those areas, which were encroached upon.

"I live in Bellandur. I am unable to move out due to flooding for the past one week. It's been more than 15 years, since I moved to this place but never ever, I experienced such a flood," an executive of a corporate company told PTI requesting anonymity.

A former IAS officer requesting anonymity said the government is least bothered about the problems of Bengaluru.

"The A T Ramaswamy committee report and V Balasubramanian's report 'Greed and Connivance' are gathering dust in the dingy corners of the government offices. For the politicians and government officers, these reports are like a can of worms, which they don't want to open," he claimed.

According to noted architect Naresh Narasimhan, the planning of the city is based on land use and real estate and not on climate change and resilience.

"You have to think little ecologically. The root of the word economy is same as the word ecology. Both words have derived from a Greek word 'Ecos', which means home. Until we give importance to ecology, the economy cannot improve," Narasimhan said.

The architect opined that the flooding in Bengaluru was an extreme climate change event, which was never seen before.

"If this has happened now, then it can happen again and we should plan accordingly," Narasimhan said.

He insisted that the government should demonstrate a strong political will to take harsh decisions.

(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.)
Chief Minister has ordered action against 19 current and former officials, taking congnisance of a probe report into the death of four people in a fire tragedy at a hotel here.

The 19 people are accused of irregularities and negligence in the report submitted by a high-level inquiry committee set up by the state government to probe into the tragedy that took place in the Hazratganj area on Monday.

A spokesperson said the CM gave the instructions after receiving the investigation report of Commissioner of Police SB Shiradkar and Divisional Commissioner Roshan Jacob.

The spokesman said departmental action, including suspension, will be taken against officials of the Departments of Home, Energy, Appointment and Personnel, Housing and Urban Planning and Excise.

The official said action will be taken against those who retired according to prevailing rules.

Four people were killed and 10 others injured in a fire at Hotel Levana Suits on Monday. Police registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and attempt to murder against the hotel owners and the general manager. Three people have been arrested in the case so far.

(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.)
Prime Minister paid his condolences after the demise of renowned archaeologist Braj Basi Lal on Friday.

He also lauded Lal's work and highlighted that his contribution was unparalleled.

"Shri BB Lal was an outstanding personality. His contributions to culture and archaeology are unparalleled. He will be remembered as a great intellectual who deepened our connection with our rich past. Pained by his demise. My thoughts are with his family and friends. Om Shanti" tweeted PM Modi.

Lal had been conferred with Padma Vibhushan for his contribution in the field of archaeology.

He is particularly known for his work on the archaeology of Ramayana sites.

Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister condoled the death of Queen Elizabeth II as he hailed her "inspiring leadership".

Taking to Twitter, the Prime Minister recalled his memorable meetings with the Queen during his UK visits in 2015 and 2018.

"I will never forget her warmth and kindness. During one of the meetings, she showed me the handkerchief Mahatma Gandhi gifted her on her wedding. I will always cherish that gesture," PM Modi tweeted.

The Prime Minister said Queen Elizabeth II will be remembered as a stalwart of our times."She provided inspiring leadership to her nation and people. She personified dignity and decency in public life. Pained by her demise. My thoughts are with her family and people of the UK in this sad hour," he said in a subsequent tweet.

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving monarch of the UK, died earlier today at the age of 96.

"The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow," the Royal Family said in a statement.

(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.)
Prime Minister will visit on September 15-16 to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit where leaders are expected to review the grouping's activities over the past two decades and discuss the prospects of multilateral cooperation.

The summit will be attended by leaders of SCO member states, observer states, Secretary General of the SCO, Executive Director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), President of Turkmenistan and other invited guests, a Ministry of External Affairs statement said.

At the invitation of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Prime Minister Modi will be visiting Samarkand on September 15-16 to attend the 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), it said.

During the summit, the leaders are expected to review the organisation's activities over the past two decades and discuss the state and prospects of multilateral cooperation in the future, the statement said.

Topical issues of regional and global importance are also expected to be discussed at the meeting, it said.

The prime minister is also likely to hold a few bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit.

(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 old name of New Delhi's ceremonial boulevard -- Rajpath -- has been scraped off the signages mounted around the periphery of the India Gate hexagon, after its rechristening to 'Kartavya Path'.

The move comes after the area's civic body recently issued a notice approving the renaming of the historic road at its special meeting on September 7.

Signages around the India Gate hexagon are mounted on stainless steel-made unipoles with horizontal plates bearing white text on green background.

Late Friday night, one of the signages with three green plates bore name of two streets -- Sher Shah Suri Marg and Dr Zakir Hussain Marg -- while 'Rajpath' inscribed earlier in the top plate could be seen scraped off, as also from other signages that bore the old name.

Sources in the New Municipal Council (NDMC) said the erasure of 'Rajpath' from signages were being taken up by authorities working on the redevelopment project after the official nod to the rechristening. It will be replaced with 'Kartavya Path'.

New, big signages bearing the new nomenclature of the ceremonial boulevard have been put up on the streetsides. Many youths were seen taking selfies with new signages bearing 'Kartavya Path' on a wide shining green board erected on the erstwhile Rajpath.

"These new green boards bearing 'Kartavya Path' (in four languages) on the old Rajpath have been installed by Central Vista project authorities in line with a theme," an official said.

Similar thematic signages bearing 'C-Hexagon' have also been installed around its periphery.

Rajpath was known as Kingsway during the British rule, while Janpath was known as Queensway. Both historic streets were renamed soon after Independence.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture Meenakshi Lekhi, who is also a member of the NDMC, had on September 7 said: "However, after 75 years of independence, it is felt that the name of Rajpath needs to be changed, in tune with the values and principles of democracy and a contemporary, new India. The Kartavya Path will also inspire everyone who visit or cross the road to perform their duties towards the country, the society and their families," she said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the 'Kartavya Path' on September 8 and it was thrown open to the public from September 9. He had urged people to take selfies with it and upload it on social media.

In his address after the inauguration, he said Kingsway or Rajpath, a "symbol of slavery", has now been consigned to history and has been erased forever.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After a YouTuber claimed on social media that her aunt allegedly died after her 6A smartphone exploded near her on the bed while sleeping, the company said it was probing the unfortunate incident.

The YouTuber, who goes by the name MD Talk YT, shared screenshots of the exploded phone as well as her aunt lying in a pool of blood on the bed, claiming that an alleged battery explosion killed her relative who was living in the Delhi-NCR region.

"Yesterday in night my aunty was found dead, she was using a 6A, she was sleeping and she kept the phone near her face on the pillow side & after sometime her phone blasted. It's a bad time for us. It's a responsibility of a brand to support," the tweet read.

replied in a tweet, saying the company is working to reach out to the impacted family and investigate the situation.

"At India, customer safety is of utmost importance and we take such matters extremely seriously. Our team is trying to get in touch with the affected family and determine the cause of the incident".

The YouTuber from Haryana further posted that the victim's son is serving in the Indian Army and the family lives a very simple life.

"Her family is so simple, her son is in the Indian Army. They don't know so much. She only uses her phone just for calling & watching YouTube. Now if brands don't accept their mistakes, don't take responsibility directly, if a family has to fight for justice then what's the use," the YouTuber said in a tweet.

--IANS

na/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.)
In the preliminary inquiry, it has emerged that the accused has allegedly minted lakhs of rupees from unemployed youth by promising jobs in TTD. (DC Image)

TIRUPATI: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) vigilance department has exposed a racket by a gang that was allegedly involved in cheating and minting money from the unemployed youth on the pretext of providing jobs in the TTD.

According to sources, the vigilance wing sleuths picked up Bala Krishna, who currently lives in Padmavathipuram locality in Tirupati and a native of Pichatur mandal. In the preliminary inquiry, it has emerged that the accused has allegedly minted lakhs of rupees from unemployed youth by promising jobs in TTD.

Bala Krishna used to cheat the gullible youth by assuring them of jobs for various posts in the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. He was a habitual offender and was jailed once in 2018 for cheating people on the pretext of offering jobs in the TTD and other organisations, sources said.

Confirming the development to Deccan Chronicle on Saturday, TTD chief vigilance & security officer D. Narasimha Kishore said the vigilance wing is filing a complaint with the Tirumala police and will hand over Bala Krishna to them.

We didnt receive any complaints on the fake job racket. However, acting on credible information, the TTD vigilance wing sleuths probed it and picked up a person who was cheating youths on pretext of providing jobs in the TTD. We also recovered some fake appointment letters, documents and stamps from his possession, and they will be handed over to the police to probe deeper into the fake job racket, he added.

As per the unconfirmed reports, Bala Krishna has so far minted Rs 1.2 crore from tens of youths with the help of two persons  one of them believed to be working in a government office in Tirupati.

Meanwhile, the TTD has once again appealed to the people, particularly the unemployed youth, not to fall prey to job fraudsters and underlined that whenever it takes up a recruitment drive, proper notification will be released through the print media.
A deliveryman was killed when a minor driving an MG Hector SUV hit his bike at Desh Bandhu Gupta Road on Friday night. Police have apprehended the minor.

According to Police, after the incident, the boy and his friend, who is a foreign national allegedly left the car on the spot and fled. The accused is a Class 11 student.

The deceased has been identified as Rahul Kumar from Gole Market, who was working with . He was travelling with his cousin and was on his way to meet his friends.

Police said they received a PCR call about the accident around 1.20 am. The victim and his cousin were shifted to RML hospital for treatment, where Rahul Kumar succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Police initially filed a case under IPC sections 279 and 337. During the investigation, police gathered details of the car from the transport department and went to the owner's home where the juvenile was apprehended today. IPC Section 304 A (causing death by negligence) has been added to the existing FIR.

Police said, the accused and his friend were returning from Connaught Place, where they had dinner and allegedly hit the victim's bike. The deceased's cousin Pawan Kumar, who was riding pillion sustained minor injuries.

The accused's father is a real estate baron who was arrested a few months ago in a multi-crore scam.

(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.)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on Sunday evening reached and reviewed preparations for the World Dairy Summit-2022, which is starting from Monday.

Prime Minister will be inaugurating the global event, which has been taking place in India since 1974 and will have participants from around 50 countries, according to officials.

"The chief minister did a thorough site inspection of the helipad, exhibition hall and the main venue of the auditorium. After that, while meeting with the police administration, Indian Dairy Federation and other officials concerned, he said it was a matter of pride for UP to be hosting the event," an official statement read.

"He said stakeholders from about 46 countries are participating in the event and a large number of foreign dignitaries will be participating, too, as he instructed officials to ensure that the visiting foreign guests be able to participate in the programme with ease," it added.

During the inspection, Adityanath was briefed about the programme by officials of Indian Dairy Federation and National Dairy Development Board, according to the statement.

Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Suhas L Y and Police Commissioner Alok Singh also apprised the chief minister of the preparations of the local administration and police, respectively, it added.

The International Dairy Federation's World Dairy Summit is an annual meeting of the global dairy sector, bringing together approximately 1,500 participants from all over the world.

The participant profile includes CEOs and employees of dairy processing companies, dairy farmers, suppliers to the dairy industry, academicians, and government representatives.

(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.)
operators are opening new centres to tap rising demand for flexible workspace and their share in the overall office space leasing jumped to 20 per cent during January-June, according to .

In April, real estate consultant entered into this segment by acquiring 75 per cent stake in myHQ, a booking platform for spaces, in a cash and stock deal of around Rs 125 crore. myHQ, which is headquartered in Delhi-NCR, has over 50,000 subscribed members.

As per the data, the total net absorption of office space across seven major cities stood at 20.8 million square feet in the first half of this calendar year. In this, the share of spaces stood at 20 per cent.

In H1 (January-June) 2021, its share was just 6 per cent of net office absorption of about 9.33 million square feet.

Corporates are preferring co-working centres, which include managed office space, to cut capital expenditure and enjoy flexibility in scaling up or down their businesses.

If we look at city-wise breakup, the demand for co-working space is the highest in Pune, as the share of flex space was 45 per cent out of total net leasing of office space of 2.55 million square feet.

In Bengaluru, the net leasing of office space stood at 6.1 million square feet in the first six months of this year. The share of co-working space was 23 per cent.

Share of stood at 15 per cent each in Delhi-NCR and Chennai, out of total net leasing of office space at 2.75 million square feet and 1.85 million square feet, respectively, in these two cities.

In Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the net leasing of office space was 2.9 million square feet, of which 11 per cent was contributed by co-working players.

Hyderabad witnessed 4.25 million square feet of net leasing of office space and co-working share in it was 13 per cent, while Kolkata saw leasing of 0.4 million square with co-working share of 14 per cent.

In contrast, the share of IT/ITeS sector declined from 49 per cent in H1 2021 to 36 per cent in H2 2022. However, this decline is largely because many IT companies are now also preferring flexible spaces to regular office spaces.

On the growing demand, Chairman Anuj Puri said: "Coworking has received a major boost after Covid-19 disrupted the previous status quo. A major factor driving demand is that these spaces are not concentrated in just the city centres or major employment hubs; they're spread across different areas, including the housing-intense suburbs."



He noted that coworking spaces are also operating out of malls and hotels across cities now.

"Many large office parks are also housing coworking spaces. This helps companies to remain closer to their employees and offer them flexibility," Puri said.

In the co-working centre, the consultant said that companies can plug-and-play at the same cost rather than wrestling with office layouts and fit-outs.

"The lock-in period for taking up a regular office space is anywhere between 3-4 years. All these factors have also helped boost the demand for co-working spaces," Anarock said.

WeWork India, Smartworks, Awfis, CoWrks, The Executive Centre, Skootr, Simpliwork Offices, IndiQube, The Office Pass, 91Springboard and 315Work Avenue are major players, among others, in the coworking segment that includes managed office space.

Recently, Smartworks said it expects nearly three-fold jump in its revenue this fiscal to Rs 1,000 crore. It intends to increase its portfolio to 10 million square feet by the end of this fiscal from 7 million square feet currently.

The Executive Centre's revenue rose 7 per cent to Rs 289 crore last fiscal and it will invest Rs 50 crore to open four new co-working facilities this year.

Hong Kong-based The Executive Centre (TEC) entered India in 2008 with its first property in Mumbai. It currently has over 30 centres with a total area of about 1 million (10 lakh) square feet across major cities.

Similarly, other players too are expanding their portfolio by taking on lease premium office space from real estate developers or property owners and then further sub-leasing to corporate clients as well as individuals.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a bid to counter the growing clamour among the nations to enforce a price cap on Russian oil, Moscow has told New Delhi it is willing to provide petroleum at even lower rates than before to India, officials said.

In principle, the ask in return is that should not support the (Group of Seven) proposal. A decision on this issue will be taken later following talks with all the partners," an official with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

These substantial discounts will be steeper than those offered by Iraq in the past two months, officials said.

In May, Russian crude oil was cheaper by $16 a barrel for as compared to the average Indian crude import basket price of $110 a barrel. The discount was reduced to $14 a barrel in June, when the Indian crude basket averaged $116 a barrel. As of August, Russian crude oil costs $6 less than the average crude import basket price, officials said.

Indias biggest oil supplier Iraq undercut beginning in late June, by supplying a range of crudes that on average cost $9 a barrel less than Russian oil. The extremely price-sensitive market, therefore, has shifted heavily back in favour of Iraq.

As a result, slid to the third position in the list of nations from which the bulk of India's oil originates, meeting 18.2 percent of all the country's oil needs. Saudi Arabia (20.8 per cent), and Iraq (20.6 per cent) are the top two suppliers.

Even without the price argument, officials feel a stable supply of crude oil should be established from outside the West Asian region. While oil imports from Iraq have remained a mainstay of our purchases, given global complications and Iraqs volatile internal situation, needs to create alternative mechanisms, another official said.

Price cap push

The nations, namely Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, along with the European Union are currently pushing to institute a cap on the price of Russian oil.

The Western allies hope to financially squeeze out Moscow, which has continued to benefit from soaring energy prices, and cut off its means of financing the invasion of Ukraine.

Media reports suggest the oil cap plan will be implemented at the same time as the EU embargo takes effect. There will be two price caps -- one for crude and the other for refined products. The crude oil cap shall apply from December 5, 2022; that on refined products shall apply from February 5, 2023.

India, being the second-largest oil importer globally, has been requested multiple times to join the price cap. "Any artificial changes to the established global price mechanism may have unintended consequences later. India will continue to weigh its options," another official said.

Russian oil here to stay

The share of Russian crude oil, which was less than 1 per cent of Indias crude oil import volume, prior to Russias invasion of Ukraine in February, rose to 8 per cent in April, 14 per cent in May and 18 per cent in June, according to industry estimates and official Commerce Department data.

Since July, India's crude oil imports from have declined. But, the overall import of crude oil has also fallen.

In August, India imported 7,38,024 barrels per day from Russia, 18 per cent lower than in July, estimates made by London-based commodity data analytics provider Vortexa, which tracks ship movements to estimate imports, shows.

Officials say that until Russia continues to compete with other major producers in offering discounts, India will continue to source from it.




India has made powerful efforts to grow its economy and emerge as a higher-income country, External Affairs Minister has said, expressing hope that it will be the fastest growing major economy in the world this year with at least 7 per cent growth despite the challenges posed by the Ukraine crisis.

Jaishankar arrived here on Saturday on a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss ways to further strengthen relations between the two countries. It is his first visit to Saudi Arabia as External Affairs Minister.

"Began my visit to Saudi Arabia with interaction with our community. Appreciated the contribution of our Diaspora in facing national challenges. Spoke to them about our country's resilience, especially during the time of the Covid and national transformation that is underway in India," Jaishankar tweeted.

Addressing the Indian community here on Saturday, Jaishankar said: "India thinks about the ways in which it can change its credit, banking, education and labour policy."



He said that India has made powerful efforts to grow its economy and move towards becoming a higher-income country.

"A lot of this required a vision, prudent management of our fiscal resources," he said.

"Many big reforms have taken place and we can see the result of that in two very interesting developments. In the year ending March 31, 2021 we have posted the highest export that we have ever done. Our total exports were USD 670 billion.

Trade in goods stood at USD 400 billion, he said.

He pointed out that the world is facing many challenges, like rising food, oil and shipping prices due to the Ukraine crisis.

"But we are still very confident that India will be the fastest growing major economy in the world this year. We will get at least 7 per cent growth," he said.

Jaishankar stressed that the idea of India as a trading power has become credible today.

He said that India's economic recovery after Covid is worth studying.

He said many nations spent a lot of money during the Covid period.

"I would say like a knee-jerk...they were in a hurry to respond to the crisis situation. So they did not all of them necessarily use their funds and resources wisely," Jaishanakar said.

He said India instead focussed on creating a safety net.

He was there was a programme to give free ration to 80 crore people.

"No country in the world has done it," he said.

There is programme to give money to the bank account of 40 crore people.

He also lauded India's efforts to deal with the Covid crisis. He said at the onset of the pandemic, India did not make masks and ventilators. He said people did not know about PPE kits.

"We could not only make what 1.3 billion people needed, but we could also set up centres of dedicated treatment for people who came down with Covid," the minister said. India was able to produce Covid vaccines in large numbers.

"There were made in India vaccines available for 1.3 billion people," he said.

I go for tours and see that people of several countries have not been vaccinated as they did not have them. Countries which had everything but still people are not vaccinated, the minister said, adding that India was able to close this gap with continued efforts.

Jaishankar also lauded the growing ties between India and Saudi Arabia. He said during the Covid crisis, "We saw our international friendships also deliver at that point of time."



"Saudi Arabia was very helpful and provided supplies of oxygen. Two years of Covid are when the country was tested but we came through," said Jaishankar.

Speaking about the key role the Indian diaspora plays in the ties between the two countries, Jaishankar said, "In many ways, all of you shaped the image of India and what Saudis think about India and what we are about."



"Consciously or unconsciously, all of you through your achievements, contributions, profession, and friendships have collectively built up what is the total Saudi perception of India. For that, your country will be always grateful," he said.

"One of our foreign policy priorities is to ensure that our people get good treatment abroad," he said.

Speaking about Vande Bharat Mission to evacuate Indians stranded in various nations during the Covid crisis, Jaishankar said: "We brought back 70 million people under the Vande Bharat Mission from all over the world. No one has done that, it is the biggest evacuation and was done during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is India that the world sees today."



During his interaction with the community, he spoke about universalising wellness and yoga.

"Spreading wellness and yoga, we would definitely encourage," he said in response to a question.

He said under the new education policy, India is striving to rapidly expand higher education.

On a question about having an Indian cultural centre in Saudi Arabia, Jaishankar said he will take this concern on board.

(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.)
India has been able to push back against the decision of a cap on Russian oil lately because of the success of the Rs 500 crore insurance pool to underwrite imports to India, a government official told Business Standard last week. It has taken away the concerns in New Delhi about the fallout of the imminent risk that the global insurance industry will throw at Russia from this winter. No consignment of oil and gas contracted at prices above the cap from Russian ports will get a cover from the global insurance industry.

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
Union Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and BJP leader on Saturday said he had been appointed by his party as the in-charge for South seat and South Mumbai in for the 2024 .

"I have been given the responsibility of South and South Mumbai. I have been tasked to prepare the party for the upcoming election," he said.

"We are planning to ensure that BJP will win the South Lok Sabha seat. Out of the 20 MLAs in South Goa, 12 are with the BJP," the Union minister said in a press conference in Panaji.

Rane said that he came to Goa on Friday and that he would be frequently visiting the coastal state as a part of this mission.

He said that during the last Lok Sabha polls, BJP lost the seat with a margin of 10,000 votes. "We want to increase the voters' base in this constituency, we will adopt a progressive, development-oriented and positive way to woo more voters,"he added.

He also expressed confidence that the development executed by the state government led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will also help the party to win on both, North and South Goa Lok Sabha seats.

Rane also praised the Central government for its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The work that Central government led by Narendra Modi has done during Covid-19 pandemic and all other schemes that are launched by the government should be projected amongst the voters," Rane added.

Rane held press conference in the presence of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, BJP Goa President Sadanand Shet Tanavade, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Tendulkar and others.

(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.)
Eleven (IS) militants were killed on Saturday in airstrikes in western and eastern Iraq, the Iraqi military said.

Seven militants including a local leader were killed and a hideout was destroyed in airstrikes in al-Jallaiyat area in Anbar Province in western Iraq, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a media release, adding the airstrike was launched upon intelligence reports, Xinhua news agency reported.

In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi aircraft acted on intelligence reports and conducted two airstrikes on an IS hideout on the bank of Himreen Lake, leaving three militants killed, the JOC said in a separate statement.

Another IS militant was killed in a confrontation with armed forces who searched the targetted hideout. The troops also destroyed three motorcycles, explosive devices, and barrels filled with explosives, it noted.

Over the past few months, Iraqi security forces have conducted crackdowns on the extremist militants' intensified activities.

The security situation in has been improving since the defeat of the IS in 2017. However, its remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.

--IANS

int/shs

(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.)
At least three people are dead after a powerful hit a remote part of Papua New Guinea Sunday morning, authorities say. were injured and infrastructure damaged in the magnitude 7.6 jolt that was felt across the Pacific country.

The three people died in a landslide in the gold-mining town of Wau, said Morobe Provincial Disaster Director Charley Masange. Other people had been injured from falling structures or debris, and there was damage to some health centers, homes, rural roads and highways, Masange told The Associated Press.

Masange said it could take some time to assess the full extent of the injuries and damage in the region. But he said the sparse and scattered population and lack of large buildings near the epicenter in the nation's largely undeveloped highlands may have helped prevent a bigger disaster, given the was so strong.

One resident from the town closest to the epicenter described his ordeal to the AP.

Renagi Ravu was meeting with two colleagues at his home in Kainantu when the quake struck.

Ravu tried to stand up from his chair but couldn't maintain his balance and ended up in a kind of group hug with his colleagues, while plates and cups crashed from his shelves to the ground, he said. His children, ages 9 and 2, had their drinks and breakfast spill over.

Ravu, who is a geologist, said he tried to calm everybody as the shaking continued for more than a minute.

Ravu said that about 10,000 people live in and around his town, which is located 66 kilometers (41 miles) from the quake's epicenter.

He said people were feeling rattled.

It's a common thing that earthquakes are felt here, but it usually doesn't last as long and is not as violent as this one, Ravu said. It was quite intense.

Ravu was sorting through the damage to his home, which he said likely included a broken sewer pipe judging from the smell. He said friends elsewhere in Kainantu had messaged him with descriptions of cracked roads, broken pipes and fallen debris, but hadn't described major building collapses or injuries.

They are starting to clean up their houses and the streets, he said. Communication seems to have been affected, he added, with some cell towers likely to have fallen.

A magnitude 7.5 in 2018 in the nation's central region killed at least 125 people. That quake hit areas that are remote and undeveloped, and assessments about the scale of the damage and injuries were slow to filter out.

Felix Taranu, a seismologist at the Geophysical Observatory in the capital Port Moresby, said it was too early to know the full impacts of Sunday's earthquake, although its strength meant it most likely caused considerable damage.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit at 9:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 90 kilometers (56 miles). NOAA advised there was no tsunami threat for the region.

Papua New Guinea is located on the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, to the east of Indonesia and north of eastern Australia. It sits on the Pacific's Ring of Fire, the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where much of the world's earthquakes and volcanic activity occurs.

(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.)
Almost 500 at China's premier college for broadcast journalists have been sent to a quarantine centre after a handful of COVID-19 cases were detected in their dormitory.

The 488 at Communication University of China, along with 19 teachers and five assistants, were transferred by bus beginning Friday night.

Quarantining anyone considered to have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus has been a pillar of China's "zero-COVID" policy. The quarantine centres include field hospitals, as well as converted stadiums and exhibition centres that have been criticised for overcrowding, poor sanitation and spoiled food.

As of last week, approximately 65 million Chinese residents were under lockdown, despite just 1,248 new cases of domestic transmission being reported on Sunday. Most of those were asymptomatic.

The lockdowns have sparked protests online and confrontations with health workers and police, and have exacted a major toll on the economy, affecting global supply chains for electronics and other products. The weekslong lockdown in China's biggest city of Shanghai over the summer prompted an exodus of migrant workers and foreign business people, the repercussions of which have yet to be felt.

With the release of economic data this week, analysts will be looking for insights into how China's handling of the pandemic is impacting economic activity in the world's second-largest economy. Lockdowns have been accompanied by nearly daily testing, travel restrictions and the suspension of classes at all levels.

has pursued the relentless enforcement of the policy, even as virtually every other country has sought to return to normal life with the help of vaccines and drugs to fight the virus.

Zero-COVID is closely associated with President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, leading to accusations that the government has politicised a public health crisis. His administration has rejected statements from the World Health Organization that the policy is unsustainable, and has refused to approve foreign vaccines that are widely considered more effective than those produced by Chinese companies.

Xi, who has not travelled abroad since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, has taken control of all levers of power and struck a confrontational tone in foreign policy, while sidelining or imprisoning rivals. He has eliminated term limits on the presidency and is expected to receive a third five-year term as Communist leader at next month's party congress.

(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.)
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal interacts with locals during his visit to the poll-bound Gujarat state, in Rajkot, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. (PTI Photo)

RAJKOT: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday appealed to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers in Gujarat to work for his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) while staying in the ruling party.

Kejriwal said BJP workers should continue to get "payment" from the BJP but work for AAP "from inside".

Addressing a press conference in Rajkot on the final day of his two-day visit to poll-bound Gujarat, Kejriwal said BJP workers will benefit from all the "guarantees" promised by him to people when his party comes to power in the state.

"We do not want BJP leaders. The BJP can keep its leaders. BJP's 'panna pramukhs', workers in villages, booths and talukas are joining us in droves. I would like to ask them what the BJP gave them in return for their service in the party even after so many years?" the AAP national convener asked.

Kejriwal said the BJP did not offer free and quality education, healthcare and free electricity to BJP workers and their family members but AAP will care for their welfare.

"You (BJP workers) can stay in that party but work for AAP. Many of them get paid (by BJP), so take the payment from there but work for us, because we do not have money," he said.

"When we form a government, we will provide free electricity, and this will apply to your houses as well. We will provide you with free, 24-hour power, and build good schools for your children where they will get free education. We will ensure free and quality treatment for your family members and offer Rs 1,000 to women (as allowance) in your family," he said.

Appealing to the saffron party workers, Kejriwal said there is no point staying in the BJP and ensuring its victory again after 27 years of rule.

"I would like to tell all the BJP workers to stay there but work for the AAP. You are smart, work for AAP from the inside," he further said.

He raised the issue of the recent attack on Gujarat AAP general secretary Manoj Sorathiya and apprehended that many more attacks will take place "on the people of Gujarat for supporting AAP".

"The attack on Manoj Sorathiya shows that BJP is desperate. It is not able to understand what to do. It is staring at a defeat," he said.

Kejriwal said the AAP is not Congress and cannot be intimidated by the ruling party.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that developed economies are responsible for the vast majority of to the atmosphere throughout history.

Guterres made the remarks on Saturday in a press briefing in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi during his visit to the flood-affected areas of the country, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Those impacts are skyrocketing," he said, adding that "people living in high climatic vulnerability conditions, including in South Asia are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts."

Nearly half of humanity is now in this category and the overwhelming majority is in the developing world, Guterres said.

In the wake of the flood-disaster Pakistan has been suffering, the Secretary-General called upon the community to devise a new mechanism of debt relief for the affected countries.

He further advocated a debt swap mechanism that a country, instead of paying debt to the creditors, should be able to use that money to invest in climate resilience, sustainable infrastructure and in the green transition of their economies.

Earlier in a press conference on Friday, responding to Xinhua on carbon emission by the developed countries for centuries, Guterres called for effective support from the developed world to the most impacted developing countries to build resilience and adapt to the circumstances.

"This is not a matter of generosity. This is a matter of justice," he said.

The Secretary-General on Saturday, along with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials, visited the flood-affected parts of Pakistan's southern Sindh and southwest Balochistan provinces.

Apart from visiting the UNESCO's World Heritage site of Mohenjo Daro in Sindh, which got damaged from the floods, he also met the displaced people in Sindh and Balochistan.

The Secretary-General also took a comprehensive aerial look at the flood situation and damages.

--IANS

int/khz/

(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.)
French President Emmanuel Macron urged Russia to withdraw heavy and light weaponry from around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during a frank exchange with President on Sunday.



The pair spoke after the last operating unit at the Russian-occupied facility was shut safely -- dialing back, for now, the precarious danger level cited on Friday by the UNs atomic agency.

Macron insisted on the need to ensure the safety of the plant, according to a readout from his office. He reiterated that the Russian occupation was the cause of the risks surrounding Zaporizhzhia, Europes largest nuclear power plant.

Russias war on Ukraine marks the first time a military conflict has been waged around an operating atomic power station. Hundreds of Russian troops are using the surrounding area as a base.

Kyiv and Moscow continue to exchange blame on whose forces have shelled the area around the plant. Putin on Sunday repeated Russias claim that Ukraines forces are responsible, according to a Kremlin readout.

Putin drew attention to regular Ukrainian attacks on the plants facilities, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences, the Kremlin said.

Macron intends to speak with Putin again in the coming days -- as well as to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the UNs nuclear agency -- in a bid to reach an agreement on safety guarantees, his office said.

Early Sunday, Ukraines Energoatom, operator of the plant in the nations southeast, said the No. 6 generator at Zaporizhizhia will be cooled down and preserved.

The Atomic Energy Agency on Friday called the situation at the plant dire after layers of safety-backup systems were rendered ineffective by a power outage.

On Saturday, several transmission lines destroyed by recent shelling were restored. Energoatom used power from the national grid to cool the unit and put it in the safest possible mode.

Energoatom said its attempting to stock up on diesel fuel in case power transmission is damaged again. Diesel could then be used to sustain the isolated power plant and keep reactors cooled.

The atomic plant in Energodar, Europes largest and with a replacement value in the tens of billions of dollars, is seen as a war prize for Putin, who would like to redirect its energy output to Russias grid.

Key Takeaways From Q&A on Ukrainian Nuclear Risk

The IAEA has urgently recommended that a safety and security zone be established around the plant. An agency team led by Grossi visited the facility this month -- crossing an active battlefield for the first time in the IAEAs 65-year history -- and two monitors remain at the plant.

Shutting down Zaporizhzhia for the balance of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the safest option, a former IAEA safety official told Bloomberg News on Thursday in an Q&A session on Ukrainian nuclear risk.

Every day the plant is completely shut down the easier it is to cool, although spent fuel ponds will need cooling (or even water brought via fire hoses), said Robert Kelley, former IAEA safeguards director and ex-head of the US Department of Energys emergency radiological response unit.

Planned shut down and an extended outage until the war is resolved is the safest course of action, Kelley said.
Following the visit of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to to extend support to flood victims, the United Nations released a report on Friday and said that the natural disaster had interrupted the education of nearly 3.5 million children in the country.

Th UN report further stated that have also added to the miseries of refugees as nearly 800,000 refugees live in districts officially notified as 'calamity hit' in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, turkey-based media Anadolu agency reported citing the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In Sindh alone, According to the report, over 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land have been damaged in Sindh whereas over 1.5 million houses have been destroyed by flood waters, the report said.

The report also added that 1,460 health facilities were affected by the heavy rains and floods, reported Anadolu agency.

As per the country's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the devastating in killed 1,391 people since June 14.

"Standing water continues to cover vast swaths of the country," the report said, citing satellite-detected water extents mapped by the United Nations Satellite Centre.

The mapping indicated preliminarily that at least 75,000 square kilometres (28,957 square miles) of land in Pakistan, the report added.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who was on a two-day visit to said, "I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on the scale of the here in Pakistan," at a press conference in the port city of Karachi after witnessing the worst of the damage in southern Pakistan.

UN chief on Saturday visited several areas of Pakistan ravaged by floods, calling for increased global financial support at the end of a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster.

Pakistan receives heavy -- often destructive -- rains during its annual monsoon season, which is crucial for agriculture and water supplies. But the heavy downpour this year has created havoc in the country, while rapidly melting glaciers in the north have for months heaped pressure on waterways.

Record monsoon and heavy floods in Pakistan have given rise to hunger and various illnesses which have affected 33 million people and the experts believe that the situation would aggravate in the coming days as the flood affectees are forced to live under the sky depriving the required resources.

Huge areas of the country are still underwater and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Pakistan is facing one of the worst flooding events in its history. The human and socio-economic toll is expected to increase as flood levels continue to rise, with immense pressure on the country's dams.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department said that it was the wettest August since records began in 1961. National rainfall was 243 per cent above average. In the province of Balochistan, it was +590 per cent and in Sindh +726 per cent, according to the monthly report.

(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.)
Payment processor Inc said it plans to start separately categorizing sales at gun shops.

It's a major win for advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting. But gun rights advocates have argued that step would unfairly segregate legal gun sales when most sales do not lead to mass shootings.

late Saturday said it would adopt the Organization for Standardization's new merchant code for gun sales, which was announced on Friday. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered general merchandise.

Visa's adoption is significant as the largest payment network, and will likely add pressure for and American Express to adopt the code as well.

advocates had gotten significant wins on this front in recent weeks. New York City officials and pension funds had pressured the ISO and banks to adopt this code.

Two of the country's largest public pension funds, in California and New York, are pressing the country's largest credit card firms to establish sales codes specifically for firearm-related sales that could flag suspicious purchases or more easily trace how guns and ammo are sold.

Merchant Category Codes now exist for almost every kind of purchase, including those made at supermarkets, clothing stores, coffee shops and many other retailers.

When you buy an airline ticket or pay for your groceries, your credit card company has a special code for those retailers. It's just common sense that we have the same policies in place for gun and ammunition stores, said New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who blames the proliferation of guns for his city's deadly violence.

The city's comptroller, Brad Lander, said it made moral and financial sense as a tool to push back against gun violence.

Unfortunately, the credit card have failed to support this simple, practical, potentially lifesaving tool. The time has come for them to do so," Lander said recently, before Visa's announcement.

Landers is a trustee of the New York City Employees' Retirement System, Teachers' Retirement System and Board of Education Retirement System which together own 667,200 shares in American Express valued at approximately USD 92.49 million; 1.1 million shares in valued at approximately USD 347.59 million; and 1.85 million shares in valued at approximately USD 363.86 million.

In letters to the companies, the New York pensions funds, joined by the California State Teachers' Retirement System, sought support for such a move, saying the have a responsibility to prohibit the use of their networks for what public officials deemed illegal activity.

Failing to do so can result in regulatory, reputational, and litigation risks that may harm long-term shareholder value, the letters asserted.

Over the years, public pension funds have used their extensive investment portfolios to influence public policy and the market place.

The California teacher's fund, the second largest pension fund in the country, has long taken aim on the gun industry. It has divested its holdings from gun manufacturers and has sought to persuade some retailers from selling guns.

Four years ago, the teacher's fund made guns a key initiative. It called for background checks and called on retailers monitor irregularities at the point of sale, to record all firearm sales, to audit firearms inventory on a regular basis, and to proactively assist law enforcement.

The pension funds argue that creating a merchant category code for standalone firearm and ammunition stores could aid in the battle against gun violence.

In letters to the credit card companies, a pattern of purchases could flag suspicious activity.

Officials said that a week before the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people died after a shooter opened fire in 2016, the assailant used credit cards to purchase more than USD 26,000 worth of guns and ammunition, including purchases at a stand-alone gun retailer.

(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.)
Thousands lined the route to catch a glimpse as Queen Elizabeth II's coffin, seen in public for the first time, made its journey on Sunday from Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire to arrive at the late monarch's official Scottish residence of Holyroodhouse Palace in the capital city of Edinburgh.

It is the end of the first stage of what her eldest son, King Charles III, has described as his mother's "last great journey" ahead of her funeral in London on September 19.

At the end of a six-hour journey, the coffin draped with the Royal Standard of and featuring a wreath of flowers on top is to rest in the Throne Room of Holyroodhouse until Monday afternoon for the royal household to pay their respects to Britain's Queen, who died peacefully aged 96 at Balmoral on Thursday evening.

The seven-car cortege, with a police escort and the Queen's daughter Princess Anne, slowly made its way towards Edinburgh, as crowds of people gathered to see it pass and showered it with flowers on the way.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the "poignant" journey would give people in the chance to come together to "mark our country's shared loss".

She and other leaders in observed the coffin as it made its way past the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

The oak coffin will make an onward journey to London later in the week after Buckingham Palace has unveiled plans for the State Funeral, which will take place at Westminster Abbey on Monday, September 19 declared a Bank Holiday in the UK.

Prior to the funeral, the late monarch will lie-in-state at Westminster Hall within the Houses of Parliament complex for four days, to allow the British public to pay their respects.

On Saturday, members of the royal family viewed the several thousand floral tributes and messages left for the late Queen at her residences at Windsor, Balmoral and London.





In a show of royal unity, Prince William and Kate now the Prince and Princess of Wales joined Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle for a walkabout at Windsor to speak to members of the public gathered at the gates of Windsor Castle.

A social media video clip shows Kate telling one group how her youngest son, Prince Louis, had said that his great grandmother was now with great grandpa a reference to the Queen's husband Prince Philip, who died last April aged 99.

It followed Charles, the former Prince of Wales, being formally proclaimed King in an ancient ceremony at St. James's Palace during which he pledged to follow the "inspiring example" set by his late mother.

Flags atop all palaces and government buildings in the UK were brought up to full mast to mark the proclamation and will be lowered back to half-mast for the State Mourning on Sunday.

Buckingham Palace has released a schedule for the new monarch, King Charles III, who will host several audiences and travel to all parts of the United Kingdom as is customary during the State Mourning for a monarch.

After a meeting with the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Baroness Patricia Scotland, at Buckingham Palace, the King will host Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room of the Palace on Sunday.

On Monday, Charles and Queen Consort Camilla will travel to Westminster Hall where both Houses of Parliament will meet to express their condolences at the demise of the Queen.

The royal couple will then travel to Scotland for an audience with the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and to attend the devolved Scottish Parliament.

They are scheduled to travel to Northern Ireland on Tuesday and then later in the week to Wales.

On Monday, a procession will be formed on the forecourt of the Palace of Holyroodhouse to convey the Queen's coffin to St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, where King Charles III and members of the royal family will attend a service to receive the coffin.

It will then lie at rest at St. Giles' Cathedral, guarded by Vigils from the Royal Company of Archers, to allow the people of Scotland to pay their respects, Buckingham Palace has said.

The journey from Scotland to England will be undertaken by air on Tuesday, when the Queen's daughter Princess Anne will accompany the coffin on its journey to the Bow Room at the monarch's London residence of Buckingham Palace.

A day later, on Wednesday, it will be borne in procession to the Palace of Westminster for lying-in-state until the day of the funeral.

Members of the royal family, politicians and world leaders are expected to attend the State Funeral at 11am local time on September 19.

(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.)
Queen Elizabeth's coffin was taken from her summer home in the Scottish Highlands to Edinburgh on Sunday, past tens of thousands of mourners lining the route to pay tribute, many in sombre silence, some applauding and in tears.

Shortly after 10 a.m. (0900 GMT), a hearse carrying Elizabeth's oak coffin emerged from the gates of Balmoral Castle, where she died on Thursday aged 96, at the start of a six-hour slow drive to the Scottish capital.

The coffin was draped in the Royal Standard of with a wreath on top made of flowers taken from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas, one of Elizabeth's favourites.

In an emotional tribute to his mother on Friday, the new monarch King Charles said she had begun a "last great journey" to join her husband of 73 years Prince Philip, who died last year.

The cortege from Balmoral is the first of a series of events https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/plans-run-up-queen-elizabeths-funeral-2022-09-10 leading up to the state funeral at Westminster Abbey in London on Sept. 19.

Her death has drawn tears, sadness and warm tributes, not just from the queen's own close family and many in Britain, but also from around the globe - reflecting her presence on the world stage for seven decades.

As the hearse reached the small village of Ballater near Balmoral, hundreds stood beside the road in silence in bright morning sunshine as the hearse passed, some throwing flowers into the road.

"It's just very, very sad. Iam happy I was here to say our goodbyes," said Elizabeth Alexander, 69, who was born on the day the queen was crowned in 1953.

Accompanied by the queen's daughter, Princess Anne, the cortege wound its way from the remote castle through picturesque countryside, villages and small towns, at one point passing a guard of honour formed by dozens of tractors lined up in adjacent fields by farmers.

It was due to arrive in Edinburgh at about 4 p.m. (1500 GMT)where the coffin will be taken to the throne room of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

"There was no way I could miss this. I would regret it for the rest of my life," said Eilidh Mackintosh, 62, who left her home at 6 a.m. to be sure of a good view on Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile where large crowds were gathering.

"She never let us down and I didn't want to let her down either. Now she has gone there is a big hole in the heart of the nation."

Many thousands have already gathered at royal palaces in the days since Elizabeth's death, and large piles of flowers are massing as people visit to pay their respects.

"I know how deeply you, the entire nation - and I think I may say the whole world - sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all suffered," Charles said at a ceremony on Saturday.

Charles became king immediately after his mother's death and was officially proclaimed the new monarch at the ceremony, full of pageant and centuries-old traditions.

Similar proclamations are following across the United Kingdom and the other 14 realms of which Charles is now head of state, including Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said parliament would be recalled on Thursday to allow members to pay tribute.

The queen came to the throne following the death of her father King George VI on Feb. 6, 1952, when she was just 25. Her coronation took place a year later.

While Elizabeth's death was not totally unexpected given her age and deteriorating health, there was still a sense of shock at the news.

"We all thought she was invincible," her grandson Prince William, now the heir to the throne, told a well-wisher on Saturday as he met crowds at Windsor castle.

FUNERAL

The day of Elizabeth's funeral will be a public holiday in Britain, officials announced. U.S. President Joe Biden said he would be there, although full details of the event and the attendees have not yet been released.

Before that, her coffin will be flown to London and there will be a sombre procession when it is later moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall where it will lie in state for four days.

"It goes without saying that we can expect large numbers of people," a spokesperson for Prime Minister Liz Truss told reporters.

Truss, whose appointment as prime minister on Tuesday was the queen's last public act, will join King Charles as both the new head of state and prime minister tour the four nations of the United Kingdom in the next few days.

Charles, 73, is now the 41st monarch in a line that traces its origins to the Norman King William the Conqueror who captured the English throne in 1066.

Elizabeth's death has capped a difficult couple of years for the royal family.

The most high-profile issue has involved her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who stepped down from royal life in 2020 to move to California from where they both have heavily criticised the institution.



That has left them alienated from the rest of the family, with Harry and his older brother William said to be barely on speaking terms. But the death of their grandmother has seen differences put aside, as they appeared together with their wives outside Windsor Castle to meet the crowds on Saturday.

A royal source described it as an important show of unity at an incredibly difficult time for the family.

(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.)
Russia's Defence Ministry announced on Saturday that it was pulling back troops from two areas in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made significant advances in the past week.

The news came after days of apparent advances by south of Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izyum areas to the eastern Donetsk region.

Izyum was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, and earlier this week social media videos showed residents of Balakliya joyfully cheering as Ukrainian troops moved in.

Konashenkov said the Russian move was being made in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas", one of the eastern regions that has declared sovereign.

The claim of a withdrawal to concentrate on Donetsk is similar to the justification gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the capital.

Earlier on Saturday, Ukrainian officials claimed major gains in the Kharkiv region, saying their troops had cut off vital supplies to Izyum.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko also suggested troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting.

Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometres north of Izyum.

The Ukrainian Security Service posted a message hours later saying troops were in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized.

The military did not immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub that seized in February.

Videos on social media appeared to show Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Izyum at a roadside checkpoint. A large statue with the city's name could be seen in the images. Ukrainian forces did not acknowledge holding the city.

Britain's Defence Ministry said on Saturday that it believed Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 50 kilometres south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izyum as increasingly isolated.

Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns, the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 2,500 square kilometres in its eastern breakthrough.

The institute said it appeared that disorganised Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance, and cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners seized around Izyum and surrounding towns.

The same report said Ukrainian forces may collapse Russian positions around Izyum if they sever Russian ground lines of communication north and south of the town.

Vladislav Sokolov, head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izyum had started evacuating residents to Russia.

The fighting in eastern comes amid an ongoing offensive around Kherson in the south.

Analysts suggest Russia may have taken soldiers from the east to reinforce the latter area, offering the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike a weakened front line.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the television channel Ukraina that the Russians had no food or fuel for their troops in the area as Kyiv had cut off their supply lines.

It will be like an avalanche, he said, predicting a Russian fallback. One line of defence will shake, and it will fall.

The Ukrainian military was more circumspect, claiming to have taken more than 1,000 square kilometres from pro-Kremlin forces this week.

It said that in some areas, units of the Defence Forces have penetrated the enemy's defences to a depth of 50 kilometres, matching the British assessment, but did not disclose geographical details.

Officials in Kyiv have for weeks been tight-lipped about plans for a counteroffensive to retake territory overrun by Russia early in the war, urging residents to refrain from sharing information on social media.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that troops had reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of the counteroffensive.

We are gradually taking control over more settlements, returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our people, Zelenskyy said.

He spoke after the Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv reported that the national flag had been raised over Balakliya, recaptured by Ukrainian troops on Thursday following six months of occupation.

Balakliya is Ukraine! Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region when her home was flattened overnight.

Syniehubov also accused Moscow of pummelling settlements retaken by Kyiv. He said via Telegram that five civilians were hospitalized in the Izyum district, while nine suffered injuries elsewhere in the region.

In the embattled Donbas, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive.

Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two were injured in Bakhmut and the neighboring village of Yahidne.

In the Russina-held city of Enerhodar, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, electricity and water were restored after a four-day outage due to an explosion, the city's Ukrainian mayor, Dmytro Orlov, said.

Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant have come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, which Russia and Ukraine each other the other of committing.

The shelling has raised fears of a radiation leak at the plant, which has been cut off from outside power sources; the facility has been forced to rely on power from its only working reactor for systems cooling and other safety measures.

Orlov said workers from the plant assisted in restoring Enerhodar's power, but it was not clear if the electricity was coming from the plant or from a nearby thermal generating station.

Also Saturday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock paid an unannounced visit to Kyiv and said Europe would not tire of helping Ukraine, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to raise the pressure by withholding energy supplies.

Baerbock said Germany will assist Ukraine in finding and removing mines and other unexploded ordnance left by Russian troops in areas where they have been pushed back.

Despite Ukraine's gains, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of NATO warned on Friday that the war would likely drag on for months.

Blinken said the conflict was entering a critical period and urged Ukraine's Western backers to keep up their support through what could be a difficult winter.

(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.)
Sri Lankan President will attend the funeral of in Britain, his office announced on Sunday.

Wickremesinghe visited the British High Commission in Colombo on Sunday morning to sign the book of condolence placed there. The monarch, who celebrated her 70th year on the throne this year, passed away on September 8 at Balmoral Castle.

The state funeral for the Queen will be held at Wesminster Abbey on September 19.

As a mark of respect to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, Sri Lanka's national flag is flown at half-mast at all state buildings while a day of mourning has been declared for September 19.

was Sri Lanka's head of state until May 1972 when the island left the British sovereign to become a republic.

The Queen had visited Sri Lanka twice in 1954 and 1981 and later was represented by Prince of Wales at visits in 1998, 2004 and 2013 for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting hosted here in Colombo.

Queen's body will be brought down from Scotland to lie in state in Wesminster Hall for four days, from September 14 until 6.30am on the morning of the funeral, to give the public an opportunity to pay their respects.

(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 discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trump's home has thrust agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role as the foil of a former president who demanded they support his agenda and at times accused officers of treason.

While the FBI conducts a criminal investigation, the office that leads the intelligence community is also conducting a review currently on pause pending a court order of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The investigation comes at a perilous time in American politics, with increasing threats to law enforcement and election workers and as a growing swath of officials assail the FBI and spread baseless theories of voter fraud. There's already a wide range of speculation about what was in the documents, with some Democrats pointing to reporting about possible nuclear secrets while some Trump allies suggesting the case is a benign argument about storage.

So far, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proceeded cautiously, issuing no public statements and declining to answer questions about the review's structure or how long it will take.

A look at what's known and expected:



NOT A FORMAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT'



According to the government, the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and papers the Republican former president had turned over previously included highly sensitive Special Access Program designations as well as markings for intelligence derived from secret human sources and electronic signals programs. Those forms of intelligence are often produced by the CIA or the National Security Agency, and the underlying sources can take years to develop.

The ODNI review will try to determine the possible damage if the secrets in those documents were to be exposed. It has not said if it's investigating whether documents already have been exposed.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the review in a letter to the chairpersons of two House committees. Haines' letter says the ODNI will lead a classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search." Experts say that could include non-classified papers with notes written on them that might reference classified information.

Haines' letter also says her office will lead an assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.

That's different from a formal damage assessment that intelligence agencies have carried out after high-profile breaches like the disclosures of programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Damage assessments have specific requirements under intelligence community guidelines published online, including an estimate of actual or potential damage to U.S. national security, the identification of specific weaknesses or vulnerabilities and detailed, actionable recommendations to prevent future occurrences.

Under those guidelines, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a subsidiary within the ODNI, would lead a damage assessment. The center is led by acting Director Michael Orlando as President Joe Biden has not yet nominated a chief counterintelligence executive.

It's unknown whether the intelligence review will include interviewing witnesses. Haines' letter says the ODNI will coordinate with the Justice Department to ensure its assessment does not unduly interfere with the criminal investigation.

For now, the Justice Department has said the ODNI review is paused after a federal judge barred the use of records seized at Mar-a-Lago in a criminal investigation. Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Court's order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work, attorneys for the government said in a court filing.

THE ANSWERS COULD BE UNSATISFYING



The results may not come for weeks or months, and full findings will likely remain classified.

Lawmakers in both parties are calling for briefings from the intelligence community. None is known to have been scheduled.

Former officials note that it's often difficult for agencies to diagnose specific damage from an actual or potential breach. Given the political climate and the unprecedented nature of evaluating a former president, the ODNI is widely expected to be limited and precise in what it says publicly and privately to Congress.

But reviews like the one underway often help top officials and lawmakers better understand vulnerabilities and how to manage risk going forward, said Timothy Bergreen, a former Democratic majority staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.

No healthy organization or society can exist without comprehensive review of its mistakes, Bergreen said. That's always been a democracy's big advantage over authoritarians.

AN OFFICE CREATED AFTER SEPT. 11



Lesser known than many of the agencies it oversees, the ODNI was created in the reorganization of the intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks. Amid revelations that the FBI and the CIA did not share critical information with each other, the ODNI was intended to oversee the 18-member intelligence community and integrate the different streams of collection and analysis produced by different agencies.

The ODNI supervises the drafting of the President's Daily Brief, the distillation of top American intelligence provided to Biden and top advisers daily. Haines is the president's principal intelligence adviser and often briefs Biden in the Oval Office along with other national security leaders.

Trump went through three directors of national intelligence in his last year, part of his long-running battles with the intelligence community.

Some of his top officials were accused of selectively declassifying information for political purposes. And before, during and after his time in office, Trump has accused intelligence officials of selectively leaking material to undermine him or not being sufficiently loyal.

He was incensed by the long-running investigations into allegations of Russian influence on his 2016 campaign, calling them the greatest political CRIME in American History. And he excoriated the person who spoke to a whistleblower about his pressuring Ukraine for derogatory information, saying that person was close to a spy who could have committed treason.

Under Biden, Haines and other top officials have been involved in declassifying information about Russia's war plans against Ukraine. They have also faced questioning about overly optimistic assessments of Afghanistan prior to the fall of Kabul.

Michael Allen, a former Republican majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the ODNI is uniquely positioned to handle such a closely watched review.

This, I think, is one of the reasons why you have a DNI, to coordinate across the wide and disparate community of intelligence agencies, said Allen, author of Blinking Red, a history of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence reforms. This is their bread and butter.

(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.)
Ukrainian forces kept pushing north in the Kharkiv region and advancing to the south and east of the country after the swift fall of Russia's main bastion in the northeast, Ukraine's army chief said on Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Russia's retreat from the city of Izium in the Kharkiv province as a breakthrough in the six-month-old war, saying this winter could bring more rapid gains of territory if Kyiv can get more powerful weapons.

"In the Kharkiv direction, we began to advance not only to the south and east, but also to the north. There are 50 km to go to the state border (with Russia)," Ukraine's chief commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said on Telegram.

He said the country's armed forces have regained control of more than 3,000 square km (1,158 square miles) since the beginning of this month.

The fall of Izium marked Russian forces' worst defeat since they were were pushed back from the capital Kyiv in March, as thousands of Russian soldiers left behind ammunition and equipment as they fled.

"I believe that this winter is a turning point, and it can lead to the rapid de-occupation of Ukraine," Zelensky said in comments to a political forum published on his website late on Saturday. "We see how they (occupiers) are fleeing in some directions. If we were a little stronger with weapons, we would de-occupy faster."

Ukrainian officials stopped short of confirming they had recaptured Izium, but Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak posted a photo of troops on its outskirts and tweeted an emoji of grapes. The city's name means "raisin." Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the gains could pave the way for a further push into Luhansk region, whose capture Russia claimed at the beginning of June.

"If you look at the map, it is logical to assume that the offensive will develop in the direction of Svatovo - Starobelsk, and Sieverodonetsk - Lysychansk. These are two promising directions," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Refuting the allegations from Naidu of increased attacks on Dalits and the poor in AP, Nagarjuna challenged the former CM to face him in a public debate to determine whether this indeed was the case.  Facebook

VIJAYAWADA: Social Welfare Minister Merugu Nagarjuna claimed on Sunday that Chief Minister Jagan Reddy has, by now, implemented 98.44 per cent of the poll promises he had made to the people in the YSRCs 2019 election manifesto.

By contrast, Chandrababu Naidu as first chief minister of the state, more noises, did less and failed to fulfill his TD election manifesto promises. Naidu gave nearly 600 promises in his manifesto during the 2014 election but did not fulfill even one of them, the minister alleged while addressing a press meet here.

He asked why the poor must beg for food in the Naidu-era Anna canteens when the government is providing the necessary welfare schemes to every poor in AP. He said Naidu was a traitor to the Dalits.

Refuting the allegations from Naidu of increased attacks on Dalits and the poor in AP, Nagarjuna challenged the former CM to face him in a public debate to determine whether this indeed was the case. Did attacks, rapes and atrocities on Dalits happen more during Chandrababus term or the terms of YS Rajasekhar Reddy and Jagan Reddy, he asked.

The minister claimed that the Jagan-led government provides security and justice to Dalits and we are ready to prove this with facts and figures to Naidu and other TD leaders.

Recalling the claim of Naidu that geographical imbalance will register if land is given to SCs in the capital region, Nagarjuna said this showed Naidus anti-Dalit attitude and contempt towards suppressed communities.

On the call for restart of Anna canteens initiated during Naidus term, the minister asked, Why the poor have to beg in Anna Canteens when the present government is providing necessary welfare schemes to all the poor?

Nagarjuna said Chandrababu did injustice to SC and ST children by non-implementation of schemes like Kalyanalakshmi and Shaadi Mubarak. Even though BC castes were included as beneficiaries in these schemes in 2017, they did not get any benefit and these schemes did not benefit the needy sections during the TD government, he alleged.

The minister explained that in 2018-19, when TD was in power, 17,709 people were stopped from receiving financial assistance for marriages, and as high as Rs 68 crore remained as dues to BCs that the Jagan government later came and cleared.
When realised that terrorists had attacked America on September 11, 2001, her husband, Joe, wasn't the only loved one whose safety she worried about.

Biden recalled being scared to death that her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant, was on one of the four hijacked airplanes that were flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people.

After learning that her sister was safe at her Pennsylvania home, I went straight to Bonny's house, Biden told The Associated Press on Saturday as she and her sister remembered that day.

On Sunday, Jill Biden, now the first lady, will mark the 21st anniversary of the by delivering remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania accompanied by Jacobs.

The 40 passengers and crew aboard that United Airlines flight fought back against their hijackers, thwarting a feared attack on the US Capitol in Washington.

I called Bonny to see where she was because I was scared to death ... I didn't know where she was, whether she was flying, not flying, where she was, recalled. And then I found out she was home.

Biden had gone to teach her class at Delaware Technical Community College, then went straight to her sister's house after school was dismissed.

Joe Biden, then a US senator, was on an Amtrak train barreling toward Washington when his wife got through to him.

They were on the phone when she cried out, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God after an airplane hit the second World Trade Center tower.

Jacobs said she had gotten home around 2 am on September 11 after a late flight. She slept a little, got up to help get her kids, then 11 and 7, off to school, turned off her phone and went back to bed.

So when I got up around noon, it was such a gorgeous day, she said. I had my coffee. I sat outside. I literally said out loud, I'm doing nothing today, this day is gorgeous.'



She saw the phone beeping when she went inside. Jill had left a message asking if she'd been watching television. She turned it on and saw replays of the attack on the World Trade Center.

I started to shake, Jacobs said, adding that she went upstairs to get dressed and put my clothes on inside out and spent the rest of the day watching TV.

And then the first person that came to the house was Jill, she said. I hadn't called her to come, but she just showed up, and she was there for me, as usual.

Jacobs said she usually flies on the September 11 anniversary to pay tribute to her fallen United Airlines colleagues and as a way of distracting herself because it's so upsetting. But she wanted to be with the first lady in Shanksville to offer the same kind of support her big sister has given her.

It's such a special moment to be together with her," Jacobs said.

She was there for me at the time that it happened and she actually is always there for me. She is my rock. Everybody should have a rock in their life, and she is mine.

And it's such as special thing to share it with her as a flight attendant and that she's there, you know, supporting us, Jacobs said.

In addition to laying a wreath at the memorial and delivering remarks, the first lady was joining members of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA to honor the Flight 93 crew members.

In her prepared remarks for Sunday, says that after the shock of 9/11 settled into sorrow and she had spoken with her husband and children, her thoughts turned to her sister, who continues to work as a flight attendant with United Airlines.

It's a job that she has loved for many years and I knew that the weight of this tragedy would be heavier for her, the first lady says.

When I got to her house, I realized that I was right. She hadn't just lost colleagues. She had lost friends.

She adds: But I know that, as we learned more about that dark day, she felt pride for what happened here as well, pride that it was fellow flight attendants and the passengers of United Flight 93 who fought back, who helped stop the plane from taking an untold number of lives in our nation's capital."



Joe Biden, now president, was to commemorate the day at the Pentagon. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were to be at the New York remembrance.

On 9/11, then-Sen. Biden arrived in Washington to see smoke in the sky from the crash at the Pentagon. He wanted to go to the floor of the Senate, but the Capitol and the surrounding complex of offices and official buildings, including the Supreme Court, had been evacuated.

He was turned away by Capitol police, who said there was a risk that the building was a target.

Jill Biden said scores of lives were saved including possibly her husband's by the actions of everyone aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

That plane was headed for the US Capitol and so I think it's important that every year we go to Shanksville and we remember those who fought: the flight attendants, the captains, the pilots, all of those who fought to save those lives, the first lady said in the interview.

She said her message Sunday would be, We will never forget. We will never forget.

There were so many things swirling that day because I was worried about Joe's safety, but I just could not imagine that my sister was on one of those flights," the first lady said.

I don't know what word I want to use. I was so worried and I don't even think that's strong enough," she added.

Jacobs interjected to say 9/11 was surreal.

Jill Biden added: The whole thing was so surreal, but I was just, you know, just really praying that she was not on one of those flights.

(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.)
President said the US would not hesitate to use its military power against terrorist threats even though the Afghanistan war is over, in remarks at a ceremony marking the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.



Well continue to monitor and disrupt those terrorist activities wherever we find them, wherever they live, and well never hesitate to do whats necessary to defend the American people, Biden said Sunday speaking at the Pentagon.

It took 10 years to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden but we did, the president added. He also cited the July airstrike he ordered that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the successor of bin Laden.

Biden laid a wreath at the military headquarters outside Washington, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed on the morning of the attack, killing 184 people. First lady Jill Biden is participating in an observance at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It has been an annual tradition for US presidents to attend memorial events to mark the deadliest terror attack on American soil.

Its not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then. Its something we have to do every single day, Biden said.

This years anniversary comes roughly a year after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, where the nations military became bogged down in a two-decade-long war after invading in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Biden came under withering criticism for the chaotic nature of the pull-out, shaking Americans confidence in his ability to govern.

Bidens approval rating has rebounded in recent weeks amid a series of victories on domestic and foreign policy.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attended a commemoration ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.

This years observance in New York comes as the city grapples with the lingering economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment remains high, and some of the citys biggest economic drivers -- office workers and tourists -- havent returned in full force.

But the city is starting to show signs of improvement. Covid restrictions are largely over, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul ending the mask mandate on public transit on Wednesday.
President is set to mark the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon, a year after he ended the long and costly war in that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks.

In ending the war, the Democratic president followed through on a campaign pledge to bring home U.S. troops from the country's longest conflict. But the war concluded chaotically in August 2021, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in the face of a countrywide Taliban advance that returned the fundamentalist group to power. A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at Kabul's airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden in his remarks Sunday will recognize the impact the 2001 attacks had on the U.S. and the world and honor the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaida hijackers took control of commercial planes and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

I think you'll hear him talk about how America will stay vigilant to the threat but also look to future threats and challenges and be able to learn to meet those threats and challenges, Kirby said.

Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from late last month in low-key fashion. He issued a statement in honor of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the bombing at the Kabul airport and spoke by phone with U.S. veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle in the United States Afghans who helped the war effort.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden's handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has spiraled downward under renewed Taliban rule since the U.S. withdrawal.

Now, one year on from last August's disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden's decision has come into sharper focus," McConnell said. Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity."



First lady Jill Biden will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband will go to New York City for a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial.

(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.)
Visiting USAID Administrator Samantha Power on Sunday urged China, among other creditors, to assist in restructuring debts to recover

from the ongoing economic crisis.

Completing her two-day visit to the island nation that grapples with the worst-ever economic crisis since its independence from British rule in 1948, Power announced that the US was ready to help South Asian island in its debt restructuring process.

"As seeks to emerge from this economic crisis, the United States, as a creditor and a member of the Paris Club, stands ready to participate in the restructuring of Sri Lanka's debts," Power told journalists here.

"It is imperative that all Sri Lankan creditors, most notably the People's Republic of China, cooperate in this process openly and on comfortable terms with each other.

"When debt becomes unsustainable as it so clearly has in Sri Lanka, the stake of that

cooperation can mean the difference between life and or death, prosperity or poverty," Power added.

The United States Agency for Development (USAID) Administrator, who emphasised that the US is not interested in increasing Sri Lanka's debt, said that her country "provides grants, as it is interested in the US- relationship becoming a strictly trade related relationship, and not an aid relationship".

"We want to use our resources to unlock the potential that we know is there, without strings attached. And we think this is a really important moment in Sri Lanka for that same mindset of standing with our friends, no strings attached, and in the interest of economic independence and economic stability for this country," Power added.

During her visit, Power announced that $60 million assistance would be given to Sri Lanka - $40 million to help farmers purchase fertiliser and other vital agricultural inputs and another $20 million as emergency humanitarian assistance.

The USAID stated that the complex emergency that has resulted in a severe economic crisis has left nearly 5.7 million Sri Lankan people in urgent need of food, agriculture, livelihood support, protection, and more.

The weekend's USAID financial support has brought the US government's assistance to Sri Lanka at nearly $240 million.

With a colossal $51 billion total debt with the challenge to repay around $28 billion by 2028, Sri Lanka suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debts due for the year 2022.

On September 1, the Monetary Fund (IMF) struck a deal to provide $2.9 billion over four year to help salvage the country from its worst economic

crisis but reiterated that much will depend on the cooperation of the country's existing

creditors including .

During her weekend visit, Power also met President Ranil Wickremesinghe, famers who were affected by the agricultural crisis and few other stakeholders.

--IANS

sfl/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.)
will leave China for the first time in more than two years for a trip this week to Central Asia where he will meet Russia's Vladimir Putin, just a month before he is set to cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.



The trip, Xi's first abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows just how confident he is about his grip on power in China and just how perilous the global situation has become.



Against a backdrop of Russia's confrontation with the West over Ukraine, the crisis over Taiwan and a stuttering global economy, Xi is due on a state visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday.



China's president will then meet Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Kremlin said.



Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters last week that the Russian president was expected to meet Xi at the summit. The Kremlin declined to give details on their talks.



China has yet to confirm Xi's travel plans.



The meeting will give Xi an opportunity to underscore his clout while Putin can demonstrate Russia's tilt towards Asia; both leaders can show their opposition to the United States just as the West seeks to punish Russia for the Ukraine war.



"It is all about Xi in my view: he wants to show just how confident he is domestically and to be seen as the leader of nations opposed to Western hegemony," said George Magnus, author of "Red Flags", a book about Xi's challenges.



"Privately I imagine Xi will be most anxious about how Putinas war is going and indeed if Putin or Russia are in play at some point in the near future because China still needs an anti-western leadership in Moscow."



Russia suffered its worst defeat of the war last week, abandoning its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine.



The deepening "no limits" partnership between the rising superpower of China and the natural resources titan of Russia is one of the most intriguing geopolitical developments of recent years - and one the West is watching with anxiety.



Once the senior partner in the global Communist hierarchy, Russia after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union is now considered a junior partner of a resurgent Communist China which is forecast to overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy in the next decade.



Though historical contradictions abound in the partnership, there is no sign that Xi is ready to drop his support for Putin in Russia's most serious confrontation with the West since the height of the Cold War.



Instead, the two 69-year-old leaders are deepening ties.



Trade soared by nearly a third between Russia and China in the first 7 months of 2022.



The visit "shows that China is willing to not only continue 'business as usual' with Russia but even show explicit support and accelerate the formation of a stronger China-Russia alignment," said Alexander Korolev, senior lecturer in politics and relations at UNSW Sydney.



"Beijing is reluctant to distance itself from Moscow even when facing serious reputational costs and the risks of becoming a target of secondary economic sanctions."



Xi Supreme



Xi is widely expected to break with precedent at a Communist Party congress that starts on Oct. 16 and secure a third five-year leadership term.



While Xi has met Putin in person 38 times since becoming China's president in 2013, he has yet to meet Joe Biden in person since the latter became U.S. President in 2021.



Xi last met Putin in February just weeks before the Russian president ordered the invasion of Ukraine which has left tens of thousands of people dead and sown chaos through the global economy.



At that meeting at the opening of the Winter Olympics, Xi and Putin declared a "no limits" partnership, backing each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the West.



China has refrained from condemning Russia's operation against Ukraine or calling it an "invasion" in line with the Kremlin which casts the war as "a special military operation".



"The bigger message really isn't that Xi is supporting Putin, because it's been pretty clear that Xi supports Putin," said Professor Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.



"The bigger signal is that he, Xi Jinping, is going out of China for the first time since the pandemic in the run-up to the party congress. If there were going to be plottings against him this is when the plottings would happen. And he's clearly confident that the plottings are not going to take place because he is out of the country."



Xi, the son of a communist revolutionary, is poised to secure a historical third leadership term at the 20th Communist Party Congress beginning on Oct. 16. He last left China in January 2020, before the world went into COVID lockdown.



Kremlin chief



After the West imposed on Moscow the most severe sanctions in modern history due to the war in Ukraine, Putin says Russia is turning towards Asia after centuries of looking to the West as the crucible of economic growth, technology and war.



Casting the West as a declining, U.S.-dominated coalition which aims to shackle - or even destroy - Russia, Putin's worldview chimes with that of Xi, who presents China as an alternative to the U.S.-led, post-World War Two order.



Putin aide Ushakov said the Xi-Putin meeting would be "very important". He did not give further details.



As Europe seeks to turn away from Russian energy imports, Putin will seek to boost energy exports to China and Asia.



Putin said last week that a major gas export route to China via Mongolia had been agreed. Gazprom has for years been studying the possibility for a major new gas pipeline - the Power of Siberia 2 - to travel through Mongolia taking Russian gas to China.



It will carry 50 billion cubic metres of gas per year, around a third of what Russia usually sells Europe a or equivalent to the Nord Stream 1 annual volumes.



The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan and four Central Asian states, is due to admit Iran, one of Moscow's key allies in the Middle East.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital Editor
As he prepares to launch his political party, former Congress leader on Sunday slammed those promising the restoration of even though it was not in their hands and said he would not mislead the people over the issue.

In his maiden rally in Kashmir Valley after quitting the Congress last month, he said only a government with a two-thirds majority in Parliament can ensure the restoration of the special status of .

"Azad knows what can and cannot be done. I or the Congress party or the regional parties cannot give you back Article 370, neither can (TMC chief) Mamata Banerjee, or DMK or (NCP chief) Sharad Pawar," the former chief minister of said.

The former Union minister said he would not raise issues over which he has no control.

"Some people have been saying that I don't talk about . I want to tell them that Azad does not befool people for electoral gains," he said at the public meeting at Dak Bungalow Baramulla in Kashmir.

"I swear before God that I will not mislead you. I will not raise such slogans or issues over which I have no control," he said.

Azad said only a party with a two-thirds majority in Parliament can restore the special status of the erstwhile state which was revoked by the Centre in August 2019.

"Congress party hasn't been able to achieve more than 50 Lok Sabha seats in the last ten years. Let God help them. But, I have been in politics, and I don't think the Congress party can get over 350 seats in my lifetime. Its strength is decreasing in Rajya Sabha with every state loss," he said.

"Where from can I get it? Where can I get those votes needed in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha? Why mislead people? So, tell me who is lying? Me, or they?" he added.

Azad said it is another betrayal with the people of J-K when some parties say they will restore .

This is a material for another agitation. Till Azad is alive, he will have to be killed to kill his ideology. I will not allow the people to be used for electoral gains on the basis of religion.... whether I win or not, whether I secure four votes or lakhs of them, he said.

Much blood has spilled, but if you support me, the blood will be mine now, he said.

The former J-K chief minister said he would not promise the moon and stars to the people but only the things that are achievable like the restoration of statehood.

Statehood can be achieved because there is no constitutional amendment needed We don't need a two-thirds majority for that. Our lands should be ours only and no outsiders should be able to own them.

"Our jobs should be ours only. Parliament is not needed for these two issues. So, I talk only about those things which can be achieved, he said.

He said political parties should not raise those slogans whose resolution is not in their hands or the hands of the people.

Referring to Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari's allegation that Azad had voted in favour of the abrogation of Article 370, he said Bukhari should first understand how Parliament works.

"I have been in the Parliament for 40 years. Let him be there for 10-20 years so that he understands against whom to vote. I voted against the Bill brought by the Home Ministry for the revocation of Article 370," Azad said.

Those who do not know about Parliament should talk less about it. It is better if they do not speak about it, he added.

He said had he not been an MP or the leader of the opposition, there would have been no one to raise the voice of the people of J-K in Parliament.

Some people, he pointed out, say they went to jail for not supporting the revocation of Article 370, but Azad did not.

Had I been here (in Kashmir), I too would have been jailed But, it did not stop me. I came to Srinagar and Jammu twice but was not allowed to move from the airports. Then I approached the Supreme Court for sharing the pain of the people of J-K, he said.

(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.)
Ending speculations, Rashtra Samithi President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday said he would launch a national party following more discussions with a cross-section of society.

Seeking to provide a national alternative to the dominant BJP and the Congress parties, that is attempting at a bounce back, the TRS said it would reach a consensus on "alternative national agenda," by continuing discussions with various stakeholders.

Rao made it clear that the launch of the party and formulation of policies would follow extended discussions with intellectuals, economists and experts from various fields.

Earlier in the day, former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy called on Rao and discussions were on the contours of the proposed outfit.

The move takes forward Rao's "BJP-mukt Bharat", (BJP-free India) pitch and follows deliberations with several leaders belonging to parties other than the BJP and Congress.

An official release from Rao's office said that discussions preceded with a cross-section of society similar to initiatives ahead of the launch of the movement to seek a separate state of and such deliberations would continue.

"Very soon, the formation of a national party and formulation of its policies will take place," the release said.

'Bharat Rashtriya Samiti' (BRS), 'Ujwal Bharat Party' and 'Naya Bharat Party' were among the names that reportedly cropped up recently in the TRS circles for the proposed national outfit. However, there was no official confirmation.

Rao, who has been blaming the saffron party's government at the Centre for the "ills" plaguing the country, has been batting for a vibrant role for in national .

The BJP in Telangana has been working aggressively to take on the ruling TRS and the saffron party emerged as a force to reckon with in Hyderabad municipal polls. It also managed to win in two bypolls (including Huzurabad) while the TRS won in the other two. BJP leaders have also been touring Telangana vigorously.

The TRS, in its Foundation Day event in April this year, adopted a resolution that the party should play "the key role in national politics" in the wider interest of the country as the BJP is exploiting "communal sentiments" for its political convenience.

Rao has in recent past met several non-BJP and non-Congress opposition leaders, including Nitish Kumar, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and Hemant Soren. During such discussions, topics like BJP's alleged anti-people policies and bringing about a "qualitative change in the country" came up.

Recently the presidents of TRS district units called upon Rao, also known as KCR, nudging him to take a plunge into national to put an end to BJP's "anti-people rule" at the Centre.

Kumaraswamy and Rao discussed the development of Telangana, the role of regional parties in national politics, the key role that should play in national in the present situation and other national political issues, the release said.

(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.)
Estranged AIADMK leader and former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on Sunday attacked the state government's decision to hike rates.

In a statement, he condemned the DMK government for the increase in tariff rates of domestic consumers and demanded an immediate roll back of the rates.

Seeking to remind the DMK of its 2021 Assembly poll promise that it would increase the free electricity to handloom workers by 300 units and by 1,000 units for powerloom units, Panneerselvam said that he had opposed this "anti-people law" of the DMK government when it was mooted in the Assembly in July.

He also said that the Electricity Regulatory Commission's announcement to people to give up the free 100 units of power was a "major shocker", and that private schools, and private hostels would pass on the hiked charge to public.

--IANS

aal/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.)
Prime Minister will be in on his birthday on September 17, during which he will attend a series of programmes, and sound the poll bugle for his party in the state, where elections will be held next year.

The PM's visit comes ahead of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra entering the state.

Prime Minister Modi's visit is being considered very important politically, because the Assembly elections are to be held in the state next year and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. Overall, through this visit, he will give a direct message to the people because the elections in the state are going to be fought with the face of the Prime Minister.

After this visit of the Prime Minister, many more events are likely to take place in the state. Among them is the Investors Summit to be held in Indore, apart from a programme to inaugurate the corridor of Ujjain.

The is excited about the Prime Minister's visit. While discussing with the officials all the aspects related to the preparations for Modi's visit, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the Prime Minister's visit would mainly include the releasing of cheetahs, brought from from Namibia in the Palpur Kuno National Parkthe and a programme with the women self-help groups in Karahal.

A development exhibition will also be organised on this occasion. Presentation of the works being done to give impetus to the One District One Product (ODOP) scheme in the various districts of will also be included. The ODOP projects related to mustard oil in Morena district, groundnut oil in Shivpuri district, angavastra made in Chanderi, jackets made in Shivpuri, Gondi painting of Dindori and activities related to millet products and their production and manufacturing, etc, will be mentioned before the PM.

The also wants to make the Prime Minister's tour special. Party's state President Vishnudutt Sharma said, "It is a matter of pride for the workers of that Prime Minister is coming on September 17 for the shifting of eight African cheetahs to the Kuno National Park. All the party workers are excited by his visit and are preparing to welcome him. From September 17, the birthday of the Prime Minister, till October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the will celebrate Seva Pakhwada. Under this, many campaigns of public service including blood donation camps will be run."

Political analysts believe that this visit of the Prime Minister will sound the poll bugle for the next year's Assembly elections in the state. Overall, the BJP will now be in full election mode and will not lag behind in making its political agenda clear before Rahul Gandhi's padyatra enters the state. In 2018, the state saw a hung Assembly, with the Congress emerging as the single largest party. In view of this, the BJP is therefore readying itself for the polls.

--IANS

snp/uk/dpb

(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.)
HYDERABAD: The police on Sunday gave conditional permission to BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar for his Praja Sangrama Yatra-IV, slated to begin at 11 am Monday.

Reportedly, senior police officials cautioned BJP leaders against making any provocative speeches during the yatra, most of which would be in the outlying areas of the city covered by the Malkajgiri parliamentary constituency.

Meanwhile, assistant commissioners of police and inspectors reviewed security arrangements for the padayatra, which will go on for ten days.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, BJP state general secretary and Praja Sangrama Yatra in-charge Dr G. Manohar Reddy said that Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra had accorded permission for the padayatra.

The yatras co-in-charge T. Veerender Goud said that the BJP has a stronghold in the GHMC area and the cadre was excited with the prospect of political activity.

We are overwhelmed by the response from the party leaders and cadre from the eight Assembly constituencies which the padayatra will cross,, he said.

Flexi boards have been put in Quthbullapur Assembly constituency limits welcoming Sanjay Kumar and BJP national general secretary Sunil Bansal, who will be present at the take-off point.
Senior Congress leader on Sunday challenged Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai for an open discussion on at the time and venue of his choice.

Calling the present administration as a "40 per cent sarakar" filled with "looters and scamsters", the former Chief Minister, in a series of tweets, pointing out that BJP leaders claiming that they will expose scandals of his government, challenged them to do so.

was reacting to the ruling BJP leaders on Saturday going after him at their party's massive 'Janaspandana' rally in Doddaballapur.

In a fierce speech, Bommai had even said that the real face of the Congress will be out in the days to come and all of Siddaramaiah's scams will be exposed soon.

"Let Bommai first clean his own house. 40 per cent sarakar is filled with looters and scamsters. Bommai, I challenge you for an open discussion on . We are always ready. You fix the time and venue, and we will come," said.

"BJP leaders are claiming that they will expose scandals of our times. I challenge them to do that. I am ready to face it. Blackmail techniques won't work on me. High Court notice was issued to B S Yediyurappa (senior BJP leader and former CM) and not me. I suspect that Bommai actually targeted Yediyurappa," he said.

Amid allegations of corruptions and scams giving negative publicity to his government, Bommai had on Saturday targeted Siddaramaiah accusing him of presiding over scams when the Congress was in power from 2013-18.

Mocking Bommai's speech on Saturday as "heroic", Siddaramaiah said, " Sangh Parivar will not tolerate such display of heroism. Don't forget that Yediyurappa unfortunately went to jail for performing similar acts."



Claiming that empty chairs at the BJP's Saturday rally clearly indicate that people have rejected them, he said, "Bommai, even you are aware that you are incapable of challenging us. If you think you are courageous enough, first expand the Cabinet or even at least take action against Yatnal (BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal who has been openly criticising certain affairs in the party).

(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 city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, has been in the spotlight this week as the venue for the 22nd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. As a prominent trading hub on the original Silk Road traversing Central Asia, the citys history can be traced back to before the Roman empire. We take a closer look at the ancient city

Sep 16, 2022 08:19 PM
CANBERRA: Many regarded Australians' respect and affection for the late Queen Elizabeth II as the biggest obstacle to the country becoming a republic with its own head of state.

Now, after her death and with a pro-republic Labor Party government in power, Australia's constitutional ties to the British monarchy will again be open to first-order debate for the first time since change was rejected at a 1999 referendum.

During her long reign, the queen connected to Australia in ways that no monarch before her had done.

In 1954, she became the only reigning British monarch to visit Australia. Such was her star power, an estimated 70 per cent of Australia's population turned out to see her during a punishing two-month itinerary that took her and her husband Prince Philip to 57 towns and cities spread across vast distances.

She visited 16 times, the final time in 2011 when she was 85. Her face is the only monarch to appear on Australian money since decimal currency was introduced in 1966, when Australian dollars and cents replaced British-style pounds, shillings and pence.

Her eldest son, King Charles III, was officially proclaimed Australia's head of state Sunday by the monarch's Australian representative, Governor-General David Hurley, at a protocol-heavy ceremony at Parliament House that ended with a 21-gun salute.

Anthony Albanese, who describes himself as the first candidate with a non-Anglo Celtic name to run for prime minister in the 121 years that the office has existed, started laying the groundwork for an Australian republic when Labor was elected in May after nine years in opposition.

Albanese created a new position of Assistant Minister for the Republic and appointed Matt Thistlethwaite to the role in June. Thistlethwaite had said there would be no change in the queen's lifetime.

The prime minister has said that a republic referendum is not a priority of his first three-year term in government.

He is already planning a referendum in the current term that would enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in Australia's Constitution. While details have yet to be finalized, the voice would provide a mechanism that would allow Indigenous representatives to address Parliament about laws that effect their lives.

Since news of the queen's death broke Friday in Australia, Albanese has brushed off questions about an Australian republic.

Now is not a time to talk about our system of government, he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday. "Now is the time for us to pay tribute to the life of Queen Elizabeth, a life well lived, a life of dedication and loyalty including to the Australian people and for us to honor and grieve.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, a monarchist, has similarly avoided questions about why Australia needs a king.

The Australian Republic Movement, an organisation that campaigns for Australia to become a republic and is unaffiliated with any political party, was widely criticized over a political statement issued soon after news of the queen's death.

The statement referred to the queen's comments surrounding the 1999 referendum that voted to maintain the British monarch as Australia's head of state.

"The queen backed the right of Australians to become a fully independent nation during the referendum saying that she has always made it clear that the future of the monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means,' the statement said.

That referendum largely failed because Australians were divided about what kind of president they wanted. The monarch is represented in Australia by a governor-general who in recent decades has always been an Australian citizen.

The governor- general is appointed by the monarch on the prime minister's advice.

The referendum recommended that the monarch and the monarch's representative be replaced by a president chosen by at least two-thirds of lawmakers in Parliament. But many republicans wanted voters to elect the president as they do in the United States, so joined with monarchists in opposing the republic model then on offer.

The minor Greens party, which is influential in the Senate where no party holds a majority of seats, was also criticized for raising the republic within hours of the queen's death.

"Now Australia must move forward. We need Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic," Greens leader Adam Bandt tweeted on Friday. Australia is rare among former British Empire countries in having no treaty with its Indigenous peoples.

Support for the republic movement surged in 1975, when Governor-General John Kerr used Queen Elizabeth II's authority to dismiss Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to end a constitutional crisis. There were suspicions that the British royal family had instructed Kerr to bring down a democratically elected Australian government.
Basically, there are two reasons why automakers would design and build a car. Either theyre doing it for the sheer passion of it, or becaus...
Photo: . Artist Jan Vriesen's painting of the environment 112 million years ago. (Tumbler Ridge Museum)

This dreamlike painting by artist Jan Vriesen imagines what the environment was like in the Tumbler Ridge area of Northeast B.C. some 112 million years ago.

It was the Age of Dinosaurs and the steep slopes in the valley of Ninesting Creek, a tributary of Wolverine River southwest of the community, were likely at the edge of an open lake basin or floodplain pond.

Researchers say theyve finally identified a set of unusual fossilized trackways discovered there in 2014, believed to be among the largest and oldest of their kind in Canada and North America.

The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research, and shared by the Tumbler Ridge Museum this week.

The museum says three "distinct" track types were found within a lease area of the Quintette Mine: large three-toed bird tracks, larger four-toed dinosaur tracks thought to have been made by oviraptosaurs, and pterosaur tracks.

"The pterosaur tracks are arguably the first to be identified in BC, although such tracks have been found in Alberta, Alaska, and the western USA," the museum said in a news release. "They appear to be the oldest thus far identified in Canada."

The three-toed bird tracks, the museum said, are the largest from the Mesozoic Era (the Age of Dinosaurs) in North America, and among the largest in the world from this time period."

At the time the tracks were made, the area was likely at the margin of an open lake basin or a floodplain pond.

Traces made by freshwater mussels were also present on the surface, suggesting that the birds, oviraptosaurs and pterosaurs might have been interested in a meal of molluscs.

"At the time the area would have been located close to the Arctic Circle, with long periods of winter darkness.

Twenty tracks in all were identified in six different trackways at the site, of which mine operator Teck Resources "was extremely helpful in supporting the research and enabling site access," the museum said.

The discovery confirms the importance of northeastern BC as an area rich in fossil tracksites.

Professor Emeritus and geologist Martin Lockley of the University of Colorado was lead author of the article. He was supported by Charles Helm, Andrew Lawfield, and Kevin Sharman of the Tumbler Ridge Museum.

The museum says the 2014 trackway discovery is among more than 70 vertebrate tracksites identified in the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark.

More than 400 million years of Northeast B.C. history is housed and displayed at the museum, and the Geopark is also home to 75-million-year-old tyrannosaurid trackway.
Handover ceremony of China-donated COVID-19 vaccines held in Myanmar

Xinhua) 09:15, September 11, 2022

A staff member transfers China-donated COVID-19 vaccines at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 9, 2022. A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport. (Photo by Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua)

YANGON, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport.

Speaking at the ceremony, Zheng Zhihong, minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Myanmar, said China has so far provided Myanmar with 53 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, a solid guarantee for the health of the people of Myanmar and a demonstration of the spirit of building a China-Myanmar community with a shared future.

Tun Min, deputy director-general of Yangon Regional Health Department, said Myanmar has received large amounts of assistance from China in the fight against COVID-19, including test kits, vaccines, medical supplies and medical equipment, reflecting the close cooperation between Myanmar and China.

Myanmar has already vaccinated more than 36.8 million people, or roughly over 66 percent of its total population, for COVID-19 as of Sept. 6, the health ministry's data showed.

As of Friday, Myanmar reported 616,401 cases of COVID-19 and 19,442 related deaths, official data showed.

Zheng Zhihong (R), minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Myanmar, shakes hands with Tun Min, deputy director-general of Yangon Regional Health Department, during the handover ceremony at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 9, 2022. A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport. (Photo by Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua)

A staff member transfers China-donated COVID-19 vaccines at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 9, 2022. A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport. (Photo by Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua)

A staff member transfers China-donated COVID-19 vaccines at Yangon International Airport in Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 9, 2022. A handover ceremony of 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated by China was held Friday at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport. (Photo by Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Bianji)
Actors John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart co-starred in The Shootist. The performances earned praises from audiences and critics, but director Don Siegel didnt have the easiest time working with them. He accused Wayne and Stewart of not trying hard enough on the set of The Shootist. However, the Western star had a famous comeback that came from a John Ford quote.

John Wayne convinced Jimmy Stewart to join The Shootist in a cameo role

L-R: John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart | Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

According to IMDb, Wayne convinced Stewart to join The Shootist for a small cameo role as Dr. Hostetler. The 1976 Western movie follows the notorious shootist named J.B. Books (Wayne), who arrives in Carson City, Nevada. However, after a visit with the local doctor, he discovers that he has cancer and a short time left to live.

As a result, J.B. makes the decision to stay at a nearby boarding house run by Bond Rogers (Lauren Becall) and her son, Gillom (Ron Howard). However, he soon realizes that he isnt welcome there. Nevertheless, he seeks to die as painless a death as possible with the maximum amount of dignity left intact. J.B. establishes an unexpected bond with his widowed host and her son.

The Shootist director Don Siegel accused John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart of not trying hard enough

#DYK The Shootist was #JimmyStewarts final appearance in a Western film. He agreed to play the doctor in the movie as a favor to #JohnWayne.



Catch your favorite #Grit all-stars this Saturday at 5/4c! pic.twitter.com/HBLqs2yaxx  Grit (@grit_tv) February 1, 2019

Wayne specifically requested that Stewart join The Shootist, which was a welcome reunion between the actors. They previously co-starred in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and How the West Was Won, but The Shootist would present its own challenges.

He [Stewart] and Wayne muffed their lines so often in the main scene between them that director Don Siegel accused them of not trying hard enough, IMDb wrote. Waynes reply was a variation on an old John Ford line, advising the director, If youd like the scene done better, youd better get a couple of better actors.'

Wayne later told his friends that Stewart knew his lines on The Shootist. However, the issue was that he couldnt hear his cues. As a result, Stewart messed up some of the scenes which caused Wayne to fumble his own lines.

Wayne frequently received criticisms on his performances over the course of his career. Many critics claimed that he couldnt act and simply played the same character in every movie. Nevertheless, he finally won his Oscar for True Grit. Meanwhile, Stewart was praised for many performances, winning his only Oscar for 1940s The Philadelphia Story.

The Western actor earned Oscar buzz for his final performance

"My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much"  Ron Howard on working with Duke on his last film, The Shootist (1976) pic.twitter.com/MNyOXiie2S  John Wayne Official (@JohnDukeWayne) August 3, 2020

The performance Wayne gave in The Shootist would be the final one of his career. However, it wasnt by choice. The actor died from stomach cancer on June 11, 1979, which was only three years after the release of Siegels movie.

The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction, but it lost out to All the Presidents Men. However, Wayne earned a lot of Oscar talk for his performance as J.B. in The Shootist. It was a deeply personal role for the actor, which brought some of his realities onto the silver screen.

RELATED: John Waynes Final Movie Beau John Would Have Only Been a Half-WesternREL
Cherokee Nation citizen Ronnie Secratt won the the Oklahoma Junior Miss title in the Miss United States Agriculture pageant in August. She will spend the year doing community services and sharing her knowledge of the agricultural industry.
Majority of pastors dont believe Christians should tithe 10%: study

While many Christian churches encourage tithing  giving 10% of one's income to the church  as a biblical commandment, only a minority of pastors subscribe to that traditional view, data from a new Barna study show.

The data in Revisiting the Tithe & Offering, the latest release in Barnas The State of

Generosity series published in partnership with Generis and Gloo, found that only a minority of Americans who identify as Christian give 10% of their income to the church in practice too.

Researchers surveyed 2,016 U.S. adults from Nov. 12-19, 2021, to arrive at the most recent conclusion showing no consensus among pastors on the practice that has been renounced by high-profile pastors such as televangelist Creflo Dollar in recent months.

While most pastors in the study dont see giving outside the church as tithing, 70% said tithing doesnt have to be strictly financial. And when it comes to how much financial giving would be an acceptable tithe, only 33% are in favor of the traditional 10%.

Another 21% of pastors didnt recommend any particular share of income that Christians should give, but suggested it should be enough to be considered sacrificial. A nearly similar share of pastors, 20%, said Christians should give as much as they are willing.

The study also revealed that the concept of tithing was also not well understood by U.S. adults or even Christians in particular.

Only about two in five U.S. adults in the study said they were familiar with the term tithe and could provide a definition. A similar share said they were familiar with the term, while 22% said although they were familiar with the concept they couldnt provide a definition.

Among Christians, in general, less than half could say definitely what the tithe is. More than half of practicing Christians, 59%, had a stronger awareness of the tithe and what it means, while 99% of pastors understood the traditional concept.

The study further noted that only 21% of Christians were found to give 10% of their income to their local church while 25% didnt give to their church at all. Among practicing Christians, the study found that 42% gave at least the traditional 10% to their church.

Church leaders and Christians may wonder whether it matters if the tithe falls out of the mainstream. After all, church giving should not be reduced to an equation, and heartfelt, reverent generosity can be accomplished with or without deep knowledge of the tithe, Barna noted. Still, as a fundamental, scriptural idea of Christian stewardship becomes a hazy concept, it appropriately raises questions  about how modern ministries approach funding and resources, and, more importantly, about the broader culture of generosity being nurtured among Christians.

A recent study showed that only an estimated 13% of Evangelicals engage in traditional tithing and half give less than 1% of their income annually. The study, "The Generosity Factor: Evangelicals and Giving," from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts, a brand communication agency, shows that the average Evangelical gave $1,923 to the church and $622 to charity over the past 12 months, for a total of $2,545 in giving. At the median mark, however, Evangelicals only gave $340 to the church and $50 to charity, for a total of $390.

The study found that people who were more engaged with their church and faith tended to give more to their church, and vice versa.

In July, controversial televangelist Creflo Dollar, one of America's most flamboyant proponents of the prosperity gospel, renounced tithing and all his previous teachings on the subject as "not correct."

He also urged his followers to "throw away every book, every tape and every video I

ever did on the subject of tithing" but added that he will not apologize for his error.

In a sermon billed as "The Great Misunderstanding," the founder and senior pastor of

the nearly 30,000-member World Changers Church International headquartered in

College Park, Georgia, said he was aware that his declaration would cause him to

lose friends and invitations to speak at other churches.

In an op-ed for The Gospel Coalition in 2017, Thomas Schreiner, the James

Buchanan Harrison professor of New Testament interpretation and associate dean

for Scripture and interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in

Louisville, Kentucky, outlined several reasons why tithing is not a requirement for

Christians.

"The commands stipulated in the Mosaic covenant are no longer in force for

believers. Some appeal to the division between the civil, ceremonial, and moral law

to support tithing. Yet these divisions, I would observe, are not the basis Paul uses

when addressing how the law applies to us today, Schreiner explained in part.

And even if we use these distinctions, tithing is clearly not part of the moral law.

It's true the moral norms of the Old Testament are still in force today, and we

discern them from the law of Christ in the New Testament, but tithing is not among

these commands."
Dear parents: Your childrens youth pastor isnt their primary discipler  you are

The following words might be tough to hear, but they need to be said:

A youth pastors job is not to disciple your children for you

I know that when you drop your teenagers off on Wednesday nights to enjoy pizza, games, and Bible study, your intention is not to pawn your responsibility as a parent off on the youth pastor.

But I ask you this in all love and sincerity: Are you effectively doing just that?

One way to know the answer to that question is how you answer any of the following questions:

Are you spending more time talking to your kids about God at home than you are about how their school day went?

Are you prioritizing worship as a family?

Are you teaching Scripture to your children when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)?

Are you your childs primary disciple?

Are you the one to whom they come when they have questions about God?

If your answer to all or most of these questions is no or sometimes or sort of, then you need to admit that you are effectively outsourcing the most important job youve been given as a parent: discipling your child. Because as knowledgeable or likeable or inspiring as your youth pastor might appear to be, it is impossible for him  or anyone  to spend a few hours a week teaching your child about God and have it stick. And it is quite the risk to take (not to mention dereliction of duty) if you truly care about training up your child in the way he should go and expecting that when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).

Scripture is filled with examples of how God uses the family unit to bring His children to a saving faith in Him, and its important that we recognize the good fruit produced by a parents commitment to teaching the Scriptures to and discipling our children at home.

Timothy is a great example of this. He was the Apostle Pauls mentee who traveled alongside him as he spread the Gospel and planted churches on his missionary journeys. Its clear by the way that Paul writes to Timothy in his letters that Paul thought very highly of him. They grew so close that it seems Paul thought of him as a son, his true child in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2). Paul was especially complimentary of Timothys concern for others welfare (Philippians 2:20) and his sincere faith (2 Timothy 1:5), which he attributed to Timothys family.

Paul reminds Timothy in his second letter to continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

Although we know very little about Timothys mother and grandmother, we do know that because of their commitment to teach him the Scriptures, Timothy was well equipped to travel, pastor, worship, learn, and pray alongside Paul. He was even entrusted to remain at Ephesus to ensure that heresies did not creep into the church.

It wasnt Timothys intellect, status, talents, or wealth that suited him for such a ministry; rather, it was the privilege of being raised in a Christian home. And not just a Christian home in name, but a Christian home in practice. Timothy was raised in a Christian home in which his mother and grandmother labored daily to teach him the ways of the Lord.

This should be your goal, parents. It isnt sufficient to bring your kids to church once or twice a week and neglect to disciple them at home. It is an unnecessary burden on your childs youth pastor to rely on him to do the job that is yours. By Gods design, the primary responsibility for evangelism falls on you and your leadership.

How can a youth pastor encourage a teenager to read and study the Bible if he or she has never seen his or her parents do the same? How can a youth pastor equip a teenager for a healthy prayer life when prayers are said few and far between in his or her home?

The responsibility a youth pastor has is to reinforce the statutes, evangelism, and groundwork that has already been laid within the home. His job is to build on the Christ-centered home set up by you as the parent and to use the few hours a week that he has with your child to nourish their hearts and minds as another mature believer in the faith.

Moses sermon to Israel in Deuteronomy 6 might be one of the most explicit charges for Christian parents to be their childs primary trainer in the faith:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.  Deuteronomy 6:4-9

So what does this look like? Here are some practical applications you may consider:

1. Teaching them diligently may look like you reading the Scriptures to your children, one-on-one or together as a family. It may look like praying with your child and as a family. It may look like putting a Bible memory verse to music or studying the attributes of God.

2. Talking of the Scriptures may look like a discussion following a family Bible study or family worship. It may look like using the Proverbs for discipline and rebuke. It may look like reminding your children of Gods sovereignty in times of trial, of His grace in the everyday blessings you enjoy, or of His creativity and goodness as you observe the sunset.

3. Binding the Scriptures on your hand is akin to meditating on the Scriptures and letting His Word guide the response of your hands. Its constantly thinking about Gods Word and growing in wisdom so that your actions operate in obedience to Him. When it comes to your children, this may look like memorizing Bible verses with them, copying those verses onto flashcards, and hanging them on the refrigerator or around the house. Its reminding them of those passages whenever they come to mind and showing your children how to practically apply that wisdom in their day-to-day decision-making, whether through discipline or through encouragement.

4. Writing the Scriptures on your doorposts is equivalent to making your home a shade for your children. It means equipping your children to stand against the lies of the world and providing answers for them when confusion creeps in. It means reminding them of the truth found in Gods Word, shielding them from those who seek to devour them, and spending every day in prayer for them to grow in wisdom and discernment. It means making your home a place of worship, a place of thanksgiving, and a place of discipleship before the Lord.

You, parent, are the only one who can effectively accomplish these things. Your youth pastor can  and will  do a wonderful job at reinforcing your work at home, but it is your responsibility to prioritize the teaching, the talking, the binding, and the writing every single day. Nothing is more important than your discipleship of your child.

So remember Gods faithfulness in using Timothys mother to equip him, and be encouraged that He will provide you with the wisdom to do the same for your child so that you can be their mentor, their teacher, and their primary discipler.

And as you go through the challenges and the frustrations and the highs and the lows, remember to do it all to the glory of God.

Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.
Church of England releases list of rules for parishes as nation mourns Queen Elizabeth II

The Church of England has published guidance for its parishes that are expected to play a key role in the life of the nation during the period of national mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The guidance is not prescriptive but should be seen as general advice on what parishes might want to do over the next few days after the longest-serving monarch in British history died Thursday at her holiday home at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the age of 96, the Church of England said.

The document calls for a hybrid or online service for reflection, or an informal time of prayer, in the local churches as soon as it is practical, and making books of condolence available both physically and online until the day after the funeral.

The state funeral of the queen, who was the head of the Church of England during her reign, has been scheduled to take place at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. on Sept. 19, according to a statement by the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, The Telegraph reported.

The queens oak coffin, which was placed in the Ballroom of Balmoral Castle in Scotland after her death, departed Sunday morning by car on a six-hour journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland, BBC said.

It will be transported slowly by hearse through Aberdeen, Dundee and by Perth before lying in the palaces Throne Room until Monday afternoon. King Charles III and members of the royal family will then accompany the coffin in procession to St Giles Cathedral, where a service will be held, and the coffin will lie at the cathedral until Tuesday, allowing the public to view her coffin, BBC added.

The coffin will then be flown back to London, and the queen will lie in state in Westminster Hall for four days before her funeral, allowing members of the public to file past and pay their respects.

On the two Sundays until the funeral, worship services should be held as normal but parishes will be given special material that they can choose to add to existing forms of service, or they might choose to hold official commemorative services during this time, according to the guidance.

Next Sunday, which will be the day before the funeral, parishes have been advised to plan for a hybrid or online local church service in the evening, and the CofE will provide a model order of service and additional resources.

Further, as per a request by the royal household, or the collective departments that support members of the royal family, parishes should toll their bells for the hour immediately prior to the time of the funeral service, which is to be declared later.

Weddings, funerals and baptisms may continue as planned through the national period of mourning, the guidance says. Clergy should check with those planning these events whether they wish them to take place during this time. Particular sensitivity should be taken when reviewing those which are planned to take place on the day of the funeral.

The Kings Printer, Cambridge University Press, has published templates for the services during the time of mourning.

One of the prayers, which now refers to the king, reads:

Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and power infinite: Have mercy upon the whole Church; and so rule the heart of thy chosen servant Charles, our king and governor, that he, knowing whose minister he is, may above all things seek thy honor and glory; and that we, and all his subjects, duly considering whose authority he hath, may faithfully serve, honor, and humbly obey him, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Charles III was officially proclaimed king by the Accession Council in a ceremony at St. James Palace in London on Saturday morning. I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of sovereignty which have now passed to me, he said in his speech.

A prayer to be used during a Holy Communion service in the period of mourning, as per the guidance, reads:

O God, the maker and redeemer of all mankind, grant us, with thy servant QUEEN ELIZABETH and all the faithful departed, the sure benefits of thy Sons saving passion and glorious resurrection; that in the last day, when all things are gathered up in Christ, we may with them enjoy the fullness of thy promises; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

The guidance also calls for schools to use collective worship to enable children to remember the life of Her Majesty the Queen and pray for the rest of the royal family at this time.
Harry and Meghan unexpectedly join William and Kate to greet crowds paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II

The British press and citizens were surprised to see Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex, set aside their differences with the royal family by joining the Prince and Princess of Wales in greeting crowds outside the gates of Windsor castle paying tribute to their grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Prince William and Princess Kate of Wales visited the gates of Windsor Castle Saturday to view the thousands of floral tributes left by the public in honor of the late queen, ITV reported, explaining it was a surprise appearance due to the rift between the two couples since Prince Harry made the decision to break off from the royal family and move to California.

The Telegraph described it as the first sign of a healing of the rift that has opened since the Sussexes left the working royal family in January 2020.

Prince William, who became heir to the throne after the queens death, had invited his younger brother Harry and his wife Meghan to join him on a walkabout in Windsor to share their memories with the public, the newspaper said.

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving monarch in British history, died Thursday at her holiday home at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the age of 96. The state funeral of the queen, who was the head of the Church of England during her reign, has been scheduled to take place at Westminster Abbey in London at 11 a.m. on Sept. 19.

As the news worsened about the queen's health, the two brothers were both making rushed journeys to Balmoral Castle, BBCs royal correspondent Sean Coughlan said.

Families can fall out when theres a bereavement. Feelings are running high and are close to the surface. Its easy for old arguments to be brought back by grief, Coughlan commented. But losing a loved one can also bring unity, putting things into perspective and setting disagreements aside. It can be a time to come together.

In a statement after the queens death, Prince William said, She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life. I knew this day would come, but it will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real.

He added, I thank her for the kindness she showed my family and me. And I thank her on behalf of my generation for providing an example of service and dignity in public life that was from a different age, but always relevant to us all.

My grandmother famously said that grief was the price we pay for love. All of the sadness we will feel in the coming weeks will be testament to the love we felt for our extraordinary Queen. I will honor her memory by supporting my father, The King, in every way I can.

Earlier Saturday, Prince Williams father, Charles III, was officially declared the king at the Accession Council.

In his first address to the nation on Friday, King Charles expressed his love for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. I want also to express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas, The Times quoted King Charles as saying.
How about overcoming yourself

D.L. Moody, the famous evangelist from Chicago over a century ago, once quipped, I have more trouble with D.L. Moody than with any other man I have ever met!

Through all of the struggles we have in life, perhaps our biggest struggle is the one with ourselves; that is, with our fallen human nature. The New Testament calls it the flesh  who we are by nature and by birth, and specifically who we resort to being when left to our own devices. Over and over again in Scripture, we see this internal struggle played out in the lives of biblical heroes and heroines, villains, and villainesses.

One of those heroines is Esther, an orphaned Jewish girl who was kidnapped from her cousins home and made the queen of Persia. Esther fought this battle with herself and won  and changed the course of world history.

Most articles today want to tell you to be self-sufficient, self-confident, or your best self. But how about overcoming yourself? By examining three pivotal scenes in Esthers story, we can learn how to overcome the tyranny of self in our lives.

A national tragedy

While we dont know all the biographical details of Esthers life, we do know that she was a Jew raised by her cousin Mordecai, whose great-grandfather was taken from Jerusalem as part of the Babylonian captivity. When Esther was young, her parents passed away, and she was entrusted to Mordecais care.

Esthers life was not dreamy, and it soon became a nightmare.

When King Ahasuerus dethroned his wife, Queen Vashti, he ordered his men to bring him beautiful virgins from within the kingdom so that he might find a new queen. This involved young women being removed from their homes, taken into the palace for beauty treatments for a year, compelled to sleep with the king, and then forced to remain as prisoners of the palace if the king rejected them.

King Ahasuerus eventually crowned Esther as the new queen. But evil forces were at work as Haman, the kings right-hand man, plotted to annihilate all Jews in the capital of Susa because of his hatred for Mordecai, who would not bow to him. When the king officially sanctioned the genocide against the Jews, Mordecai and his fellow Jews were thrown into confusion, and they began fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes (Esther 3:15; 4:3).

While chaos reigned outside the palace, Queen Esther, who had kept her religious and cultural identity a secret, had no idea what was coming. Her life inside the palace was relatively safe, and if she played her cards right, she could be guaranteed a pampered existence in her royal cocoon. But then everything changed, and soon she would have to look in the mirror and decide something about herself.

A divine opportunity

A time of intense anxiety followed the terrifying announcement. When Queen Esther heard of Mordecais distress, she was disturbed and wanted to know what was happening.

She was about to receive yet another shock.

Through a eunuch named Hathac, Mordecai commanded Esther to go before King Ahasuerus and go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people (Esther 4:8).

The price of appearing before the king unsummoned, however, was death.

When Esther intimated her misgivings to Mordecai, he issued her a grave challenge:

Do not think to yourself that in the kings palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your fathers house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:13-14).

As Mordecai reminded Esther, her position would not guarantee her protection, her silence would not prevent their deliverance, and her prominence was for a purpose.

Esther had a tough decision to make. Would she risk her life to save her people? Or would she opt to protect herself and watch deliverance arise from another place?

So, she decided to fast for three days and nights and asked Mordecai and her fellow Jews to fast with her. Her battle with the tyranny of self began, and the fate of the Jewish people depended on the outcome.

A determined bravery

She risked it all by going to the king against the law.

Esthers environment pampered her and told her to focus all her attention on her skin, looks, beauty, and self. Self-beautification, self-preservation, and self-promotion were the cardinal values of her pagan culture.

So why take a risk?

But then, in a moment of time, she made a life-altering decision to become selfless!Esther conquered the giant of self and suddenly became one of the most self-sacrificing and self-denying women of all time.

If Haman had had his way, the Persian empire would have slaughtered 15 million Jews. By putting her life on the line, Esther became their rescuer.

Jesus said the kingdom of God does not come by outward observation. In his providence, God takes the circumstances of our lives and weaves them together for his ultimate purpose  this is the beauty of Esthers story. God doesnt need any of us. But because he loves us, he invites us to join him in his redemptive work in the world. And you and I have a choice: we can accept or reject Gods call on our lives.

Its been said that there are two significant days in your life: the day you were born and the day you discovered what you were born for. And so, if you wonder why you are in the position youre in, try to discern what your purpose might be because you could be approaching a critical moment where God is going to call on you to make decisions that will benefit a lot of people.

A person wrapped up in himself (or herself) makes a very small package. But a life that pushes away self-interest becomes a life-giving fountain. Invest your life in something that will outlive you and refresh others.
The end of the US  SR

Last week, the death of the final leader of the Soviet Union marked the end of an era. Mikhail Gorbachev Meets His Maker is the way professor and author Dr. Paul Kengor entitled his article on this milestone.

Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022, at the age of 91. He was the last head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). On Christmas Day 1991, he resigned from a government that had already essentially collapsed.

Mikhail Gorbachevs tenure was not as evil as most of his predecessors, especially those of Lenin and Stalin. Gorbachev did allow some unprecedented freedoms for the U.S.S.R.  though perhaps as an attempt to retain some measure of control as the drumbeat for freedom became deafening

Dan Ball of One America News Network (OANN) said: Gorbachev set out to revitalize the Soviet Union, but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism, the breaking of the state, and the end of the Cold War.

Some claim Gorbachev ended the Cold War, but Gary Bauer responds: The Cold War was won by Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. Gorbachev surrendered!

Despite some positive aspects of Gorbachev, he still presided over what President Ronald Reagan had called the evil empire. And it was indeed.

The Soviet Union declared war on God and the Church. They killed thousands of church leaders and turned houses of worship into museums  or just destroyed them.

Following the playbook of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Communist Manifesto, the Soviets implemented a policy of the abolition of private property. What individuals and families owned suddenly belonged to the state.

The Soviet Union declared war on freedom of speech and assembly. George Orwells classic dystopian novel 1984 is based largely on the Soviet Union. Big Brother, with his big mustache, is Joseph Stalin. Emmanuel Goldstein is the arch-enemy of the state in 1984. Goldstein is clearly based on Leon Trotsky  a key architect of the Soviet Union.

After Vladimir Lenins stroke in 1924, there was a power struggle in the inner circle of the Soviets. Stalin won. Trotsky lost and had to flee for his life. Eventually, Stalins goons caught up with him halfway around the world and killed him in Mexico.

People who lived in the Soviet Union constantly lived in fear of the knock on the door at night when the secret police came and whisked away citizens who had somehow gotten on the wrong side of the Communist Party  which was easy to do.

To this day, we dont know the exact number of their own people they killed in the Soviet Union to enforce communism, but the estimate ranges from 20-60 million.

As Dr. D.James Kennedy and I noted in our book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?

Hitler has slain his millions, Stalin his tens of millions.

Young people growing up today often come away from school with the idea that the United States is the symbol and practitioner of evil in the world. But they have been wildly, willfully misinformed.

Why has America endured, while hundreds of other nations, including the failed Soviet Union, have risen and fallen over the past 242 years?

Americas founders said our rights come from God. Furthermore, they understood the Bibles (and historys) teaching on mans sinfulness. As James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, once put it, All men having power ought to be distrusted. So the founders put checks on how much power any one man or group might have.

In contrast, Marx, a devout atheist, predicted that once the workers, the proletariat, seized control of government and all private property, they would usher in the workers paradise. In this vision, everyones needs will be met by a fair and equitable distribution of all goods, competition (and the clashes that go with it) would be removed, and the government would no longer be necessary  it would just wither away of its own accord.

In reality, they ushered in a total nightmare  as documented in Harvard Universitys massive, Black Book of Communism (1999), which outlines many of the Soviet crimes, as well as those of other collectivist regimes of the 20th century. It turns out that those who have the sole power to decide whats fair and equitable can be quite dangerous.

The left today loves to tear down American icons and show how they had feet of clay. We all have feet of clay. Thats why Christ died for sinners and makes Heaven available to all who believe in Him. But the sins of the American founding fathers pale in comparison to the sins of Lenin and Stalin.

We should all heed what founding father Patrick Henry once said: It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.
We shall never forget the superheroes of 9/11

It was a beautiful Tuesday morning on September 11, 2001.

I was making rounds in the hospital greeting a couple of patients with a smile, as I knew they were well enough to go home that day.

Others were holding steady but not quite ready to return home for their recovery. In another section, patients were either tenuous, holding onto life with whispered prayers and the modern machines of medicine, or they were preparing for the final paradigm shift of life.

I spent the most time with the third group where death most commonly approaches like a steam engine. The whistle blows and is followed by the low rumble of the engine, and we can sense the friction of the wheels upon the track. When it finally rounds that last corner, we are prepared as it approaches because we know death is arriving.

However, sometimes death arrives like a semi-truck that has run a stop sign. On September 11, 2001, it arrived by planes hitting towers, government offices, and fields of summer grass not yet greeted by the coolness of fall temperatures.

The world stopped.

We held our breath. We could not have imagined what we were seeing on the small screens in our patients rooms. Death had arrived and no one was prepared. To this day I can remember the emotions of that day  patients and families wanted to go home.

They sought comfort and safety in their people and their familiar surroundings.

I had to convince some they were not well enough to go home. A sense of fear settled like a fog everywhere I walked.

I reflect on this day and all the days since when death arrived suddenly at the hands of evil.

I cannot imagine the sense of desperate grief that afflicts the loved ones of those who paid with their lives or those who still suffer through injury, emotional distress, mental health disorders, and grief.

I wonder about the families of those who ran into those buildings, helping those who were attempting to escape. Do they find comfort in knowing their loss is a sacrificial loss? One life that was given on behalf of many. Are their lives affected indefinitely by the loss of their one? Grief is grief and no two griefs are the same.

We dont get over grief, we learn to live with it.

However, those who serve others at the risk of their own lives and the families that love them deserve special recognition on this day. We must recognize their grief, and their suffering is sacrificial. Their lives were not lost in vain, and their lives had incalculable meaning. Those who run into conflict as opposed to fleeing have courage beyond their human fear. Their bravery exists in the silver strands of their DNA. They are heroes, in fact, superheroes.

This is not merely a visceral reaction from a seasoned physician who has cared for veterans. I have met these superheroes throughout my 30-year career in medicine.

Superheroes are not just created at birth. Their lives reflect a generosity of spirit and compassion. Superheroes are sometimes created in normal everyday life. They rush into burning buildings to save the one. They stop at all accidents. While a car is burning, they use super-human strength to save the driver while risking their own life as flames dance close to life-ending fuel. He or she swims into a riptide to capture a child whose frightened face is the only thing visible as the sea threatens to take them away. Danger lurks on every street, beach walk, the drive to work, or in movie theaters. They are observant.

I believe that those who sacrificed their lives on September 11th would reveal their superhero power in each of the scenarios. Those who continue to suffer from injury to the physical body and emotional health live among us as superheroes. They would risk their own life for the life of another. They would give their life to save only one. That is who they are, not just what they do.

We must make every effort to acknowledge not only the fallen but also the living whose lives have been changed indefinitely. If we do not, we have failed in our humanity to love one another well. We have also missed what it is like to know or have known a real hero.

I have also encountered them through the lives they leave behind. The imprint of heroism is embedded in their family crest. Strength, courage, and bravery almost universally exist in the families who have paid the ultimate price. These survival skills help a family transition to a new normal.

Our superheroes laid down their lives for the one and the many. Their sacrifice and legacy are not decreased over time. The families of those who were lost or injured deserve to know that it was not in vain. They knew or know a superhero who ran in when others ran out.

I believe it is our collective responsibility to honor the lives of our superheroes and the families that bear sacrificial suffering. We will then remember our superheroes would have given their lives even if for just one. One day, you or I may be that one.

Thank you superheroes. Thank you families who risk the shattering of their hearts each time their superhero walks out the front door. Thank you, September 11th families who suffer sacrificially. We see you, and we shall not forget.
Moscow expressed its intent to supply grains and other support free of charge to the neediest countries compounded by western sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged this as the Ukraine grains deal has seen problems of late.

Poor Nations To Receive Aid From Russia for Free

President Vladimir Putin has publicly stated that Russia will boost grain exports, striving to supply 30 million tons this year. The stockpiles will be given preference for less wealthy and food-insecure regions.

He added that it is right to increase deliveries to the poorest countries during a meeting of the Security Council on Friday, reported RT.

Stated that it is relevant to significantly boost shipments to the poorest nations during the Security Council meeting on Friday.

Furthermore, we will supply around 30 tons of grain by the end of this year and are also ready to increase this quantity to a million tons or more with a good harvest this year, noted Hi India.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is to formulate a plan, said Moscow, stressing the urgency to provide potash fertilizer free of charge as an aid to those in need, thus affected by western sanctions.

He noted that of the 87 grain-laden ships that departed Ukrainian ports, 32 stayed in Turkey, which is entirely natural because Turkey, as the host nation for the entire process, has every right to do so.

Only about 30 ships were dispatched to EU members, whereas the rest were sent to the world's poorest countries for UN food programs, such as Yemen and Djibouti. Onboard is 60,000 tons of grain, representing only 3% of Ukraine's total exports.

Read Also: Donald Trump Children: What You Need to Know About the 5 Trump Kids

Western Nations Got the Bulk of Grain Shipments

The Kremlin accuses the Western alliance of deception regarding the nature of the grain deal. Based on UN data and ship monitoring figures, at least 38% of the product exported from Ukraine through the UN-brokered deal has been shipped to the EU instead of the African developing countries it was destined for, citing the Good Word News.

The report mentioned that between August 1 and September 7, over 2.3 million tons of corn, wheat, barley, and other agricultural products were shipped through the Black Sea corridor from Ukraine, citing the report. Approximately 900,000 tons of this total were shipped to the ports of EU member states.

One source stressed that it is impossible to tell whether the EU is the final destination or a transit point using the available information.

On July 22, multilateral agreements creating the framework for Ukrainian grains, food, and compost exports via the Black Sea were signed in Istanbul.

Regrettably, according to Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, this same part of the food deal that includes exporting Russian goods hasn't been applied. That could lead to Moscow aborting the agreement.

Giving a speech at the Eastern Economic Forum plenary session held on Wednesday, Putin charged Western nations with telling lies while they assumed Ukraine needed access to ocean shipments to relieve rising food costs and the risk of starvation in poor countries, even though most of the grains is transported to Western nations.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose to side with Putin early Thursday, declaring that Ukrainian grain is "regrettably" heading often to rich nations. Moscow said the grains deal is free aid for poor nations suffering from western sanctions, causing food instability.

Related Article: Russia Says Reckless Initiatives of the EU Not Beneficial To Unity

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, dies at age 96 at Balmoral

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, died Thursday at age 96 after 70 years on the throne and serving as head of the Church of England.

"The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon," stated the official Royal Family Twitter handle on Thursday. "The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."

The news came shortly after Buckingham Palace announced that the queen was under medical supervision at Balmoral due to health concerns, though they noted that she was comfortable.

Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen's doctors are concerned for Her Majesty's health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision, they stated.

All of the queen's children and the Duke of Cambridge traveled to Balmoral to be by her side.

On Tuesday, the queen appointed the new Prime Minister Liz Truss as her last public duty.

Earlier this year, Elizabeth II had missed multiple ceremonies, including Easter Sunday worship in April and events tied to her Platinum Jubilee celebration in June, due to health and mobility issues.

Born April 21, 1926, in Mayfair, London, Princess Elizabeth was the first child of King George VI, who ruled from 1936 after his brother King Edward VIII resigned, until his death in 1952.

During World War II, Princess Elizabeth joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service of the British Army, where she served as a mechanic and rose to the rank of Junior Commander.

Before taking the throne, Elizabeth married Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947. The union produced four children and lasted until April 9, 2021, when Philip died at age 99.

Queen Elizabeth II had her coronation at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953, with the ceremony being overseen by Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher.

In addition to secular responsibilities as monarch, Elizabeth II also held the title of Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and oversaw various Church affairs.

The position goes back to King Henry VIII, who made himself head of the Church of England after splitting from the Roman Catholic Church when the pope refused to grant him a divorce.

On the advice of the Prime Minister The Queen appoints Archbishops, Bishops and Deans of the Church of England, who then swear an oath of allegiance and pay homage to Her Majesty, explained The Royal Family website.

In 1970 The Queen became the first Sovereign to inaugurate and address the General Synod in person. Since then Her Majesty has inaugurated and addressed the opening session of the General Synod every five years after diocesan elections.

The gradual breakup of the British Empire that had begun under her fathers reign continued during the 1950s and 1960s, as numerous overseas holdings gained independence.

Over time, the British Empire transformed into the Commonwealth of Nations, a body that includes many former British colonies, but now voluntarily cooperates as equals to promote economic development and peaceful political goals.

Elizabeth II has thus made visits to other countries as head of the Commonwealth and a representative of Britain, including a groundbreaking trip to Germany in 1965. She became the first British monarch to make a state visit there in more than five decades, explained Biography.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Elizabeth continued to travel extensively. In 1973 she attended the Commonwealth Conference in Ottawa, Canada, and in 1976 traveled to the United States for the 200th anniversary celebration of Americas independence from Britain.

On Sept. 9, 2015, Elizabeth set the record for the longest reigning monarch in British history, with the queen officially opening the Scottish Borders Railway on that day.

Many including you, First Minister, have also kindly noted another significance attaching to today, although it is not one to which I have ever aspired, she stated in a speech at the opening event.

Inevitably, a long life can pass by many milestones; my own is no exception. But I thank you all, and the many others at home and overseas, for your touching messages of great kindness.

The queen is survived by her four children, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Young adults in UK more likely to pray, attend church than older generations, survey shows

The results of a new survey from the United Kingdom suggest that younger generations are more inclined to pray and engage in religious activities, a contrast to a study showing that American young adults who proclaim a personal commitment to Christ are less likely to attend religious services.

The Savanta ComRes survey was commissioned by the Church of England and released Aug. 28, assessing over 2,000 adults in the U.K. aged 18 and over. The survey was conducted online between July 1 and July 3. In addition to age, the data accounted for factors such as gender, region and religious affiliation.

Less than half (49%) of all respondents reported that they have never prayed or attended a religious service either online or in person (excluding funerals and weddings). More than half (59%) said they have never read religious texts at some point in their lives.

The survey asked respondents to report how often they pray on their own or with others. Over half (56%) of respondents aged 18 to 34 said they have prayed at some point in their lives, and 32% claimed to have prayed within the last month. Among respondents 55 and older, less than half (41%) said they had ever prayed, and 25% stated they had done so within the last month.

Higher percentages of younger adults attend church services at least once per month than respondents ages 55 and over. Twenty-one percent of respondents ages 21 to 34 say they attend religious services at least once per month, while 14% of respondents ages 35 and up said the same.

"These findings really challenge the all-too-common assumption that young people are not interested in faith or spiritual things," National Lead for Evangelism and Witness for the Church of England Rev. Stephen Hance said in a statement. "In fact they show us that  more than simply being interested in spirituality  they are already exploring it in practice, to a greater extent than their elders."

Rev. Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, a former university chaplain and a priest in Liverpool who co-authored The Teenage Prayer Experiment Notebook, said that people in older generations "were often brought up in a culture that taught them there was a 'right' or 'wrong' way to pray."

She said this means "they can be very self-conscious about their prayer life and spirituality."

"In my experience, today's young adults have been brought up to be comfortable with questions and experimentation: they know lots of people around the world do pray, and are willing to give it a go for themselves," Threlfall-Holmes said in a statement.

Forty-nine percent of males and 46% of females responded that they had prayed at some point in their lives, while another 29% of males and 27% of females surveyed said they pray at least once a month.

Sixty-six percent of the 683 Christians surveyed said they had ever prayed in their life, compared to 40% that said they do so once a month and 19% who said they pray at least daily. Nearly a third of U.K. Christians surveyed (31%) confirmed that they have never prayed. About 23% of Christian respondents say they attend religious services at least once per month.

Out of a group of 94 Muslims surveyed, 85% said that they have prayed at some point in their lives, compared to 59% that said they did so at least once a month and 41% that pray daily. Only 6% of Muslims surveyed said they have never prayed. Forty-two percent of Muslims surveyed say they attend religious services at least once per month.

The survey found that 67% of Jewish respondents said they have prayed at some point in their lives, while 12% report doing so daily, 10% weekly and 24% at least once a month. About 21% of Jewish respondents say they attend religious services at least once per month.

The other participants who reported high levels of prayer include Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. All nine Sikhs surveyed say they have prayed and 66% say they pray at least once a month. Fifty-seven percent of Sikhs say they attend religious services at least once per month.

Eighty-nine percent of the 26 Hindus surveyed said they have prayed in their lives, with 59% reporting doing so at least once per month. Twenty-two percent of Hindus surveyed said they attend religious services at least once per month.

In an assessment of 13 Buddhists, 65% said they had prayed before, 25% responded that they do so at least once a month and 18% said they do so daily. No Buddhists surveyed said they attend religious services at least once per month.

Of those who had prayed, 69% reported praying for friends and family, 54% claimed to have prayed for someone they knew was sick and 51% said they prayed to give thanks.

The survey's findings come as the August edition of the "State of the Bible: USA 2022" report from the American Bible Society suggests that 40% of Generation Z adults ages 18 and older attend church primarily online.

The study assessed 2,598 adults ages 18 and older within all 50 states and the District of Columbia collected from January 10-28, 2022.

Among the Gen Z and Millenial participants who made a meaningful commitment to Christ, 66% do not attend worship services in-person or online once a month. While 54% of all adults up to the age of 57 reportedly "made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in your life today," fewer than a third of the three youngest generations who made the commitment are practicing Christians.

Sixty-one percent of non-practicing Gen Z Christians say they have made a personal commitment to Christ, while 57% of their Millennial counterparts say the same. Only 28% of Gen Z respondents said they attend church at least once a month, while 22% of Millenials said the same.

Only 13% of Gen Z and 12% of Millennial respondents were considered "Scripture Engaged, while Generation X, people born between 1965 and 1984, were the most engaged with Scripture (75%) among practicing Christians.
My latest book has just been published, a guide to the huge region of dramatic mountains between Glen Carron and Little Loch Broom in the ...
The Twitter account for the West Texas division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection retweeted posts by former Trump advisor and notorious immigration opponent Stephen Miller. In the tweets shared on Saturday and reported by The Daily Beast, Miller claims that violent criminals lay waste to our communities undisturbed and that Bidens eradication of the border means we are no longer a Republic.

Biden has ended nearly 250 years of constitutional government, Miller wrote in a tweet boosted by @CBPWestTexas, adding, The media is silent. Miller on Saturday received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in connection with the Justice Departments Jan. 6 investigation. During his time in the administration, he was behind many of Trumps harshest immigration policies, including the travel ban that targeted majority Muslim nations.

CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus responded to the Miller tweets in a post of his own on Saturday night. Totally unacceptable and disappointing that any CBP Twitter account was used to [retweet] offensive, unauthorized content, he wrote. The tweets do not reflect the values of this administration and our work to rebuild a humane, orderly, and secure immigration system.

Magnus added that CBP will deactivate the Twitter account (as of Sunday, the account no longer exists), and said the Office of Professional Responsibility will open an investigation.

The Miller retweets, however, are not the only controversial actions by the @CBPWestTexas Twitter account. According to El Paso Matters, the account also liked two tweets from July 20 that used a homophobic slur to describe Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) responded to the posts and others liked by the @CBPWestTexas account and wrote, The person running the @CBPWestTexas media account has absolutely no business being in public service. Especially if allowed to carry a gun and a badge.
Click here to read the full article.

Get ready for Halle Bailey to be part of your world. The first footage of the highly anticipated Little Mermaid live-action remake has been unveiled at Disneys D23 expo, revealing the acclaimed R&B star and actor in the iconic role of mermaid princess Ariel.

Director Rob Marshall, of Chicago fame, celebrated the fact that this was a live action musical. Bringing up the Oscar-winning movie from the past, he said, When we started this journey it was very important to honor the original but also reimagine and bring some depth to the new film. The director also asked Little Mermaid longtime Disney alum and Alan Menken to link up with the award-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda to come up with four new songs. Theyd never collaborated together before, and its magical. We still retain the beauty of the original score by the late great Howard Ashman.

As for the new mermaid, Bailey came in and claimed the role, Marshall said. Shortly after the intro, Marshall debuted the first-ever footage from The Little Mermaid showcasing Bailey singing the iconic Part of Your World song (for the D23 crowd only). The hall was silent taking in this familiar, but new, rendition. Several members of the audience were visually emotional at this heart-stopping performance. Shes so good, a crowd member yelled out, I have chills, another said.

The actress then joined the fans to massive applause and shared details from the shoot. It took three days to film Part of Your World. Bailey related to the little mermaid as a girl, Swimming in the pool, imagining i was a mermaid, I never though I could see that come to life.

As for the differences between the animated movie and the live action, Baileys fins appear to be a bit longer than the cartoon version, plus shes ditched the conical shell bra underwater look for something a bit more sophisticated.

Adapted from the 1989 film from John Musker and Ron Clements, which was based on the Hans Christian Andersen 19th century fairy tale, The Little Mermaid tells the story of Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem), the ruler of the underwater kingdom Atalantica. Ariel, already fascinated by the world of humans, falls deeply in love with the handsome Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) after saving him during a shipwreck, and resolves to meet him in the world above water. Her quest brings her in conflict with her father and in the clutches of the scheming sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy). The cast also features Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina and Daveed Diggs as the voices of classic Disney sidekicks Flounder, Scuttle and Sebastian.

The live-action Little Mermaid is directed by Marshall, who previously helmed 2018s musical family film Mary Poppins Returns for Disney, as well as movie musicals like Chicago and Into the Woods. The script was written by Jane Goldman and David Magee. Miranda and Marshall produce with John DeLuca and Marc Platt.

In an interview for Varietys 2022 Power of Young Hollywood issue, Bailey spoke about her longtime love for the original film, and addressed the racist criticism towards her casting from trolls on social media. Bailey recalled receiving support from her grandparents during the backlash, who reminded her of the impact a Black princess on the big screen would have.

It was an inspiring and beautiful thing to hear their words of encouragement, telling me, You dont understand what this is doing for us, for our community, for all the little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in you, Bailey said.

The Little Mermaid splashes into theaters on May 26, 2023. Watch the full first look below.

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A local gym underwent a major challenge to all locals who wanted to commemorate first responders of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City in 2001.

On Sunday, Crunch Fitness' 9/11 Stair Challenge gathered locals, gym enthusiasts and veterans to honor the journey that many firefighters had during the attacks at the World Trade Center. They were tasked with walking up the stairs of the World Trade Center to save any people remaining in the buildings while scores ran out.

Crunch Fitness' challenge entails doing 110 flights of stairs, and it will continue running until Monday. Several firefighters were also scheduled to take part in the event by doing the challenge while wearing their gear.

It is always good to honor the ones who were there, and it is always good to encourage the ones who are now looking above and beyond the call of duty, said Juan Mario Cadena, the general manager of Crunch Fitness. I think it (would have been) very easy for them at ground zero to just give up -- quit and let someone else do the business and leave the people who were there for themselves. It took a lot of courage, personal courage, and a sense of duty to go up those flights of stairs and do that, as nobody else would.

As people were running out, they were running into the fire. They were running into the building to save lives. I remember those scenes extremely vividly, so that was a form of patriotism that nobody up to that point had shown.  We can remember a little bit by sacrificing some minutes of our day once a year to remember that.

Cadena said the 110 flights of stairs for the challenge could be done in 30 minutes, but with the sack weighing 75 pounds around him, it meant taking a bit longer as he and others conducted the workout. He said he does it as he knows many firefighters are still to this day suffering from the after effects of debris left behind that caused them cancers and many other illnesses.

Mentally, emotionally and physically, we should remember them. If 30 minutes of pain is what I have to put up, then I would do it, Cadena said. It is also a good workout and it will certainly hurt tomorrow.

For Cadena, the challenge is not just about honoring those firefighters who gave their all but also to honor his own story with the tragic event. He said the terrorist attacks were what motivated him to join the military just days later.

On Sept. 11, I was in high school when it happened. I was in my senior year in high school, and then about a week and a half after that happened, I enlisted in the military, Cadena said. I joined the military in 2002, and then went and fought Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom from 2003-10, three deployments to Iraq and one deployment to Afghanistan.

According to Cadena, he felt that many of the challenges with terrorism continue to still be a major threat today, although he does feel that the face of the enemy is constantly changing with the times.

I hope and pray that God takes good care of our country each and every day, Cadena said. And, what happened those days, I hope it never happens again.
LOS ANGELES (AP)  An arson investigation is under way after fire destroyed a historic church in South Los Angeles early Sunday, authorities said.

The blaze at Victory Baptist Church broke out shortly before 2:30 a.m. and quickly grew to major emergency status, said Nicholas Prange, a spokesperson with the Los Angeles Fire Department.
EDWARDSVILLE A Brooklyn man was indicted last week as an armed habitual criminal, as well as weapons- and drug-related felonies, by a Madison County grand jury.

Kaprix M. Sloan, 27, of Brooklyn, was indicted Sept. 8 as an armed habitual criminal, a Class X felony, and also for unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, unlawful possession of weapons by a felon (second subsequent offense), and unlawful possession of a stolen firearm, all Class 2 felonies; unlawful possession of a controlled substance and aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, both Class 4 felonies; and resisting a peace officer, a Class A misdemeanor.

The case was presented by the Granite City Police Department.

According to court documents, on Aug. 27 Sloan allegedly had a reported stolen Sig Sauer SP2022 9 mm handgun and less than 15 grams of MDMA. He also is accused of attempting to flee a Granite City police officer, reaching speeds in excess of 21 miles an hour above the posted speed limit, and attempting to resist a Granite City police officers attempts to place him under arrest.

The armed habitual criminal charge stems from his possession of the firearm with multiple convictions for violent felonies. He has a 2015 conviction for robbery out of St. Clair County and unlawful possession of weapons by a felon out of Madison County in 2018.

Bail was set at $100,000.

In an unrelated case, a Missouri man was indicted for home invasion after an Aug. 15 incident in Granite City.

Romone Williams Jr., 19, of OFallon, Missouri, was indicted for home invasion, a Class X felony; aggravated battery, a Class 3 felony; and resisting or obstructing a peace officer, a Class A misdemeanor.

The case was originally presented by the Granite City Police Department.

According to court documents, on Aug. 15 Williams allegedly entered a home in Granite City knowing a resident, a 16-year-old girl, was home. He is accused of striking the teen in the face with his hands, striking her head against a bed frame and strangling her. He also allegedly resisted a Granite City police officer.

Other indictments issued include:

 Dejavont Cannon, 22, of East St. Louis, was indicted for aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm, Both Class 1 felonies. The case was originally presented by the Collinsville Police Department. According to court documents, on May 11, 2021, Cannon allegedly shot a firearm in the direction of a vehicle, striking a person in the leg.

 Ronald M. Singleton, 58, of Alton, was indicted for residential burglary, a Class 1 felony. The case was originally presented by the Alton Police Department. According to court documents, on Aug. 21 Singleton allegedly entered a dwelling in the 2500 block of College Avenue to commit a theft.
FRANKFORT  It wasnt just a busy weekend for participants in the Ironman 70.3 Michigan on Sept. 11, local and state law enforcement agencies, as well as volunteer groups, had a lot going on over the weekend.

Lt. Travis House, post commander for the Michigan State Police Post in Cadillac, said about 50 troopers from across the state had been called in to work the event.

Ironman 70.3 has a huge operation, and part of that operation here is securing traffic for the bike portion of the race, House said. They have contacted the Michigan State Police to provide troopers and other assets here for that function, to keep the riders safe as they move through the bike portion of the course.

House said troopers were mostly directing traffic at points along the bike race. He also said the state police also directed some traffic for the run portion of the race.

The state police also provided some security for the race in downtown Frankfort.

House said the state police knew that traffic would be rough and did some advertising to remind people the event would be causing traffic delays and asking drivers to be patient with troopers the day of the event.

We dont completely close the roads but they are very restricted, he said. Bikes can be traveling 50 miles per hour and that can be hard to judge for the average motorist.

House said Ironman organizers paid the Michigan State Police to help direct traffic.

Ironman funds this event through a contract with the state police, he said. I dont want people to think taxpayer money is being spent on this. 

House said he appreciated the community support and the patience they had with traffic delays.

We know for some people this is an inconvenience, and we appreciate their patience, he said.

The Benzie County Sheriffs Office also helped keep Ironman participants safe.

Benzie County Sheriffs Office are doing marine assets only, said Rebecca Hubers, emergency manager for Benzie County. They were on the water for the entire time for the swim portion.

After the swim portion was over, sheriffs office deputies continued with their regular daily duties.

Everybody has been accounted for so we can clear the water, Hubers said. A few people were removed from the water, but not for medical or emergency reasons. They felt they were tired or they couldnt continue for other reasons.

Hubers said those people were guided back to shore by Ironman staff.

The Benzie County Citizens Emergency Response Team also was operating at Ironman providing support services.

I had some CERT members watching the swim from the Elberta side and I have some CERT members at a few traffic points supplementing troopers, Hubers said. I have a group way up by Riverside Canoe Rentals on M-22 making sure the people crossing there get out of the way, because those bikes go really fast and people misjudge that.

Hubers said CERT teams was going to be finished after the bike portion of the race had completed. However, she would continue to monitor communications in the CERT mobile command center until the event was done.

I will remain here in communications, were listening to all the radio channels involved, she said. We have one for the swim portion, one for the bike portion, one for Benzie County Emergency Services and one for fire departments.
Vice President Kamala Harris stated on Saturday that the risks could not be greater as Democrats and Republicans battle for control of Congress with less than two months until the midterm elections.

In remarks made at the DNC's summer conference in Maryland, Harris reiterated President Joe Biden's previous criticisms of Republican "MAGA" leaders, whom he claims to pose a threat to the country, ABC News reported.

"We need to speak the truth about that," Harris said. "Today, we all by coming together reaffirm that we refuse to let extremist, so-called leaders dismantle our democracy."

Extremists Threaten America's Freedom

Harris pointed out that America faces grave threats to its freedom and "very democracy."

Referring to the US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the vice president said: "Right now, extremist, so-called leaders are trumpeting the rhetoric of freedom while they restrict and systematically attempt to take away freedoms."

Since the Supreme Court struck down the federal constitutional right to an abortion, laws that either outright prohibit the operation or severely restrict it has taken effect in nearly a dozen states, according to a CNN report. Despite Biden's dismal support ratings and worries about the health of the economy, the high court's ruling has also given Democrats a boost ahead of the November elections.

"On the subject of choice and what the Dobbs decision has done and what it means - it's an important point to acknowledge that you don't have to abandon your faith, or your beliefs to agree that the government should not be making that decision for her. And thank you, Kansas," Harris said.

Harris warned that if Republicans win the House and Senate, they might restrict abortion nationally or attack contraception and marriage equality.

Read Also: New York Aims To Boost Polio Vaccine Distribution Amid State of Emergency, Reluctance Among Citizens

Like Biden, she presented the midterm elections as a clear choice between the Democratic vision and that of some of their GOP counterparts.

VP Harris said: "If there was any question about whether there's a difference between the parties, well, over the last 18 months, it has become crystal clear. There is a big difference. We all know that American families have been struggling while Republican Party leaders have gone on TV to opine about the situation, Democrats actually did something about it."

The vice president continued to highlight administrative successes in infrastructure, gun safety, COVID-19 alleviation, and the declaration of student debt cancellation.

Other components of the Biden-Harris program, including child care and voting rights, have stuck in Congress, but Harris said if Democrats win up two more seats in the Senate, the US government can accomplish more.

Harris remarked that in her first year in office, she broke John Adams' record of casting the most-tie-breaking votes in a single term. The Vice President added that she "cannot wait to cast the deciding vote to break the filibuster on voting rights and reproductive rights."

Separating Mainstream Republicans from the Extremists'

At a DNC luncheon in a suburban Maryland neighborhood on Thursday, President Joe Biden separated moderate Republicans from extreme Republicans in his speech, VOA reported.

"Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces the extreme ideology," Biden said, referring to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" motto.

"I know because I've worked with them, the mainstream Republicans, and there are still a few of them left. But the extreme set of MAGA Republicans has chosen to go backward, full of anger, violence, hate, and division. And that's what their game is," the chief executive added.

He further stated that Democrats, independents, and mainstream Republicans could "choose a different path" towards harmony and a better future.

Related Article: Judge Dismisses Donald Trump's Lawsuit Against Hillary Clinton Over Russia Probe

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Why do eighth-graders make us nervous? They can be difficult. Dealing with puberty is no fun for them or us. But our discomfort with that age group shouldn't get in the way of teaching them something important: algebra.

A report by the U.S. Department of Education in 2018, just before the pandemic, found that only 24 percent of eighth graders were enrolled in Algebra 1. Most have to wait until ninth grade, even though starting algebra earlier, the report said, would allow more time in high school "to take the more advanced courses that are often prerequisites for postsecondary STEM majors."

Many public school districts appear to doubt that 13-year-olds with raging hormones can handle the study of mathematical symbols and their use in formulas. A 2013 report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area found that many students were forced to retake Algebra 1 in ninth grade despite having passed the course in eighth grade. "Minority students are being disparately impacted by these improper placements," the report said.

The report did not give a reason for students being made to take algebra again but said "failure to master the subject area was not the reason." It said more than 60 percent of those forced to repeat the course had already scored proficient or advanced on the state algebra exam.

A 2006 study of 2,634 students in a large southeastern school district by researcher Frances R. Spielhagen found that those who took Algebra 1 in eighth grade did as well as similar students who took it in ninth grade. Those taking the course in eighth grade "stayed in the mathematics pipeline longer and attended college at greater rates" than similar students who took it in ninth grade, Spielhagen said.

Our education system tends to discount what's happening in middle school. We try to keep those kids happy but fear pushing them too hard. We comfort them, and ourselves, by saying colleges don't care about their courses and grades until they are in high school.

That laid-back attitude can cause trouble. Middle school parents who think their children are ready for Algebra 1 encounter confusion, resistance and an assumption by some teachers that parents don't understand the subtle educational issues involved.

I know a math teacher whose daughter was in a large suburban district that he thought was keeping many middle-schoolers out of Algebra 1 because low scores on a required state algebra exam might make the school look bad. His daughter had a 96 average in seventh-grade math, but she was never good at standardized tests. The school wanted to place her not in algebra but in pre-algebra in eighth grade.

"I told the school that the recommendation was ridiculous," the father told me. "They responded that the teacher knew my daughter better and I would have to fill out a form overriding the recommendation. They also said if my daughter didn't do well in Algebra 1, it would basically be my fault."

He filled out the form. His daughter got a 99 average in Algebra 1 and passed the state test. "I knew what my daughter was capable of," he said. "But think about some parents who are new to the country or who never went to college or who took Algebra 1 in ninth grade like so many did 20 or 30 years ago. Would they have gone against the recommendation of the seventh-grade teacher and school?"

A math reform movement is underway that includes new course names and less tracking of students into accelerated courses like Algebra 1 in eighth grade. There is resistance to the reforms from experts who support acceleration and parents who find the proposed changes hard to understand and lacking in control group research. Even reform advocate Jo Boaler, a math education professor at Stanford, told me "all students should be given the opportunity to take algebra in eighth grade, if that is the course the district offers."

Many schools have daunting rules for who does and does not get into accelerated middle school math. One small, affluent California school district I know well doesn't even use the term "Algebra 1" in its list of acceleration options, although it does teach that subject in those classes.

Here are its rules for eighth-graders posted online: "To be considered for Accelerated Math, students MUST meet 3 out of the 4 criteria below. . . . 1. Math Placement Test score of 88% or above for part 1 (7th grade content) and 80% or higher for part 2 (8th grade content). 2. CAASPP [California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress] score in UPPER HALF of STANDARD EXCEEDED Range. 3. Average of 4.00 in Math for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Quarter Report Card. 4. Teacher Recommendation score of at least 13 out of 15."

Many public charter middle schools focusing on disadvantaged students train teachers to prepare students for Algebra 1 and make sure most or all of them take the course by eighth grade. Many regular public middle schools are more comfortable relying on standardized test score hurdles to keep allegedly unready students out of Algebra 1 rather than work to prepare them for the challenge.

That emphasis on sorting rather than teaching is one of the great weaknesses of American education. The low eighth-grade Algebra 1 participation rate indicates not much is being done about it. Recovering from the learning losses of the pandemic will be hard, but opening up algebra to more middle-schoolers can't hurt.

One of the most experienced teachers in this subject is Mike Feinberg, co-founder of what is now the nation's largest charter school network, KIPP. At its beginning in the 1990s, its middle schools, serving mostly impoverished students, tried to include as many students as possible in Algebra 1 by eighth grade.

"Enrolling eighth-graders into algebra from a high-expectations standpoint and knowing there is the safety net of ninth-grade algebra is a good plan," Feinberg said, as long as the eighth-grade course is not what he called "a soul-crushing experience" in which students lose confidence and love for math. "Another way to do this," he said, "is to slow-roll algebra into a two-year course where the material is covered more completely and slowly to help ensure the kids are mastering it."

That's not happening in many places. Given this era's emphasis on getting more students into the STEM professions (science, technology, engineering and math), it's a good time to show some confidence in middle-schoolers and see what they can do when well taught.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

JERUSALEM (AP)  A Palestinian man who is seen in an amateur video lying face down, bloody and motionless, as an Israeli policeman kneels on his neck, said Sunday that Israeli forces beat and detained him without provocation as he headed to pray at Jerusalems chief Muslim shrine.

Yousef Adi, 36, said that he suffered a broken nose and required four stitches on his forehead after last Thursdays beating nearby the Al Aqsa mosque. The incident is the latest in a series of violent acts by Israeli police against Palestinians. Israeli police said the video distorted the facts and they had used reasonable force.

Adi, a West Bank resident who works as a technician at Palestine TV, said he had all the necessary Israeli permits to enter Jerusalem. Inside the Old City, he said officers arbitrarily detained him and dragged him against a wall and began to beat him.

I did nothing except shout at them to leave me alone and stay away from me," he said. "But then more policemen came and began hitting me everywhere on my body.

A video circulated on social media appeared to show an officer from the Israeli border police pinning Adis head to the ground with his knee. Adi is seen bleeding from his nose and hanging limply as police officers cuff him and move his apparently unconscious body. A pool of blood is visible on the ground.

Adi said the beatings continued and that he was eventually hospitalized.

The border police said the video did not tell the full story. It released a separate video of security camera footage that showed part of the events preceding Adis arrest.

Although there is no sound, Adi can be seen arguing over being stopped near a police barrier and appears to push an officer as he is detained. He also appears to be shouting and waving his arms frantically as they try to subdue him. The video, however, does not show the moments when he was beaten.

Because of his violent behavior, the troops were forced to use reasonable force in order to subdue the suspect who ran wild and remove the threat his violent behavior posed, the police statement said. Tamir Paro, the forces spokesman, declined to answer any additional questions.

Adi said the following day he was fined 500 shekels (about $150) and banned from entering Jerusalem for a month.

Im still suffering from the pain, he said. My children, after seeing the video, wake up at night crying ... I need surgery on my nose. Who will pay for it?

The border police is a paramilitary force that is often deployed to maintain order in tense areas, such as the Old City, or to quell unrest, and its officers have been targets of Palestinian attackers. At the same time, Palestinian and human rights groups accuse the force of frequently using excessive force and say officers are rarely punished for violent acts.

Last December, an AP photographer was beaten by a border policeman in an unprovoked attack, and two years ago, an autistic Palestinian man was killed by a border policeman in the Old City. Israeli authorities say that shooting was a tragic mistake, and an officer has been charged with reckless homicide in the case.

Earlier Sunday, a Palestinian man who was wounded in a firefight with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank last week died of his injuries, Palestinian health officials said.

Hamad Mustafa Abu Jelda, 24, was shot during a shootout with Israeli forces in Jenin. The forces were demolishing the home of a Palestinian gunman who killed three Israelis in an attack in Tel Aviv earlier this year.

It was not clear whether he was taking part in the violence when he was shot.

Israel has been conducting near-daily arrest raids in the West Bank for months, which were prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis earlier this year that killed 19 people.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians seek those territories for a future state.
Texas A&M International announced this week it would continue providing growing opportunities to students as part of the Development of Informatics Accelerated Learning in Laredo program. This will be the seventh year partnering with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Biomedical Informatics.

DIALL provides TAMIU students the opportunity to complete a 4+1 graduate certificate and accelerated masters program with UTHealth Houston. At completion, students graduate with a bachelors degree from TAMIU and a graduate certificate from UTHealth Houston. The program is housed in TAMIUs College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

John C Kilburn Jr., TAMIUs Associate Vice President for Research and Sponsored Projects, told LMT this program will benefit students who are also looking to complete a masters certificate.

We're celebrating seven years of success in creating a 4+1 program that sends undergraduate students into a program that completes graduate credit and trains them for jobs for the future, Kilburn said. It has been a very successful partnership between UT Health Houston School of Biomedical Informatics and TAMIU.

Kilburn also stated that students are drawn from diverse backgrounds and various majors with the abilities of learning the skills of the future.

We are ecstatic because we know the jobs are changing  the hot jobs of the present didn't exist 10-15 years ago, and the jobs of the future that we will need don't exist yet, he said. What we need are people who understand technology and people who understand the big picture of health care.

We have been very proud of this partnership between Dr. (Susan) Fenton, the School of Biomedical Informatics and TAMIU. We are very successful and we look for many more years of growing this partnership.

Fenton, who is SBMIs Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic and Curricular Affairs, also shared her excitement for the partnership. She said that while they had an unexpected decrease of students during the pandemic, the program continues to grow.

Our partnership with Laredo is extremely important to us, she said. It's been extremely successful, and we're just grateful to have the opportunity to work with TAMIU.

I think these are wonderful opportunities not only for (students), but its also wonderful opportunities for us too. One of the things that happens is that when these students come to our classes, we hear from our faculty, Where did they come from? Please bring us more.

Fenton said that 70% of the classes are online, as students can take them asynchronously so they can get to the content at any time during the day. However, student graduate services will be offered on campus.

It doesn't interfere with the students activities at Texas A&M International or their classes, and then if they choose to go on and pursue the masters degree, they can also stay in Laredo, Fenton said. Many of them get offered jobs after earning their bachelors degree and their certificate. They can stay here, they can work, they can then go on and get a graduate degree and they don't ever have to come to Houston. They're always welcome to come to Houston, but they don't have to come to Houston.

We're excited that as we expand our presence in Laredo, we're going to be offering professional development and consumer education opportunities, so we would encourage you to keep an eye out for that. We're trying to expand our footprint. We want to bring more to this community. It's been such a wonderful experience for us.

Fenton also said the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of data and information in public health, as well as having trained professionals from a variety of backgrounds. She said that the collaboration with TAMIU supported the health of the greater Laredo community, and SBMI was excited to be a part of it.

SBMI is one of six schools within UTHealth Houston, and the only academic Biomedical Informatics program in Texas. Its also the only free-standing school among 70 related programs in the nation, and one of the largest globally.

This past summer, DIALL offered a STEM Immersion Experience focused on how STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and adjacent fields like business can integrate into the field of Biomedical Informatics. It was funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Boards Accelerated Credentials of Purpose and Value Grant Program.

karol.garcia@lmtonline.com
Inside Hook

Earlier this year, R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of racketeering and sexual assault in 2021. Its also not the only trial that Kelly will take part in; hes now in the midst of a second federal trial taking place in Chicago. The latest controversy surrounding Kelly doesnt have to do with his actions, his music or his time in the courtroom, however. Instead, it has to do with his incarceration  and what is or is not available to him there.



As Devlin Barrett reported for The Washington Post, Kelly had approximately $28,000 in his Bureau of Prisons account. Kelly also owes $140,000 in fines  including, as Barrett noted, $40,000 thats slated to go to a fund for the victims of sex trafficking. It led U.S. District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly to rule that Kelly must pay the federal court in which he was convicted in 2021.



According to the article, the Bureau of Prisons has been ordered by Donnelly to send $27,828.24 from Kellys account to the court in question.



The question of inmate accounts with large sums in them  especially when they involve cases where restitution was ordered by a court  is one that the Washington Post has reported on in the past. The Justice Department is now increasing its monitoring of such accounts  and its a subject that likely merits an even deeper look, for numerous reasons.
NEW YORK (AP)  Hours before dawn on March 1, 2003, the U.S. scored its most thrilling victory yet against the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks  the capture of a disheveled Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, hauled away by intelligence agents from a hideout in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The global manhunt for al-Qaida's No. 3 leader had taken 18 months. But America's attempt to bring him to justice, in a legal sense, has taken much, much longer. Critics say it has become one of the war on terrors greatest failures.

As Sunday's 21st anniversary of the terror attacks approaches, Mohammed and four other men accused of 9/11-related crimes still sit in a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, their planned trials before a military tribunal endlessly postponed.

The latest setback came last month when pretrial hearings scheduled for early fall were canceled. The delay was one more in a string of disappointments for relatives of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack. They've long hoped that a trial would bring closure and perhaps resolve unanswered questions.

Now, Im not sure whats going to happen, said Gordon Haberman, whose 25-year-old daughter Andrea died after a hijacked plane crashed into the the World Trade Center, a floor above her office.

Carrie Antlfinger/AP

He's traveled to Guantanamo four times from his home in West Bend, Wisconsin, to watch the legal proceedings in person, only to leave frustrated.

Its important to me that America finally gets to the truth about what happened, how it was done, said Haberman. I personally want to see this go to trial."

If convicted at trial, Mohammed could face the death penalty.

When asked about the case, James Connell, an attorney for one of Mohammed's co-defendants  one accused of transferring money to 9/11 attackers  confirmed reports both sides are still attempting to reach a pretrial agreement that could still avoid a trial and result in lesser but still lengthy sentences.

David Kelley, a former U.S. attorney in New York who co-chaired the Justice Departments nationwide investigation into the attacks, called the delays and failure to prosecute an awful tragedy for the families of the victims.

File

He called the effort to put Mohammed on trial before a military tribunal, rather than in the regular U.S. court system, a tremendous failure that was as offensive to our Constitution as to our rule of law.

Its a tremendous blemish on the countrys history, he said.

The difficulty in holding a trial for Mohammed and other Guantanamo prisoners is partly rooted in what the U.S. did with him after his 2003 capture.

Mohammed and his co-defendants were initially held in secret prisons abroad. Hungry for information that might lead to the capture of other al-Qaida figures, CIA operatives subjected them to enhanced interrogation techniques that were tantamount to torture, human rights groups say. Mohammed was waterboarded  made to feel that he was drowning  183 times.

A Senate investigation later concluded the interrogations didn't lead to any valuable intelligence. But it has sparked endless pretrial litigation over whether FBI reports on their statements can be used against them  a process not subject to speedy trial rules used in civilian courts.

The torture allegations led to concerns that the U.S. might have ruined its chance to put Mohammed on trial in a civilian court.

But in 2009, President Barack Obamas administration decided to try, announcing that Mohammed would be transferred to New York City and put on trial at a federal court in Manhattan.

Failure is not an option, Obama said.

But New York City balked at the cost of security and the move never came. Eventually, it was announced Mohammed would face a military tribunal. And then over a dozen years passed.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

Kelley said talk of military tribunals two decades ago surprised many in the legal community who had been successfully prosecuting terrorism cases in the decade before. The concept of a tribunal, he said, came out of the blue. Nobody knew it was coming.

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was not in favor of tribunals and had been supportive of the Manhattan federal terrorism prosecutions, he said.

Now, Kelley said, with the passage of time it will be much more difficult to prosecute Mohammed in a tribunal, much less a courtroom. Evidence goes stale, witness memories fail.

The passage of time hasnt dulled the memories of the victims' families or dampened their interest in witnessing justice.

Eddie Bracken's sister Lucy Fishman was killed at the trade center. The New Yorker opposed Obama's proposal to move the trial to federal court  Mohammed is charged with a military act, and should be tried by the military, he reasoned. And while he is somewhat frustrated by the delays, he understands them.

The whole world is looking at us and saying, What are they doing after all this time? he said. But he realizes the case is a process that the world is seeing, that needs to be done under a microscope.  Its up to the United States to do their due diligence, make sure its done right.

The wheels of justice turn. They turn slowly, but they turn. And when the time comes, and its said and done, the world will know what happened, he adds.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

While Mohammed has lingered at Guantanamo, the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid and deputy-turned-successor Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike just this August.

Investigators with the military commission at Guantanamo Bay said he plotted the 9/11 attacks for three years. They cited a computer hard drive seized at his arrest which they said contained photographs of the 19 hijackers, three letters from bin Laden and information about some hijackers.

Mohammed, at his tribunal hearing, conceded in a written statement that he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, that he was on al-Qaidas council and that he served as operational director for bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the Sept. 11 plot from A to Z.

According to the statement, he also took credit for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; an attempt to down U.S. jetliners using bombs hidden in shoes; the bombing of a nightclub in Indonesia; and plans for a second wave of attacks after the 2001 attacks targeting landmarks like the Sears Tower in Chicago and Manhattans Empire State Building.

Carrie Antlfinger/AP

He also claimed credit for other planned attacks, including assassination attempts against then-President Bill Clinton in 1994 or 1995 and an assassination plot against Pope John Paul II at about the same time, the statement said.

Mohammed's nearly two decades in legal limbo differs from the fate of his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people, injured 1,000 others and left a crater in the parking garage beneath the twin towers.

Yousef is serving life in prison after being convicted at two separate civilian trials. He was also captured in Pakistan, in 1995, but was brought to the United States for trial.

At the time, Yousef said his right to kill people was comparable to the U.S. decision to drop a nuclear bomb in World War II. Mohammed has offered a similar justification, saying through an interpreter at a Guantanamo proceeding that killing people was the language of any war.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

Bracken traveled to Guantanamo in 2012 to watch one hearing for Mohammed and his co-defendants, and would probably go again if a trial ever happened.

I dont know if I want to go there again to bring back all the hurt and pain. But if Im allowed to go, then I guess I would go. Yeah. My sister would do that for me.

Shes that type of a woman, he added. Then he corrected himself: She was that type of a woman.

___

Antlfinger reported from West Bend, Wisconsin. Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this story.
Smiley N. Pool, MBR / TNS

(Bloomberg) -- Texas has transported more than 10,000 migrants to Washington, New York City and Chicago since April as Governor Greg Abbott seeks to put pressure on the Biden administration to help alleviate the impacts from a surge in border crossings.

Abbott said Friday that the state has bused more than 7,900 people to Washington in the past five months, sent 2,200 to New York and 300 to Chicago. The migrants, many of whom are awaiting hearings on asylum claims, generally ask to be put on the buses so they can join friends or family in those areas.
WFO LAS VEGAS Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Saturday, September 10, 2022

_____

FLASH FLOOD WARNING

The National Weather Service in Las Vegas has issued a

* Flash Flood Warning for...

Southeastern Inyo County in south central California...

Southeastern Nye County in south central Nevada...

* Until 800 PM PDT.

* At 405 PM PDT, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing

heavy rain across the warned area. Flash flooding is ongoing or

expected to begin shortly along portions of State Route 190

through Death Valley National Park.

HAZARD...Life-threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms

producing flash flooding.

SOURCE...Radar.

IMPACT...Life-threatening flash flooding of low-water

crossings, creeks, normally dry washes and roads.

* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include...

Northwest Pahrump, Furnace Creek, Death Valley Junction and Texas

Springs Campground.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood

deaths occur in vehicles.

_____

Copyright 2022 AccuWeather
The summers final Live on the Waterfront concert was held Wednesday evening at Prince Arthurs Landing. The popular series in Thunder Bay has completed nine weekly shows that began on July 13. Wednesdays concert was unique as it was held one hour later in the evening to mesh with the 10 p.
Moscow's biggest stronghold in northeastern Ukraine collapsed Saturday following a swift Ukrainian assault.

Moscow suffered its greatest setback since its soldiers were driven from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in March with the rapid fall of Izium in Kharkiv Province.

As hundreds of Russian forces retreated, they left behind ammo caches and other supplies, which Ukraine hailed as a turning point in the six-month-old conflict, Reuters reported.



Russia's defense ministry told soldiers to leave the area and strengthen operations elsewhere in Donetsk, according to the state-run TASS news agency.

Russia Suffers Devastating Setback

According to TASS, the director of Russia's administration in Kharkiv advised locals to leave the region and move to Russia to "save lives." Witnesses report traffic bottlenecks exiting the Russian-controlled area.

It would be a devastating setback for Russia, which Western intelligence services claim has incurred massive fatalities if the advances that have been recorded hold up. It would also be a huge boost for Ukraine, which is eager to demonstrate to the Western countries that continue to provide it with weaponry that it is deserving of their continuing backing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to suspend all energy supplies to Europe if Brussels approves a proposal to regulate Russian oil export prices, putting pressure on Kyiv to make progress before winter.

Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, stated in Kyiv that Ukrainian soldiers have proven they could destroy the Russian army using the armaments provided to them.

Kuleba noted: "And so I reiterate: the more weapons we receive, the faster we will win, and the faster this war will end."

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in his nightly video message on Saturday that since the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive earlier this month, its military forces have reclaimed around 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles) of land.

Read Also: Moscow, Beijing To Benefit From Sanctions Chinese Firms Expand to Russian Markets

Russian Reinforcements Fail

According to Russian military journalist Yevgeniy, Russian military headquarters used Mi-26 helicopters on Friday to re-deploy reserve soldiers to Kupyansk and Izium while bolstering forces in Kharkiv with personnel and armored vehicles.

But it didn't appear that the reinforcements had any impact. Izium and Kupyansk were both retaken, which was a significant tactical victory for Kyiv.

Izium, which is close to the line separating the Kharkiv and Donetsk provinces, had been occupied by Russia for more than five months and had grown into a key military post for the invasion forces. According to CNN, Russia used Izium to launch operations into Donetsk and Kupyansk, 30 miles north of Izium, to replenish its soldiers.

According to Kyiv, its soldiers have cut off a crucial Russian supply route that passed through the Kharkiv region and is now heading farther east. At the same time, the Ukrainian military said that Russian forces had suffered losses in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson.

Even the government in Izium, which is supported by Russia, had to admit the retreat on Saturday. Vladislav Sokolov, head of the pro-Russian Izium city government, said the situation is "very difficult," per the Russian state news agency RIA.

President Vladimir Putin's decision to deploy reinforcements to Kharkiv, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, highlights the considerable casualties Russia's troops are suffering.

He said there were a sizable number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and that President Putin had shown he was willing to send many people there at great expense to Russia, as per a report from Al Jazeera.

Related Article: Belarusian Forces Starts Military Drills To Simulate Freeing Occupied Territory Close to Polish Border

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Today, almost everyone on earth uses a clock to organize daily activities. When synchronizing their efforts and activities, whether they are meeting with another person, working as a team, or working alone on a project, people can use clocks.

Have you ever wondered how we would determine the time without clocks? It might not seem important now, but when our ancestors were living in the early ages and relying on the sun, it undoubtedly was. Unquestionably, the clock has had a significant influence on life as we know it.

Below is a brief history of the invention of clocks as we have compiled from ThoughtCo and Interesting Engineering:

Sundials and Obelisks

Egypt is home to the oldest sundial, which dates back to roughly 1,500 B.C. Shadow clocks, which were the first tools for measuring time, are where sundials originated. The Shadow Clocks could divide the day into twelve 12-hour blocks and used some of its massive obelisks to monitor the sun's motion.

Greek Water Clocks

Around 250 BC, the Greeks developed a clepsydra, a type of water clock. Early water clocks consisted of a simple water reservoir with a small hole drilled into the bottom. Hours inside the water reservoir were marked off with lines, allowing the water to drain at a constant rate.

Candle Clocks

A Chinese poetry from 520 A.D. has the earliest recorded mention of candle clocks. The poem claims that the candle, with its calculated rate of burn, served as a tool for calculating the time at night.

Read More: Did You Know That Gunpowder Was Originally Created To Prolong Life?

Hourglass

One of the earliest trusted, reusable, reasonably accurate time-measurement tools was the hourglass, which has been in use since the 15th century.

Monastery Clocks and Clock Towers

Christian monks were the first clockmakers in medieval Europe. Around the year 996, the future pope Sylvester II constructed the first known clock.

Wrist Watch

Peter Henlein invented the first portable watch in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1504. The problem is that it wasn't really precise.

Meanwhile, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal is known to have been the first person to really wear a watch on their wrist.

Minute Hand

Jost Burgi created the minute hand in 1577. Tycho Brahe, an astronomer who required an accurate clock for stargazing, commissioned Burgi to create a clock that used his innovation.

Pendulum Clock

Clocks became more precise after Christian Huygens created the pendulum clock in 1656.

Mechanical Alarm Clock

Levi Hutchins, an American, created the first mechanical alarm clock that could only count at 4 a.m. in 1787.

Standard Time

Standard time, which is the synchronization of clocks within a region to a single time standard, was created in 1878 by Sir Sanford Fleming. It was created to help with train travel and weather forecasts. The time zones of the 20th century were evenly distributed throughout the geographical areas.

Related Article: Did You Know That the Microwave Oven Was Invented by Accident?
9/11 is a date that will forever live in infamy in the United States and the rest of the world. On this day in 2001, four suicide terrorist attacks were carried out by members of al-Qaeda. Four commercial airlines were hijacked by terrorists.

Two of them were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, while another crashed into the Pentagon. The last one was meant to crash into a government building in Washington D.C., but it did not happen thanks to the bravery of the passengers and crew of the flight.

On the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we remember the heroism of the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93.

United Airlines Flight 93: The Basics

United Airlines Flight 93, according to the National Park Service website, was a Boeing 757, which has the capacity of 182 passengers.

According to an article by History, Flight 93 "a regularly scheduled early-morning nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California." On the morning of September 11, 2001, it departed Newark at 8:42 a.m. after a 45 minute delay. It carried 33 passengers as well as seven crew members.

What they did not know at that time was that four hijackers have also been able to board the plane with knives as well as box cutters.

The Terrorists Take Overtake the Cockpit

By 9:28 a.m., around 46 minutes after the Flight 93 took off from Newark, the four terrorists successfully took control of the plane's cockpit. One of the hijackers had previously trained as a pilot.

Instead of heading to its original destination, the hijackers turned the plane southeast. United Airlines Flight 93 was now heading for Washington D.C.

The passengers and crew of the flight were all made to stay at the back of the plane. Using cell phones and airphones, they managed to inform their loved ones as well as the authorities that the flight has been hijacked.

Related Article: NASA Images From Space: New Photos of 9/11 Attack Released in Remembrance of Tragedy

The Passengers, Crew Fight Back

The passengers and crew soon learned about the other 9/11 attacks and, according to History, a vote was taken and the group eventually decided to fight back against the hijackers of the plane.

"Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water," History narrates in its article. "Her last words to him were: 'Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye.'"

At 9:57 a.m., the plan of the passengers and crew were put into action. The hijakcers then decided to roll the aircraft and pitch the nose up and down in the hopes that it will stop the passengers and crew of Flight 93 from fighting back.

Unwilling to risk losing control of the cockpit, the terrorists chose to crash the plane into an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. No one survived the crash.

The Heroes of United Airlines Flight 93

It goes without saying that more people could have died had the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into the terrorists' intended target. The bravery of the passengers and crew, without a doubt, saved more lives.

Today, on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we remember these heroes. According to the website of Friends of Flight 93, they are:

Alan Anthony Beaven

Andrew Garcia

CeeCee Ross Lyles

Christine Ann Snyder

Colleen L. Fraser

Deborah Jacobs Welsh

Deora Frances Bodley

Donald Arthur Peterson

Donald Freeman Greene

Edward Porter Felt

Christian Adams

Georgine Rose Corrigan

Hilda Marcin

Honor Elizabeth Wainio

Jane C. Folger

Jason M. Dahl

Jean Hoadley Peterson

Jeremy Logan Glick

John Talignani

Joseph DeLuca

Kristin Osterholm White Gould

Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas

Linda Gronlund

LeRoy Homer

Lorraine G. Bay

Louis J. Nacke II

Mark Bingham

Mark David Rothenberg

Marrior R. Briton

Nicole Carol Miller

Patricia Cushing

Patrick Joseph Driscoll

Richard J. Guadagno

Sandy Waugh Bradshaw

Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.

Todd M. Beamer

Toshiya Kuge

Waleska Martinez

Wanda Anita Green

William Joseph Cashman

Read Also: GameStop Takes Down NFT Based on the 9/11 Photo 'The Falling Man'
Twin baby girls walk hand in hand / gettyimages









By Lee Hae-rin







On New Year's Day this year, Ahn Ki-hoon, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Korea University Anam Hospital, carried out a cesarean operation to help a pregnant woman deliver triplets.







"It was a very close moment to birth," Ahn told The Korea Times in a recent phone interview, explaining that the mother was going through premature contractions in the 33rd week of pregnancy. With the help of a pediatric doctor, an anesthesiologist and Ahn, the mother delivered three newborns, all healthy and well, despite the high-risk conditions.







Ahn's hospital is one of the four high-risk pregnancy medical centers as designated in 2019 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and it runs a specialized geriatric pregnancy clinic for aged mothers in the northeastern part of the capital.







The doctor said he has witnessed a rise in multiple births in delivery rooms and neonatal wards in recent years, commenting that the increased multiple births is a social phenomenon proven by demographics.







According to Statistics Korea's latest figures released on Aug. 29, about five out of 100 babies are multiples. 5.4 percent, or 140,000 of 2.6 million newborns brought in Korea last year were multiples. That includes 136,000 twins and 500 triplets, taking 5.2 and 0.2 percent of the total babies, respectively.







By decade, the country's twin rate has been steadily on the rise. The peak, however, was reached this year, as the figure grew slowly from 1990's 1 percent to 2002's 2 percent, and finally surpassed 5 percent last year.







The state statistics office and experts point out that the country's twins boom is the result of postponement of parenthood and increased use of assisted reproductive technology in fertility services. On average, twins' mothers are 34.8 years old, 1.5 years older than other mothers.







Their correlation is also apparent in differing twin birth rates shown by mothers' age groups  the percentage is overwhelmingly higher among mothers aged between 35 and 39 at 8.1 percent, compared to 2 percent to 4 percent among younger age groups.







Multiples have grown more visible outside hospitals and statistics as well.







Actor Song Il-kook and his triplets  from left, Song Min-kook, Man-se and Dae-han / Korea Times file photo





In 2014, actor Song Il-kook made a sensation with an appearance on KBS parenting variety show with his triplets, Dae-han, Min-kook and Man-se, whose names together make up the phrase "Long Live the Republic of Korea." The family gave a fresh shock to the public and soon became everybody's favorite triplets. Followed by Song's three sons, twins of other celebrities, including comedian Lee Hwi-jae and former K-pop diva Yoo Soo-young have appeared on media.







The market started to see a diverse range of nursery products devised to facilitate multiple childcare. Not just matching outfits, but almost anything, including baby strollers, pillows and bottle-feeding stands for twins became widely available.







Historically, populations have seen a rise and fall of twin births immediately after wars or revolutions. However, researchers agree that the recent boom is a global phenomenon seen in developed countries over the past four to five decades.







Twins from all over Greece take part in the first nationwide gathering of twins, in Trikala, northern Greece, Sept. 22, 2019. EPA-Yonhap





Since 1980s, global twin birth rates have increased by a third, from nine to 12 twin deliveries per 1,000 deliveries, according to a 2021 report published in Human Reproduction, an Oxford Academic peer-reviewed journal in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology. The report said 1.6 million twins are born each year worldwide, which is about one in every 42 newborns.







The common denominators in transnational phenomena are introduction of hormone treatments and in vitro fertilization (IVF) and increased age of mothers  the effect of the former is three times stronger on average than the latter, according to a research published on Population and Development Review in 2015.







In Korea, the two factors are intertwined, as more women have entered into the workforce, postponed motherhood and naturally grown more reliant on medically assisted reproductive technologies, according to Hur Yoon-mi, a professor at Kookmin University who heads the Kookmin Twin Research Institute.







According to Hur's research published last year in Twin Research and Human Genetics, a bimonthly scientific journal published by the Cambridge University Press, Korea's traditionally low twinning rate has not only surpassed the global average but now ranks among the highest, doubling the average.







The change could come as a surprise to the country where twins had rarely been seen before. However, multiples are, despite their distinct genetic similarities, separate individuals who are not too different from singleton babies in social behavior.







"The twins rather tend to feature higher sociability and self-esteem  and as their number went up, the younger generations have grown keen to them," the professor said, explaining that twins and multiples are easily found in today's kindergartens and elementary schools, and many children want to get to know their similar-looking peers.







Experts believe that multiples could offer unique and valuable contributions to society. Ahn, who also formed and leads a research group at Korea University to study the low birth rate, and Hur both underscored their potential role in tackling the country's declining birth rate.







Identical twin sisters Verna, third from left, and Viola Mueller, fourth from left, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who were born on Valentines' Day in 1933, take part in a themed dress competition during the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, Aug. 4, 2007. Reuters-Yonhap





"That is why we need more education and health policies for twins," Hur said, giving an example of childcare funds and class placement systems for multiples in early education, as children grow emotionally independent and self-reliant at a young age.







Moreover, twins studies worldwide have "greatly contributed to understanding the human mind and correlations between genetics and environment in forming personality, intelligence and physical and mental traits," Hur said. "I hope more twins and multiples in Korea come forward and participate in the research for the development of science and society."







Hur added that in countries with a large population of multiples, twins and multiples festivals are held to celebrate their identity and unique contribution to the community. "Hopefully the day will come for us too, when twins are widely accepted and celebrated," the professor said.


However, given the series of flare-ups in the Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, and which the Rohingyas consider their home, the issue has grown more complex.

Growing cooperation Despite this setback, among the seven pacts signed on September 6, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on withdrawal of 153 cusecs (cubic feet per second) of water from the Kushiyara by Bangladesh is most welcomed by Dhaka. It is the first such deal the two countries have inked after the Ganges river water-sharing agreement in 1996 and is seen as a breakthrough in addressing an issue that has cast a shadow on their otherwise close ties.

No doubt, as an immediate outcome of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's recent visit India for four-days this month, seven memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in various fields were signed.These included the withdrawal of water from the cross-border Kushiyara river, cooperation in space technology, collaboration on IT systems used by railways in areas such as movement of freight, science and technology cooperation, training of Bangladesh Railway personnel and Bangladeshi judicial officers in India, and cooperation in broadcasting between Prasar Bharati and Bangladesh Television, aimed at boosting ties between the two countries.While she engaged in talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on connectivity, trade, free transit, defence cooperation, flood management, counter-terrorism, food security, and nuclear energy partnerships, a crucial issue is believed to have been discussed but without any outcome -- the complex Rakhine situation and the Rohingya refugee crisis.According to information available in Dhaka, there was no agreement, not to talk of MoUs, on Rohingyas and Myanmar, even though Indias External Affairs Minister and Foreign Secretary gave assurances to help in safe and dignified return of Rohingyas in cooperation with international community.Indeed, in recent weeks, the Rohingya repatriation issue has grown more complex for Bangladesh with a flare-up in the Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, and which the Rohingya consider their home. On the recent turmoil in Myanmars Rakhine state, India made clear that India is keeping an eye on the Rakhine state of Myanmar that Bangladesh apprehends it might hamper the process of Rohingya repatriation.Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra also asserted that the Government of India supports a safe, stable, and early return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar from Bangladesh and other countries. In this connection, India will always play a constructive role and will have a constructive view. He further assured the Bangladesh side that all possible support will be given to the Rohingyas and that India will provide all assistance for their return to Myanmar.Over the last two months, an informal truce between the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organisation of Rakhine Buddhists, is reported to be breaking down as the Arakan Army attempts to dominate the Rakhine state. The ceasefire that started in November 2020 has been fraying and, much to Dhakas chagrin, the conflict has been spilling over to the Bangladesh side.According to reports, the AA, fighting for the self-determination of the Rakhine Buddhists, who consider themselves to be ethnically different from the majority Bamar Buddhists, now controls over half of the state and is trying to establish dominance in crucial border areas. The Myanmar army is responding with aerial bombardment, artillery, and mortar shelling.On at least two of those occasions, the conflict has spilled over into Bangladesh. In response, for the third time in a week, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry summoned the Myanmar envoy to Dhaka to express its deep concern over the incidents of mortar shelling, indiscriminate aerial firing in the border areas, and air space violations.The Myanmar envoy was urged to ensure that no trespassing by newly displaced Myanmar residents takes place from Rakhine. According to the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Myanmar envoy was told that such activities are of grave threat to the safety and security of the peace-loving people, a violation of the border agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar, and contrary to the good neighbourly relationship.Clearly, the conflict in the Rakhine state may complicate any repatriation effort, especially as the AA is said to be in control of many areas where Rohingyas were formerly living. The fresh conflict has also created concerns about new waves of displaced persons crossing the border into Bangladesh.Bangladesh, which hosts over a million Rohingya refugees, however, has made it clear on several occasions that India must use its influence with the Myanmar junta to take them back. Even before the coup in Myanmar, Dhaka had tried without success to get Naypidaw to take the refugees back who has now been living in a settlement in Coxs Bazar, now known as the worlds largest refugee camp.Notably, in an interaction with ANI on the eve of the India visit, Sheikh Hasina terming the Rohingya issue as a big burden on Bangladesh, had called for Indias support in resolving the Rohingya refugee crisis. Failure to reach any agreement on Rohingyas happened despite Bangladesh strongly believing that India could play a role in persuading Myanmars concerned stakeholders to take them back.The agreement will benefit southern parts of Assam state in India and the Sylhet region in Bangladesh. The two leaders engaged in talks on connectivity, trade, flood management, counter-terrorism, food security, and nuclear energy partnerships.In a bid to enhance Bangladeshs power generation capacities and deal with the energy crisis that the country is facing in because of the growing energy prices worldwide, the two leaders unveiled the first unit of the Maitree Thermal Power Plant, a 1320 MW supercritical coal-fired thermal power plant at Rampal in the Khulna division of Bangladesh. Experts believe that the project will give citizens of Bangladesh access to affordable electricity, boosting Bangladeshs energy security.An important project that was inaugurated was the Rupsha bridge. The 5.13 km Rupsha rail bridge is a key part of the 64.7 km Khulna-Mongla Port single-track Broad Gauge rail project, connecting for the first time Mongla Port (Bangladeshs second largest port) with Khulna by rail, and thereafter to the India border at Petrapole and Gede in West Bengal.The connectivity initiatives are part of the ongoing projects in Bangladesh that are aimed at converting the country into a major connectivity hub of South and Southeast Asia. It is believed that with the expansion of connectivity, and the development of trade infrastructure on the border, the two economies will be able to connect more with each other.To narrow the prevailing trade gap between India and Bangladesh and to further accelerate economic growth, the two sides agreed to begin negotiations on a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) this year. It is deeply analysed that bilateral trade potential would be USD 40 billion when the CEPA is operationalized.Bangladesh hopes that the Indo-Bangla partnership which has now got extended to more fields, including trade and commerce, power and energy, transport and connectivity, science and technology, rivers and maritime affairs, will act as a catalyst for closer coordination and cooperation in resolving outstanding bilateral issues, too.Indeed, practical steps are needed for a safe, secure and conducive environment to ensure safe, sustainable and voluntary repatriation of Rohingyas to the place of their origin, Rakhine state.---
MEERUT, SEPTEMBER 11: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha today addressed an event Badlte Bharat mein Nikharta Kashmir organized in memory of one of the outstanding writers Shri Dushyant Kumar at Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

Remembering Shri Dushyant Kumar, the Lt Governor said that he made an enormous contribution to enrich the literary and cultural heritage of the country, which provides an unending source of energy and motivation to people.

The Lt Governor appreciated the Dushyant Kumar Foundation for organizing a seminar on the changing scenario of Kashmir in the virtuous memory of the great literary personality.

Dushyant Kumars creative expression reflects J&Ks cultural pluralism. His timeless words are full of hope for social equality, and overall transformation of society, which is being witnessed by the J&K UT after a long wait of 70 years, said the Lt Governor.

People of J&K were deprived of development. Vested interests kept J&K away from progress and prosperity for seven decades. In August 2019, Honble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi fulfilled the dreams of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee and connected the people of Jammu Kashmir with the mainstream of development, observed the Lt Governor.

In the last three years, we have overcome many difficulties and there has been a significant improvement in the situation in UT. Terror-free, corruption-free, transparent system has replaced uncertainty, nepotism and corruption. The rule of social justice and equality has been established. This process of transformation is offering a fertile ground for individual growth, said the Lt Governor.

The Industrial scene in J&K has changed dramatically in the last two years and investments continue to flow for economic activities that guarantee social welfare and stability, added the Lt Governor.

Jammu Kashmir has taken a giant leap in infrastructure development and sharply improved socio-economic parameters. We have embarked on several major initiatives in developing our social infrastructure to provide world-class amenities to people living in the far-flung areas of UT, the Lt Governor observed.

Highlighting the major strides made in all the priority sectors, the Lt Governor said that the UT of J&K has registered massive improvements in various development parameters and is now emerging as one of the leading states/UTs.

Today one of the main objectives of the administration is to eradicate disparities in society and different regions of UT. The successes and accomplishments in different sectors since August 2019 is a matter of great joy and pride for our citizens, the Lt Governor further added.

Dr Rajendra Kumar, Dr Rahul Tyagi and members of Dushyant Kumar Foundation and prominent personalities from the literary world were present on the occasion.
Customers who walked into a Corbin Avenue bodega in New Britain didnt usually leave with food or beverages, they typically left with pills.

For years, Elziers Grocery sold pharmaceutical grade oxycodone pills. The store was also busy with sometimes up to 40 people coming in an hour, according to court documents.

On Thursday, a man from the Dominican Republic  34-year-old Jose Lugo  was the last person sentenced in connection with the scheme. U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall ordered him to serve 38 months, or a little over three years, in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He also faces an immigration proceeding when he completes his prison term.

The two other men involved  the stores owner, Raul Cabrera-Vasquez, and Eliezer Perez  were each previously sentenced to four years in prison, the U.S. Attorneys Office said in a press release.

Cabrera-Vasquez and Perez ran the operation as early as 2017. It wasnt until July 2019 that Cabrera-Vasquez met an unemployed Lugo in the Bronx and offered him a job at the bodega, according to court documents.

With an interpreter seated next to him, Lugo listened Thursday as Hall, Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Pierpont Jr. and Lugos attorney Alexander Schwartz argued about how involved Lugo was in the conspiracy. Though he wasnt in the operation as long, and he didnt acquire the drugs himself, he actively sold the drugs for months.

Pierpont also noted that during the Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, Lugo participated in five out of six controlled purchases in 2019. He was also the only defendant present at the bodega when law enforcement searched the store on Feb. 26, 2020.

During the search, law enforcement found 200 pills as well as a pistol wrapped in Lugos shirt, according to court documents.

Investigators also searched a nearby stash house on Queen Street and seized more than 1,000 pills, drug packaging materials, a scale, drug ledgers and $10,000 in cash. Lugos name was on the homes electric bill, Pierpont said in a sentencing memorandum.

Lugo has been in custody since his arrest in February 2020. On Feb. 8, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, oxycodone.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un delivers a speech at the second-day session of the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang, Sept. 8, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency the following day. Yonhap





The chief of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) expressed strong regret Sunday after North Korea declared itself a nuclear weapons state and vowed bipartisan efforts for peace on the Korean Peninsula.







Lee Jae-myung's comment in a Facebook message came as the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday that the country has passed a new law declaring itself a nuclear weapons state and enshrining a right to use preemptive nuclear strikes for self-protection, a move leader Kim Jong-un called "irreversible."







"It is very shocking and worrisome ... Such a move does not help peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula at all. It will rather make things worse only to cause fatal damage to both South and North Korea and bring tragic results," Lee said.







Pyongyang's latest move shows that sanctions and pressure cannot resolve the matter, the chief said, calling on the Seoul government to lead practical action in a proactive manner to achieve peace.







"The DPK will make bipartisan effort to improve the inter-Korean relations and to achieve the peaceful resolution of the North's nuclear weapons program," he added. (Yonhap)


This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)  The man charged with abducting and killing a Tennessee teacher this month was a suspect in a 2021 kidnapping and sexual case, but his indictment over those allegations didn't occur until Thursday because of the timing in testing his DNA.

Cleotha Henderson was rebooked at the Shelby County Jail on Friday on charges of aggravated rape, especially aggravated kidnapping and unlawful carrying of a weapon. Details of the newest allegations against Henderson were not immediately available.

The indictment came days after Hendersons arrest in the death of Eliza Fletcher, a mother of two and a kindergarten teacher.

Fletcher disappeared while on a pre-dawn run near the University of Memphis campus on Sept. 2, and her remains were found Monday near an abandoned house. Henderson is being held in the Shelby County Jail without bond on the charges related to Fletchers death.

In the earlier case, Memphis police took a sexual assault report on Sept. 21, 2021, the department said in a statement Saturday. A sexual assault kit was submitted two days later to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the statement said.

An official CODIS (national DNA database) hit was not received until after the unfortunate event that occurred on September 2, 2022, the Memphis police statement said, referring to the jogger's abduction. Probable cause to make a physical arrest of any suspect did not exist until after the CODIS hit had been received."

Memphis police provided no further details, citing an ongoing criminal prosecution. Hendersons public defender could not be reached for comment Saturday.

The TBI confirmed Saturday that the sexual assault kit was submitted last Sept. 23.

The evidence was put into the queue of unknown assailant kits, as no request was made for TBI analysis to be expedited, and no suspect information or DNA standard was included in the submission, the TBI statement said.

The kit eventually was pulled from evidence storage along with 19 other kits for analysis this past June 24 and an initial report of the results was completed on Aug. 29, the TBI said.

When the 2021 DNA was entered into the national database, it returned a match for Henderson on Sept. 5, which the TBI reported to Memphis police, the TBI said.

The TBI accepts rush DNA cases when requested to do so by local law enforcement agencies, as was done in the Fletcher case, according to the TBI. Last weekend, Henderson was identified as the suspect less than 18 hours after receiving key evidence, which was critical in his subsequent apprehension.

Because we rarely know the facts of the case when processing evidence, TBI relies on submitting agencies to identify cases that would benefit their investigation from our rush analysis, the TBI statement said.

Henderson, who also has gone by the name Cleotha Abston, is charged with kidnapping and killing Fletcher, 34. Henderson is being held in the Shelby County Jail without bond on the charges stemming from Fletcher's death.

Henderson was arrested after police detected his DNA on sandals found near the location where Fletcher was last seen, an arrest affidavit said.

A funeral for Fletcher was held Saturday.

Henderson, 38, previously served 20 years in prison for a kidnapping he committed at age 16.
Crown Princess Mary donned a stunning gown and $12,000 tiara at a Gala performance on Saturday celebrating Queen Margrethe II of Denmark's 50th Anniversary of the Government.

The Australian-born royal, 50, attended the event alongside her husband Prince Frederik of Denmark, son Prince Christian and daughter Princess Isabella.

Princess Mary wore a sparkly floor-length dress designed with layers from the waist down and short sleeves.

The gala performance was held at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.

Crown Princess Mary (pictured, left) attended the Gala performance for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark's 50th Jubilee of Government held in Copenhagen on Saturday

Princess Mary attended the event alongside her husband Prince Frederik of Denmark, son Prince Christian and daughter Princess Isabella (pictured from left to right: Crown Princess Mary, Prince Christian, Princess Isabella and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark)

According to Express UK, the Diamond Necklace Tiara was created sometime between 1900 and 1910 and was sold as a necklace featuring diamonds, spinels and rubies.

The jewels were bought by Princess Mary herself for 8,050 - around $11,929 AUD.

The Princess completed the look with a matching clutch purse and the ensemble embodied pure elegance.

And this isn't the first time the Princess has worn the stunning dress - she also donned it for Crown Prince Frederik's 50th birthday in 2018.

The Australian-born royal, 50, wore a sparkly floor-length dress designed with layers from the waist down and short sleeves. According to Express UK, Princess Mary bought the matching diamond tiara for 8,050 - around $11,929 AUD

Princess Isabella, 15, looked beautiful in red floor-length dress with gold heels and matching clutch, while Prince Christian, 16, wore a black suit and white bowtie

Princess Isabella, 15, looked beautiful in red floor-length dress with gold heels and matching clutch, while Prince Christian, 16, wore a black suit and white bowtie.

Both Princess Mary and Prince Frederik can be seen wearing a blue sash over the attire, which symbolises their role as a member of the royals.

Prince Frederik and Princess Mary married on May 14, 2004 at Copenhagen Cathedral, with the newly minted Crown Princess opting for a beautiful gown by Danish designer Uffer Frank and a veil first used by Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden in 1905.

Their first child, Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John, was born October 15, 2005; Princess Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe followed on April 21, 2007.

Almost four years later Princess Mary and Prince Frederik welcomed twins, Princess Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda and Prince Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen on January 8, 2011.
Prince William paid a deeply personal tribute to his 'Grannie' the Queen, saying that she was by his side on the 'happiest and saddest days of my life'.

The Prince of Wales, 40, said in a statement released on Instagram that while the world was mourning the loss of an 'extraordinary leader', he had lost his 'grandmother'.

He referenced the family holidays they spent with his children George, nine, Charlotte, seven, and Louis, four, and thanked the Queen for the support and guidance she gave to him and Kate.

Prince William paid a deeply personal tribute to his 'Grannie' the Queen, saying that she was by his side on the 'happiest and saddest days of my life'. Pictured, the Prince and Princess of Wales during their walkabout at Windsor Castle yesterday

The Prince of Wales, 40, said in a statement released on Instagram that while the world was mourning the loss of an 'extraordinary leader', he had lost his 'grandmother'

It comes after the Prince and Princess of Wales joined the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for an impromptu walkabout at Windsor Castle.

William wrote: 'On Thursday, the world lost an extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute. So much will be said in the days ahead about the meaning of her historic reign.

'I, however, have lost a grandmother. And while I will grieve her loss, I also feel incredibly grateful. I have had the benefit of The Queen's wisdom and reassurance into my fifth decade.

'My wife has had twenty years of her guidance and support. My three children have got to spend holidays with her and create memories that will last their whole lives.

'She was by my side at my happiest moments. And she was by my side during the saddest days of my life.

'I knew this day would come, but it will be some time before the reality of life without Grannie will truly feel real.

William referenced the family holidays they spent with his children George, nine, Charlotte, seven, and Louis, four. Pictured, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh with some of their great-grandchildren, including George, Louis (on her lap) and Charlotte

'I thank her for the kindness she showed my family and me. And I thank her on behalf of my generation for providing an example of service and dignity in public life that was from a different age, but always relevant to us all.

'My grandmother famously said that grief was the price we pay for love. All of the sadness we will feel in the coming weeks will be testament to the love we felt for our extraordinary Queen.

'I will honour her memory by supporting my father, The King, in every way I can.'

Yesterday, the King ordered his warring sons to set aside their ongoing feud ahead of the Queen's funeral, leading the pair to reunite in public for the first time in more than a year.

Royal sources say Prince William attempted to bury the hatchet by extending an '11th-hour olive branch' to his younger brother Prince Harry, by asking him to join him on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles.

Royal sources say Prince William extended an '11th-hour olive branch' to his young brother Prince Harry by asking him to join him on a walkabout (pictured) outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles

Experts predict the moment could prove a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses and the Sussexes (pictured here together in 2020), who have been at odds following a number of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan about the royals

In a scene that clearly delighted royal fans, who had come in their hundreds to the gates of the Windsor estate to mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side with wives Kate and Meghan.

The two couples went on an 40-minute walkabout inspecting the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the royal estate in honour of the much-loved monarch.

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

The Montecito-based Sussexes were consequently in the UK on a pseudo royal tour when the Queen's health suddenly deteriorated on Thursday.

In a scene which delighted royal fans, who had come to the gates of the Windsor estate mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side wives Kate and Meghan (pictured)

King Charles III greets members of the public outside Clarence House, London, after he was formally proclaimed monarch by the Privy Council, and held audiences at Buckingham Palace

It is believed the Sussexes had not previously made any plans to meet with the Waleses, despite staying in Frogmore Cottage, just 700 yards from William and Kate's Adelaide Cottage. However both William and Harry raced to Balmoral on Thursday after it became clear the Queen's health was faltering.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said that the Prince of Wales had invited the Sussexes to join him and the Princess of Wales during yesterday evening's walkabout.

However, according to The Times, the camps required extended negotiations beforehand which delayed their arrival by 45 minutes.

A senior Palace source said: 'The Prince of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to join him and the Princess of Wales earlier.

'The Prince of Wales thought it was an important show of unity for the Queen at an incredibly difficult time for the family.'

King Charles III was formally proclaimed in a historic ceremony at St James's Palace in London.

He made a personal tribute to his 'dear mama' before vowing to uphold the British constitution.

Later he was driven to Buckingham Palace, where he held audiences with Prime Minister Liz Truss, senior members of her Cabinet, and the Archbishop of Canterbury;
Workers remove mud at POSCO in the southeastern city of Pohang on Sept. 7, in this photo provided by the steelmaker. Yonhap





POSCO, Korea's top steelmaker, said Sunday it has restarted one of three blast furnaces at its main steel mill, which had been shuttered over Typhoon Hinnamnor last week.







POSCO halted operations of the No. 2, 3 and 4 blast furnaces in Pohang, an industrial city located some 270 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Wednesday, as the typhoon caused flooding of power supply stations and other related facilities.







Of the three, the No. 3 furnace resumed operation Saturday, and the remainder will be back to normal operations as early as Monday, according to the steelmaker.







POSCO said that recovery work to restore rolling and other affected facilities is now under way as the firm mobilized some 300 officials. The local government and the Marine Corps also sent their personnel and equipment to the mill to support the firm.







It marked the first time for the company to halt operations of its Pohang factory in its half-century history.







POSCO's Pohang steelworks generated 18.49 trillion won ($13.39 billion) in sales last year, accounting for some 24 percent of the group's total.







POSCO said it will increase production at five blast furnaces in Gwangyang, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul. None of the furnaces in Gwangyang were affected by the typhoon. (Yonhap)


The new King will look to a tight-knit inner circle of trusted aides, some by his side for decades, as he begins his first days and weeks as the nation's sovereign.

The 73-year-old monarch was formally proclaimed in a historic ceremony at St James's Palace in London on Saturday, following the Queen's death on Thursday at Balmoral at the age of 96.

As the world looked on, the King made a historic and personal tribute to his 'dear mama' before vowing to uphold the British constitution.

Alongside the support of Queen Consort Camilla, who the King spoke affectionately of in his speech, Charles is now likely to begin assigning new roles to established key figures in his team.

It's thought some of the Queen's long-standing aides, faithful to the late Monarch until her finals hours, will be given different roles or retire from their current positions.

Staff who work for the Queen typically would have only a month's notice after the end of her reign before they would either be redeployed to another Royal household or look for alternative employment.

Scroll down for video

King Charles III was formally proclaimed in a historic ceremony at St James's Palace in London on Saturday, following Queen's death on Thursday at Balmoral (Charles and Camilla pictured at Buckingham Palace on Friday)

King Charles III signing the Proclamation at St James's Palace in London yesterday morning during the historic ceremony; it's thought the King will elevate staff who have worked closely with him in recent years to new roles

The Prince of Wales, the Queen, King Charles III and Lord President of the Council Penny Mordaunt during the Accession Council at St James's Palace

IN? CHARLES' CURRENT STAFF

THE KING'S PRIVATE SECRETARY: SIR CLIVE ALDERTON

A distinguished career as a diplomat saw Sir Clive Alderton, 55, take on the role of deputy Private Secretary to then Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall in 2006 - before becoming Charles Principal Private Secretary in 2015

Charles right-hand man, Sir Clive Alderton, 55, was seen whispering to the King at the proclamation ceremony on Saturday, ensuring the historic moment ran as smooth as clockwork.

A former diplomat, Sir Clive has worked for Clarence House since 2006 and is likely to remain a key figure in the new royal household.

The trusted courtier once held a Foreign Office role, living in various countries at the start of his career including Singapore, Poland and France.

In 2006, Sir Clive landed the role of deputy Private Secretary to then Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, and, promoted to Private Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to their Royal Highnesses three years later, becoming ambassador to Mauritania and Morocco.

Since 2015, when he became Charles Principal Private Secretary, he's been a constant by the new King's side - and is likely to remain in post now Charles is officially sovereign.

MASTER OF THE HOUSEHOLD: PETER ST CLAIRE-ERSKINE

Eton-educated Peter St Clair-Erskine, the 7th Earl of Rosslyn, worked as head of royalty protection for more than ten years before becoming master of the household

Confidante: The King and the Earl of Rosslyn pictured in conversation at Royal Ascot in June

Another key player at the Accession Council ceremony on Saturday was Peter St Clair-Erskine, officially the 7th Earl of Rosslyn and also Peter Loughborough.

St Clair-Erskine has worked for the King and Queen Consort since 2014, as master of the Kings household at Clarence House, and is charged with ensuring that the couple's public life runs smoothly.

Prior to his role of master of the household, Eton-educated St Clair-Erskine worked as head of royalty protection for more than ten years.

St Clair-Erskine's daughter, Lady Alice St Clair Erskine, has a blossoming acting career.

SOPHIE DENSHAM: AIDE TO CAMILLA

Long-term courtier: Sophie Densham has been Private Secretary to Camilla, Queen Consort for more than 12 years (Pictured in Bath in 2010)

Considered a safe pair of hands and a key player in the tight-knit group of aides likely to continue to support the new King and Queen Consort, Sophie Densham has been Camilla's Private Secretary for over a decade.

Like her peers in the current royal household, Densham was present at yesterday's proclamation ceremony which saw her employer become Queen Consort.

JEAN CHRISTOPHE GRAY: WILLIAM'S CLOSEST AIDE

Supporting the new Prince and Princess of Wales is former Treasury figure Jean-Christophe Gray, who was appointed William's private secretary in 2021

David Cameron's former spokesman remains the closest aide to the new Prince and Princess of Wales and is likely to remain a key figure in the extended Team Charles.

Jean-Christophe Gray came from the Government's Treasury department to the royal household in 2021, after working alongside Mr Cameron and George Osborne during the austerity years.

He brought a reputation as Whitehall's 'most assiduous bean counter', The Sunday Times reported at the time.

In 2012, Gray left a position as head of general expenditure policy with the Treasury to join the communications team at Downing Street, becoming then-prime minister Mr Cameron's official spokesman.

OUT? THE QUEEN'S TRUSTED COURTIERS

THE LATE QUEEN'S PRIVATE SECRETARY: SIR EDWARD YOUNG

Retirement? Sir Edward Young was private secretary to The Queen until her death; it emerged earlier this year that Prince Harry had a strained relationship with the late Queen's aide - with tensions simmering over Harry's security arrangements in the UK

Sir Edward Young was private secretary to The Queen until her death at Balmoral on Thursday. It's now thought he will either retire from the royal household or

A former Barclays executive, his main role was as the main channel of communication between the monarch and the UK government, as well as those in the Commonwealth.

A historic position, first created in 1805, it was held by Sir Edward since 2019.

Sir Edward took over the role from Lord Christopher Geidt. Alongside holding senior roles at Barclays, Sir Edward also served as an adviser to then-Tory Leader of the Opposition, William Hague, and as a communications chief for ITV.

Earlier this year, it emerged that Prince Harry had a strained relationship with the late Queen's aide.

'Significant tensions' are said to have existed between the Duke of Sussex and Sir Edward, according to the prince's legal team.

The pair's relationship was brought to light at the High Court as part of Prince Harry's legal battle with the Home Office over its decision to cut his UK police protection.

HER MAJESTY'S CLOSEST CONFIDANTE: ANGELA KELLY

Angela Kelly, a close confidante of the Queen, is set to be allowed to stay on in her grace-and-favour home at Windsor  thanks to the Queen herself. Pictured receiving her RVO in 2012

Angela Kelly, was one of the Queen's most trusted confidantes - but will be allowed to stay on in her grace-and-favour home at Windsor  thanks to the Queen herself.

Angela Kelly, a docker's daughter from Liverpool, began work as an Assistant Dresser at the Royal Household before becoming indispensable to the Monarch.

Her reward was a grace-and-favour home a short walk from Windsor Castle.

And now it seems that the Queen had given her authority for Ms Kelly to stay in her grace-and-favour home after her death.

So favoured was she by the late Monarch that Ms Kelly was also granted extraordinary permission to secure a three-book deal. Two of those memoirs have been published and another is set to be released.

An insider said: 'The Queen was very clear that she was close to Angela and wanted to look after her people.'

Ms Kelly who is said to want to spend some time in America now the Queen has died, was originally hired for her fashion expertise. But she soon developed a close bond with the Monarch.

As the Queen's mobility failed, Palace sources say that Ms Kelly could often be found sitting with the Queen, making her laugh and filling Her Majesty in on the latest plot twists of television soap operas.

Latterly, as the Queen's number of public appearances decreased in line with her ability to move around in comfort, it was Ms Kelly who sat with the Queen at Windsor.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are expected to move to Windsor Castle but will postpone the relocation to prevent their children's lives from facing more upheaval, it is claimed.

Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four, moved house, started a new school and lost their 'Gan-Gan' in just six days.

The couple has told courtiers they hope to give their children time to settle in school before having to deal with moving house again, The Telegraph reported.

A source told the newspaper: 'They wont be starting from scratch when it comes to decisions on what happens to all of the royal properties because there have been lots of conversations about that over the years, but things can change when family dynamics are taken into account and they will want as little disruption to their childrens lives as possible right now.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will postpone moving to Windsor Castle to prevent their children's lives facing more upheaval

Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte moved house, started a new school and lost their 'Gan-Gan' in just six days

The Waleses only moved to Adelaide Cottage (pictured) on the Windsor Castle estate from their previous home at Kensington Palace last week

However, after the Queen died peacefully on Thursday aged 96 at Balmoral Castle, William and Catherine could move to Windsor Castle with their children

'They are very happy right now at Windsor and for the next decade or so everything will be pretty much dictated by what is right for the children.'

The Waleses last week moved into their new home of Adelaide Cottage, on the Windsor estate. The family had previously been based in Kensington Palace.

William and Kate had sought a life in the country away from the 'goldfish bowl' of their official residence in London in a bid to put their children first and give them more freedom.

Alongside the house move, the couple enrolled the children at 7,000-a-term Lambrook School, which is just a short drive from their new home.

William and Kate accompanied the children to their 'settling in' afternoon on Wednesday, hours before the Queen died.

Prince William and Kate Middleton and their family reportedly 'travelled light' to their new home Adelaide Cottage (pictured above in 2013) and did not require a pricey refurbishment

The Cambridges moved to the cottage to be closer to their children's new school in Ascot when the term starts. Pictured: Charlotte as she arrives for her first day of school at Thomas's Battersea in London, accompanied by her brother Prince George and her parents in 2019

Princes George, nine and Louis, four and Princess Charlotte, seven, started at 7,000-a-term elite Lambrook School (pictured above) in Berkshire after a switch from St Thomas's School in Battersea

Lambrook School (pictured above) is situated in the sleepy rural village of Winkfield Row and will be the new school for Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis of Cambridge

Since the death of Her Majesty the Queen, a move to Windsor Castle or one of the larger homes on the Windsor estate became more likely.

This is as a result of William and Catherine's change in royal seniority and status after the King said they would become the Prince and Princess of Wales.

As Charles's eldest son, William, 40, has also inherited title of Duke of Cornwall and the Scottish titles the Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

Kate Middleton said that she 'appreciates the history' associated with the role of the Princess of Wales but wants to create her 'own path'.

Yesterday Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on the long Walk at Windsor Castle to greet well-wishers

Meghan is seen gazing at Kate as the four admire the floral tributes left to the Queen. Afterwards, the four met well-wishers

The Prince of Wales yesterday paid tribute to his late 'Grannie' Queen Elizabeth II, describing the beloved monarch as an 'extraordinary leader, whose commitment to the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth was absolute'. In a heartbreaking statement, Prince William revealed how Her Majesty - who died at Balmoral Castle on Thursday aged 96 - had provided him and his wife Kate Middleton 'wisdom and reassurance' and their children 'memories that will last them a lifetime'

As King Charles III bestowed the title of Prince of Wales to William, he told him to 'Bring the marginal to the centre ground'.

It is likely the Prince and Princess of Wales will aim to make high-profile visits to more marginalised areas in a bid to bring more attention and support to those places.

Prince William already has a keen interest in promoting mental health and wellbeing as well as homelessness charities, while Princess Catherine has been part of primary education and anti-bullying campaigns for years.

The benefit of having Royals visit marginalised areas is not only to draw attention to that place but also to prompt real change.

Whereas politicians may only be in their role for a short period of time, the Royal family aren't going anywhere.

It could mean that were they to set up a community taskforce to deal with certain issues, members would know they would have to explain directly to the Royals if progress wasn't made.
Prince William and Kate Middleton have updated the name of their Royal Foundation to reflect their new titles.

It is now known as The Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

The Royal Foundation, the primary philanthropic and charitable vehicle for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, had been known as The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge since 2019.

Prince William and Kate Middleton have updated the name of their Royal Foundation to reflect their new titles. It is now known as The Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales

The Royal Foundation website now has the title The Prince and Princess of Wales on the header

The latest name marks its fifth in 12 years.

The foundation started life as the Prince William & Prince Harry. In 2012 it became the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. From 2018-2019, it was known as the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

The change in name comes after Prince William and Kate Middleton updated their social media profiles to reflect their new titles

During his first speech to the nation, the new King confirmed the former Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be given the title Prince and Princess of Wales.

The change was immediately reflected on the couple's social media pages, which changed from the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge.

The change in name comes after Prince William and Kate Middleton updated their social media profiles to reflect their new titles

Meanwhile their titles were also updated on the Royal Family's official website, where pages for the couple were listed as 'Prince of Wales' and 'Princess of Wales'.

The prince, whose father Charles is now King Charles III, was among the senior royals who rushed to Balmoral upon hearing the Queen's health was deteriorating.

William has also inherited the Scottish titles the Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

Royal sources say Prince William extended an '11th-hour olive branch' to his young brother Prince Harry by asking him to join him on a walkabout (pictured) outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles

King Charles III greets members of the public outside Clarence House, London, after he was formally proclaimed monarch by the Privy Council, and held audiences at Buckingham Palace

The King said: 'Today, I am proud to create [William] Prince of Wales, Tywysog Cymru, the country whose title I have been so greatly privileged to bear during so much of my life and duty.

It comes as Kate said that she appreciates the history associated with the role of the Princess of Wales but wants to create her own path.

A source said the new Princess of Wales 'appreciates the history associated with this role but will understandably want to look to the future as she creates her own path'.

Prince William and Kate had earlier this week updated their social media profiles to reflect their previous titles, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge

The royal source said: 'The couple are focused on deepening the trust and respect of the people of Wales over time.

'The Prince and Princess of Wales will approach their roles in the modest and humble way theyve approached their work previously.'

'With Catherine beside him, our new Prince and Princess of Wales will, I know, continue to inspire and lead our national conversations, helping to bring the marginal to the centre ground where vital help can be given.'

Since the 14th century the title of the Princess of Wales has been used by the wives of the Princes of Wales. However, it is a courtesy title

Meanwhile their titles were also updated on the Royal Family's official website, where pages for the couple were listed as 'Prince of Wales' and 'Princess of Wales'

In his first televised address to the nation since the death of the Queen, King Charles III confirmed his son Prince William would inherit his title of the Prince of Wales and his wife Kate would become Princess

Technically, Charles's wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles, has been the Princess of Wales until now, but she has used the feminine equivalent of Charles's Duke of Cornwall title, the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Duchess of Cornwall is thought to not use the Princess of Wales title out of respect for Charles's ex-wife Princess Diana, who died in Paris in August 1997.

Among the younger royals, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's infant children will become Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

In his speech, the new King paid tribute to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex saying he wanted to 'express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.'

The couple also swapped their smiling social media profile photos to their official coats of arms earlier this week in a mark of respect to the Queen.

Kensington Royal, the handle of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge changed its image - which had shown the couple beaming at one another to their official royal coat of arms.

The Instagram account also shared the black and white image of the Queen released by the Palace today.

Meanwhile the royal family's website was updated with a statement.
The Royal Family Instagram account has shared a selection of photos of the Queen with Prince Charles throughout her reign in a post marking the transition of power.

The photos show the mother and son at Prince Charles's Christening, at the Coronation and at the state opening of Parliament.

It was accompanied by a caption praising the sense of duty shared by the Queen and her heir.

The Royal Family Instagram account has shared a selection of photos of the Queen with Prince Charles throughout her reign in a post marking the transition of power. The first photograph shows a young Princess Elizabeth with her son at his christening (pictured)

Another photo shows the Queen and Prince Charles walking hand-in-hand during the State Opening of Parliament in 2019

The photos were shared alongside a lengthy Instagram caption highlighting the Queen and Prince Charles's shared sense of duty

It reads: '[The Queen's] commitment to a life of service became a guiding principle throughout her reign and was illustrated in the sheer volume of work which she undertook as Queen - from her early Commonwealth tours which lasted for several months at a time, to the many official engagements which she attended well into her final years.

'In a letter written by King George VI to Princess Elizabeth shortly after her wedding, King George VI wrote of his confidence in her commitment to her Royal duties, saying, I have watched you grow up all these years, with pride  and I can, I know, always count on you, and now Philip, to help in our work."

'In turn, The Queen said of her own son The Prince of Wales - now The King, For Prince Philip and me, there can be no greater pleasure or comfort than to know that into his care are safely-entrusted the guiding principles of public service and duty to others.

'His Majesty The King has spent his working life serving the public through his patronages, with a particular focus on environmental causes and young people. His many duties in support of The Queen have included representing Her Majesty and the UK overseas, attending events including State Visits to the UK, the State Opening of Parliament and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings.'

King Charles was formally proclaimed King during a ceremony yesterday, following the death of his mother the Queen aged 96

The third photo shows the Queen surrounded by her family at her Coronation. Her young children Anne and Charles stand proudly in front of their mother (centre)

The Royal Family Instagram account is sharing a series of posts marking the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and all that she achieved.

The first photograph, shared yesterday, shows the young Princess Elizabeth cradling her son at his christening.

Seated on one side is her mother, the Queen Mother. On the other is her proud father King George VI. Prince Philip stands behind his wife and young son.

The second photograph shows the newly crowned Queen surrounded by her family on the day of her Coronation in 1953. A young Prince Charles and Princess Anne stand in front of their mother.

The third and final photograph shows the Queen and Prince Charles walking hand-in-hand during the State Opening of Parliament in 2019.

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passes through Ballater

Most people stood in silence as the convoy passed through the village of Ballater, while others filmed the moment on their phones

A sombre Princess Royal in a Bentley limousine behind the Queen's hearse as it travels through Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh

It comes as tearful well-wishers are pay a fond farewell to the Queen after her coffin left Balmoral accompanied by a sombre Princess Anne to begin a six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where she will lie in state.

As bright sunshine broke through the morning mist, the hearse carrying the late monarch passed through the gates of her beloved Highland home, with the gentle rush of the River Dee one of the few sounds that could be heard as a small gathering of local people watched on in silence.

Minutes later, the hearse passed through Ballater where villagers - many of whom knew the monarch personally - threw flowers onto the road. A hushed silence descended as people bowed their heads and the Lord Lieutenants from Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire stood to attention outside Glenmuick church.

Now with a single motorbike outrider leading the way and six vehicles following, the hearse is travelling at a stately pace through the stunning Aberdeenshire countryside, with Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence following directly behind in a state Bentley.

King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla arrive at Bucking Palace on Friday after mourners laid flowers outside the royal estate

Prince Harry,the Duchess of Sussex, Prince William and Princess Kate look at floral tributes laid by members of the public on the Long walk at Windsor Castle on Saturday

Earlier, the Queen's oak coffin - draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland - was carried in the hearse by six of the Balmoral estate's gamekeepers after they were allowed time to say their last goodbye. The wreath is made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Following a 170-mile journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the coffin will rest overnight in the oak-panelled throne room. Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Tomorrow, Edinburgh will become the focus of national mourning, with the Queen's coffin carried in a procession from the palace to St Giles Cathedral, where a Vigil of the Princes is expected to take place before it lies in state for 24 hours.

The Queen's poignant final journey will eventually end at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she will be buried alongside her beloved husband, Prince Philip, alongside her father, George VI, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.
A teenager who shared an 'amazing' hug with Meghan Markle outside Windsor Castle yesterday during an outpouring of grief for the late Queen said she wanted to show the Duchess that she's 'still welcome here'.

Amelka Zak, 14, lined up with hundreds of other well-wishers on Saturday as the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a surprise appearance together at the gates of the castle.

The royal mother-of-two, who stepped back from royal duty last year and now lives in her $14 million mansion in the US, spent time chatting with Amelka before the pair embraced.

Scroll down for video

'Amazing moment': Teenager Amelka Zak, 14, is seen embracing the duchess during the walkabout in Windsor to view the floral tributes to The Queen yesterday

The teenager told CNN that she was happy to see the Princes and their wives reunited

The 'fab four' reunited at Windsor to mourn the death of The Queen; it was the first time the couples have been together in public since March 2020

Amelka told CNN that she had wanted to share a hug to show the royal that she was still liked by British people.

She said: 'We were just waiting for her to come and she came near me and asked my name and how my day was, how long I was waiting.

'And I asked her if I could have a hug, and she hugged me back. It was quite an amazing moment. I'm still shaking now.'

The startled teenager said she wanted to offer a warm welcome to the American after 'everything that's happened'.

'Everyone was kind of cheering me on and I guess I felt like I needed to in the way, because I look up to her in someway and it felt like the right thing to do.'

She explained that she'd enjoying seeing the Princes reunited, saying: 'It was quite nice to see William and Kate and Megan and Harry together.

'And it was fine, but I just wanted to like show her that she's, like, welcome here, I guess. And wanted to hug her after everything that's happened, really, now.'

Surprise embrace: Amelka said: 'I asked her if I could have a hug, and she hugged me back. It was quite an amazing moment. I'm still shaking now.'

After the Duchess of Sussex touched the teen on the shoulder the pair chatted

She revealed that with 'everyone cheering me on' she decided to ask the royal for a hug

The pair then shared a warm embrace, with Amelka saying the moment left her shaking afterwards

As Meghan walked away to chat to other guests, she touched the teenager's elbow

Prince William and Kate Middleton, and Meghan and Harry appeared in black at Windsor Castle on Saturday evening to inspect the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the Berkshire estate in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The reunion marks the first time that the two couples have all appeared in public since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020, just weeks before the Covid lockdown.

Harry and Meghan, who quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back.

They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, at Windsor Castle on Saturday

Harmony? The Princes appeared to have put their troubles to one side to honour the Queen's memory

One well-wisher who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship.

'Lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Another mourner said: 'We couldn't believe it when the gates opened, and we saw William and Harry walk down with Meghan and Kate. I'll be honest there was a little bit of a groan when Harry and Meghan came down our side, but I passed him a bunch of flowers and he was happy to take them.

'I'm pleased that they came out together and as a family I'm delighted that they all took the time to come and say hello to the crowds. Sad things like funerals bring families together so I hope that when they get back to California they think long and hard about everything that's happened.'

It comes after it was reported King Charles 'told' Prince Harry not to bring wife Meghan to Balmoral Castle as he and other senior royals rushed to the beside of the dying Queen.
The Queen's Royal Pageantmaster has praised the 'gracious and kind' monarch and said hearing the news of her death 'felt like a light of the world had gone out'.

Bruno Peek, who served in his role for over 30 years, helped organise the Queen's high profile celebrations including three Jubilees.

Speaking on GB News Weekend Breakfast as the Queen's coffin left Balmoral and headed to Edinburgh, he said: 'I know it's so sad, so sad. I was actually in Turkey on holiday when I heard and I just had to go back to my room. And I don't mind admitting I shed a few tears, because it signals the end of an era.

Bruno Peek, who served in his role for over 30 years, helped organise the Queen's high profile celebrations including three Jubilees. Pictured, Mr Peek (left) with the Queen in 2005

Speaking on GB News Weekend Breakfast as the Queen's coffin left Balmoral and headed to Edinburgh, Mr Peek reflected on the loss

Bruno Peek, Pageantmaster of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Beacons, poses at the Tower of London on May 1, 2012, with the Jubilee Crystal Diamond

'And I just felt the light of the world had gone out, you know, because she's such a good and gracious lady.

'I've been involved with her jubilees; the Golden Jubilee, Diamond Jubilee, Platinum Jubilee, and 90th birthday and other events. And she was also always so gracious. And so kind when I was by her side, undertaking these duties for her.'

Discussing her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which took place in June this year, Peek added: 'When I do these events, I build a team around me of people, lots of people who really know what they're doing.

'So there is that comfort value of bringing people together, not just in celebration, but the people who need to be with you when you're organising these events.

'We've had some funny moments during rehearsals, especially rehearsing the lighting of the principal beacon on several occasions, where things went wrong, but that's why you have rehearsals.

'But I can honestly say in all the 30 years I've been organising these events for Her Majesty the Queen, we've not had one report of an accident in 30 years. People really took notice of what we were saying, and what we were asking them to do.'

The first Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West looks on (right) as Bruno Peek helps Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to light the Trafalgar Weekend Beacon during her visit to Nelson's flagship HMS Victory in Portsmouth, Friday 21 October 2005 on the 200th anniversary of the famous naval victory over France and Spain at Trafalgar

The Queen's funeral has been announced for September 19, and will be declared a Bank Holiday across Great Britain.

Peek said: 'The detail is part of what I enjoy, because it's the detail that helps the pageantry, and the public enjoy or mark these special occasions.

'I always enjoy getting down into the detail of these events. It's so much fun, and I'm going to miss her.'

He added: 'It's very sad. Her passing words to me on Jubilee night were 'Thank you'. And I'll never forget that she just looked at me and gave me a wonderful smile, and just said thank you. I'll never forget those words.'

It comes as tearful well-wishers paid a fond farewell to the Queen after her coffin left Balmoral accompanied by a sombre Princess Anne to begin a six-hour journey to Edinburgh, where she will lie in state.

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passes through Ballater

Most people stood in silence as the convoy passed through the village of Ballater, while others filmed the moment on their phones

As bright sunshine broke through the morning mist, the hearse carrying the late monarch passed through the gates of her beloved Highland home, with the gentle rush of the River Dee one of the few sounds that could be heard as a small gathering of local people watched on in silence.

Minutes later, the hearse passed through Ballater where villagers - many of whom knew the monarch personally - threw flowers onto the road. A hushed silence descended as people bowed their heads and the Lord Lieutenants from Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire stood to attention outside Glenmuick church.

Now with a single motorbike outrider leading the way and six vehicles following, the hearse is travelling at a stately pace through the stunning Aberdeenshire countryside, with Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence following directly behind in a state Bentley.

A sombre Princess Royal in a Bentley limousine behind the Queen's hearse as it travels through Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh

Princess Anne (pictured), her husband Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the minister of Crathie Kirk and a representative of the Lord chamberlain's Office are in the convoy following the Queen's coffin

Earlier, the Queen's oak coffin - draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland - was carried in the hearse by six of the Balmoral estate's gamekeepers after they were allowed time to say their last goodbye. The wreath is made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Following a 170-mile journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the coffin will rest overnight in the oak-panelled throne room. Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Today, huge crowds have started to gather in front of Edinburgh's Mercat Cross ahead of the proclamation of King Charles III. Thousands of people have lined the Royal Mile, with dozens holding up their phones and cameras to take pictures of the cross.

Tomorrow, the Scottish capital will become the focus of national mourning, with the Queen's coffin carried in a procession from the palace to St Giles Cathedral, where a Vigil of the Princes is expected to take place before it lies in state for 24 hours.

The Queen's poignant final journey will eventually end at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she will be buried alongside her beloved husband, Prince Philip, alongside her father, George VI, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.
The emotion of escorting the Queen on her final journey was writ large on Princess Anne's face today, as she was driven alongside the hearse carrying her mother's coffin to Edinburgh.

While King Charles and the extended royal family returned to England ahead of yesterday's historic proclamation ceremony and a walkabout to see floral tributes at Windsor Castle, the 72-year-old Princess Royal had taken on the hardest role of all - seeing the late monarch leave her beloved Balmoral for one final time.

Seated next to her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, in the royal Bentley for the six-hour journey from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh, where her mother will lie in state, the usually stoic Princess Royal couldn't hide her grief.

The procession cut through villages where the streets were lined with well-wishers silently paying their respects.

Anne occasionally glanced at those who had turned out to say a last goodbye to the country's longest reigning monarch.

Scroll down for video

The 72-year-old Princess Royal looked visibly moved as she began the six-hour journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh with the Queen's coffin (Pictured: HM Queen Elizabeth II leaves Balmoral on Royal Deeside on her final journey accompanied by The Princess Royal)

A sombre Princess Royal in a Bentley limousine behind the Queen's hearse as it travels through Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh on Sunday morning

Princess Anne's royal car followed a hearse carrying the Queen's oak coffin which was draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland

Well-wishers lined the streets in silence, holding their phones aloft to take photos of the procession but maintaining a respectful silence

The royal, who stayed behind in Scotland to ensure her mother was guided home with a family member, looks deep in thought as the procession makes its way through Aberdeen's streets

Members of the public line the streets in Ballater, Scotland, as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes through

The Queen's oak coffin - draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland - was carried in the hearse by six of the Balmoral estate's gamekeepers after they were allowed time to say their last goodbye.

The wreath is made up of flowers from the Balmoral estate including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Well-wishers lined the streets in silence, holding their phones aloft to take photos of the procession but maintaining a respectful silence.

Following a 170-mile journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the coffin will rest overnight in the oak-panelled throne room.

Following a 170-mile journey to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the coffin will rest overnight in the oak-panelled throne room (Pictured: The Princess Royal and her husband Admiral Sir Tim Laurence on Sunday)

Passing through Aberdeen: the funeral cortege travels behind the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II

Earlier, the coffin had passed through the village of Ballater, close to the Queen's beloved Balmoral estate

Respectful: People gather at The Royal Mile as they wait for hearse carrying the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth in Edinburgh

Proclamations will be read in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Tomorrow, the Scottish capital will become the focus of national mourning, with the Queen's coffin carried in a procession from the palace to St Giles Cathedral, where a Vigil of the Princes is expected to take place before it lies in state for 24 hours.

The Queen's poignant final journey will eventually end at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where she will be buried alongside her beloved husband, Prince Philip, alongside her father, George VI, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret.
Royal fans were left swooning yesterday after Prince Harry opened and closed Meghan Markles car door for her during the walkabout with Prince William and Kate Middleton in Windsor.

The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a surprise appearance together at the gates of Windsor castle, spending time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands to pay their respects to the Queen, who died at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.

Following the 40-minute walkabout, the reunited 'Fab Four', as they were nicknamed before Meghan and Harry stepped back from their royal duties, all got into a vehicle together.

William entered the driver's side, with Kate on his left, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat in the back - with Harry sweetly rushing to open and close his wife's car door for her.

A clip of the moment has been shared widely online, with royal enthusiasts calling Harry 'their kind of gentleman' for his kind gesture.

Scroll down for video

Royal fans were left swooning yesterday after Prince Harry opened and closed Meghan Markles car door for her during the walkabout with Prince William and Kate Middleton in Windsor

Reaction: A clip of the moment has been shared widely online, with royal enthusiasts calling Harry 'their kind of gentleman' for his kind gesture

Well-wishers rushed to social media to praise the prince, with one person writing: Say what you will about Harry and Meghan but he puts his arm around her back and opens her car door for her. He loves her. That gets a swoon from me.

A second tweeted: Harry opened the car door for Meghan and returned back to the other side to enter the car. My kind of gentleman.

A third wrote: 'I love how Harry opened the door for his wife and made sure she was inside the car before getting in the car himself. A true gentleman.'

A fourth added: 'Prince Harry opening and closing the door for his wife, Princess Diana would be proud.'

Prince William and Kate Middleton, and Meghan and Harry appeared in black at Windsor Castle on Saturday evening to inspect the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the Berkshire estate in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The reunion marks the first time that the two couples have all appeared in public since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020, just weeks before the Covid lockdown.

Well-wishers rushed to social media to praise the prince, with one person writing: Say what you will about Harry and Meghan but he puts his arm around her back and opens her car door for her. He loves her. That gets a swoon from me.

Harry and Meghan, who quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back.

They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

One well-wisher who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship.

'Lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Another mourner said: 'We couldn't believe it when the gates opened, and we saw William and Harry walk down with Meghan and Kate. I'll be honest there was a little bit of a groan when Harry and Meghan came down our side, but I passed him a bunch of flowers and he was happy to take them.

The Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made a surprise appearance together at the gates of Windsor castle, spending time talking to well-wishers who had gathered in their thousands to pay their respects to the Queen, who died at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96. Pictured, Harry opening Meghan's car door

Following the 40-minute walkabout, the reunited 'Fab Four', as they were nicknamed before Meghan and Harry stepped back from their royal duties, all got into a vehicle together

William entered the driver's side, with Kate on his left, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat in the back - with Harry sweetly rushing to open and close his wife's car door for her

'I'm pleased that they came out together and as a family I'm delighted that they all took the time to come and say hello to the crowds. Sad things like funerals bring families together so I hope that when they get back to California they think long and hard about everything that's happened.'

Harry only took place after an extended negotiation which delayed the Sussexes arrival by at least 45 minutes.

Royal sources say William attempted to bury the hatchet by extending an '11th-hour olive branch' to his younger brother Harry, by asking him to join him on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles III.

In a scene that clearly delighted royal fans, who had come in their hundreds to the gates of the Windsor estate to mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side with wives Kate and Meghan.

The 'fab four' reunited at Windsor to mourn the death of The Queen; it was the first time the couples have been together in public since March 2020

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Last night, a Kensington Palace spokesman said that the Prince of Wales had invited the Sussexes to join him and the Princess of Wales during yesterday evening's walkabout.

However, according to The Times, the camps required extended negotiations beforehand which delayed their arrival by 45 minutes.

A senior Palace source said: 'The Prince of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to join him and the Princess of Wales earlier. The Prince of Wales thought it was an important show of unity for the Queen at an incredibly difficult time for the family.'

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

The Montecito-based Sussexes were consequently in the UK on a pseudo royal tour when the Queen's health suddenly deteriorated on Thursday.

Harmony? The Princes appeared to have put their troubles to one side to honour the Queen's memory

It is believed the Sussexes had not previously made any plans to meet with the Waleses, despite staying in Frogmore Cottage, just 700 yards from William and Kate's Adelaide Cottage. However both William and Harry raced to Balmoral on Thursday after it became clear the Queen's health was faltering.

The Sussexes' friend and preferred journalist Omid Scobie later claimed on Twitter that the invitation was made at the '11th hour'.

However, hinting that William is prepared to extend Harry an olive branch and work towards melting the ice between them, he declared: 'It is, without a doubt, a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the two brothers'.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may fly Archie and Lilibet to the UK for the Queens funeral, it has been suggested.

The US-based Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly confirmed they will be staying in Britain until the end of the royal mourning period, which finishes seven days after the service on September 19.

However, the couples children, Archie, three, and Lilibet, one, remain in California with Meghans mother Doria Ragland, 66, and have already spent more than a week apart from their parents, who were coming to the end of a whistlestop tour to Europe when the Queen died on Thursday.

According to The Telegraph, the Sussexes are now trying to work out whether Doria and the children should fly out to the UK.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may fly Archie and Lilibet to the UK for the Queens funeral, it has been suggested. The family pictured in 2021

The US-based Duke and Duchess of Sussex (pictured in Windsor on Saturday) have reportedly confirmed they will be staying in Britain until the end of the royal mourning period, which finishes seven days after the service on September 19

Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess confirmed the couple will stay in the UK for the period of royal mourning, reported The Express.

MailOnline has contacted a representative of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for comment.

Meghan and Harry had only expected to be away from their Montecito mansion for seven days for their mini European tour, in which they were supporting various charities close to their hearts.

King Charles says he wants 'to express my love for Harry and Meghan' as he extends olive branch to the US-based prince and his wife King Charles III extended an olive branch to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in his first address to Britain and the world as monarch yesterday. The new Sovereign, who became King the moment that his mother Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Thursday afternoon at Balmoral Castle aged 96, said he wished to 'express my love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas' - in a move likely to be regarded by royal commentators as a bid to finally draw a line under the tumult of recent years. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex plunged the monarchy into crisis during the twilight years of the Queen's reign after sensationally quitting frontline royal duties and moving to California two years ago - a saga which precipitated the rift between Harry and his brother William, allegations of racism against the royals and claims the Firm failed to help a suicidal Meghan. After their bombshell interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Harry appeared to suggest, in a mental health podcast, that his father and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had all failed as parents - while the family was still mourning Prince Philip's death last year. The Duke of Sussex had grief etched on his face as he was swept into the grounds of Windsor Castle this afternoon after losing a race against time to get to his grandmother's bedside before she died yesterday. King Charles III went to Buckingham Palace to meet fellow mourners this afternoon where he shook hands and accepted their condolences to cries of 'God save the King' and impromptu renditions of the national anthem. One woman kissed him on the cheek. He also inspected flowers and tributes left for his late mother at the gates before entering the palace. Harry landed at Heathrow yesterday lunchtime after jumping on an early morning BA flight where he comforted an airport worker with a reassuring hand on her shoulder after she gave him her condolences. He left Balmoral after 12 hours mourning his grandmother with his father and brother - but despite the brevity of the visit, the Sussexes are not expected to return to California until after the state funeral, currently expected to be ten days from now on Monday, September 19. The Duke of Sussex was the last royal to arrive at the Aberdeenshire castle on Thursday and the first to leave on Friday morning. Advertisement

However, the Queens death at Balmoral on Thursday, aged 96, pushed them to extend their stay in the UK.

The Duke and Duchess had been due to attend an awards show in London on Thursday night, but they cancelled their appearance as Harry, alongside other royals, raced to be by his grandmothers side after doctors said they were concerned for her health.

Prince William had flown up on a RAF jet with Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie. But it is understood that they did not reach the Scottish estate before the Queen passed. Initial reports had said his younger brother would also be on board.

But instead Harry was in mid air when Buckingham Palace announced the death of his beloved grandmother. He flew by private jet from Luton Airport, arriving at Balmoral an hour and a half after the historic statement.

Courtiers issued the declaration at 6.30pm - just over an hour after Prince William and other senior royals had arrived to join Charles III at the Queen's residence. Liz Truss was told at around 4.30pm, Downing Street said.

On Saturday evening, Prince William and Kate Middleton, and Meghan and Harry made a surprise appearance together at Windsor Castle to inspect the sea of floral tributes laid outside the gates of the Berkshire estate in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

The reunion marks the first time that the two couples have all appeared in public since Commonwealth Day on March 9, 2020, just weeks before the Covid lockdown.

Harry and Meghan, who quit frontline duties two years ago to strike out on their own in California and then levied a series of bombshell allegations against The Firm, held hands as they looked at the tributes, with Harry at one point affectionately putting his hand on Meghan's back.

They were seen pointing at different tributes and discussing them as members of the crowd waved at them.

One well-wisher who spoke to Harry and Meghan told MailOnline: 'It's lovely to see them both together. Maybe they can get back to a proper relationship.

'Lovely ripple went through the crowd as they approached. Hopefully the healing between Harry and his brother can start now. I'm just so excited to have seen them both together. It's lovely.'

Another mourner said: 'We couldn't believe it when the gates opened, and we saw William and Harry walk down with Meghan and Kate. I'll be honest there was a little bit of a groan when Harry and Meghan came down our side, but I passed him a bunch of flowers and he was happy to take them.

'I'm pleased that they came out together and as a family I'm delighted that they all took the time to come and say hello to the crowds. Sad things like funerals bring families together so I hope that when they get back to California they think long and hard about everything that's happened.'

Harry only took place after an extended negotiation which delayed the Sussexes arrival by at least 45 minutes.

Royal sources say William attempted to bury the hatchet by extending an '11th-hour olive branch' to his younger brother Harry, by asking him to join him on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle following a phone call with his father Charles III.

In a scene that clearly delighted royal fans, who had come in their hundreds to the gates of the Windsor estate to mourn the Queen's death, William and Harry walked out side-by-side with wives Kate and Meghan.

The 'fab four' reunited at Windsor to mourn the death of The Queen; it was the first time the couples have been together in public since March 2020

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view the tributes left after the death of Queen Elizabeth II

Last night, a Kensington Palace spokesman said that the Prince of Wales had invited the Sussexes to join him and the Princess of Wales during yesterday evening's walkabout.

However, according to The Times, the camps required extended negotiations beforehand which delayed their arrival by 45 minutes.

A senior Palace source said: 'The Prince of Wales invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to join him and the Princess of Wales earlier. The Prince of Wales thought it was an important show of unity for the Queen at an incredibly difficult time for the family.'

Experts predict the moment could provide a turning point in the frayed relationship between newly-titled Waleses, and the Sussexes, who have been at odds following a series of damaging interviews by Harry and Meghan.

The Montecito-based Sussexes were consequently in the UK on a pseudo royal tour when the Queen's health suddenly deteriorated on Thursday.

Harmony? The Princes appeared to have put their troubles to one side to honour the Queen's memory

It is believed the Sussexes had not previously made any plans to meet with the Waleses, despite staying in Frogmore Cottage, just 700 yards from William and Kate's Adelaide Cottage. However both William and Harry raced to Balmoral on Thursday after it became clear the Queen's health was faltering.

The Sussexes' friend and preferred journalist Omid Scobie later claimed on Twitter that the invitation was made at the '11th hour'.

However, hinting that William is prepared to extend Harry an olive branch and work towards melting the ice between them, he declared: 'It is, without a doubt, a significant moment in the history of the relationship between the two brothers'.

Meghan Markle cancels Jimmy Fallon appearance and trip to NYC for UN General Assembly - both scheduled for day after Queen's funeral - and postpones next Archetype podcast Meghan Markle has canceled several planned appearances in New York that had been set for the day after Queen Elizabeth's likely funeral date, as the Royal Family enters the official morning for the monarch. The Duchess of Sussex had been scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on September 20, the same day she and Prince Harry planned to visit the UN General Assembly in Manhattan. Both appearances have now been nixed, and Meghan plans to delay releasing the next episode of her podcast Archetypes, which had been set for release next Tuesday on Spotify, sources told Page Six on Friday. By happenstance, the Queen's death on Thursday came as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were in the midst of a European tour on a public relations blitz. Meghan Markle is seen in Germany on Tuesday Meghan had been scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (above) on September 20, which would be one day after the Queen's funeral, but has pulled out Queen Elizabeth is seen on Tuesday, in the final photo before her passing on Thursday Now, their plans have understandably been put on hold as they mourn leading up to and following the Queen's state funeral. The funeral is expected to be scheduled for September 19 at Westminster Abbey in London, but the official date has not yet been announced. It's unclear whether Meghan has already booked another date to appear on The Tonight Show. 'I don't even know what she was going to talk about [with Fallon], but that's obviously cancelled now,' one source told Page Six. A spokeswoman for the NBC program did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are seen making an appearance in Dusseldorf, German on Tuesday, in the midst of the European tour cut short by the Queen's death Prince Harry returns to Windsor on Friday morning after the death of Queen Elizabeth II The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were together in Frogmore Cottage in Windsor when the Queen's failing health became apparent, but Prince Harry flew alone to Scotland, where she was staying at Balmoral. Prince Harry arrived after the Queen's death had been publicly announced, and returned to Windsor on Friday morning. Understandably, all members of the Royal Family have suspended and altered any plans for public appearances as the UK enters a highly choreographed, weeks-long morning period. In his first public address as the country's new monarch, King Charles III gave the order that a period of 'Royal Mourning' for the Queen will be observed from now until seven days after her funeral. King Charles III gave the order that a period of 'Royal Mourning' for the Queen will be observed from now until seven days after her funeral Royal Mourning will be observed by members of the royal family, royal household staff and representatives of the royal Household on official duties, together with troops committed to ceremonial duties. On Friday, royal salutes were fired with one round for every year of the Queen's life at 1pm in Hyde Park by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Advertisement

What happens on day of the Queen's funeral, can I legally take the day off work, will schools close and when is coronation of King Charles III? Vital Q&A ahead of national mourning on Bank Holiday Monday, September 19

The government has declared September 19 a Bank Holiday to mourn the Queen

However there is no legal requirement for employers to give staff the day off

Schools, some businesses and cultural establishments are expected to close

Royal Mail will observe the holiday - so post won't be delivered on funeral day

By Natasha Anderson for MailOnline

The day of the Queen's funeral is to be a Bank Holiday in honour of the late monarch.

King Charles III formally approved an order declaring Monday, September 19 as a bank holiday at St James's Palace in London on Saturday.

The Queen's funeral will take place on Monday September 19 at Westminster Abbey at 11am.

The unexpected holiday has left Britons questioning what it means for them and their families. Can you legally take the day off of work? Will schools be closed?

September 19 marks the tenth Bank Holiday this year. An additional one was previously added this year in commemoration of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

Usually, the UK has eight Bank Holidays per year.

The day of the Queen's funeral has been declared a Bank Holiday, but it has left Britons questioning what it means for them and their families. Queen Elizabeth II is pictured at Balmoral ahead of receiving new Prime Minister Liz Truss on September 6, 2022

King Charles III formally approved an order declaring Monday, September 19 as a holiday at St James's Palace in London on Saturday. The Queen's funeral will take place at Westminster Abbey at 11am. Mourners are pictured in Banchory, Scotland as the hearse carrying Queen Elizabeth travels through the area

Am I legally entitled to a day off work?

While the King has declared his mother's state funeral as a Bank Holiday, there is no legal requirement for employers to give staff the day off.

The government, in its online announcement, says the 'bank holiday will operate in the same way as other bank holidays.'

This mean there is 'no statutory entitlement' to time off but employers may include the day as part of a worker's leave entitlement.

'The government cannot interfere in existing contractual arrangements between employers and workers,' the announcement states.

'However, we would expect that many workers will be able to take the day off on the bank holiday. We also expect employers to respond sensitively to requests from workers who wish to take the day of the funeral off work.'

Officials say the holiday will allow residents, businesses and other organisation to 'pay their respects to Her Majesty and commemorate Her reign, while marking the final day of the period of national mourning.'

Can I claim a day in-lieu, if I have to work?

Employers may offer staff another day's holiday if they are required to work. However, the government has not issued guidance on this.

Days in-lieu are determined on a by-company basis and are a matter of discussion between staff and their employers.

If I work, will I be paid extra?

The government says staff should discuss additional pay with their employers.

'There are no statutory rules regarding extra pay on bank holidays,' the government's announcement notes.

While the King has declared his mother's state funeral as a Bank Holiday, there is no legal requirement for employers to give staff the day off. King Charles III is pictured on Sunday as he arrives at Buckingham Palace in London

Will schools be closed?

Schools will be closed on September 19 so that staff and students can mourn the death of Her Majesty.

The government's memo specifically states: 'We are not asking schools to remain open on the day of the bank holiday.'

It is possible that some schools may opt to remain open in a limited capacity, in effort to look after children should their parents be at work.

However, the government does not require this. It would likely be an individual decision made by each school.

Will shops and restaurants close?

Shops and other customer-facing businesses will likely remain open during the 10-day mourning period.

Some may choose to close on the day of the funeral, especially if they are located close to the processional route.

But official government guidance states: 'There is no obligation on organisations to suspend business during the national mourning period.'

Britons are encouraged to contact businesses directly for information about closures.

Will Royal Mail still deliver my post?

The Royal Mail will suspend post delivery on the day of the funeral as a mark of respect for the Queen.

'We want to make our customers aware that services will be suspended on the day of the funeral as people come together to honour Her Majesty, after 70 years of exemplary service to the nation and the Commonwealth,' Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson said in a statement.

He noted the organisation is 'proud' to be playing an 'important role delivering messages of condolence from all around the world to the Royal Family.'

Royal Mail said it has maintained a close relationship with the monarch for over 500 years, dating back to when King Henry VIII appointed the first postmaster.

The postal service says Queen Elizabeth II continued this close relationship by taking a 'keen interest' in its operations and playing an 'active role' in stamp selection.

Schools will be closed on September 19 so that staff and students can mourn the death of Her Majesty. The hearse carrying the Queen's coffin is pictured travelling along the A90 road in Dundee, Scotland on Sunday

Will GPs and hospitals close?

The NHS is expected to treat September 19 as it would any other Bank Holiday. GP surgeries will likely close, but hospitals will remain open.

Scheduled operations are expected to proceed.

An NHS spokesperson told MailOnline it will provide further detail when plans have been finalised.

Will the courts continue to work?

Courts in England and Wales will remain open during the national mourning period.

The courts are expected to only hear urgent matters on the day of the funeral.

Will museums, theatres and art galleries be closed?

Some entertainment venues and cultural establishments will close their doors for the upcoming Bank Holiday.

The National Gallery shut and The Royal Opera House pulled its performance of Don Giovanni following the announcement of the Queen's death.

Similarly, the BBC cancelled the Last Night of the Proms at Royal Albert Hall to as a mark of respect following her death.

However, like other businesses, cultural establishments are not required to close on Bank Holiday. In fact, the British Museum often remains open to visitors on holidays.

People are encouraged to contact the museum, theatre or gallery of interest for specific policies regarding the September 19 Bank Holiday.

Will sport events be cancelled?

Several sporting events, including football and key horse races, have been cancelled in wake of the Queen's death.

Fans should follow consult their club's schedule for specific details regarding cancellations and rescheduling of matches.

Will rail or postal strikes still go ahead during the period of national mourning?

Rail union baron Mick Lynch has called off strikes planned for next week in a show of respect after the death of the Queen.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) Union boss said the walkout of rail workers was 'suspended' as the union joins 'the whole nation in paying its respects'.

Last week, the RMT announced members would take strike action on September 15 and 17, causing rail chaos in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

However, in a show of respect to Her Majesty, Mr Lynch said: 'RMT joins the whole nation in paying its respects to Queen Elizabeth.

The Royal Mail also called off the second day of its planned 48-hour strike over pay and working conditions.

'Following the very sad news of the passing of the Queen, and out of respect for her service to the country and her family, the union has decided to call off tomorrow's planned strike action,' the Communication Workers Union tweeted last Thursday.

Although the rail and postal unions have declined to strike during the national mourning period, that does not mean all workers groups will stop assembling.

The leader of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said on Friday that defence barristers will continue to refuse to work on legal aid-funded cases.

Protests at courts and in Westminster next week have been called off, but the strike action will continue. Protests after the Queen's funeral will be 'kept under review'.

The government says there are currently 'no plans' to mark the Queen's death as an annual holiday. Mourners are pictured laying floral tributes in Green Park, near Buckingham Palace, in remembrance of Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday

Will the Queen's death become an annual holiday?

The government says there are currently 'no plans' to mark the Queen's death as an annual holiday.

Is the funeral of a monarch traditionally a bank holiday?

A monarch's funeral is not traditionally a bank holiday.

The funerals of King George VI in 1952 or Sir Winston Churchill in 1965, the last time a state funeral was held in the UK, were not holidays.

However, the government has marked the Queen's funeral as a bank holiday in an effort to 'help give as many people as possible the opportunity on the day of the State Funeral to mark Her Majestys passing and commemorate Her reign.'

When will King Charles III's Coronation take place and will it be a Bank Holiday?

Although Charles became King upon his mother's death, he will not officially be crowned until next year.

His Coronation will likely take place in the spring or summer of 2023, after a period of mourning.

The government has not yet decided if the ceremony will be marked with a bank holiday. 'A decision will be made nearer the time,' officials say.
Queen Consort Camilla appeared to be every inch the supportive wife when joining King Charles III to greet Realm High Commissioners at a Buckingham Palace reception today.

The 75-year-old royal was elegant in a black dress, with matching heels, teamed with a golden necklace and brooch as she attended the event at the London residence.

Getting straight to work just three days after Queen Elizabeth II's death at Balmoral, Camilla offered a smile to each guest she chatted with.

Charles III met Commonwealth general secretary Patricia Scotland in the 1844 Room at 2pm today, before attending a reception with High Commissioners and their spouses from countries where he is head of state at the royal residence's Bow Room.

Queen Consort Camilla appeared to be every inch the supportive wife when joining King Charles III to greet Realm High Commissioners at a Buckingham Palace reception today

The 75-year-old royal was elegant in a black dress, with matching heels, teamed with a golden necklace and brooch as she attended the event at the London residence

Then at 3.30pm, the King - who was formally proclaimed at St James's Palace yesterday - received the Dean of Windsor.

Guests at Buckingham Palace included Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and High Commissioners for Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, New Zealand, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Honorary Consul of Tuvalu and the Acting High Commissioner for Australia.

Earlier in the day, crowds lining the length of The Mall cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by the royal fans.

Next week, the King and Queen Consort will embark on a tour of the four home nations in the run-up to his late mother's state funeral at Westminster Abbey and burial at St George's Chapel in Windsor, following her death at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.

Today, the King was proclaimed as head of state at a swathe of ceremonies across Britain and the Commonwealth - from Edinburgh, Cardiff and Hillsborough castles, and the devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to the far-flung capitals of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Getting straight to work just three days after Queen Elizabeth II's death at Balmoral, Camilla offered a smile to each guest she chatted with

King Charles III spoke to Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace earlier today

The late Queen's eldest son, who automatically became King three days ago, was yesterday formally proclaimed at a historic ceremony in St James's Palace in London, following a meeting of the ancient Norman-era Accession Council.

In Edinburgh, huge crowds gathered down the Royal Mile as the King's Body Guard for Scotland, known as the Royal Company of Archers, and the guard of honour marched from the Castle Esplanade to Mercat Cross.

They were joined by soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, where a drill is taking place in front of the cross in Edinburgh.

Rain beat down on officials at the proclamation event in Hillsborough, as a 40-second fanfare was sounded by a bugler after the last round of the 21-gun salute was fired before the band of the Royal Irish Regiment then played one verse of God Save the King.

Guests at the event - including Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland Office minister Steve Baker, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie and Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister - joined together and said three cheers for Charles III.

The newly appointed monarch was speaking to High Commissioners and their spouses from countries where he is head of state

And at Cardiff Castle, more than 2,000 people witnessed Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary, Tom Lloyd, and the Lord-Lieutenant of South Glamorgan, Morfudd Meredith, read the proclamation of the new King in English and Welsh.

Prior to the Proclamation, 26 men of the 3rd Battalion the Royal Welsh - supported by the Band of the Royal Welsh - were marching from City Hall at 11.25am along the Boulevard de Nantes, North Road and Duke Street to the castle.

Liz Truss will join the King on tour of the UK as they lead the nation in mourning Liz Truss will accompany the King as he visits the four corners of the United Kingdom to lead the nation in mourning. The Prime Minister will be by His Majesty's side as he attends services in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next week ahead of his mother's funeral. While she is not required to be present, she believes it is important to be present. Her official spokesman told reporters: 'In terms of the Prime Minister's involvement, she will join the King as he leads the national mourning across the United Kingdom, attending services of reflection in Scotland on Monday afternoon, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday.' He said it would not be a formal or constitutional role but had been agreed by Downing Street and the Palace. 'It's not a requirement but the Prime Minister believes it's important to be present for what is a significant moment of national mourning around the United Kingdom.' The spokesman also said that the scale of planning the Queen's funeral was 'equivalent to the Olympics'  but would need to be done in just ten days. Advertisement

They were accompanied by the regimental mascot, a Welsh billy goat called Lance Corporal Shenkin IV, and Goat Major Sergeant Mark Jackson.

Charles has also been proclaimed King in cities across the Commonwealth. Speaking from parliament's steps in Wellington, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a crowd that in the wake of the Queen's death, New Zealand had entered a time of change.

In Canberra, Governor General David Hurley, the monarch's representative in Australia, proclaimed Charles with a 21-gun salute at Parliament House.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a national day of mourning for the Queen would take place on September 22, with the day to be a public holiday. He also announced that he would attend Her Majesty's state funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 19.

As a mark of respect, national flags in Australia are at half-mast, parliament has been suspended and a giant portrait of the Queen has been displayed on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

And in Ottawa, a 28-member band of the Canadian Armed Forces played God Save the King during a 21-run gun salute at a proclamation ceremony attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Though Canadians are somewhat indifferent to the monarchy, many had great affection for the Queen, whose silhouette marks their coins. She visited the country 22 times as monarch.

Charles will visit Edinburgh, Belfast and Wales in the coming days with Camilla, and the Prime Minister, to hear condolences from politicians and respond to their words of sympathy.

The King will begin his visit to legislators at London's Westminster Hall tomorrow, where both Houses of Parliament will express their condolences to the new monarch and his wife - and the King will give his reply.

Later that day, Charles and Camilla will fly to Edinburgh where the King will inspect the Guard of Honour at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, before attending the ceremony of the Keys on the forecourt.

During the day, the King will join his other siblings - the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence - walking behind the Queen's coffin when it is moved from the Palace of Holyroodhouse to St Giles' Cathedral where it will lie for 24 hours so the public can pay their respects.

Camilla and other members of the family will travel by car and all the royals will attend a service of thanksgiving for the life of the Queen.

At the Palace, the King will hold audiences with the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, followed by an audience with Alison Johnstone, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament.

Words of sympathy will be expressed by the Scottish Parliament when Charles and Camilla attend to receive a motion of condolence, with the King replying.

That evening, the monarch will hold a vigil at the Queen's coffin with other members of the royal family.
Britain's Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales and Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex view the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle, in Windsor, England, Sept. 10. AP-Yonhap



The state funeral for Queen Elizabeth will be held on Monday, Sept. 19, royal officials said on Saturday, as her son Charles was officially proclaimed Britain's new king in a colorful ceremony laden with pageantry and dating back centuries.



The death of the 96-year-monarch has provoked tears, sadness and warm tributes, not just from the queen's own close family and many Britons, but also from around the world  reflecting her presence on the world stage for 70 years.



"We all thought she was invincible," said her grandson Prince William now the heir to the throne.



"It's been surreal," he said during a walkabout outside Windsor Castle where he and his wife Kate appeared closely in public for the first time in two years with his younger brother Harry and his wife Meghan  a sign Elizabeth's death might help heal a rift between Charles' sons.



Elizabeth's oak coffin, covered with the royal standard of Scotland and with a wreath of flowers on top, has been lying in the ballroom of Balmoral Castle, her summer home in Scotland where she died peacefully on Thursday.



On Sunday, it will be driven by hearse through remote highland villages to Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, during a six-hour journey that will allow people to pay their respects.



The coffin will then be flown to London on Tuesday where it will remain at Buckingham Palace before being taken to Westminster Hall to lie in state until the funeral at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m (1000 GMT) on Sept. 19.



The death of Elizabeth, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, has prompted an outpouring of emotion around the globe. Buildings and landmarks in Europe, America and Africa have been lit up in the red, white and blue of the United Kingdom's flag.



Charles, 73, immediately succeeded his mother but an Accession Council met at St James's  the most senior royal palace in the United Kingdom built for Henry VIII in the 1530s  to proclaim him as king on Saturday.



The council  formed of Privy Counsellors whose centuries-old role has been to advise the monarch  included his son and heir William, wife Camilla and Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss, who signed the proclamation of his accession.



Six former prime ministers, senior bishops and a swathe of politicians cried out "God Save The King" as the announcement was approved.



"I am deeply aware of this great inheritance and of the duties and heavy responsibilities of Sovereignty which have now passed to me," Charles said. "I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set."



Later, on the Proclamation Gallery, a balcony above Friary Court of St James's Palace, the Garter King of Arms, David White, accompanied by others in gold and red heraldic outfits read out the Principal Proclamation, as trumpets sounded.



Soldiers in traditional scarlet uniforms shouted "hip, hip, hurrah" as White called for three cheers for the king.



Watching on were a few hundred people allowed into the court, including small children on parents' shoulders, a woman clutching flowers and elderly people on mobility scooters.











People visit floral tributes placed near Buckingham Palace, following the passing of the queen, in London, Britain, Sept. 10. ReutersYonhap



Royal pomp



Charles is the 41st monarch in a line that traces its origins to the Norman King William the Conqueror who captured the English throne in 1066. Saturday's events reflected proclamations announcing new kings and queens that date back hundreds of years.



He became king and head of state not only of the United Kingdom but of 14 other realms including Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.



It was the first proclamation of a monarch to be televised. And for most Britons, it was the first such event in their lifetime as Elizabeth was the only monarch they have ever known. Charles himself was just 3 when she became queen in 1952.



Britain has declared a period of mourning until the state funeral for Elizabeth, which will be a public holiday. Leaders from around the world are expected to attend, including U.S. President Joe Biden, who said he would be there.



Charles' coronation will take place at a later date  and the timing for that is not yet clear. There was a 16-month gap between Elizabeth becoming queen and her coronation in 1953.



He has already made his eldest son William, 40, the new Prince of Wales, the title traditionally held by the heir to the throne, and William's wife Kate becomes Princess of Wales, a role last held by the late Princess Diana.



The couple had a highly public falling out with Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, after they decided to exit royal duties and move to California in 2020.



Harry and Meghan coincidentally happened to be in Britain this past week to attend some charity events and had not even been expected to see William  until the death of their grandmother.



However, the foursome stood together and chatted briefly, although they looked rather awkward and did not spend much time together during the 40-minute walkabout in Windsor, which followed an invitation from William to his brother.



It was an important show of unity at an incredibly difficult time for the family, a royal source said.





Britain's King Charles meets well-wishers as he returns to Clarence House from Buckingham Palace, following the death of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, in London, Britain, Sept. 10. ReutersYonhap
Advertisement

The Countess of Wessex was pictured comforting Princess Anne yesterday as members of the royal family watched Queen Elizabeth II's coffin arrive in Edinburgh to lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight.

Sophie, 57, the wife of the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward, 58, was seen placing her hand on the Princess Royal's back in a supportive gesture after the coffin made the journey from Balmoral to the Scottish city.

The Queen's children and their spouses - Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex - watched as soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland carried the coffin into the Palace.

In a touching moment, deference to the monarch was still observed, with the royal women curtseying and the men bowing their heads.

Her Majesty did not travel alone during her 180-mile journey, Anne and her husband were in a limousine as part of a procession directly behind her.

The Queen will stay at the palace overnight before being moved to St Giles' Cathedral tomorrow afternoon - where earlier a large crowd had gathered to witness the midday proclamation of King Charles as head of state.

Yesterday, both Princess Anne and Sophie appeared teary-eyed as they looked at floral tributes to the Queen left at Balmoral, alongside other members of the royal family.

Meanwhile, Scottish mourners paid tribute to Her Majesty by lining the route of her coffin procession in their thousands as she left Balmoral for the last time.

Silent, sombre and respectful, well-wishers gathered beside country roads, bridges and in village and city centres to say goodbye to the woman who was never more at home than when in Scotland.

The Countess of Wessex was pictured comforting Princess Anne yesterday as members of the royal family watched Queen Elizabeth II's coffin arrive in Edinburgh to lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight

In a touching gesture, deference to the monarch was still observed, with the royal women curtseying and the men bowing their heads

Sophie, 57, the wife of the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward, 58, was seen placing her hand on the Princess Royal's back in a supportive gesture after the coffin made the journey from Balmoral to the Scottish city

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Countess of Wessex and the Earl of Wessex at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, awaiting the Queen's coffin

On arrival at Holyroodhouse she was met by three of her children and other family members. Pictured here from left to right is Prince Andrew, the Countess of Wessex and the Earl of Wessex

By the time the procession reached its destination of Edinburgh's Palace of Holyroodhouse, after more than six hours, the crowds were 10 deep in places on the famous Royal Mile, a famous thoroughfare the Queen knew well.

As the procession neared its end, flowers were thrown in front of the hearse - from William Purvis, a family run funeral directors based in Scotland - and spontaneous applause broke out from sections of the crowds in the Royal Mile.

At one point, as the cortege travelled through Dundee, a lone long-stemmed flower could be seen on the hearse windscreen and in a rural part of the route farmers paid homage to the Queen with tractors lined up in a field.

Tomorrow, King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort will visit Edinburgh and join his other siblings walking behind his late mother's coffin when it is moved from the Palace to St Giles' Cathedral. At 7.20pm, the monarch will hold a vigil at the late Queen's coffin with other members of the Royal Family.

Earlier yesterday, a single motorbike police outrider led the way as the hearse travelled at a stately pace through the Aberdeenshire countryside. At one point, as the cortege travelled through Dundee, a lone long-stemmed flower could be seen on the hearse windscreen and in a rural part of the route farmers paid homage to the monarch with tractors lined up in a field.

Hundreds lined the main street of Ballater, the picturesque Victorian village closest to the Balmoral estate, where locals considered her a neighbour, as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through. Her Majesty and her family were often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the Royal Family have space to be themselves.

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church, where the Rev David Barr rang the church bells 70 times after the Queen's death was announced.

Flowers were thrown into the hearse's path by well-wishers on both sides of the road in Ballater, which was sombre and silent. The hearse slowed to a fast walking pace and mourners could clearly see the royal standard-draped coffin and the wreath featuring flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

In other developments today:

An emotional King Charles was greeted by well-wishers as he arrived at Buckingham Palace where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth;

Prince William vowed to serve Wales with 'humility' - after he paid tribute to his 'extraordinary Grannie' in a heartbreaking statement yesterday;

The Prince and Princess of Wales yesterday reunited with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for a historic walkabout at Windsor;

Church services took place around the UK yesterday to remember Her Majesty on first Sunday after her death;

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told his congregation that this was an 'unexpectedly extraordinary Sunday' as he paid tribute to the later monarch;

The Sussexes' children Archie and Lilibet continued to be listed as 'Master' and 'Miss' on the new order of succession;

First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, paid tribute to the late Queen in a tweet;

Former Prime Minister David Cameron described how he had to apologise to Her Majesty after revealing details of private phone call. He also revealed that he help Charles prepare for becoming King by holding 'practice' audiences.

The Duke of York, the Countess of Wessex, and the Earl of Wessex outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

Princess Anne watches as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, paid tribute to the Queen when her final journey through the Scottish Highlands began just after 10am.

Ms Sturgeon said in a tweet: 'A sad and poignant moment as Her Majesty, The Queen leaves her beloved Balmoral for the final time. Yesterday, as she made her journey to Edinburgh, Scotland will pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.'

The Queen's oak coffin, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top, began its journey from the Queen's summer sanctuary in the Highlands and the first settlement it reached was Ballater.

Locals from Ballater considered the Queen a neighbour with the monarch and her family often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the monarchy have space to be themselves.

The death of the Queen became a stark reality for tens of thousands who took to the streets to witness the first stage of her final journey yesterday.

Many had travelled through the night to secure their place along the route after Her Majesty left her beloved Balmoral for the last time.

Yesterday, both Princess Anne and Sophie (pictured yesterday) appeared teary-eyed as they looked at floral tributes to the Queen left at Balmoral, alongside other members of the royal family

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

There was a solemn mood as the Queen's oak coffin draped in the Royal Standard of Scotland reached the climax of the journey to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.

Hundreds lined the village's main street as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly past, and behind the well-wishers many shops displayed photographs of the monarch as a mark of respect.

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church, where the Rev David Barr rang the church bells 70 times after the Queen's death was announced.

The vehicle slowed to a fast walking pace and mourners could clearly see the royal standard-draped coffin and the wreath featuring flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Elizabeth Taylor, from Aberdeen, had tears in her eyes as she considered what she had just seen.

She said: 'It was very emotional. It was respectful and showed what they think of the Queen. She certainly gave service to this country, even up until a few days before her death.'

Pallbearers carry the coffin of Britain's Queen Elizabeth as the hearse arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

People gathered in Edinburgh to pay tribute to Her Majesty as her cortege passed through the Scottish capital yesterday

Thousands of people turned out as her coffin was transported from Balmoral Castle to the Palace at Holyroodhouse on Sunday afternoon

Royal fan Andrew Brown, 63, who watched the hearse as it travelled slowly down the Royal Mile said: 'Up until now everything seemed so surreal but this has brought it all home. I think I had been in a bit of a state of shock and numbness but seeing the coffin and the cortege with my own eyes makes it more of a reality.'

Mr Scott, from Glasgow, added: 'It's a sad day but I'm glad I got an opportunity to say goodbye. The Queen loved Scotland and I think it is fitting that her last journey began at Balmoral.'

Liz Truss will join the King on tour of the UK as they lead the nation in mourning Liz Truss will accompany the King as he visits the four corners of the United Kingdom to lead the nation in mourning. The Prime Minister will be by His Majesty's side as he attends services in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales next week ahead of his mother's funeral. While she is not required to be present, she believes it is important to be present. Her official spokesman told reporters: 'In terms of the Prime Minister's involvement, she will join the King as he leads the national mourning across the United Kingdom, attending services of reflection in Scotland on Monday afternoon, in Northern Ireland on Tuesday and Wales on Friday.' He said it would not be a formal or constitutional role but had been agreed by Downing Street and the Palace. 'It's not a requirement but the Prime Minister believes it's important to be present for what is a significant moment of national mourning around the United Kingdom.' The spokesman also said that the scale of planning the Queen's funeral was 'equivalent to the Olympics'  but would need to be done in just ten days. Advertisement

Hairdresser Ashley Coventry, who lives in Edinburgh, said: 'It just feels weird. I think we all knew it was going to come. But it is the realisation of being here - it is a mark of history as well. I'm amazed by the number of people here. People have travelled from far, from all over the place.'

Ashley, who was with daughter Hannah, nine, and husband Scott, 39, added: 'It's just a constant stream of people. I've never seen anything like it.' Scott said: 'The Queen was much loved in our household and it's a very sad day.'

Lynda Amos, 69, and her husband Richard, 67, told how they broke off from their holiday in the Scottish highlands to travel to Edinburgh to pay their respects. The couple live 50 miles south of the capital in Duns in the Scottish Borders.

Lynda said: 'We came straight here. We're devastated. It came as such a shock after we had seen pictures of her only a couple of days before when she met Liz Truss. It is so sad but it is the start of a new beginning as well. The Queen has always been part of their lives. My father was in the RAF and he was in Kenya where the Queen was on holiday when her father died. They all went to the airport and stood to attention when she flew back to Britain to become Queen.

'We have been to garden parties here a couple of times. The Queen would come to host them on her way up to Balmoral each year. Everyone dressed up and she would really make an effort. She was delightful.'

Chartered surveyor Richard said: 'Being here makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.'

It comes after King Charles was greeted by thousands of well-wishers as he arrived at Buckingham Palace where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth.

Crowds lining the length of The Mall - including excited young children sat on top of the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones - cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by mourners.

Charles met Commonwealth general secretary Patricia Scotland in the 1844 Room at 2pm yesterday, before attending a reception with High Commissioners and their spouses from countries where he is head of state at the royal residence's Bow Room. Then at 3.30pm, the King - who was formally proclaimed at St James's Palace yesterday - received the Dean of Windsor.

Guests included Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and the Commissioner for Antigua and Barbuda - whose republican Prime Minister is threatening a referendum on ditching the Crown - as well as representatives for Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, New Zealand, St Christopher and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Honorary Consul of Tuvalu and the Acting High Commissioner for Australia.

Next week, the King and Queen will embark on a tour of the four home nations in the run-up to his late mother's state funeral at Westminster Abbey and burial at St George's Chapel in Windsor, following her death at Balmoral on Thursday aged 96.

Keeping up with tradition: Moving moment Princess Anne maintains royal protocol with a deep curtsey as the Queens coffin is brought to the Palace of Holyroodhouse  after escorting hearse from Balmoral to Edinburgh

By Jamie Phillips for MailOnline

This is the poignant moment Princess Anne maintained royal protocol with a deep curtsey towards the Queen as her mother's coffin was brought into the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

The Princess Royal, 71, performed the moving tribute as the coffin was carried into the palace, having travelled with the cortege from Balmoral to Edinburgh yesterday.

Anne was visibly emotional as she lined up alongside the Queen's children and their spouses - Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Prince Andrew and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

Sophie was seen reaching out to console Anne, who was at her mother's bedside during her final hours at Balmoral on Thursday.

Being the Queen's only daughter, the pair shared a special bond that was highlighted yesterday as Anne made the six-hour journey from her mother's beloved Balmoral to Edinburgh in a vehicle behind the hearse.

The Queen's coffin, draped in the Royal Standard for Scotland with a wreath of Balmoral flowers on top, crossed the River Forth via the Queensferry Crossing at around 4pm.

Thousands of mourners had gathered along the Royal Mile as the procession arrived, falling silent in respect as the convoy carrying Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence arrived.

Princess Anne curtseys towards her mother's coffin as it brought into Holyrood House in Edinburgh, where it will stay overnight

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, reaches out to console Anne as the coffin was brought in this afternoon

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex lined up outside the palace yesterday

A round of applause then broke out, before the coffin received a guard of honour by the King's Bodyguard for Scotland as it was carried out of the hearse by pallbearers and into the palace.

The Queen will stay at the palace overnight before being moved to St Giles' Cathedral tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier yesterday, a single motorbike police outrider led the way as the hearse travelled at a stately pace through the Aberdeenshire countryside.

At one point, as the cortege travelled through Dundee, a lone long-stemmed flower could be seen on the hearse windscreen and in a rural part of the route farmers paid homage to the monarch with tractors lined up in a field.

Hundreds lined the main street of Ballater, the picturesque Victorian village closest to the Balmoral estate, where locals considered her a neighbour, as the Queen's coffin was driven slowly through. Her Majesty and her family were often seen in the village in Royal Deeside, which she had visited since childhood and where the Royal Family have space to be themselves.

Princess Anne approaches the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth as it arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Anne watches as the hearse carrying the coffin of her mother is readied to be carried into Holyrood House

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II arrives at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence and Princess Anne watch on as pallbearers carry the Queen's coffin yesterday

The Queen's coffin was draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland as it made the journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh

The hearse passed Glenmuick Church, where the Rev David Barr rang the church bells 70 times after the Queen's death was announced.

Flowers were thrown into the hearse's path by well-wishers on both sides of the road in Ballater, which was sombre and silent. The hearse slowed to a fast walking pace and mourners could clearly see the royal standard-draped coffin and the wreath featuring flowers from the Balmoral estate, including sweet peas - one of the Queen's favourite flowers - dahlias, phlox, white heather and pine fir.

Earlier, the Queen's oak coffin was carried to the hearse by six Balmoral estate gamekeepers tasked with the symbolic gesture. It had been at rest in the Balmoral ballroom so the monarch's estate workers could say their goodbyes.

Tens of thousands took to the streets to witness the first stage of her final journey.

Many had travelled through the night to secure their place along the route after Her Majesty left her beloved Balmoral for the last time.

Later, there was a solemn mood as the coffin reached the climax of the journey to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.

Mourners stood six deep behind metal barriers on the narrow pavements along the historic Royal Mile which connects the palace with Edinburgh Castle.

Some with camping chairs had waited for more than eight hours to secure their positions on a day of history.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II passes St Giles' Cathedral on its way to Palace of Holyroodhouse

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing Edinburgh Castle

The hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passing over the Queensferry Crossing as it continues its journey to Edinburgh from Balmoral

King Charles III during a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace

The crowds built up steadily during the course of the day until there was barely an inch of space to pass on the packed walkways.

Many in the crowd told how catching just a fleeting glimpse of the coffin containing the Queen's body had brought the reality of her death into focus.

Meanwhile, an emotional Charles was greeted by thousands of well-wishers as he arrived at his royal Residence yesterday where he met with representatives from the Commonwealth, before it heads onto Westminster Abbey for her state funeral.

Crowds lining the length of The Mall - including excited young children sat on top of the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones - cheered and waved at Britain's new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm, accompanied by a motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes.

The King was followed shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also cheered by mourners.
What a week that was. A new Prime Minister, then the death of a beloved Queen, and the graceful accession of her son. Now we are in a Carolean age; we will get used to God Save The King being the national anthem and soon enough new stamps and currency, but for now it feels strange.

And that is unsurprising, because one of the eye-popping statistics shared last week was that nine out of ten of the worlds population were born during Queen Elizabeth IIs reign.

Years ago, when I spent some time working as a volunteer in a Brazilian orphanage, I remember being amused that the boys standard put-down to anyone getting airs was: Who do you think you are, the Queen of England?

British author Patricia Nicol has rounded up a selection of the best books on including Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and Restoration by Rose Tremain

The Queen may have been the worlds most recognisable woman, but history has seen many more kings than queens. In fiction, too.

The protagonist of Hilary Mantels multi-award-winning historical fiction trilogy, which begins with Wolf Hall and continues with Bring Up The Bodies and The Mirror And The Light, is Thomas Cromwell. But the character who holds the greatest sway is always King Henry VIII; on his whims, fancies and fears, the world of this novel turns.

Cromwell, who has risen through the ranks to be Henrys chief minister, knows how easily he could fall from favour: he has seen firsthand how it happened to Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More.

Patricia Nicol reveals that Charles II also features in Virginia Woolfs Orlando (as does Elizabeth I)

Charles II, the merry monarch, is depicted in several novels. In Rose Tremains Restoration, the fortunes of foppish doctor Robert Merivel are transformed after he cures one of the Stuart kings ailing dogs. Merivel is married off to one of the Kings mistresses and given an estate in Norfolk.

Charles II also features in Virginia Woolfs Orlando (as does Elizabeth I). It is Charles II who appoints Orlando  a gender-bending aristocrat blessed with extraordinary longevity  as his ambassador to Turkey.

Charles II is remembered for his bawdy lifestyle, reopening the theatres and presiding over an age of scientific discovery. What might this next Carolean age bring?
Matt Willis is an actor and co-founder of the band Busted. He won Im A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! in 2006 and is now starring in the play 2:22 A Ghost Story. He is married to TV presenter Emma Willis, with whom he has three children: Isabelle, 13, Ace, ten, and Trixie, six.

The difference between who you are and who you want to be is all down to the choices you make.

As a friend once said to me, no one is coming to save you. If you want something, you need to take steps towards achieving that.

Actor and co-founder of the band Busted Matt Willis, 39, (pictured) says take small steps to get big rewards

This is something I realised five years ago. Having had success with Busted, I was focusing on my career as an actor. There was one big-shot casting director who refused to see me for an audition. I was really annoyed because Id had a couple of roles by this point and they probably just thought: I dont want that guy from Busted.

But then I had a look at myself  the actors I was going up against were simply better than me. There was no point blaming someone else; I just needed to improve.

I hadnt trained since I left the Sylvia Young Theatre School, aged 16, and I realised that was holding me back. So, at the age of 34, I went back to drama school for two years.

At first it was terrifying and a little weird  as well as humbling  to be in a room of 20-year-olds who were probably thinking: Is that the guy from Busted? But after a few classes, I was just another aspiring actor trying to hone their craft.

Then, two years ago, I got an audition with that same casting director who had rejected me. Ive now auditioned for them eight or nine times, and they have even given me a role. So, going back to school was definitely the right decision.

It wasnt about that director, it was about taking accountability for what I wanted and then putting in the work.

Ive taken that ethos into every aspect of my life, from my family to health to relationships. I write down my goals and work out what I can do to achieve them. Then I make small movements to get there. I make a daily to-do list  it can be two things or 18, but its all about making that incremental progress towards my perfect existence.
Princess Anne has said the Queen did 'exactly the right thing' by staying in Balmoral with Princes William and Harry in the days after the death of Princess Diana in an unseen interview from 2017.

The Princess Royal, 72, spoke to ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship about her mother's seventy-year reign in a discussion which was broadcast for the first time today.

As well as sharing her approval for the way the Queen handled Diana's death in 1997, Anne also praised her parents' 73-year marriage, saying their 'partnership was really important'.

The Queen faced criticism after deciding to remain in her Scottish estate with her family while an outpouring of public grief took place in London following Diana's fatal car crash in Paris.

However, in the same year as Anne's interview, former senior courtier, Sir Malcolm Ross, who was in charge of organising Diana's funeral, told how the monarch felt her priority lay with her grandsons in Scotland and both she and her staff were 'hurt' at the upsurge of feeling against them.

Scroll down for video

Princess Anne has said the Queen did 'exactly the right thing' (pictured) by staying in Balmoral with Princes William and Harry in the days after the death of Princess Diana in an unseen interview from 2017

Prince Harry, Prince William, Prince Charles, Prince Philip, the Queen and Peter Phillips stop to look at floral tributes left for Princess Diana at the gates of Balmoral on September 5, 1997

The Princess Royal said: 'I think my mother did exactly the right thing. I think it's absolutely extraordinary that any right-minded parent should believe... [there] would have been an alternative to bring those children down here to London in all that hoo-ha.

'I just don't know how you can think that would've been a better thing to do.'

Diana died when William and Harry were aged 15 and 12, respectively. When asked if it was a case of the Queen putting her grandchildren first, the Princess Royal replied: 'Absolutely.'

'I don't think either of those two would've been able to cope had they been anywhere else,' Anne claimed.

She said: 'That was the only good thing that happened was that they were there, and they had that structure, they had people around them who could understand, give them the time.'

Even Dianas own sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, previously said she backed the monarchs judgement.

Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Countess of Wessex and the Earl of Wessex at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, awaiting the Queen's coffin

The Countess of Wessex was pictured comforting Princess Anne today as members of the royal family watched Queen Elizabeth II's coffin arrive in Edinburgh to lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight

In a touching gesture, deference to the monarch was still observed, with the royal women curtseying and the men bowing their heads

If you were the grandmother of a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old whose mother had just been killed in a car crash, she did absolutely the right thing.

'If I had been her, I would have done that. Why would you bring them to London? Why dont you let them get over the start of the shock in the bosom of their own family? she told BBC One Documentary Diana, 7 Days.

Sir Malcolm added that it was the sovereign who made the decision that her former daughter-in-law be honoured with a royal funeral.

Meanwhile, in the 2017 interview, Anne also referred to the marriage of her parents as a 'partnership', explaining that the pair 'complemented each others strengths and skills' throughout their seven-decade marriage.

In a speech on their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1997, the monarch said Prince Philip had 'quite simply been my strength and stay all these years'.

Sophie, 57, the wife of the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward, 58, was seen placing her hand on the Princess Royal's back in a supportive gesture after the coffin made the journey from Balmoral to the Scottish city

The Duke of York, the Countess of Wessex, and the Earl of Wessex outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh

Yesterday, both Princess Anne and Sophie (pictured centre today) appeared teary-eyed as they looked at floral tributes to the Queen left at Balmoral, alongside other members of the royal family

Today, Anne was pictured being comforted by the Countess of Wessex as members of the royal family watched Queen Elizabeth II's coffin arrive in Edinburgh to lie in rest at the Palace of Holyroodhouse overnight.

Sophie, 57, the wife of the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward, 58, was seen placing her hand on the Princess Royal's back in a supportive gesture after the coffin made the journey from Balmoral to the Scottish city.

The Queen's children and their spouses - Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Duke of York and the Earl and Countess of Wessex - watched as soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland carried the coffin into the Palace.

In a touching moment, deference to the monarch was still observed, with the royal women curtseying and the men bowing their heads.

Her Majesty did not travel alone during her 180-mile journey, Anne and her husband were in a limousine as part of a procession directly behind her.

The Queen will stay at the palace overnight before being moved to St Giles' Cathedral tomorrow afternoon - where earlier a large crowd had gathered to witness the midday proclamation of King Charles as head of state.

Yesterday, both Princess Anne and Sophie appeared teary-eyed as they looked at floral tributes to the Queen left at Balmoral, alongside other members of the royal family.

Meanwhile, Scottish mourners paid tribute to Her Majesty by lining the route of her coffin procession in their thousands as she left Balmoral for the last time.

Silent, sombre and respectful, well-wishers gathered beside country roads, bridges and in village and city centres to say goodbye to the woman who was never more at home than when in Scotland.
A professional cleaner has revealed the three products she uses to clean her phone screen and speakers to banish unwanted bacteria.

Kacie Stephens, who heads The Big Clean Co in Melbourne, dubbed phones as a 'little bacteria box' that should be cleaned daily - as research shows phones can carry 10 times the amount of germs compared to a toilet seat.

In a video shared on social media, Kacie used isopropyl alcohol, a handheld brush from Bunnings Warehouse and a microfibre cloth to clean the phone.

She used the brush to clean the tiny speakers and improve the sound quality, while the microfibre cloth was used to clean the screen.

Scroll down for video

Professional cleaner Kacie Stephens (pictured) from The Big Clean Co in Melbourne shared how to clean phone speakers to improve sound quality and kill bacteria

In a video shared on social media, Kacie used isopropyl alcohol, a handheld brush from Bunnings Warehouse and a microfibre cloth to clean the phone

'If the speaker on your phone isn't working well, this is how you clean it. Put some isopropyl alcohol on a brush and scrub out all the holes,' Kacie said in the clip.

'This is great if you wear makeup every day or if you're just a bit of a grub.

'While you're at it, sanitise that whole little bacteria box.'

In the footage Kacie first applied a few squirts of the alcohol spray onto the brush then gently cleaned the top and bottom speakers.

Next, she used the microfibre cloth to remove unseen bacteria from the surface of the device.

To kill bacteria, it's recommended by cleaning experts to sanitise your phone daily.

'If the speaker on your phone isn't working well, this is how you clean it. Put some isopropyl alcohol on a brush and scrub out all the holes,' Kacie said in the clip

Poll How often do you clean your phone? Daily A few times a week Monthly Every six months Never How often do you clean your phone? Daily 36 votes

A few times a week 53 votes

Monthly 21 votes

Every six months 24 votes

Never 108 votes Now share your opinion





Within 48 hours the helpful video was viewed more than 16,000 times on TikTok and received almost 700 likes.

'Omg. Needed this!! Thank you!!' one person commented, another joked: 'And if you aren't wiping down your phone screen & back with isopropyl every day I'm calling the police.'

In a 2011 study conducted by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, faecal matter was found on one out of every six smartphones.

And shockingly, further research conducted by an American microbiologist found mobile phones carry 10 times the bacteria of most toilet seats.

Other items including shoes, the kitchen sink, television remotes and children's playgrounds are also commonly covered in bacteria.
An American expert and child health advocate has revealed shocking news about the vintage Royal Doulton Bunnykins dining sets.

Tamara Rubin, from Oregon, is best known for testing pottery, crystal, and toys for lead after two of her children were poisoned with the toxin in 2005.

The mum-of-four has discouraged people from using the popular vintage Bunnykins dining sets with food, as she has found them to contain high levels of lead and arsenic.

She recently tested a Bunnykins baby bowl with a raft on it and found 93,600 ppm of lead and 3,460 ppm of arsenic.

An American expert and child health advocate has revealed shocking news about the vintage Royal Doulton Bunnykins dining sets

The expert also revealed that 90 ppm and up is extremely unsafe for children and dangerous to consume.

'Vintage Bunnykins are not safe for food use and especially not safe for children to use,' said Tamara in a recent post on her website.

A Royal Doulton spokesperson told FEMAIL that a product's safety and quality was very important to them.

'We are committed to putting our customers first and listening to their concerns about consumer issues,' they said.

'We are conscious that manufacturing safety standards have changed over time and recommend that our vintage designs are not used for tableware as originally intended, but enjoyed and loved as a collector's item.

'Royal Doulton is committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations in relevant countries, however, we are aware some of our customers may still be worried about the Bunnykins pieces they own.'

'We would recommend they send a photo of the product back stamp and pattern to our customer service team, this information can be used to help determine the age of the product and reassure our customers about the safety of our Bunnykins products for food use.'

'Bunnykins baby bowl with the artist [pictured] contains 80,000 ppm lead on the food surface,' Tamara said with her test report of the dish

Generations of Australians have enjoyed the family-favourite dining sets, with many passing down the adorable plates, bowls, and cups to their children and grandchildren as gifts.

She added, 'For context: anything made today (2020) with over 90 ppm lead in the paint, glaze or coating is considered illegal in the United States if it is an item that is intended for use by children.'

The child health advocate also revealed that she found multiple other Bunnykins dishes to contain lead and arsenic as well.

'Bunnykins baby bowl with the artist contains 80,000 ppm lead on the food surface,' she said with her test report of the dish.

The high levels of lead and arsenic can cause several health and developmental issues, including severe pain, learning disabilities, chronic fatigue, memory loss, and more.

The Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water has warned residents that lead in ceramics pose extreme health risks

The Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water has warned residents that lead in ceramics pose extreme health risks.

'Lead is a toxic substance that can affect people of any age,' they revealed in a 2021 report.

'Lead has long been used in ceramic ware, both in glazes and in decorations'

The government also divulged that the substance is 'especially harmful' to children, pregnant women, and unborn babies as it accumulates in your body and can hence pose a health hazard over time.

'This is because the lead can get into food and drink prepared, stored or served in the crockery,' the report said.
An Australian doctor has revealed one of the main reasons why more than usual will suffer from hay fever this spring - and experience worse symptoms.

Dr Zac Turner told news.com.au that London plane trees - which make up almost 70 per cent of Sydney and Melbourne's tree population - may be the cause of increased hay fever cases in Australia's most populous cities.

'The tree's falling leaves release soot hairs known as trichomes (which are fine, spiky hairs that cover the young leaves of plane trees) during the peak of spring,' he said.

If you're suffering from hay fever for the first time this year, you're not alone. Anecdotally there has been a surge in the number of people suffering from its symptoms out of the blue

An Australian doctor has revealed a shocking reason thousands are certain to suffer from hay fever in 2022

The fine particles emitted from the plane trees are known to cause throat irritation and laryngospasm, and spasm of the vocal cords.

These ailments are also found in people who are not prone to allergies.

Dr Turner claimed that plane trees are a popular choice for developers because they are quick growing and pollution tolerant, but many seem to look past the damage the trees' falling leaves can cause to people.

'The studies are fresh, but they are suggesting those with existing allergies often have exacerbated reactions due to Trichomes. Its showing that they also exacerbate asthma, emphysema and bronchitis,' Dr Turner said.

Plane trees are a popular choice for developers because they are quick growing and pollution tolerant, but many seem to look past the damage the trees' falling leaves can cause to people

Dr Turner explained that the spores are the primary reason Australian hospitals have been overrun with lung transplants.

'If you have asthma or serious allergies, and breathe in just one of these spores, you could end up being one of those lung transplants if you have a bad reaction,' he said.

Australian hospitals performed 85 lung transplants in 2006. The number has since gone up to 171 lung transplants in 2021.

If you're suffering from hay fever for the first time this year, you're not alone.

Australian hospitals performed 85 lung transplants in 2006 . The number has since gone up to 171 lung transplants in 2021

There has been a surge in the number of people who report experiencing its symptoms on social media, seemingly out of the blue.

Google trends for hay fever are also at a record high, with twice as many searches for the condition now compared to five years ago.

There has been a gradual rise in cases in recent decades, linked to modern living, but experts say lockdowns and global warming may have sped up the trend.

Known as the 'hygiene hypothesis', the idea is our immune systems are more sensitive to allergens like pollen because we are exposed to fewer germs.

A lack of social contact during the pandemic may have also weakened our bodies further, while there is evidence climate change has prolonged the pollen season.

WHAT EXACTLY IS HAY FEVER? Hay fever is an allergic reaction to pollen, a fine powder which comes from plants. There is more pollen in the air in the spring and summer when plants are flowering. The reaction usually happens when pollen comes into contact with someone's eyes, nose, mouth or throat. Hay fever symptoms include coughing and sneezing; a runny or blocked nose; itchy, red or watery eyes; itching throat, nose, mouth or ears; headaches and tiredness. People suffering from the allergy can put Vaseline around their nose to trap the pollen, wear wraparound sunglasses to keep pollen out of their eyes, wash clothes regularly and vacuum and dust indoors. Avoiding grass, cut flowers and smoke can help reduce symptoms, as can drying clothes indoors where pollen is less likely to stick to them. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

No-one knows exactly why hay fever can appear out of the blue but there are a number of theories.

The most popular is that ultra-clean environments associated with modern lifestyles means we aren't exposed to as many infections as our ancestors.

Working from home and having limited close contacts during the pandemic is a 'plausible' reason for why more people seem to be suffering hay fever in the last year, according to Professor Paul Hunter.

Another theory is that sudden hay fever happens when the body is exposed to new surroundings - like moving from the city to the countryside, where there is usually more pollen.

But the same might also be true in people moving from rural to urban areas, with some evidence that pollution can exacerbate hay fever.
Retail giant John Lewis has vehemently denied disenfranchising thousands of its loyal credit card customers as a result of appointing loan company NewDay to run the card.

Hundreds of John Lewis cardholders have contacted The Mail on Sunday in response to our exclusive report late last month, highlighting widespread disquiet among customers over the move.

Many are outraged that in reapplying for their credit card  a regulatory requirement  they have either been declined by NewDay or had their four or five-figure credit limits reduced to just three.

Rejected: Lorna Smith will now stop shopping at John Lewis and Waitrose

Most have a history of clearing their John Lewis card balance every month and believe their financial prudence has worked against them because NewDay views them as 'unprofitable' customers. Some say they will never shop at John Lewis again or at its Waitrose food stores.

On Friday, John Lewis said that 96 per cent of customers who had applied for the new partnership card had already been accepted by NewDay. More than 84 per cent, it insisted, had been offered the same or a higher credit limit.

Amir Goshtai, director of John Lewis Financial Services, told the MoS that it was 'beyond regretful' that some customers had been left disappointed. NewDay, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, refuted accusations that it was excluding prudent, creditworthy customers from continuing with their John Lewis card.

It also said it was 'categorically not the case' that it was only interested in targeting customers who don't clear their balance every month. John Lewis cardholders who are successful with their re-applications will pay interest of 18.9 per cent on uncleared balances.

The store's partnership card is hugely popular with John Lewis and Waitrose shoppers because of the generous rewards it offers.

For example, for every 400 they spend on their card at a John Lewis or Waitrose store, they receive a 5 voucher. Over the past five years, John Lewis has issued vouchers to the value of 230million.

The loss of these vouchers is one of the main reasons why those who have been declined a new card by NewDay feel so angry.

Among the disenfranchised is Lorna Smith, who runs an arable and livestock farm with her husband in Towcester, Northamptonshire. Lorna, who also manages a livery stables on the farm, has had a John Lewis credit card since it was launched in 2004. The 61-year-old had a credit limit of 14,400 and loved the regular cash vouchers she would get for using the card.

When she received the email stating she would have to reapply for a card, she thought it would be a formality. Lorna says: 'Myself and my husband Peter own our farm, we have a successful business  Block Aid UK  renting out concrete barriers and marquee weights and we own a number of buy-to-let properties. We also have savings and shares. We're not super-rich, but neither are we on the breadline.'

Yet, it didn't count for anything. Her application was rejected and she was left stunned. 'I've never been rejected for a credit card in my adult life,' she says. 'It's crazy because I pay my card bill in full every month.'

Angry, she complained to NewDay. Last Wednesday, she received an email from its 'executive and media' complaints team stating that it could not approve her application on the basis of 'eligibility'. She describes the decision as 'farcical' and says she will stop shopping at both John Lewis and Waitrose.

Cathy Pole has also been told she has not met the criteria for a new John Lewis partnership card.

Like Lorna, the 75-year-old former chief executive of the Human Genome Organisation has always used her card prudently, never maximising the 10,000 credit limit available to her.

'I've lived at the same address in Radlett, Hertfordshire, for 46 years,' Cathy says. 'I've got a decent pension and while my investments may be going down in value as the stock market falls, I've got no mortgage, no debts or children to support.'

She also complained about being rejected  and received the same letter Lorna got from NewDay's executive complaints department about her ineligibility.

'Maybe, I'm too good a customer and don't make them enough money,' says Cathy. 'I'm both baffled and annoyed by John Lewis's decision to ditch me after I've been with them since 2004.'

On Friday, John Lewis's Goshtai told the MoS: 'We know how much our customers love our partnership card, so it's beyond regretful that any of them are disappointed by this change.

'The only reason a customer would be declined or get a lower limit is for affordability or creditworthiness reasons which are regulatory obligations for credit providers.

'Any customer who has a question about their application should contact us and we will do everything we can to help.'

NewDay said disappointed John Lewis cardholders should contact the customer services team (new card application) on 033 0165 4868 (lines open 10am to 7.30pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm Saturday).
At some stage this autumn, the country's financial regulator will publish its proposals on protecting green investors from 'greenwashing'  investment firms making exaggerated, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) credentials of their products.

When exactly I'm not sure  the regulator's autumn is sometimes our winter or spring. But they are recommendations that cannot come soon enough because the burgeoning ESG investment sector is currently a mess, awash with funds that are simply not ESG fit for purpose.

Indeed, if investors were to look under the bonnet of some of these green funds and examine their portfolios, they would be shocked and probably demand that the manager be handcuffed to the nearest railings and pelted with raw eggs or daubed in green paint.

Not fit for purpose: As a result of ineffective regulatory oversight by the FCA, investors are being hoodwinked every day into buying funds that they think are green

Tobacco stocks in an ESG fund? Drinks company shares? Gambling shares? Oil and gas companies? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, some funds marketed on the basis of their ESG friendliness are awash with such sin stocks.

As a result of ineffective regulatory oversight by the Financial Conduct Authority (a phrase I've used a few times over the years), investors are being hoodwinked every day into buying funds that they think are green, but are anything but. It's like the Wild West. To date, not one investment firm has been publicly fined or disciplined for the greenwashing that the FCA wants to stamp out. A joke.

Fund manager Alan Miller, cofounder of investment house SCM Direct, is a longstanding critic of the way investment funds have played footloose and free with ESG labels. He refers to the 'Alice In Wonderland world' of ESG funds. Miller believes the flaws run deep  starting with the way companies are ESG rated by ratings agencies (the likes of Morningstar and MSCI) through to the rules governing how a fund can be classified as ESG.

At a company level, a tobacco firm can get a good ESG score by virtue of the fact that it is better than its peers.

This is despite the fact that the World Health Organisation says that every year, the tobacco industry 'costs the world more than eight million lives, 600million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, 22billion tons of water and 84million tons of CO2.'

Also, given that ESG ratings apportion equal weightings to environmental friendliness, social responsibility and corporate governance, a company can keep destroying the environment, but get a high rating because of its commitment to the 'S' and 'G' of ESG.

This all explains why companies such as FTSE100 tobacco stocks BAT, mining giant Glencore and oil and gas companies BP and Shell all get overall ESG ratings from agency Refinitiv in excess of 90 out of 100.

It is also the reason why many ESG investment funds include these companies in their portfolios. I'm not sure I'd be happy about that if I were a green investor.

As for investment funds, the rules they currently have to adhere to are similarly loose. The main classification system allows a fund to be ESG as long as it promotes stocks with good governance  they do not have to possess good environmental characteristics.

Last week, Miller analysed the portfolios of 224 ESG investment and exchange traded funds that are promoted to investors in the UK. To his horror, he discovered that 11 of these have more than 10 per cent of their portfolios invested in sectors that you wouldn't think would be anywhere near an ESG portfolio  alcohol, tobacco, gambling, oil and gas.

The worst offender is Royal London UK Core Equity Tilt  a 6.6 billion fund investing in some of the UK's largest companies that are good when it comes to ESG. More than a quarter of its portfolio is in alcohol, tobacco, gambling and oil and gas stocks.

On Friday, Royal London said the fund did not exclude investing in any sectors, but had less exposure to sin stocks than the index.

That's OK then (written with sarcasm).

As for the FCA, it told me on Friday that greenwashing 'undermines confidence' in ESG products  and that its proposals on the labelling of ESG funds would 'help ensure that consumers understand where their money is invested'.
After rushing into action in their first 48 hours in office, the Liz Truss economic and business teams have been granted some thinking time by the nation's days of mourning.

Among the conundrums is what Jacob Rees-Mogg will do at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). He is off to a flying start with an energy strategy. But the complicated stuff around support for big power companies is unresolved.

As for the package for smaller enterprises, all we know is that the Prime Minister wants to keep local pubs safe. The delay in deciding the funding available is probably fine with pubs busy in the coming days as toasts to Queen Elizabeth II's life are made.

Fresh start: Jacob Rees-Mogg comes to the job of Business Secretary with commercial experience from his fund management firm Somerset Capital Management

Rees-Mogg comes to the job with commercial experience from his fund management firm Somerset Capital Management.

It would be best if the BEIS boss was a clean skin without any financial arrangements which could be questioned. High up the list for the new incumbent on Victoria Street ought to be overseas takeovers.

In Rees-Mogg's previous job of making Brexit work one imagines he was all for them. Inward investment post-Brexit lifts confidence, helps the capital account of the balance of payments and speaks to Tory values of red in tooth and claw capitalism.

But there are dangers. The degrading of Britain's aerospace and defence sectors has seen companies ranging from submarine sonar maker Ultra Electronics to aerospace firm Meggitt fall into private equity and American ownership respectively.

Rees-Mogg's predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng talked a good game about scrutinising such deals. But in the end, the BEIS has been a participant in getting deals done. It has negotiated outcomes on R&D, headquarters, employment and security, which history shows are hard to enforce.

Rees-Mogg, despite Somerset's involvement in Russian investment, opposes UK technology falling into Beijing's hands.

A serial chairman of FTSE companies sold to foreigners told me recently that Britain has to beware China's malign goals. Beijing's objective in putting investment cash into Western economies is to export the know-how, R&D and patents to China.

Before leaving for the Treasury, Kwarteng referred the proposed takeover of semi-conductor pioneer Newport Wafer Fab by Nexperia  a Dutch subsidiary of Chinese company Wingtech  to a probe under the UK National Investment & Security Act.

There will be other big decisions. The proposed merger of satellite pioneer Inmarsat and its American rival Viasat is all but done. Not much has been said as to the wisdom of letting a company  with valuable communications and tracking tech  from falling into a 'friendly' foreign hands.

Once it is out of British orbit, decisions about future investment are more likely to be taken in the 'national interest' of an overseas power.

An early future test could be the 8.5billion bid by French electrical giant Schneider for its minority interest in UK software group Aveva, founded in Cambridge in 1967.

The deal would see the FTSE lose yet another tech stock. Just as worrying, Schneider has a joint venture with China, raising questions as to the safety of proprietary software.